"... and somehow, Lance fired an energy beam right out of his Dragonite's Pokéball. The blast threw that shadow monster away like a rag doll, but the jolt left both Lance and the Dragonite unconscious."

        Tom, having returned home, had been relieved to find his parents all right after the chaotic storms he'd seen. But this morning, he called Louise on his PokéGear to find out what had been going on in Tatto. Louise, a friend he'd 'met' long-distance some time ago.

        "Odd..." said the girl on the other side of the video phone. Louise had a sound-only PokéGear, but they'd switched to a Pokémon Center's video phone because her Pokégear's battery needed recharging. "Hold on a moment. I better go get Caley. I think he said there weren't supposed to be any more of those Pokémon-human hybrid things..."

 

         Tom nodded. "Sure."

 

         As he waited, he contemplated the previous day's events. Having witnessed an unearthly monster with immense power... having seen even the Elite Four of Kanto able only to battle it to a stalemate...

        To top it off, over the course of the conversation so far, Louise had told him about the events that had occurred in Tatto over the past several months. He'd learned that the storm he saw was, essentially, the residual effect of a massive worldwide battle between Team Rocket agents and Legendary Pokémon. But the most potentially relevant detail to the current situation was Team Rocket's trump card. Team Rocket had fused humans and Pokémon to create stronger, more intelligent creatures, and had programmed them for use in war.

        Could the monster he saw last night be a survivor of that race of monsters? A fusion of human and Gastly, perhaps?

        No, couldn't be... .. . if Koga's hunch was right, and that Pokéball he found belonged to the monster, then according to the trainer ID it was Ash Ketchum. But Ash had supposedly disappeared over a year earlier.

        Since Ash's disappearance, a person matching his physical description, but never identifying himself, had attacked random trainers without provocation... always fighting mercilessly, and often leaving his opponent injured as well as their Pokémon. Could Team Rocket have captured the guy and augmented him as they had so many others? They would certainly want to... after all, Koga mentioned that Lance had said Ash was a thorn in Team Rocket's side for a long time, and it was for the same reason that Lance himself had been captured and transformed.

        Still, something didn't sit right with that theory. Caley and Louise had met, and even befriended the former Team Rocket agents who had been keeping watch on Ash since 1995... but they said they'd been taken off active duty for losing track of him.  If Ash's violent streak had started around that time, it would suggest he'd been captured... but how could his trackers be punished for losing track of him if that were the case? Wouldn't they instead be rewarded for having kept his soon-to-be captors aware of his location?

        After pacing for a bit, Tom sat down at his old desk and started shuffling a well-worn Chou Tatakae deck to calm himself. While something didn't sit with the capturing and reprogramming theory, something had clearly changed Ash. And it still didn't explain how Lance had fired an energy beam attack from a Pokéball.

 

        "Hey! Just how cold IS it over there?"

 

        "Wha?!" Tom sputtered, startled back out of his thoughts. He brought his left arm up, bringing the PokéTai screen back to his face. "Oh, sorry about that... I forgot the video was on and, well..." He chuckled nervously and held up his card deck - the flicking noises of the cards being shuffled against one another had apparently been mistaken for the sounds of chattering teeth.

        The red-haired figure now on the other end nodded. He appeared to be about sixteen, with a green shirt and a black leather jacket that bore several clearly visible scrapes and scratches, a testament to the action it had seen as of late. "Ahhh... nervous? Louise told me what's been happening over there, so I can't blame you."

        Tom nodded. "Yeah, that'd be the reason all right. I wanted to ask about whether it might be related to what you went through. For a while, I wondered if he might have been fused with a Gastly or something, though my 'dex could only make out a human full of weird energy."

        "If it could even recognize that much, it's more than most Pokédexes would when scanning a Genetic," Caley stated. "Mine couldn't make heads or tails out of an enhanced Togetic until I put an expansion chip in it." Caley pulled his left wrist up in front of him. "Let's see... I don't know whether we missed any of the Genetics or not, frankly. I never looked through the whole list."

        Tom raised an eyebrow on noticing Caley's Pokétch-like accessory. Unlike his own wrist-worn PokéTai, this device's outer casing looked like it had been put together by hand. But he kept quiet about that- there were more important matters at hand.

        Caley frowned as he pressed a button on the Pokédex every few seconds. "Nope. Nope. Hmmm..." He looked back up to Tom. "Nothing. No ghost-types that it could be, at least not from Team Rocket. I still have Darnite, and all the prototypes for it either perished from unstable internal energies or were terminated for psychotic behaviour. So that only leaves two possibilities."

