1A/N: Sorry about the wait, there were complications.
Note that a part with a certain char was supposed to be added and sadly had to be cut out for now. It will be put in the next chapter. It was too fast-paced at the moment and will be lengthened by then. Which, believe me, will be good.
Kimiko Heroux's fingers flew over the keys of her laptop, her golden-colored eyes moving swiftly back and forth across the screen in the motion of a typewriter, going over her work as it appeared before her; she was so far satisfied with it, but her mind still couldn't think of proper synonyms to the words required. Her gaze suddenly flitted upward, just as the blur of a Suicune shot past. Her fingers stopped their current motion, and began to tick down into a fist as she went vocally, "Three…two…one and—" What is with that crazy man?
As the thought struck inside her head, a purple-clad brunette with a fancy cape and a big red bowtie darted past atop an Electrode, screaming at the North Wind for its return. While he shouted at something he clearly couldn't catch, the girl watching with an expressionless face and calling to him, redundancy really not a factor to her, "Give it up already, Eusine! Stalking stops being fun after the one being stalked realizes they're being stalked by a stalker!"
"There was something strange about that one, though," Kris responded, her deep, blue eyes clouded as she watched Suicune and its pursuer disappear as quickly as they had shown up. Her head turning to watch and the wind tousling her long hair were the only movements made from her place next to Kimiko on a felled tree trunk. Despite being the younger one by almost three years, Kris had been the most level-headed out of the two Trainers present, for the most part.
"Tell me 'bout it. I think Eusine's a few tacos short of a fiesta."
The young girl facepalmed at her senior's retort and groaned. "That's not what I meant." She shook her head and tried to veer their discussion back on track. "I mean, there's something weird about that Suicune." She furrowed her brows while her consciousness disappeared into an abyss of thought.
Her senior pursed her lips and her eyes turned back down to the computer screen. A small cuss slipped out of her mouth as the frustration began to build up inside her thin, athletically-toned body. "I can't seem to get into the Quintessence database. I've tried as many password combinations as there are in existence!" She groaned loudly and let herself fall back into the grass behind the tree trunk, holding her laptop up in her hands with a big childish pout on her face. Her index finger of one hand moved the cursor around in a continuous circle as it rotated on the touchpad in a mindless motion.
Kris blinked at her senior in perplexity. "Are you okay?" She received a mere high-keyed whine in response. "Maybe you should contact Sean—" She was careful to pronounce the brunette girl's cousin's names properly, as in like the word 'seen', as the boy was very particular about it. "—and ask him to get into it for you."
The pouty girl hated admitting that she was stumped, but her younger relative was indeed better at hacking than she was. "Fine…" she sighed, clicking a few buttons with a single finger, and frowned when Sean's face appeared on the screen. His light blue hair curled around his round face, bringing out his little kid characteristics, along with that candy bar shoved in his mouth. "Hey, Sean. I gotta favo—Hey, are you cosplaying again?" She noted the wig that was sloppily plopped on the boy's head.
Sean grinned in a toothy way that seemed to run in the Heroux family, showing off the chocolate splattered like paint all over his teeth. "My original plan was Naruto, but I decided on Sasuke. I like Naruto and all, but Sasuke's got Uchiha-power!"
Kimiko chuckled, thinking of the dark-haired character's hair and the shape it seemed to take on. "Hehe, chicken." She took a moment to think about that awesome anime character that had taken a fall into insanity and for the most part just became all around scary before getting back on topic. "Anyway, I was gonna ask you for a favor. I've been trying to get into The Quintessence's database, but I can't seem to figure out their password. They've been quiet for far too long."
"That might be because I blew up their base in Lilycove!" The boy let out a maniacal laugh that scared Kris, who was listening in to their conversation. "Okay, so, lemme see…" He glanced down and dug around in something, of which Kimiko assumed to be a drawer or something by the sounds. He pulled out notebook and opening it up, scanned the pages. "Ah! Found it!" He put the page to the screen, of which was entitled in big scribbled letters, Evil Dudes' Passwords And Stuff, and pointed to a line about halfway down. "That one there is their password. Type it in and press Enter!"
