Chapter 3

Misty awoke alone, her ears filled with the sounds of the morning's song birds and the suddenly truncated rushing water as Miranda ended her shower. Shivering against the early morning chill, she reluctantly squirmed out of bed and threw on the hotel bathrobe Miranda had thoughtfully left out for her.

"Did I wake you?" inquired Miranda, coming out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a large towel and wearing another of the hotel's infamous robes.

"No, I just found myself cold and alone," joked Misty, causing a pang of guilt in Miranda.

"Sorry, but I wanted to be presentable this morning," she explained, sitting down on one of the room's few chairs, "Even if I'm just going to meet a handful of scientists who barely even know what a woman is!"

Misty chuckled and made her way to the shower. "I hope you saved me some water, " she teased, "After abandoning me all alone with these dangerous pokemon!"

"Ra-?!" exclaimed Nezumi, looking up from his breakfast with a startled look, making both humans laugh.

"Sorry, Nezumi," apologized Misty, walking across the worn carpeting to pat the rattata on the head, "I know you were up half the night watching over us."

"Ra..." the little pokemon sighed happily, leaning into Misty's hand.

"He rarely sleeps," commented Miranda with a loving smile, "He's always watching over me."

"Think you can watch over both of us?" Misty inquired with a chuckle, causing Nezumi to stand on his hind legs and pose confidently.

"Ne, rattata!" he called out, clenching one forepaw into a fist and grinning.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," replied Misty with a smile, heading into the bathroom, "See you guys in a couple of minutes!"

Miranda gave a half wave, and proceeded to take out a clean set of clothes. "I should have asked to have these washed," she muttered before getting dressed and flopping back down on the bed.

"Nez?" inquired Nezumi, hopping up onto the bed and standing an inch away from her face.

"It's nothing dear," she assured the pokemon, "just catching a few more minutes sleep. So, any idea what it is Sylph Corp wants us to transport?"

Nezumi sat down and gave her a puzzled look. "Some new healing potion?" pondered Miranda, "or maybe a three headed tauros?"

Nezumi laughed in his peculiar way, distracting Miranda from the sounds of Misty's quiet humming, barely audible over the sound of the running water that was by now cascading down her lithe body.

"I'm silly," commented Miranda, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling, "Being envious of water of all things! Gah!"

Her pokemon leaped up onto her sternum and stared down at her. "Nez?" he inquired, tilting his head inquisitively, trying to make sense of his trainer.

"Sorry, little one," she replied, idly scratching his fur from head to tail, making him stretch out like an affectionate persian, "I've been absolutely infatuated the last little while... It's so unlike me."

"Raaa... Ne!" cooed Nezumi, arching his back as Miranda scratched it affectionately.

"I'm usually so self assured, so in control," the woman went on, "I've passed up dozens of 'offers' in my lifetime, yet now her I am. Obsessing over someone I can't have. We always want the one's we can't have, don't we, dearest?"

The little rattata let out a helpless sigh and flopped down, his cold nose poking at the hollow of Miranda's neck. "Ne..." he responded, looking up at her with eyes that were filled with concern.

"I don't know what's more difficult," Miranda confessed, unconsciously fiddling with Nezumi's tail, "Telling someone you love them for the first time, or figuring out why you do... ?"

"Ready to go?" inquired Misty, waking Miranda from her short nap.

Miranda sat up so suddenly that Nezumi was tossed to the foot of the bed, letting out an overly dramatic wail as he soared through the air and landed between Miranda's feet.

"Oh, sorry," she apologized, picking up the uninjured pokemon and brushing his fur back into place, "Um, yeah, just give me a second."

Misty was already dried off, dressed and was just shouldering her backpack as Miranda got the rest of her stuff together.

"Hey, I'm forgetting something..." the woman pondered, glancing about the room as the rattata on her shoulder copied her motions in an exaggerated manner, "Oh yeah!"

Miranda knelt down and lifted up the edge of the mattress. She then reached in and pulled out a length of carved wood, made to resemble an average length sword.

"Almost forgot my bokken," she replied, spinning the wooden blade over her hand and catching it by the hilt in one well practiced motion before slipping it through a loop on her belt, "Well, let's go!"

Misty nodded and opened the door. "Oh, I should probably stop by my room in case there were any messages," she said as they left, "I also left my extra pokeballs there."

"No problem," assured Miranda as they walked down the hall to the elevator.

