Haha XD the unown are great. I love X. I often imagine Amp speaking with a British accent. I don't know, it just suits him so much!
...
25 - Bad Eggs
"Are you sure you want to leave so soon?" Circuit asked plaintively.
Pixel was sat with her friends at a dinner table, helping herself to heaped piles of berries, berry toast and cake. There were also steaming bowls of soup, stew and jugs of cool juice amongst them which Vector had tucked into with a vigour that had surprised her.
The jolteon's question had been aimed at Switch, but he was too busy chewing on a toast crust to answer her quite yet.
When he finally swallowed it, he nodded and said, "Yes. We have places we need to be."
"And that doesn't include us?" Circuit asked. "Because we can help, you know."
Burst nodded his head quickly and placed a wing around her shoulders. "I think you know, Switch, that if you need anything all you have to do is ask."
"I don't really want to get you involved in this," said Switch.
"Besides," said Vector without looking up from his next bowl of stew. "If you do want to help, you're better off not sticking with us."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Circuit.
"What he's trying to say," said Pixel before Vector could open his mouth, "is that since we're looking for a cure to this virus, we're better off spreading out rather than sticking together."
"That's not what I was going to say at all," said Vector. "But you can take it if you want."
Circuit's fur stood on end and her canines showed between her lips. Switch reached across and placed a hand on her back.
"He's not being rude. He has a price on his head. You're better off not getting mixed up with us."
"We're already mixed up with you," she said. "And I think I will help you look for a cure. I can send my own team out to scour areas you haven't yet."
"The areas Vector said he wants to search are the Binary Jungle and the ocean," said Pixel. "So our next stop is the jungle."
Vector licked stew off his spoon and gave Circuit and Burst a sideways glance. "You wanna take the ocean?"
Circuit's face split into a smile and she chuckled. "Since we often float above it, we actually have the gear to deal with that."
"Huh." Vector shrugged and spooned more stew into his mouth. "Then be my guest."
"You weren't expecting that, were you?" said Circuit. "So, you can rule that location out. Cogs and Wire will be your underwater eyes, okay?" She nodded to the linoone and a spinda further down the table.
"So when are you leaving?" Burst asked. "My father always said to never fly on a full stomach."
"As soon as the island reaches its furthest northern point." Switch smiled and dabbed sauce from his lip with a napkin. "So I think around twilight?"
"Really?!" Pixel nearly dropped her fork. "We're flying at night?!"
Burst's eyes misted over. "Ahh, night flying."
"You could fly with us if you like?" said Switch.
"I was actually going to offer!" said Burst. "You can't really carry both of them, can you? So I'll take Vector."
Vector choked and spewed gravy from his nose. He shot the staraptor a glare as he wiped it away on the back of his paw.
"You're gonna carry me?"
Burst chuckled and struck the meowstic on the back with a wing. "Don't worry, my boy! I'm quite experienced in carrying other pokemon, being one of few fliers on this island."
"Not to mention the only one left after the virus outbreak," Circuit added.
"Ah." Pixel's face became solemn. "It effected your island too?"
"Not directly," said Circuit. "But those that went onto the ground picked it up. It's claimed over half of our team. We've been extra vigilant since."
Burst shook his head sadly and sighed. "I think everywhere's been affected by it."
Pixel looked over at Switch, still wearing his smile. If it had claimed over half their team, then surely he must have lost some friends? She wondered if he was putting that smile on. Saving face until he managed to get away and have some time alone.
Many pokemon had lost loved ones and family. Unlike them, he like the other humans could rest assured his family was safe back in his own world, but of course he would have lost some friends in this world, especially after spending two years on their island.
The general consensus was that the drifting continents were safe in the sky since the virus seemed to only be contracted on the ground. But it didn't mean the islands wouldn't feel their own losses.
It also didn't mean it couldn't one day reach them.
