Pokeumans Collab - Body Swap 5

Part 5: Fast And Slow


-Diana-


"And that's the way we found to solve this," I concluded and sat back, almost perching upon the chair I'd been stood in front of the whole time. For some reason, I felt exhausted.

The four Pokeumans before me (I personally refused to buy into counting Mike as double, even if he was a Doduo) were silent. I could almost hear the mental cogs turned as they tried to register this information. Eddie the Lucario and Mike had opened their mouths to ask questions repeatedly as I spoke but Jupiter and Felicia kept shushing them down, both listening carefully. Now we were at the end I stood back a little, feeling their confused gazes upon me. When I got back to my body, I could happily sleep for a week.

The three younger Pokeumans were staring at me. 'Wow,' I heard Mike say. 'That's quite some story.'

'Mmm,' Felicia the Pidgeotto nodded. 'But the ones you condemn are always the ones that turn out to be true. Especially in a world already as strange as our own.'

'I never realised there were so many things like this out there,' Jupiter the Blaziken said pensively. 'But if you're sure this works, I'll credit it to you as an experienced PRT member.' For some reason, that made me feel proud.

'Yeah,' Eddie added. 'Going back and forth between bodies... It’s a good thing the whole process doesn’t hurt or anything.' His face moved into a sly smile and he gave me a look that he probably thought was clever, but actually made him look slightly ill. 'Although if it did hurt, then I could have checked you out.'

‘I’m pretty sure you did that already,’ Mike-Left said flatly.

I stalled out of my apathy at the very mention of it. Does he really mean- He does, doesn't he?! Is he hitting on me? The little...

‘Nah, man, not like that.’ Eddie smiled. ‘Not just a visual once-over. I mean, I’m a doctor.’

I untensed. ‘Really?’

‘Yep.’ His grin now was full-on sleazy. ‘Doctor of Love. For any diagnosis you need, babe.’

I glared at him again, genuinely lost for words with which to express my anger. He... What a creep. I didn’t know whether to smack him or not just for saying it. Unfortunately, given the height difference between us I’d probably just have ended up just punching him vaguely in the chest or groin area, although the idea was tempting.

Fortunately Jupiter the Blaziken was around to keep the peace. ‘Love isn’t a certified PhD subject, Eddie,’ Jupiter said simply and straightened up from his listening position as the Lucario deflated somewhat. 'Well then, we know what we have to do now, right?’

'Just use the stone correctly at noon tomorrow,' Felicia said. 'Should be a piece of cake, although using that phrase always means that it’ll be harder than that.’ As if an afterthought, she added ‘Sorry for saying that, everyone.'

'Felicia, please. I believe we have a plan now.' Jupiter turned to the Doduo. 'Mike, you last had the stone. What did you do with it?'

The two Doduo heads looked at each other, suddenly very guilty. ‘I, uh, yeah,’ Mike-Right said. ‘About that.’

‘What about it?’

‘Well, we kinda, um, don’t have it anymore.’

‘We saw it was dangerous when Cassie reacted weirdly to it,’ the left head added quickly before we could yell at them. ‘So we got rid of it.’

“Got rid of it?” I repeated, trying to suppress my raising tone of voice and failing. “How?”

‘Gave it to a teacher. We figured they’d know what to do with it better than we do.’

I looked sidelong at Felicia. “Does he always refer to himself like that?” I muttered.

‘Believe me when I say that that’s only the start of the weird stuff around here,’ the Pidgeotto replied with absolute sincerity. ‘Welcome to the Alpha Base, a cave full of weirdoes at the bottom of a canyon somewhere in Britain. To be honest, I’m surprised Cassie’s Helping Hand hasn’t gone off yet.’

“Her what?”

Felicia turned her head away, as if she was trying to avoid the answer. I sighed. It would be nice to know what was going on but I could tell already that it wouldn’t be worth the fuss. Judging by her reaction, I’d be finding out pretty soon anyway.

