AGNPH Stories
 

Project D by captanblue

 

The Beggining

Chapter 2: The beginning


It was 12:45 p.m. when Dee finally arrived at her destination. She would have arrived sooner but the labs computers weren't designed for emails and she quite possibly the biggest download in history. Dee knew secrecy was key. Since the computers in the laboratory were connected to satellite it was just a matter of beaming her self down to a satellite dish. Her destination was Palm City, far of to the east of Jhoto and nowhere near any deserts. Palm City itself was actually just a giant tourist attraction. It's biggest moneymaker being, of course, the City. Palm City kept pretty warm most of the year and rain wasn't too much trouble, the occasional hurricane did pose problems but not enough of one to keep tourist away. It was also a haven to water type pokemon and because of a power plant nearby, a few electric types as well. All and all it was a very pleasant place with the sun to keep you warm and cool ocean breezes to cool you down.

Around the edge of the city was the Palm City radio station. On top of the building was a satellite dish that was around 12 feet in diameter. This was were Dee decided to touch down at. Since no one was currently on to of he building, she just beamed herself to it. Bright light surrounded it as Dee transported herself to it. Crackling green energy arced out of the dish and landed about 5 feet away. The light took shape and finally Dee was done with the transfer.

"Good, I arrived at my destination without incident". Looking around to make sure there was no one around she concentrated on the area in front of her. A faint green glow appeared and later formed into the shape of a 2 by 6 grid that floated in midair, the cubes themselves being exactly one square inch. The space inside the grid shimmered for a brief moment and faded away, revealing a photo. The person in the picture had dark skin and short black hair. There was no jewelry on him except a watch and a beaded bracelet with Japanese symbols on it. He sported large blue tinted circular glasses a red shirt with dragons and black flowers, a set of baggy khakis and gray and white tennis shoes. He also happened to be 6 ft 3.

"He has to be a least 18, why would she call him a boy?" she asked herself. She didn't give it much more thought as she had more important things to worry about, like how to get off the roof. This didn't prove too much of a problem as she was designed to get around minor difficulties such as this. She formed another grid, this one having a depth of about 1-inch. Once she was done she had the pokedex Jane had given her. It looked like a regular pokedex, just black instead of red with a large lens on the back of it. She tapped a button on the lower half of the pokedex, letting the outer cover to flip open and reveal the screen and a small keyboard. The pokedex came on automatically and Dee scrolled through the menu. Moments later she found what she was looking for, a menu titled, "Project Transformations". Se scrolled through some of the options. There was only two, porygon and plusle. She highlighted plusle and selected it. A large cubic grid formed over Dee, quickly shrinking until it was roughly the same size as her. Dee herself began to flicker with white light covering her body again. The Grid continued shrinking until it was around half her size. Two cylindrical objects seemed to spring out of the light show, followed by for more stubs coming out of the main body with a smaller one coming out of the lower back. Once the light dissipated he grids disappeared Dee was done with her transformation, she had become a plusle. There were already many plusle in Palm City so she would blend in perfectly. With her transformation done she digitized the pokedex again and carried the photo in her mouth. The building had a fire escape on the back of it so getting off would be easy and being a plusle made it all the more easier. seven minutes later she was off he building and on the streets. Thanks to Leah talking so much with her she already had a decent idea as to where she would find Jake, despite he fact that this was the first time she got to see him. Taking care not to get stepped on she headed straight towards her destination, Super Pokemart.
"Hi, are you having a good evening?", this had to be Jake's 500th time saying that but he never got tired of it. Ever since he walked out on his first job at MacWonalds the fast food restaurant, life in general had been a lot less stressful.

While Jake was checking out another customer Molinda, one of the managers, came up too him. "Jake, turn your register off. We don't have enough cart pushers outside and we need your help to get some of the shopping carts taken care of."

Jake frowned, " Where'd all our cart pushers go?"

"Well it is the day after payday, so they're probably at home drinking or something."

"Well, how many cart pushers do we have?"

"One."

Jake looked at her in shock, "You can't expect me to take care of an entire side of the store."

Molinda put her hand on his shoulder, "Jake, your one of our best cashiers. But there's one problem, your male, therefore when we're short handed your going to be the first person we come to. It's the curse of being the only guy in the front."

"What about Mark, he's a guy."

"Yeah, but he's new here Jake so he needs more time at the register, besides" she took out her notebook that had all of the schedules on it, "he's scheduled for a lunch now so he can't do it anyway."

Jake sighed, "fine I'll go do it, just let me get finished with this customer". Once Jake was done he turned his light off and picked up his pda. Work got boring sometimes so he liked to play sudoku in between checking people out. After gathering his things together, he headed off to the back to get a orange vest so people would see him. Even though he'd be in broad daylight it was mandatory so he didn't get a choice. Once he had everything he headed out side to his cart pusher duty.