The faces of various pokemon filled her mind, along with the three she'd been closest to. Retro, Nano, Chip... were they even okay? She didn't even know where they were, and she'd lost so many as it was. She pushed her plate away and climbed down off her seat, muttering a quick thank you as she made a beeline for the door.
It lead out into a corridor that wound its way back towards the lobby. She was familiar with this building now, having been through it twice already today. The whole building served as a communal area for the pokemon here. Cyan Island had nothing like this. She'd thought about suggesting they build one since everyone tried to cram into the control room on a wet day.
The lobby had a sofa in it and a television mounted on the wall, but nobody was sat there. Everyone was still in the dinner hall. She fell back into the plush cushions and wiped suppressed tears away from her eyes, taking in steadying breaths to calm herself. After all the commotion over the past few days with the breakout and finding a cure, she'd forgotten her original goal. To find her friends. Find out if they were okay. The desire to find a cure first and help the world to recover had taken over.
She leant sideways against the arm of the chair and pulled her feet up beneath her, fixing her eyes on the blank, black TV screen. Her mind drifted back to that thought she'd had earlier that day. Of lying in the grass with Retro while her mother baked, the smells wafting from the window to be caught on the breeze. Even Leaf would come running for a slice of berry cake.
Before she knew it, she was back home. Lying on the sofa while her mother sang in the kitchen, waiting for a fresh slice of bread and melted butter.
...
Vector was feeling rather sluggish after that meal, but it was certainly nice to have a full stomach. It felt like he hadn't had one in weeks. He hung a couple of feet behind Switch as they made their way back out into the lobby. Switch had said he was going back to his old tree-house but Vector had no intention of climbing anywhere off the ground. He preferred to be on it, and the idea of lying back and relaxing in the sun's rays before they vanished for the day was at the front of his mind.
And hopefully to be undisturbed this time.
"Huh." Switch stopped in the doorway to the lobby and nodded to the sofa. "That's where she got to."
Vector peered around his leg and followed his gaze. There was Pixel, curled up in one corner looking small in comparison to the large plush cushions.
"Looks like she fell asleep," said Switch. "I haven't the heart to wake her. Oh well, we've a couple of hours until we need to leave yet."
He tucked his arms behind his head and strolled out of the main door, leaving Vector faltering as he looked from the human to the sofa and back. Switch didn't so much as glance back at him as the doors hissed shut behind him.
Something wasn't right. He'd been fairly certain that Pixel hadn't looked happy when she left the dining hall, but he hadn't wanted to go after her. Well, part of him had, but he'd suppressed it. If she'd not wanted to be alone then why leave?
Regardless, he found his feet moving towards the sofa. He could see her breathing softly, huddled up in a dainty ball of yellow fur and scarf. Peaceful, completely normal, like nothing could ever be wrong. As he pulled himself up onto the sofa and sat watching her, he wondered how anyone could sleep like this knowing what state the world was in. It was only two nights ago he'd watched her fall asleep in a state of distress. She'd cried in her sleep and all he could do was sit and watch her. He'd wanted to hold her, but he couldn't bring himself to do so.
He'd been terrified of losing her. It hurt him to know she was in danger from the virus, like every other pokemon in System. Like them, she was also in danger of being hurt from losing someone. He feared she was getting too attached to him, but the risk worked both ways. It hurt so much to push her away, but it hurt even more to leave her. He just couldn't. All he wanted to do now was to curl up next to her, to fall into a peaceful respite and be warm and oblivious to the outside world, to know that she was safe and happy.
His paw reached out to brush back the fur from her eyes, but faltered a mere few millimetres away, claws flexing with uncertainty. He snatched his paw back and slid from the sofa, giving her one final glance before he trotted through the door.
The cool air snapped him out of whatever daze he'd been in and he shook his head so hard his ears beat against his skull.
"Are you all right?" Switch stood leaning against the wall looking down at him, his pocket computer clasped in both hands.
Vector snorted and waved a paw at him. "I'm fine. I thought you were going back to your tree-house?"
"I was, but I finally heard back from N00b."