His cousin's jaw dropped in awe at the collection of classified information he had stashed in one little notebook. "Dude, how did you—? When did you—? WHAAAT?" She received a devious little chuckle in response and composed herself. "Okay, thanks, dude. I owe ya one."
"Actually you owe me a lot of ones."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Shut up." And cut the connection. She proceeded to put the password into the blank and pressed Enter. Instantly, a stream of information covered the screen. Her eyes moved at double-pace, looking for answers. "Dude, they're planning a lot of crap…Hey, it says here that Ventus's birthday is coming up; I'd better get him something. His party's on the eleventh! Can we go crash it, Kris? Can we? Can we? Can we?"
The short girl pinched the bridge of her nose at her friend's constant desire to interrupt the natural order of things. "Stay on track, Kim. Better yet, I think you should get out of their database, this doesn't sound like one of your best ideas…"
Kimiko held up her index finger. "Okay, one, ruining a birthday party is part of the track I run on, and two—" She put up another finger. "We need to know what The Quintessence is planning. It'd be beneficial to know their plan before they can follow through with it. We can't be caught off guard…" And then she added in a mumble that Kris didn't catch ear of, "…plus, Ventus totally crashed my birthday party first…"
Her eyes stopped at one point and her face grew completely serious, an unusual occurrence with this particular teenager. She pointed to a part of the screen. "Here. It says here that their next plan is called—wow, they've got some creative names— Super World Domination Scheme 245SW." Her gaze moved off of the screen to the direction where Eusine and the Suicune had gone. "If SW means southwest, then whatever-it-is is that way."
"You don't think Eusine stumbled across it while chasing Suicune, do you?" Kris stared off into the distance, thinking of how many complications that man managed to get himself into for all the time that she knew him. She couldn't even begin to count all of those moments where she heard his voice from a mile away screaming for help. And he said that she had problems…
Her senior pursed her lips, trying to think about the plausibility of what Kris suggested. "Well, with his luck, probably. But let's just hope he didn't and that he got the Suicune irritated enough that it Ice Beamed him again. We'll know if he comes back in an hour or two complaining about frostbite."
Eusine sat quietly, watching Suicune rest from being pursued for who knows how long. The forest had gotten thick, causing the purple-clad man to have to return his Electrode and chase after the North Wind on foot. All around him, it was eerily quiet; he knew well from the amount he had traveled within this particular woods that it was often bustling with sound, all sorts of Pokemon on the move as they went about their daily lives. A storm was on its way and they were taking shelter, he reasoned, shrugging his shoulders in indifference and dropping the subject.
He pulled out a teal Pokeball styled with webbing design on the top half, a Netball. He jumped up from the bush he was concealing himself from behind and threw it. Much to his confusion, it passed right through the Legendary Dog, and in response to the orb, the Pokemon vanished into thin air. That couldn't have been any attack… he deducted, giving the place where the North Wind had once stood a hard expression. It couldn't have been Mirror Coat. Not Double Team or Substitute, either. So…what just happened?
From seemingly nowhere, a helicopter appeared overhead and landed in the clearing just before Eusine. The man recognized the albino teenager that got out as Ventus. That woman with the long brown hair and glasses that Eusine couldn't remember the name of followed close behind. Ventus had a smirk on his face, like one a little child would have on if he had just gotten away with tattling on his sibling. "Did you enjoy playing tag with that hologram? Terra is amazing at creating realistic images, isn't she?"
Oh yeah. Terra was her name… Eusine glared at him, more than annoyed at his tactics. With Ventus, everything that seemed like just a meaningless prank such as this one had some deeper, more important role. He began spitting out obscenities, "You—"
"Yes, me," the boy cut in smugly. He placed one hand on his hip and put weight onto one leg, a gesture that seemed like he was about to try and start up some sort of innocent, everyday work-and-the-weather kind of conversation with the brunette. "So, how's your friend doing? The one that took away Gengar." Despite the context, his tone was rather light-hearted as if he was speaking of a little accident that they should've been laughing at reminiscing.