About an hour later Jake was fervently wishing that he could find out where the loser cart pushers were that decided to go fart around and drink all day and rip their heads off. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so hot outside. Jake preferred to work in the evening so he could take his college classes in the morning, but today was Saturday and technically he was free all day. On Saturdays he worked in the morning so he could goof off later in he evening. Because of this he typically worked from 7:00am - 2:00pm on Saturday and had Sunday and Monday off. So being out for about an hour longer wasn't too much of a problem he'd just rather be inside in the air conditioning, since he hated being outside. It was 1:20 and he was halfway done with one side of the parking lot. He wiped his head with his shirt in a vain attempt to get all the sweat off his face when he heard a commotion some of the cars on the side of the building. "What's going on?" Jake thought as snuck around the other side of the car and pushed a shopping basket he hadn't put up yet to see what was going on.

A woman was yelling at two thugs in black shirts and pants wearing masks, other than that he couldn't tell that much more about them. The woman herself was just wearing a long dress and seemed to be in her 30's . Her outfit alone showed that she was a tourist, which was probably why she was being targeted in the first place, that and she looked to be at least 25. One of the guys was trying to grab her purse while the other one reaching into his jacket pocket. Company rules stated that Jake should not intervene but the woman was about to be robbed, and maybe even shot! Thinking fast Jake grabbed the shopping cart and pushed it at the robber reaching into his pocket as hard as he could.

"Look lady, just give me the purse and I won't have ta get my friend here to do something unpleasant."

The women struggled even harder, trying to rip her purse out of the man's grasp ad run away as fast as she could

"No! Let go of me! Help! Somebody please!"

The thief trying to steal her purse growled at his accomplice, "Hurry up! This wasn't supposed to take this long."

The other thief grinned, "Don't worry, I've got something that will take care of this l...oof!"

Before he could finish his sentence the cart Jake had pushed collided into his back, knocking him completely over. The thief still standing looked at where the cart came from and saw Jake just standing there.

"C'mere you...Aieeeee!", the women he had attempted to steal the purse from kicked him in the as hard as she could. The effects were immediate as he fell on the ground screaming like a little girl. While he was preoccupied she ran to where Jake was standing.

"Thank you so much for rescuing me from those thugs Jake "How'd you... oh yeah, my name badge. Look, we don't have time. We need to get out of here before those guys get up, nice kick by the way"

Before she could reply the thug that Jake knocked down with the shopping basket managed to get up.

"Smooth punk, now you and your pretty little girlfriend are going to die". He reached into his jacket pocket, " it's in here somewhere... Ahhh here it is". He found what he was looking for and whipped out his hand revealing... a pokeball?

Jake was relieved a little bit now that he knew he didn't have a gun, but now he had to deal with whatever was in the man's pokeball.

"Look, we need to get out of here, there's no telling what he has in there". Jake yelled dragging her behind him.

As they turned around and started to run back to the store the man yelled behind them, "That's right, keep running! Butch! take care if those two!"

Jake heard the sound of the pokeball opening, but was too busy running and dodging cars to look behind him and see what the pokemon was, he did notice that the woman was beginning to lag behind, "Hurry! what ever threw could catch up with us!"

"I...I...Ahhh!" She tripped and fell on Jake who also fell down. Jake got up and grabbed her hand, she smiled sheepishly at him, "Kinda hard to run in high heels."

Suddenly, something blasted Jake off his feet and into a nearby car where he fell in a heap.

"Ungh...What was that?" Jake moaned. He got up slowly, still dazed. It took him a second before he realized he was soaked. He heard the woman scream and turned around.

The woman was still on the ground and snarling right on top of her was a totodile. Every time the woman tried to move the totodile growled menacingly causing the girl to scream softly and cower on the ground.

"Good job Butch," by now the thief with the pokeball caught up with them "now forget the girl and go after...Jake here".

It's over Jake thought, there's no way I can get out of this. With his back to the car and the thug towering over the woman he was trying save, there was nowhere for him to run. The fact that the thief knew his name just made things worse.

Butch ran over to Jake and lunged at him, about to unleash a devastating bite attack when it was intercepted by a fierce jolt of electricity. The totodile was blown back into the trunk of a nearby truck.

Jake was shocked, what just happened? The blast came from his right but he didn't see anything there.

Jake was still tying to figure out what happened when Butch had managed to get back up from the back of the truck. It was confused and angry, but more angry then anything else.

"Butch! Get off your lazy butt and get him already".