Switch glanced to his computer as Vector leant back against the wall on the other side of the door. His heart was hammering, still reeling from his close call with Pixel. What had he been thinking? He rubbed his paws over his face and groaned silently.
"You sure you're all right?" Switch asked.
"I told you, I'm fine!"
Switch shrugged and turned back to his computer. "If you say so."
Vector sighed into his paws. If this human was so intuitive, he clearly hadn't picked up that there was something wrong with Pixel earlier. Or maybe he had and felt he didn't need to do anything about it. If that were the case then why keep pestering him?
Although... there was a possibility he could actually help him out here.
Vector fixed one blue eye on Switch. "You're male, right?"
Switch almost dropped his computer as his golden eyes snapped onto Vector's. "What?! What kind of question is that?!" He laughed and stuffed his computer back into one of his many pockets. "There really is something wrong, isn't there?"
Vector rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. "Look, if you're not gonna help me, then -"
"I'll help you! Man to 'mon. What's the problem?"
Vector sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, searching through his mind for the right choice of words to string together. He could feel Switch's eyes on him and hear him shifting against the wall, growing impatient with the wait.
Finally, he looked up at the grassy moor and distant tree-houses. "What do you do if you've found yourself falling for someone?"
"Huh." Switch nodded and folded his arms, watching the wind rustle the long grass. "I think I know what you're getting at. But to be honest, I've never really had the confidence to do anything about it. I wasn't very popular with the ladies."
"Then that makes two of us. Hypothetically, though. What would you do?"
"I don't know. Say something. Ask her on a date maybe." Switch looked down at him and winked. "The question you need to ask is, what would you do?"
Vector harrumphed and looked away from him. The next question gnawed away at him so much he bit his lip so hard he thought it was going to bleed. He couldn't even look up at Switch as the words flew from his mouth.
"That's all well and good, but... what if you knew you were dying?" he asked.
Switch was silent as he watched the grass swaying, leaving Vector's question hovering heavily in the air. He heard him shift again against the wall, could see him ruffle his hair with a hand as he sighed audibly.
"Vector... is there something you're not telling us?"
That wasn't what he wanted to hear at all. That was prying, and he wasn't ready for that yet. He'd obviously said too much.
"Forget it." Vector kicked himself back from the wall and walked towards the trees. "You can't help me."
The grass crunched loudly beneath his feet until Switch's words froze him in his tracks. "She's very fond of you, you know." Pause. "I can tell."
Vector stared down at his paws as he let the human's words sink in.
"We're helping you find a cure, Vector. Keep your chin up, and know you're not alone."
Not alone, huh? As reassuring as that was, it didn't change anything. He nodded sullenly and moved quietly through the grass, feeling Switch's eyes on him until he vanished beyond a thicket.
...
The Backbone Mountain was eerily quiet, made all the more eerie by the strange, violet-leaking cracks that marred its surroundings. Hertz didn't even want to risk stepping over them, instead turning away from the ones that blocked his path to continue following the trail left by the ones that had vanished.
He was convinced they had vanished. The rocks seemed to be leaking steam, which on closer inspection was the kind of jargon you'd find in corrupted computer text. The ground was just as solid as it always had been. It wasn't warm. Cool on his pads, the sparse grass tickling his feet. If he'd been walking around with his eyes closed he wouldn't even had noticed anything different.
"I don't like walkin' through this stuff," said Mono. "It looks alien."
"It's seemingly harmless," said Hertz. "It's like walking through air."
"Air that tickles."
"It tickles you?" Sample laughed. "I think that's your imagination."
Mono tried to side-step a rock leaking code only to end up walking into a small bush. She spat leaves and wiped a paw over her face, grumbling under her breath.
"You know what?!" she snapped. "I wanna go home back to the city where there's less..." She waved a paw at the offending bush. "Less of this!"
"Less nature?" Hertz shrugged. "Pity. On a good day, I quite enjoy it. It's sad to see it reduced to a mess of cracks and whatever this white code stuff is."