        Tom raised an eyebrow. "Two? Aside from Team Rocket making them, I thought it might be another of those new Pokémon that have been popping up."

        Caley shook his head. "No, can't be. It'd take too long to explain, and I'm not sure I understand it all correctly myself, but Tajiri doesn't create Ghost-types in our dimension. They have to be let in by another means. That's one of the two possibilities right there- when I and my friends met Darnite, he was wreaking havoc in Midna."

        Tom blinked. "Now THAT one I've heard of! Where all those people vanished for a few days before mysteriously reappearing!"

        Caley nodded. "Exactly. Darnite had opened up a dimensional portal to the realm where all Ghost-types originally came from. Maybe this new creature broke loose then, though why it'd wait until it was in Kanto to possess someone is beyond me."

        "Maybe it took that long to realize it couldn't sustain itself otherwise in this realm, and it couldn't get back. And the other possibility?"

        Caley closed his eyes. "I'd rather not think about that one just yet. But in case it is that one..." He opened his eyes again. "Would it be too much for you to go find the Elites again?"

 

***~~***~~***~~***~~***

  

 

        The sun burned bright over Viridian City at the late hours of the morning. From the top of the Grande Snorlax Hotel, the scar of the war from the previous week could be clearly seen- at the far west edge of town, several buildings had been demolished in the few minutes before the legendary birds had arrived to hold the invading Pokémorphs back, and several more buildings still bore more than their share of battle damage.

        The damage would take quite a while to repair. But the battle itself was a concern of the past, and Koga, standing on the roof of the building, had concerns in the present to deal with.

        Koga reached into his Shinobi Shozoku jacket, for a pocket underneath the one he carried his shuriken in, and pulled out a slim black PokéGear. He flipped it open, punched in a number, and waited.

        One ring. Two rings. Soon four, and six. On the seventh ring, however, the video screen finally flickered to life, displaying a younger woman in her mid-twenties, with green hair tied back into a ponytail, and a red version of the usual kunoichi training uniform, and at the moment she was looking away from the phone at something, or someone, off screen. Given the pitch of the laughter and yelling going on, Koga guessed she was addressing her students.

        "I said to hush! I have a phone call..." She then turned her head to the PokéGear in her hand. "Wha? Oh! Brother!"

        Koga smirked. "Still think you're up to the stresses of teaching kids, Aya?"

        Aya looked slightly embarrassed, but tried to force her face into the usual stern face she'd picked up from her elder brother. "It's not usually like this except during recess times. But I'm sure you've noticed as well that things have hardly been normal lately."

        Koga nodded. "Too... .. . true?" He blinked, noticing something behind Aya. It was a traditional painting, which was not uncommon in ninja schools run by the Kairyu ninja clan, but the particular painting... .. . 

        The painting was one he knew well, made by the artist Karasawa Nobuhiko in 1785. The Gyarados of Saiyu, a scene depicting several armor-clad samurai in a boat, swords drawn, with a massive wave on one side and a roaring Gyarados on the other. In the background, one could see an island resembling what Evergrande Island looked like before there was a League stadium on it. While the painting's use of lines and shading made it 'cartoony' compared to Tattoan works of the same time period, it reflected the artistic traditions of ancient Hoenn from which Koga's ancestors had arisen. It was particularly special to Koga's family- Karasawa Nobuhiko, who lived back in the days when one's surname came before one's given name, was an ancestor to Koga Karasawa, making this painting a family heirloom. No Karasawa would settle for a reproduction when it came to a family heirloom, and the current owner of the original for this painting was none other than Koga himself.

        Koga widened his eyes at what that implied. If Aya had been shushing a student a moment ago, then that meant...

        "Aya, what are you doing with your students in MY house?"  

        Aya blinked, then looked nervous. "Uh... um, look, brother, I didn't have much choice! The ninja school got torn down by those monsters, and these kids' parents are still trying to rebuild."

        Koga's expression softened some. "Well that explains that, then. So why didn't Janine or Sebille call me?" He frowned as he realized something else. "Or, for that matter, since I last made sure they were okay."

        "They tried. But the communications tower here only got back online this..."

        "WHAAH?! That's Mr. Koga on the phone?"

        Aya jerked a little to the side, and Koga noticed the camera in the phone jerk quite a bit suddenly.

        "Wha? Enzo, what are you doing?"