‘In that case,’ I heard Jupiter continue something I hadn’t been listening to as I’d whispered to Felicia, ‘it seems like it should be as easy as finding Mr. Roe – you did say it was him, yes? - and getting it back from him. I’ll accompany you. This whole issue with body swapping sounds very curious to me, and I’d like to see it through as best I can. Now then, let’s not waste tim-‘

Hello? Is there anybody there?

Kind of a dumb question, Cassie, I told you who’s there. It’ll be Diana. You might want to establish connection with her as well as me.

I never thought I’d be so relieved – or particularly relieved at all, to be honest – to hear the mental voice of Cameron.

My feet went to follow the others as they led me out of the library, but I didn’t hear a word they said. I was too distracted by internal issues. Cameron? Are you there?

Ah, she’s alive! Good, good, Eyan was probably going to throttle me again as this rate.

No, you can save him the privilege. If anything he’ll want to do it to the real me when I get back.

Oh… are you Diana? The new voice sounded different. Feminine. It wasn’t hard to place.

Hi there Cassie. Don’t worry, your body’s safe with me for now. I’ll try not screw it up between now and noon tomorrow, although I can’t promise it’ll be perfect.

I’ve filled her in on the details of what’s been going on, Cameron said mentally. Gives me something to do at least. So, are you ok over there, wherever ‘over there’ is?

Yeah, although Cassie’s friend Mike managed to lose the stone. We’re literally on the way to get it back now.

That does sound like Mike, Cassie added, sounding more relaxed. So… we can undo this?

Just be patient, and don’t lose the damn thing between now and tomorrow, Cameron said before I could. It’ll be fine, I’m sure.

Ok. I… I’ll trust you on that. And, er… Don’t worry about Mike, they’re well-meaning.

They?

I left Cameron to his confusion. I’ve fallen for that trick too many times now. Oh, Cassie, while I’m thinking about that, what’s this I hear about your ‘Helping Hand’?

Oh… that… It’s kind of awkward. The short version is, a while ago I got taken to this weird place called the Trick House, outsmarted a psycho Gengar and my right hand got kind of messed up. It sometimes does stuff or writes stuff when I don’t mean it to. I never realise when it’s happening either, so if it does happen you won’t know it until someone says something. A definite case of ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger’.

Well that’s just great. Now I have to keep an eye on myself all the time. Thanks for that, I wasn’t having a bad enough afternoon already.

I wish I could say sorry, but that would technically imply it was my fault. Is Jupiter helping you?

The tall birdy boy? Yeah, he’s effectively making sure we actually do something useful.

Cassie was audibly relieved. Phew, that’s good. He should keep you all on track.

He’s also keeping that dumb Lucario down. I mean, he tried hitting on me. That was just pathetic.

Oh, yes, Eddie. Don’t worry about him, he does that to everyone.

…When you say ‘everyone’, you mean-

You do not. Want. To know. Cassie’s mental tone conveyed absolute conviction. Someday he’ll either find himself a girlfriend or discover that he isn’t Casanova the Second, but I don’t know when that day will be.

I’m just watching this pan out from now with some mental popcorn, Cameron said from nowhere. I think this is really entertaining, because I’m doing fine over here. I’m at least somewhat used to my current body already and everything’s going well.

Oh goodie for you, I thought. I didn’t particularly care whether it got transmitted or not.

Cameron continued. Cassie, as a simple request, although I use the word ‘simple’ loosely, please can you try not to screw my body up by noon tomorrow? I asked Diana and she got into a fight with my archrival.

I was definitely not taking that one lying down. As I recall, you went scrabbling about on a mountainside with mine. Hardly in the careful maintenance manual, is it?

…Point taken.

You know, Cassie said, you really are a very… interesting group of people.

Yeah, that’s one way of putting it, Cameron replied with only a hint of sarcasm.

Definitely, I added. I like to think it makes us fun.

‘Cas-Diana?’ I blinked to discover that Eddie was waving a paw back and forth in front of my face. We were in a different corridor now, outside a room with the sign ‘Science Class – Mr. Roe’ on it. ‘You didn’t respond to anything we said on the way and you were just stood there for ages. Everything ok in there?’