Snarling the totodile launched itself at Jake again. Jake cringed, but when Butch was at least 2 inches from Jake's face it was hit again by another electric burst, this time hitting it from the left. This time it was thrown into someone's car window, sending shattered glass everywhere. Now the thief was scared. Without even saying a word he ran off, but only managed to get a few steps before he was hit by what looked like a thunder wave attack. He lurched and collapsed on the ground, paralyzed.

Jake looked around, something had taken out both the totodile and the thief single-handed. he went over to the women and helped the woman up again.

"Are you okay?" He said, "Butch didn't hurt you didn't hurt you did he ?"

The woman smiled, "No, I'm fine. You know, I never did tell you my name ."

Jake smiled, "Well, you were distracted a bit. But you can tell me if you want too."

She giggled, "My name's Sarah"

"Nice to meet you Sarah, now let's find out what was helping us."

Before they got a chance the Super Pokemart security showed up. The pokemart didn't see much action so the Super Pokemart Police force consisted of two guards. one of whom was on a lunch break. The one on duty was named Carl and happened to be a tad bit overweight, he and Jake used to talk a lot when Jake was waiting outside for his dad to pick him up. Jake just got a new (used) car so they haven't seen that much of each other lately. At the moment he was running over to them, being careful to avoid all the shattered glass. When he finally reached them he was pale and looked extremely worried

"Is everyone all right? I saw part of what happened and I've notified the police. Jake you bleeding, your not hurt are you?"

Jake looked at his arm, there was blood running down it from when Sarah fell on him, he was too busy running away from the totodile to notice, but now that he wasn't running and the adrenaline rush died down he noticed that his arm hurt like heck.

Jake grimaced, "Yeah I'm fine, I guess that's what happens when you fall on concrete"

Carl still looked concerned, "Is that it? Your not hurt anywhere else are you? What about you ma'am, nothing broken?"

"No, I'm fine. I landed on Jake when we fell so I didn't hurt anything. Thanks Jake"

"No problem'" Jake replied, looking at his arms again "I couldn't just let those guys hurt an innocent woman, specially not someone as cute as yourself. But it no one minds, I'd like to get cleaned up a bit."

Sarah beamed at Jake's compliment and Carl just shook his head.

"Well, you must be feeling fine if you're hitting on a female already. Let's get both of you back into the store so both of you can get cleaned up, follow me."

Carl turned around and walked back towards Super Pokemart with Jake and Sarah following close behind. Jake was still having trouble believing what had just happened and the fact that he was still alive. He still didn't understand what had saved both of them back there, not mater how hard he tried he couldn't make sense of it. He was putting together a mental list of all the possible things that could explain what saved him when Sarah interrupted his thoughts.

"Jake," she said, "I really want to thank you again for what you did back there. If it weren't for you I'd probably be dead."

Jake looked confused, "What was in your purse that was so important that you'd throw your life away for it? I would have just let them take the purse and go."

Sarah got her purse out and started to rummage through it. She found what she was looking for and brought out a golden pokeball.

"This is what I was trying to protect, my skitty is in here and she hasn't been feeling well recently. I was going into the pokemart to see if anyone could give me directions to the pokecenter here, but when I got out of my car those two thieves tried to steal my purse. I couldn't let them steal my precious skitty so I fought back. That's when you showed up."

"Oh," Jake replied, "that's good. I figured you just didn't want your credit card stolen. I think it's great that you care about your pokemon so much."

Sarah leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, "Thanks, if there's anything I can do for you just say the word."

Jake was too surprised to say anything and just kept walking towards the pokemart, today's' episode almost completely wiped from his memory. When Jake and Sarah made it back to the pokemart they were immediately greeted by the other security guard Earl, Joe the store manager, and Molinda. Joe looked furious.

"Jake! What were you thinking! You could have got yourself and this young lady killed." Joe roared, practically spitting in Jakes face. Joe was 6 ft 5 of raw muscle and could easily replace 3 security guards. Needless to say, he was intimidating. Fortunately, Jake's experience at Super Pokemart allowed him to respond without showing the slightest sign of anger.

"It was either save her, or let her get hurt, what else could I do?" Jake replied.

Molinda chimed in before Joe could say anything, "What he did was right Joe, how can you be angry at him for doing that?"

Earl also congratulated Jake, "What you did was brave Jake, good job. Just promise me that you'll let the professionals take care of this the next time okay? Let's go inside and get you guys cleaned up."

Joe looked like he calmed downed a bit. He wordlessly stepped aside and let them all go in. it took about 10 minutes for the police to arrive on the scene. Three cop cars showed up. The first one took thieves to jail and the second cop car drove the totodile to a nearby pokecenter. Later, they would have to drop it off at a pokemon holding facility. Once they were gone the cops in the third cop car came inside of Super Pokemart to file a police report. Then the Channel 2 News crew showed up and interviewed Jake and Sarah. It was 5:23 p.m. before Jake and Sarah had finally managed to leave. Jake should have home 2 hours ago and he left his cell phone at home. He knew his mom was going to chew him out and no amount of time spent at Super Pokemart could prepare him for that. Jake was just reaching for his car door when Sarah caught up with him.