"Oh, by the way," commented Misty, blushing and looking a touch embarrassed, "I just wanted to thank you."

"For what?" inquired Miranda, her voice going soft as thoughts flooded her mind.

"No one's cuddled me to sleep since I was a child," she confessed a little distantly as the elevator doors closed shut behind them and she idly hit a button, "It was very nice of you. I don't think I've ever felt so safe, or slept so well."

"I see," whispered Miranda in a barely audible voice, trying to hide her uncontrollable embarrassed grin, "You, you're welcome."

The elevator stopped again and Misty's attention was pulled to the floor number. "Oh, here we are!" she said cheerily, and walked out into the hall in search of the room she hadn't really used.

Miranda took a deep breath and followed, waiting patiently as Misty dug out her keys. "I think it's this one," the girl muttered rhetorically, fitting a key into the lock and pushing it in, "Oh my-!"

Misty let go of the door, watching in horror as it pushed open with nominal effort to reveal a sight that made her heart sink.

"Oh, Misty!" exclaimed Miranda, the sight of Misty's room, trashed and in a thorough shambles, filling her with sadness and sudden anger, "Who-?! Who could have done this?"

But Misty just stood there, the annoying pulsing tone of a phone left off the hook for too long filling the empty silence. "I..." she stammered, "I can't believe he'd do this..."

Miranda put her hands on her friend's shoulders and felt her fall limply against her. "Misty, I'm so sorry," she whispered sympathetically. I- I know what this is like."

The girl nodded. "I know," she replied quietly, her eyes suddenly focusing on a peculiar object just inside the door. "Flowers?" she questioned rhetorically, slipping free of Miranda's supporting embrace and kneeling in the pile of scattered stems and yellow petals.

Miranda knelt down as well, and picked up the remains of a yellow rose. "An apology, I suppose," she pondered quietly.

"He came to apologies," Misty stated, her eyes unfocused and filling with tears, "But when he didn't find me, he freaked out and trashed the place..."

She stood up and stepped farther into the room, absentmindedly hanging up the phone. "Misty," Miranda called after her, carefully stepping over bits of broken furniture and moving to stand beside Misty as she stared down at the broken remains of three pokeballs.

"They were empty," the girl replied hollowly, turning to face Miranda as tears fell and rolled down her cheeks, "Just like his apology was going to be..."

Miranda met the girl's saddened gaze and put her arms around her. "I wish I could change this," she said, hating the same helpless feeling that had consumed her the day her father and his pokemon died, and her mother had been paralyzed for life. The feeling of not being able to help the ones you love, no matter how much you may want to.

"It, it's okay," replied Misty, holding Miranda tightly, not caring about the tears that were blurring her vision, "I can always buy some more pokeballs. But I don't think I can buy the power to forgive him."

Miranda nodded, carefully wiping the tears from the Misty's cheek with the backs of her fingers. "Shh, it's alright," she soothed, staring in wonder at the devastation reaped by Ash's childish anger, "We'll get in touch with the authorities and let them take care of this. Even though I doubt that he's still in the city."

Misty nodded, closing her eyes tightly against the scene. "I hate to think of what he would have done if he knew where I was last night," she replied, her voice shaking.

"We could have handled it," assured Miranda, cradling Misty's head with one hand and rubbing her back with he other, "But it worries me to think that some one you spent so much time with would be capable of doing something like this."

"It's never happened before," explained Misty, looking up at Miranda sadly, "But Ash has always been such a child..."

"I understand," said Miranda, turning Misty away from the room and leading her into the hall, "But I think right now it's better that we leave."

"Your appointment," stated Misty, feeling rather numb.

"No," corrected Miranda shaking her head and looking serious, "They can wait five minutes, but you need to get some air, and we need to report this."

"You're strange," commented Misty, a small smile coming to her lips, her usual youthful joy showing signs of returning, "But in a good way."

"Is compassion really so rare, dear friend?" inquired Miranda sadly, "that it strikes you as odd?"

Misty sighed heavily and leaned against Miranda as she was lead back to the elevator. "You obviously haven't met Ash," she replied half sadly.

"I'm not sure I want to," shuddered Miranda...

Once they had gotten down into the lobby, Miranda paid for the rental of both their rooms, and did her best to explain the condition of Misty's. "We're going to the police right now," she assured the desk clerk, just as the glass doors to the hotel slid open almost melodramatically and an officer Jenny strode into the lobby, followed by half a dozen lackeys.