He froze in his tracks, almost stumbling over as Sample bumped into his back. He raised a paw to silence the exploud before he could open his mouth and strained his ears to pick up the faint voice somewhere in the vicinity. Was it the meowstic and those felons? He took a step forwards and paused beside a crag, moving as silently as he could. The voice was louder now. It didn't sound familiar. He peered over the crag and his eyes widened.
"What the...?" he muttered.
Sample and Mono appeared on either side of him and the wartortle clasped her paws over her mouth to muffle the yell of surprise that popped out.
Before them lay a pile of eggs. A large pile that stretched on into the horizon, piled up between buildings in what had once been a village but now looked as desolate and abandoned as those around the Fracture. No pokemon could have laid that many. Pacing back and forth was a marowak, jotting down notes on a clipboard. He was dressed head to foot in a hazmat suit, but he wasn't the speaker. The owner of the voice was a wobbuffet – also dressed in a hazmat suit – who was scanning the eggs with a long metal rod connected to a computer tablet. A van stood a few feet from them, half hidden behind a razz berry bush.
Curiosity got the better of Hertz. He climbed out from behind the crag but before he could even introduce himself, the marowak looked up and raised a paw to stop him.
"Stay back!" he said. "This area is out of bounds!"
"We're government officials," said Hertz. "And I want to know what's going on."
The marowak moved over to him and pulled out a pocket computer, quickly scanning it over all three of them. He seemed satisfied with the results and gave a curt not.
"Hazmat suits in the back of the van. Help yourselves." He indicated to the truck behind him without so much as looking at the gallade, too interested with whatever he'd written down on his clipboard.
Hertz trotted over to the van, happy to find the back doors weren't locked. Despite there only being two pokemon examining the area they had several more suits packed into a suitcase. Probably in case more of their group planned to meet up here later to help with their investigation.
Hertz was happy to find a suit his size and he chuckled as he pulled it neatly over his shoulders.
"They must have a gallade on the team," he said. "This one fits like a glove."
"Speak for yourself," said Sample.
Hertz looked up at his colleague squeezed into a suit that was rather too small. It stretched across his chest and the pipes on his head were squashed into a helmet with just enough space for him to open his mouth. Mono stood beside him, looking a little baggy in the arms.
Hertz had to stifle a laugh and instead cleared his throat. "Let's go find out what's going on over there, shall we?"
The marowak and wobbuffet were still working away beside the pile of eggs. The marowak glanced up at them and scrawled something on his clip board.
"Hertz, right?" he said. "Got your names from your scans. I'm Bootstrap, and my colleague is Mirror."
"Pleased to meet you," said Hertz. "What's going on here?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out," said Bootstrap. "All we know so far is these eggs are bad."
"Bad how?"
"Rotten. Bad. They have a smell to them. No idea where they came from, but it ain't normal, I can tell you that."
"Bad eggs..." said Mono. "Not what any female wants to lay, eh?"
Sample gave her a sideways glance and frowned. "So where'd they come from?" he asked Bootstrap.
"Dunno," said the marowak. "Our guess is an infected pokemon lay them, but there's loads. No ordinary pokemon can lay this many eggs."
"Do you think the cracks have anything to do with it?" asked Hertz.
"That's our second guess. Some have vanished, see? That's why we're here, but then we found these."
"That's why we're here, too. Although not officially. Curiosity threw us off course."
"My ma always told me curiosity lands young meowth in trouble." Bootstrap looked up from his clipboard at Mirror. "How are you getting on over there? You've not spoke up in a while."
"I dunno," said Mirror. "I'm getting some strange readings suddenly and I'm trying to figure them out."
"Weird readings? Let me take a look."
Bootstrap took a few steps towards him when suddenly a strange snap cut through the air. He froze in his tracks, but only briefly as he was thrown into the air as an explosion shook the very ground. Shards of egg shell whistled past Hertz's helmet and he ducked, covering his head with both his paws. When he looked up, thick, jagged egg shards lay scattered in front of them, blurred by a shimmering screen. Mirror lowered his paws and the screen vanished. All five of them were speechless, their mouths hanging open as they stared at the field of eggs.