"Jake!" she yelled. Jake spun around seeing Sarah running top speed after him.

"Sarah, is something wrong?" Jake asked, worried.

Sarah took a couple of seconds to catch her breath before responding.

"No, it's not that. I just remembered that I owed you favor, but I forgot to give you my cell-phone number."

"Oh yeah, well here's mine"

"Thanks Jake, my boyfriend is going to be so jealous when he finds out that I was rescued by some other guy."

"Well hopefully he'll just be happy that your okay" Jake replied. "Hey, how's your skitty doing?

Sarah gasped, "OH NO! I forgot all about her! Jake I'm sorry but I have to go. Ohhhh I'm such a horrible trainer."

She ran off as fast as she could, leaving Jake standing there next to his car. "She's a trainer?" he thought as he watched her disappear in the distance. He looked and shook his head. It was 5:30pm and he hadn't even made it home yet. He sighed, dreading what his mom think. He got in his car and drove home. When Jake was telling his story to the officer no one could come up with a good explanation of what exactly stopped the totodile i it's tracks and took down it's owner. he figured that if the security guards had not of shown up when they did, he could have found out what saved his neck back there, but there was nothing he could do about now.

When Jake finally got home he had resigned himself to whatever fate his mom had in store for him. He parked his car on the side of the street next to the house. Mom and Dad's car were already in the garage so parking on the side of the street was his only option. That's when he remembered Dad. Crap, what's he going to say when he hears about this? Jake thought to himself. Getting out of the car slowly he made his way to the front door. He fished his keys out of his pocket and put it in the keyhole opening the door and bracing himself for the extreme chewing out he was bound to get...

But there was no one home.

All the lights were off and the house was completely silent. Jake started to get worried as he walked into the living room. The way the house was built, the hallway started at the front door and ended at the living room. Halfway down the hallway and to the right lay the bedrooms and Jakes was the first one on the right. Jake stood in front of the front door trying to figure out where everyone was. I don't get it, where did everyone go?

He walked over to his door and almost opened it until he noticed a post-it-note on his door.

Dear Jake,

Hey honey! I knew you'd forget so I wrote this down. Your dad and I decide to go out tonight so we won't be home until late. Your brother and sister will be at Jenna's house so you have the house to yourself.

Love,
Mom
PS
Try and stay out of trouble dear.

Jake slapped his forehead. He had completely forgotten his Mom had told him that she was going out with dad.

"Great," he mumbled "I did all that worrying for nothing."

Shaking his head he took the note off the door. He opened the door and walked inside.

Hello Jake.

Jake spun around, fear instantly gripping him as he looked around for the owner of the voice. Suddenly it dawned on him what was going on.

Luna, that you?

Luna came up from behind him, rubbing on the sides of his legs slowly as she came by. Luna was Jake's Espeon. They had been together for about 6 years now. They first met when she was still an eevee in an ally behind one of the buildings in Palm City. Her evolution into an Espeon was completely accidental, but Jake found that he like her better like this, and quickly learned to respect physic pokemon after he learned that they could telepathically with one another. Luna had knack for sensing what Jake was thinking about and interrupting it, which she was exhibiting right now.

"Jake, before you become lost in thought I thought you should know that you have a visitor waiting for you in the living room."

"What?" Jake thought, "But how did they get inside? You didn't open the door for them did you?"

Luna sounded hurt, "Jake, you know I would never let anyone come in the house if thought they were any threat. I had trouble scanning her mind, but I didn't sense any ill will towards you. she really seemed to want to meet you . Other than that, I could not get anything else from her, except a sense of urgency, impatience, and a strong sense of determination."

Jake was puzzled as walked from the hallway with Luna trailing behind him. Going into the living room he flipped a light switch and there, standing on the coffee table in the center of the living room was a very serious looking plusle. It was holding a piece of paper and a photograph in both of its hand and lying in front of it was a black rectangular object. It glanced at Luna and spoke to her for a brief second before looking back at Jake expectantly. Luna listened and tuned her head towards Jake.

"She says her name is Dee and that you're late coming home. She also has a message for you."




*****
Ooooh What could the message be? Actually I'm not sure either, I haven't thought that far in advance yet. Now that they've finally met I can really get the story started. These first two chapters ended up being character development, which wasn't really what I was going for but it couldn't be helped. Oh well, thanks to all those people who took the time to read my story and review it. Constructive criticism is appreciated.
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