"Alright people!" she proclaimed in her annoyingly gravelly voice that grated on Miranda's nerves every time she heard it, "This is a crime scene! No one enters, and no one leaves!"

"But-! But-!" stammered Jerry the desk clerk.

"No buts about it Mister!" explained Jenny, forever unwilling to listen to an explanation until at least three innocent people had been arrested, "There's been a kidnapping, and I intend to investigate!"

Miranda stepped in front of Misty, surreptitiously pulling out a pokeball and expanding it. She glanced over her shoulder as it clicked open. "Wraith, we need an illusion," she whispered as Jenny's underlings flooded the area.

"Gasssst!" hissed Wraith as he appeared, chuckling quietly as he wove an illusion that blended his trainer and her friend into the background, making it seem as through there were just a bare wall where they were standing.

"Let's go!" Miranda whispered as Jerry argued with Jenny, grabbing both Misty's hand and Wraith ethereal tail before heading out the back way through the restaurant.

"It must be love," muttered Misty bitterly, glancing over her shoulder in time to see Jenny pull out her handcuffs as Jerry looked like a magikarp out of water... Or in water for that matter...

The Sylph Corporation's lab was locating in an office tower several blocks away. The mega corp. owned the entire building out right, but had rented much of it out to several smaller businesses that took up the bottom twenty floors. Sylph Corp used the other five for mainly computer research, the pharmaceutical, and main pokemon labs being located at their home office in Saffron City.

Miranda and Misty were met at the doors by a man in a lab coat who had previously been staring up at the repair crew on top of the building fixing the transposition array.

"Idiots!" he grumbled, shaking his head in dismay, before yelling up at the workmen who couldn't possibly hear him, "Hey! That's a delicate piece of equipment! Be careful with it!"

"Excuse me," Miranda interrupted politely, causing the man to turn around with a startled expression.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, his glasses almost falling off his face, "Ms. Lilcamp! Sorry, I didn't see you."

"No problem, professor," she assured him with a shrug, "I'm just hear to pick up the package..."

"Ah! Yes, yes! Right this way," the scientist babbled; still distracted by the construction as he led them into the lobby, "Dr. Iago is expecting you."

The two followed the techie into a huge lobby complete with three sets of elevators, men in women in suits and lab coats going about their business and an air headed receptionist to top it all off.

From there, they took a special elevator up to the twenty-fifth floor, and their escort had to use a special key to open the doors once the elevator had stopped. "This is Dr. Iago's office," he said almost reverently, "I'll be waiting for you. Good luck!"

Miranda smirked at the comment and put on her most ingratiating grin as she walked into Sylph Corp's regional VP's expansive office. She almost felt guilty as her old running shoes padded silently across the plush carpeting, and couldn't help but chuckle as Misty oohed and ahhed at the scientist's collection of what was mostly aesthetically pleasing junk.

"This is pretty impressive," commented Misty, her eyes passing over statues of rare pokemon, strange inventions she'd never seen before, and even a prototype pokeball in a display-case.

"Why thank you, young lady!" replied a friendly voice from across the room, followed by a golf ball rolling it's way past the two, only to be caught by an obliging shellder.

"Good morning, Professor," replied Miranda, bringing Misty's attention to the diminutive figure in the traditional lab coat and glasses, wielding a golf club and waiting for the ball to return.

"Ah! Miranda Lilcamp!" he replied all too happily in a tone that was both ingratiating and sinister, "So good of you to come!"

"No more problems with gastlies, I hope?" chuckled Miranda, walking over and waiting politely for the eccentric scientist/VP to knock another golf ball across the room.

"Oh, no! No problems with that," he laughed, "But it was nice of you to take that little ghost off our hands. No, this time the ghost is of our own creating!"

The golf ball was tossed back, and the scientist thwacked it as hard as he could, sending it rebounding off the wood paneled wall, and back in his direction. The man turned at the last moment, picking up a new golf ball off his desk as the previous one shattered its way out through the window.

"Have either of you ever heard of a 'porygon'?" he inquired, dropping the ball at his feet, "No? I didn't think so. They're still fairly rare, but soon they won't be! Soon every business and lab from here to the Orange Islands will have one on staff, servicing their computer systems, managing files! Fighting off hackers! Deleting viruses! They're the wave of the future! Anyway, I need you to transport one to our lab a ways south of here."

"How far south?" inquired Miranda, bending like a reed to avoid being hit by a golf ball.