        "Pleeeaase don't tell on poor Gunki, Aya-sensei! He didn't mean to stain the carpet!"

        Gunki? Koga's eyes went wide- last time he visited Aya's ninja school he heard that name used in reference to a Grimer! And though several rooms contained rugs, only two of them had carpets- the lounge and Sebille's project room! Koga shuddered at the thought of what'd happen if the kids' pets ruined anything in either room- modern conveniences were so expensive! 

        "Enzo, please, I'm not telling on anyone right now. Go on and play somewhere, I'm having a private conversation..." Aya spoke to her student, with a gentle yet uncomfortable tone Koga once might have thought uncharacteristic of her.

        Koga tried to regain his composure. "A-aya, I understand that this can't be helped, but tell the kids to keep their Pokémon either outdoors or in their Pokéballs. I don't want a bigger mess to come back to..."

        "R-right, brother. Sure thing!"

        "Waaaahh! Hey, Danton, stop it, you're gonna make Miss Janine mad if you dent that!"

        Dent? Koga's eyes went wider than before- the majority of Janine's possessions that could be dented were ninjutsu equipment! And on top of that, he and his family hadn't kept the weapons hidden or locked away since Janine was mature enough to handle them, and the thought of little kids running around with katanas...

        "Oh, Taj! Tell me those kids haven't started grabbing the weapons!" Koga blurted out.

        "Wha?" Aya looked up. "Hey! Put that trophy back where you got it!"

        "Awww.... okay, Aya-sensei..."

        Aya sighed, then turned back to her PokéGear. "No, Janine locked all the weapons up before we got here. She may be a bit ditzy at times, but she's certainly not stupid."

        Koga nodded, relieved. "That's good." Then he blinked, and a serious look formed on his face again. "I better go ahead and ask you what I called about before those kids make me think twice about letting you stay there, though."

        Aya blinked, but also turned serious. "So, what did you need, brother?"

        "You traveled to Hoenn to expand your training, and caught an Absol while there. Am I correct?"

        Aya nodded. "Yes."

        "I'd like to borrow it for a while, for something the other Elites and I are investigating. We need its ability to sense disasters ahead of time."

        Aya winced. Bad things happened all the time, and not all the things that an Absol could follow were serious enough to require Elite-level intervention. "Mind if I ask what for?"

        "We've got some sort of deadly monster on the loose. It's been killing a lot of wild Pokémon. No humans or trained Pokémon have died yet, but Lance and his strongest Dragonite were seriously wounded, so I wouldn't put it past that creature to be bolder about attacking humans. 

        Aya nodded. "Sounds like reason enough." Her eyes turned downwards a moment. Koga guessed she was looking at the readout showing where the call was being made from. "Viridian, right? I'll send it to that center right away, with instructions to give it to you."

        "Thanks." Koga paused, then remembered something. "Oh, one more thing, Aya. Best not tell Janine about all this, you know how she is." If there was one thing Koga knew best about his daughter, it was that she'd take ANY excuse to follow her daddy into battle and try to prove her ninjutsu skills. Not that Koga didn't acknowledge her abilities, but what kind of father wants his little girl going up against something his own leader couldn't handle?

        "Understood. I'll keep quiet about it."

        Koga nodded, and flipped the PokéGear shut, cutting off the transmission.

 

***~~***~~***~~***~~***

 

        "Hey, watch it!" Tom yelled at the car as it sped off, then grumbled to himself. "Lousy drivers... just because the police are busy and the traffic's light is no reason to ignore traffic signals like that... .. ."

        Tom continued on his way, crossing the street and continuing to make his way to the hotel. However, had he bothered to look up, he would have noticed that the car had indeed not been ignoring traffic- all four lights had turned green! As Tom left hearing range, the lights began to blink randomly, then all lit up in all three colors before erupting into showers of electrical sparks, and finally going blank.

        And somewhere down the road, where construction workers were still busy repairing the power lines severed during the Pokémorphs' attack, one of them glanced upon noticing the flash out the corner of his eye. 

        "Aw, in the name of... .. . I thought we just replaced those!"

 

***~~***~~***~~***~~***

 

        "So whaddya think, boss? Ain't it a beaut?"

        "Cor, not much! I guess those freaks were good fer something afta all!"

 

        Damien, the blue-haired leader of the Feral Gators gang, stepped forth to inspect the object in question that was currently being held by one of his associates. During the mass destruction brought about by the Pokémorph invasion, numerous buildings had been destroyed. And while many people had lost every material thing they had, and some even losing their lives, the darker element of society could sometimes see such devastation as a good thing- there were opportunities amongst the rubble.