"I'm getting another strange reading," said Mirror. "We'd better get back to the van."
They stood and scurried over to the van, but another explosion tore through the air, thick shell shards whizzing overhead and clattering off the van's metal roof. They clambered inside the back of the van and waited until the shards settled on the ground.
"I don't recall bad eggs ever doin' that," said Mono. "What on earth is goin' on?!"
"Virus that corrups and strange black cracks?" said Bootstrap. "I hardly think exploding eggs are out of place in all this. It only furthers my case that they're connected."
Mono rounded on him, her canines flashing between her lips with each word. "Regardless, they're freaky and need to be gotten rid of!"
Bootstrap raised his paws and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a strange, drawn out scream. He crept forward and peered out of the van and his body went rigid. Hertz joined him, craning over the marowak's head.
The egg field was visible through the bush's sparse branches. Standing amidst the field of eggs was what looked like a nidoqueen, but its body was covered in vines like a tangela. Another indescribable creature stood a few feet from her, making a strange clicking noise that could only be heard between the nidoqueen-esque creature's strange wails. She threw her head back with each one, her voice plaintive and pained. What happened next would be etched into Hertz's mind for an eternity.
The creature exploded.
Red painted the eggs and surrounding trees and rocks. He couldn't duck inside fast enough. He wanted to bring up the contents of his breakfast, but held it back. There was no way he was removing his helmet now. Those eggs were indeed linked to the virus. Those creatures had hatched from them, and not in the normal way. They'd exploded from them, much too large to be contained by those eggs.
Another explosion followed by a rain of red.
There went the other creature.
"I wanna go home," muttered Mono. She squatted in the corner of the van, hugging her knees as she rocked back and forth. "I wanna go home. Someone... please... wake up from this nightmare!"
Sadly, they wouldn't be going home any time soon. Bootstrap slammed the doors to the van closed just before another explosion hit. Then another. Then another. The eggs were going off one by one, interspersed with blood-curdling screams.
Hertz tried to cram his paws over his ears, but it was fruitless. Instead he resigned to hiding his head between his knees as he joined Mono and Sample in the corner of the van. The other two pokemon cowered behind the suitcase. Bootstrap's clipboard lay discarded by the door, and Hertz found himself watching his pen roll back and forth as the van shook amidst the chaos, the rattle it made on the floor only audible between each intense scream and boom.
Finally, it began to end. The explosions lessened off. Two or three went off in the distance, mere echoes compared to the previous ones.
Hertz finally looked up, joining everyone else in staring at the closed doors to the van. His heart was hammering in his chest and his breath came in heavy bursts, misting over the inside of his helmet.
"Is it over?" Mono asked in a shaky voice.
"I think so," said Sample.
Mirror faltered by the doors, one paw resting on the handle. Hertz couldn't blame him. No one knew what it now looked like outside. The image replaying through his mind would pale in comparison to the state of the place now. There were no windows in the back of the van to give any of them any idea. The only light came from a dim, flat bulb above them that now flickered slightly, likely caused by damage to the wires after the repeated blows from the explosions.
"What shall we do?" Hertz asked. "Shall we just drive back?"
"No. The van's going to be covered in... stuff," said Bootstrap. "It'll be full of contagions. It's much to risky."
"Then shall we call for a decontamination team?"
Bootstrap let out a heavy sigh and leant back against the wall. "I think that's best. They can take the whole van. Not one of us needs to step paw out-"
A low groan reached their ears, freezing them all to the spot. Sample looked round at Mono and raised an eyebrow.
"Was that you?" he asked.
"Why would it be me?" she replied.
"Well we did skip lunch, so..."
The groan resounded again, and all of them froze once more, bracing themselves for another explosion.
None came.
"You know what I think?" said Sample. "I think someone's alive out there."