"Oh, about a day's travel if you walk it," the man explained, "But I'm sure you can make it there in half that time. Oh, please forgive my manners. Who's your new friend?"

Misty came forward, holding out her hand. "Hi, I'm Misty," she said a little pensively, watching the ball roll back, "I'm going to be helping Miranda out for a while."

"Taking on an apprentice, Ms. Lilcamp?" the scientist remarked with a sly smile, or is the job getting to dangerous for you?"

"A little of both!" laughed Miranda, "So, professor, where's this pokemon I'm supposed to deliver?"

"Oh! Sorry," he apologized, walking behind his huge oak desk and opening a drawer, "I almost forgot. Here you go!"

He tossed Miranda a pokeball that she caught one handed. "Mind if I take a look?" she inquired.

"Not at all!" Dr. Iago assured, "Just don't ask it to interface with that beaten up old pokedex of yours. It's been trained for this task and I don't want any of its data being corrupted."

Miranda nodded, and Misty looked on with interest as the pokeball snapped open, sending a cone of soft red light shining forth towards the ceiling. A second later, a strange creature who seemed to be comprised of poorly pixilated yellow and orange light appeared. The peculiar pokemon seemed to resemble some kind of bird, but it was probable that birds would be offended by the comparison.

"Pory?" it inquired, swiveling its whole body to face Miranda and fix her with a blank stare that somehow gleamed with intelligence.

"It's cute in a ridiculous sort of way," commented Misty as Dr. Iago handed Miranda a slip of paper, "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Its brainwaves were patterned off my assistant Erich's," the man explained thoughtfully, "So I suppose that in theory, it's a 'boy'. But it's just an AI. Oh, and we call it 'Polygone'. Because we're handing it off."

"Interesting techniques," interrupted Miranda, putting the paper in her back pocket and ignoring the pun, "Hopefully I won't need them."

"You might," confessed Iago, returning to his golf game, "The accident with the array was no accident."

"It never is," muttered Misty, her hand covering her face in dismay.

Dr. Iago nodded, bouncing the golf ball off the shellder and into a clay pot. "I'd be careful out there, but please don't take any more than two days. We'd like to optimize the system over there."

"So, if you don't mind me asking," inquired Misty, her tone careful, "What is it that you're doing down there?"

"Studying water pokemon," the scientist said nonchalantly with a shrug, not noticing Misty sudden need to go flying thought he ceiling.

"We are sooooo there!" she exclaimed excitedly, making Miranda smile.

"Your enthusiasm is inspirational," she commented with a happy sigh, "Very well then, professor. We're out of here!"

"Have fun!" the man called after them as they turned to go, bouncing a golf ball off the elevator button and causing the doors to open.

"Is he always like this?" inquired Misty.

The waiting assistant in the elevator nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! Absolutely! All the time!"

"It's almost scary, isn't it?" chuckled Miranda.

"What do you mean almost?" laughed Misty, "He's almost more frightening that the musak in this elevator!"

Their escort signed heavily and shook his bowed head. "Kids!" he muttered as the elevator's rapid pace brought them to the lobby in almost no time at all.

"Until next time, Dr. Kipp," Miranda said politely as the doors opened, "I'll be sure to have the package delivered as soon as I can."

"That's good!" the man called from the elevator, "One less thing to worry about! Stupid workmen..."

"Is every one here a little kooky?" inquired Misty as they walked down the steps to where their bikes were parked.

"You don't know the half of it!" laughed Miranda.

"Oh?" pressed Misty, "Are there people worse than Dr. Iago and the guy from the elevator?"

Miranda paused, straddling her bike and looking thoughtful for a moment as Nezumi awoke from a short nap he'd taken in her coat pocket and crawled on her shoulder. "Firstly, yes," she explained, a little bemused, "And secondly, Dr. Kipp's a woman."

"No way!" exclaimed Misty with a laugh.

"Yup," replied Miranda with a nod, "She flips a coin every morning to see what she'll be that day. Scares even me! And I have a gastly in my entourage... !"

As the two headed off down the road that would take them out of town, three figures watched with interest from a near by rooftop. "This plan is actually working quite well," the shortest of the trio chuckled, "Not that I'm surprised!"

"Yes, you've certainly done it again, old friend," one of his companions replied, his voice befitting his bishonin lifestyle.

"We'll have that porygon before the day is out, and have it in the boss's hands in time for lunch!" agreed the third, a woman with strange red hair, "Now come on, we have to get ahead of them as quickly as we can... !"