"He's fine." The purple-clad man's tone was hard as his answers came out short and to the point. "Ghost never wanted to be with you anyway." Only a certain few knew of Ventus and his position in The Quintessence, and even fewer of the event that occurred the year before. He had artificially created the pitch black Gengar, whose sole purpose was to control Morty, Ghost-type Gym Leader and also the new Trainer of that particular Pokemon to which they had been referring, and with the abilities of the atypical Ghost-type, it granted him abilities that surpassed the bounds of normality.
A shrug preceded the albino's response. "Oh well. That Pokemon was flawed anyway. I don't have a reason to possess something that has obvious problems in its design." He tossed his bangs from his eyes and Eusine happened to catch sight of little silver studs in each of the teen's ears. What is with this generation and guys with earrings? "It's surprisingly difficult to ensure obedience with a creature made from scratch. Such a shame, because who wouldn't wanna serve a sexy man such as myself?" Silence ensued while Eusine just gave a disbelieving expression before he cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Anyway, I'm sure you're disappointed about the Suicune. Ventus understands all—" Another stare from the older man. "—but fear not! I know right where a real one is!"
He was so distracted with looking at Ventus and his sudden giddiness that he almost missed the sight of Terra pulling out something from her lab coat pocket that looked a lot like a tranquilizing pistol. He instantly reached for a Pokeball for a getaway. "Alakazam, Teleport!" The center button of the Pokeball flashed but the ball didn't open. Suddenly he remembered one of Ventus's more successful inventions. It was a generator that created some sort of field that rendered Pokeballs useless. Just perfect.
"You can come peacefully like a good little boy or I can have Terra use that pretty little tranquilizer. What will it be?" He watched Eusine impatiently. "Well, time's up. Terra?" He turned to his assistant and saw her futzing with the gun, banging it against a tree to try to get it to cock correctly. "You didn't load it!"
The woman stopped mid-motion and stared at him. That's why it wouldn't work, she realized, I thought it had jammed again… "What? I thought you were supposed to do that!" She began to reach into her pocket for the tranquilizing dart, momentarily tempted to use it on her boss instead of Eusine, and after retrieving it, inserted it into the pistol.
Eusine slowly began to back away, hoping they'd be distracted enough for him to run for it. Slowly…slowly….slo—"Stop!" Dang. Ventus threw his finger into the air (his index finger, you bad people) and exclaimed, "FIRE!" only to be disappointed when the dart hit the man and knocked him out cold because the sound of the gun firing wasn't as much more than just a little, whistle-like pew! noise. "Well…that was pathetic!" He pouted as his henchmen loaded the unconscious Suicune fanatic into the helicopter.
But then he suddenly smirked. "But still, it is a VIC-TOR-YYY!" And thus proceeded with a little jig and some pelvic thrusts.
"Ventus, that's not how you're supposed to do it!"
"What? This is how I've always done it!"
"You can't put that there!"
"Don't yell at me, Terra! I know what I'm doing!"
Here they were, at the lab, Eusine trapped in some sort of translucent container of which he was surprised he could even breathe in, and Ventus and Terra arguing about what bloodstream to insert a syringe, despite context. All of The Quintessence's members that were in the base could hear them yelling at each other (some of them wide-eyed, others really not surprised, and then there was that poor gray-eyed member from the Prologue that was already scarred for life), and tried desperately to forget that their hearing was existent.
Ventus was having an overly-fun time squirting the unknown liquid from the syringe and when it splashed to the floor, watching it eat away the tile. As soon as he received scolding as if he were a little child for wasting the highly-potent fluid, he frowned in a properly-fitting little kid way. "Aww, okay…" But then he brightened up again. "But I get to stab him with it, right? Pwease with a little Squirtle on top?"