        Munch, the short, brown-haired member of the group who was always wearing a red T-shirt and a white bandana, had located the remains of a wrecked jewelry store. Most of the on-display jewelry had been lost in the chaos, but the safe Damien now examined was sure to have something in it. The lock had apparently fractured, as the safe was open by just a small bit, but it would take all four of the Feral Gators to remove the large chunk of rubble that kept it from opening fully.

        "Yeah, it'll be tough moving this rubble, but with what's in there we'll have it made for a long time! Let's get to work, boys! Munch, you take the bottom left corner, I'll take the upper left. Spike and Benny, you take the other corners."

        The four got into their places, and got ready to lift up the slab chunk. But Spike, the pointy-haired member with one earring, noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

        "Wha...? Hey, Damien, we got a visitor."

         Damien looked up and in the direction of Spike's gaze. Standing in the store's back entrance was a shadowed figure. Thanks to the fact that the room's only light came from outside, very few details on this figure could be seen, and only a gaping hole in the wall behind it made it visible at all. What could be made out was that it had spiky hair, a cap, and a jacket. Damien frowned- something about this figure seemed familiar, but he couldn't place where.

        "Oi, what're you doin here? If you're looking for loot too, then am-scray, we got this place claimed."

        The figure chuckled. It then spoke in a voice that didn't seem physically possible, not for someone of its body frame- it sounded too deep.

        "Oh, you mean that rubbish in the metal box? I have better things to do than waste my time on shining rocks."

        Damien blinked at the odd sound of the voice, but shook the effect off. "Is that so? Then why don't you go along and take care of that, then? Unless you're looking for a fight!"

        The figure stepped forward. "A fight? As in...a Pokémon battle?"

        Damien grinned. He knew he had way too many Pokémon for anyone to best him- ever since he'd gotten that bag of what police called "Foul Balls"- Pokéballs with illegal modifications. His Foul Balls in particular were ones that weren't linked to the Pokéball Management Interface, and weren't registered on any League computers, so he was easily able to get away with bypassing the six-Pokémon limit the league imposed on most trainers.

        "If that's what you want, then sure! Go, Slash!" And with that, Damien reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his Pokéballs, and popped it open. Out of it materialized one of his strongest Pokémon, a Scyther. This particular Scyther was covered in the scars and scratches of numerous battles, a testament to how much punishment it could take... and how much it could dish out. "Alright, now show yours!"

        "Oh, I don't need a Pokémon for this," the figure chuckled, and extended one hand to its right before charging charged forth at the bug. The Scyther raised its claws, and brought them down as hard as possible as the figure approached. But the blades were stopped mid-air, as if by some sort of force field.

        "Gotcha!" The figure yelled, and grasped the Scyther's neck with one hand. He then lifted the Scyther into the air.

        It was then that the Feral Gators all started to realize this thing wasn't a human. In addition to stopping Slash's blades, and picking the Scyther up like it was a rag doll, this figure still looked like it was engulfed in shadow, even though the area of the room it now stood in was well lit. Whatever this thing was, it absorbed light like a sponge, appearing only as a silhouette. Before their eyes, the black began to spread across the Scyther's body, starting from the neck.

        "Wh-what the... hey, what're you doing?" Damien yelled, not yet noticing that Slash's Pokéball was beginning to warm up. Once it was hot enough to burn his hand, however, he dropped it, and watched in shock as it rolled on the ground a bit, emitting a reddish glow, and began to melt.

        A bright flash of white light diverted his attention back to the rather one-sided 'battle'. Once the light faded, Slash was no longer concealed by a shadow. But, its once powerful frame now lay limp in the shadow's hand, and now looked very dry and grey. Damien and his underlings' jaws dropped in horror, as the shadow let go of the Scyther's neck, allowing its body to shatter into a cloud of dust as it hit the ground.

        Damien's jaw was trembling as fear overcame him. This monster had just killed his strongest Pokémon as if it had been nothing! He knew clearly now that he couldn't win if he threw every Pokémon in the world at it!

        "Well, that was certainly more refreshing than a wild one," The shadow turned its head, and a white glow suddenly appeared in its eyes, making it clear the gaze was on them. The Feral Gators shuddered. "And now... .. . unless you or your other Pokémon want to be next, I suggest you listen to a little proposition I have... .. ."