"I think you might be right," said Bootstrap.
"But they all exploded!" said Mono. "Every one of them!"
Bootstrap moved Mirror aside and pushed the doors open. Outside was just as Hertz had dreaded, and he had to look away from the open mouth of the van. The marowak's paws pattered over the ground and he let out a yell of surprise.
"Oi! You might wanna look at this!"
"I really don't," Hertz muttered beneath his breath as he pushed himself to his feet.
He reminded himself over and over in his mind that he was a government official. With each step he reminded himself the world was falling apart. That the pokemon that had hatched from those eggs had died of the very thing he was trying to stop.
Outside was red. But this time rather than repulse him it hurt him. What was left of the village wasn't even standing any more. Every single building had been reduced to a pile of rubble. He didn't know for certain where those eggs had come from, but pokemon had emerged from them. Pokemon in pain and not one had deserved this.
What if those eggs were just another corruption? Another distortion caused by the virus, reducing the victims to life stuck inside a shell? It was only a guess, but it was the most likely theory.
Bootstrap stood only a few feet away, watching Hertz over his shoulder. He nodded at the object that had caught his eye. A long, thick mound of metal. What lay there looked like a steelix, but it wasn't. The head of a serperior lay amongst the shards and blood-stained rubble, its eyes screwed shut as it groaned repeatedly.
"This one survived," said Bootstrap.
Hertz blinked in confusion. "How?"
"I dunno." The marowak jotted more notes down on his clipboard. "I wanna get this pokemon to the hospital. A private room. Run some tests on it and see why it hatched from an egg, and why, like all the others, it exploded. If this virus is corrupting pokemon into eggs, I want to know. That way, we can increase the warning that the virus leads to deaths other than those from merely not withstanding a DNA transformation."
Hertz mulled this over, wondering for a moment why the marowak was telling him this until he remembered the scan he'd received. Of course Bootstrap would now know his place in the hospital, but it still didn't quite register that he was requesting a room for the pokemon that lay before him.
A pokemon who was by no means meant to have a body made out of metal.
None of those pokemon were meant to explode – at least not the ones he'd seen. Exploding was a move that only certain electric type and rock or steel types were meant to know, reserved as a last-resort during a period of extreme distress.
Those wails. Every one of those pokemon that hatched had been distressed. Their bodies warped, suffering pain from maintaining bodies they were not meant to have.
Steel types...
They had the body structure to deal with such an attack. To survive the nasty side effect of blowing oneself to bits. All that happened was the explosion, the impact. The pokemon itself survived, albeit exhausted from the effort.
"It survived because of its body." The words came out of his mouth the moment he said them.
Bootstrap looked up at him, pen paused mid-sentence. "Pardon?"
"The serperior," he said. "It has a steel body. That's why it survived the explosion."
"Huh." Bootstrap looked back down at the fallen victim. "You know what, Hertz? I think you might be right."
"So what's next?" Hertz asked. "You really want to send this pokemon to a lab? It might try to explode again."
"We'd keep it under anaesthetic, or artificially induce a coma. I don't think for one second that this pokemon was born from these cracks. I think something went crazy here, turning hundreds of pokemon into eggs."
"So do I," said Hertz. "I think I can grant your request, Bootstrap. But we need to find a way to get this pokemon there first. Where do we stand on the decontamination squad?"
Bootstrap looked back over his shoulder at the van and shouted for Mirror. The wobbuffet immediately peered out at them.
"Have you contacted them?" Bootstrap asked.
"They're on their way. I've sent them our co-ordinates."
"Excellent." Bootstrap tucked his clipboard into his belt and crossed his arms as he stared down at the groaning pokemon. "You know something, Hertz? I've been investigating this virus since it first appeared, but I've seen nothing like this."
"Me neither," said Hertz.
"Your identification of the explosion phenomenon has struck something with me." The marowak looked up at him out of the corner of his eye. "I think I might want you on my team."
Made me do a bit of a double-take.