Terra groaned and crossed her arms around her chest. She didn't stop her eyes from rolling at the teenager. "Ugh, fine. Just make sure you don't miss the bloodstream."
He giggled like a little girl in his excitement and he used an invisible door to get into the container that held Eusine captive. "Hey there!" The albino grinned a toothy smile. He came up close to the man, looking up with his eyes shining. Eusine couldn't look him in the face, so he resorted to staring at the pendant around his neck, and Ventus noticed. "Like it? I stole it from Kimiko when I crashed her birthday party last year!" He let out a half-innocent 'hee hee!'. "Oh yeah, and you can have this!"
And stabbed him with the point of the syringe.
That kid either needs medical attention or a nap, and I can't figure out which one… was the first thought that crossed Eusine's mind as soon as he awoke, feeling disoriented and just downright confused. When he opened his blue eyes, he came to realize he was back at that forest where he had been chasing Suicune. Was it just a dream? If so, then I really should stop eating Torchi—I mean, chicken before bed…
Trying to put everything together in his head, he made his way back to the Pokemon Center of which he had been rooming. As soon as the doors opened before him, Kris and Kimiko turned at the sound and the oldest girl stated, "See, Kris? I told you'd he'd be back in an hour or two!" She grinned and slapped the purple-clad man on the back. She then patted him on the head as if he was a dog, much to his annoyance and causing him to narrow his eyes at her. "He's just fine, aren'tchya, Eus?"
He just stared at her, unimpressed. Kris thought for sure she heard him let out an irritated growl.
"Juuust fine!" Kimiko smirked in triumph at her junior, pleased that the older man had pretty much fulfilled what she predicted. "I know so because he wouldn't growl at me if he wasn't!" She then skipped away happily, humming as she went while Eusine just stared down sharply where she once placed her feet. From down the hall, her voice yelled, "Just keep glaring at where I stood, Eus, that'll do it!" She laughed as he wondered just how she knew he was doing that.
Kris wasn't convinced of the crazy teen's reasoning, and voiced her concern, "Are you sure you're okay? You were gone awhile." The look on her face and the way her blue eyes stared up at him made her appear to be younger than she already appeared. If that was even possible…
It took a moment for him to realize she had actually asked him something, and even longer to process the question. His voice sounded a little detached, the way he was feeling from the rest of the world. "Yeah, I'm fine," he responded. Then he pulled out a small, light blue bell. He held it by its thin string and the girl before him watched it as it swung back and forth hypnotically. "But hold onto this for me just in case. Try to put it on a chain or something. Can you do that for me?"
He placed the bell into her hand and closed her fingers around it with his as she replied, holding perplexity tight in her tone, "Yeah, I can do that, I guess…" She opened up her hand to stare at it. It was so weird to her. She knew exactly what the Clear Bell meant to Eusine. He had never parted with it before, mainly for the reason that a Suicune had given it to him. It was a sign of its trust it had of him, and she knew full well that fact alone was something he treasured. So why was he giving this to her?
A dim smile suddenly crossed his lips as he turned away from her. "Well, I'm kinda tired, so I'm gonna go try to get some rest. But if you need anything, don't hesitate letting me know, okay?" She nodded unsurely as he began to walk away.
She stood there, Clear Bell in hand, just watching his back and realizing he getting farther from her, that he was seemingly farther from her mentally than physically. Her mouth was slightly agape, her head turned slightly to one side, revealing all of the uncertainty that she possessed. She had a distinct feeling that something was going to unravel, but she didn't voice it to him. She wasn't sure why, but a small part of her told her not to. All she could do was stand in one place and give him a quiet, shy, "Good night…"
A/N: To make things clear, Ventus is 90% Kimiko's character and 10% mine. Note that The Changed Ones is part of Original Stream and based about five years after the series that's being posted right now.
I am still accepting ideas for Original Stream, which also includes The Changed Ones.