“Of course not, otherwise I wouldn’t be here,” I replied with what I thought was commendable quickness. “I was just having a quick mental chat with Cassie and the Ampharos I mentioned. Don’t worry, she’s fine.”

Felicia looked at me. ‘I love how casual she is about that,’ she said as if thinking aloud. ‘How do we know that you actually have a link to her?’

“Because none of you explained what the Helping Hand is,” I said smoothly, “yet I’ve noticed as it just picked Eddie’s pocket.”

The Lucario blinked at this, then suddenly started patting himself down. ‘H-Hey, where’s my Bright Powder?! I had a bag of the stuff right here! I need that!’

“And now I have that bag right here,” I said as I held the light blue bag up. Eddie snatched it back and gave me a funny look as he re-secured it on his person. I smiled. I hadn’t noticed my hand wandering off until it was already taking a hold on Eddie’s stuff, and by that point I figured it was so entertaining that I wasn’t going to stop it.

‘My word. Diana, you are full of surprises,’ Jupiter said as he looked at me. ‘Don’t change that. Ok, when you’re ready.’

Mike and I stepped into the classroom, Eddie and Felicia leaning around the door behind us but staying out. Jupiter was pretty much still in the hallway. At his desk at the front of the room, the Nidoking looked up from a report he’d been writing. ‘Hm? Oh, Mike, hello there. I see you’ve brought your roommate with you this time. So, unless you’ve dropped round for a pleasant chat, how can I help you?’

Mike just looked at him, blinking a little, then looked over at me nervously. He clearly didn’t know what to say. I just nudged him and mouthed ‘Go on’. I hate to be harsh on him, but he caused this mess so he can explain it.

‘Um, sir?’ the left head started. ‘Do you still have that stone we gave you?’

‘The what? Sorry, lad, you’re going to have to elaborate.’

‘Um, we gave you a stone a little while ago that had this weird Psychic energy. We said we wanted you to sort it out for us.’

‘You mean the one that you said was very dangerous and messed up your roommate?’

A sweatbead dropped down on of Mike’s foreheads. ‘Er, that’s the one. Um… we need it back.’

The Nidoking frowned. ‘Let me get this clear,’ he said slowly. ‘You give me a stone, say it’s extremely dangerous and you wanted to get rid of it, and now you’re back not an hour later and say you want it returned?’

Mike’s beaks opened and closed a few times as he tried to answer this one, so I gave up my resolve and stepped in. “It turns out the stone has… useful properties that we didn’t know about at the time. After all, it clearly wasn’t all that dangerous, since I’m standing here absolutely fine.” Ha, if only it were that easy.

Mr. Roe looked at the two of us as if trying to make a judgment on us, then shrugged. ‘Well, you can have that discussion with the science team then. I sent it down to the labs for some research only ten minutes ago.’

“You what?” I said weakly, trying to suppress a groan of frustration. Felicia had definitely been right there – there was no way this would be as easy as it should be. To be honest, I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Can we get it back off them, then?”

‘Well, they lock down the labs when they’re experimenting or examining something, and knowing the jumpy so-and-so in charge they’ll already be hard at work. Honestly, that lot. Anyway, once they’re done you can try your luck, although it could take a day or two for them to wrap everything up. It seems that apart from leaving at night they spend all damn day in there.’

I looked at Mike. “I’m not waiting a day or two. We need that thing as soon as possible.”

Mr. Roe shrugged and turned back to his desk. ‘Well, you may have a decent chance of taking it or, perish the thought, stealing it from them with a bit of chance.’ His eyes twinkled and he smiled slightly. ‘After all, you’ve got half of what you need for your mission.’

“What? Knowledge?” I frowned. “We’ve got knowledge and that’s half the battle, right? Is that what we’ve got that we’ll need for this, knowledge?”

‘No. You’ve got Felicia Dawson.’ The Nidoking sat down again at his desk. ‘Good luck to you.’

Mike and I stepped out of the classroom, clearly not going to be able to get any further with this attempt. In the corridor, Felicia nodded and smiled with satisfaction. ‘He knows just how to compliment me, doesn’t he?’

I looked up at the expectant faces and sighed. “They’ve taken it to the labs to examine it, and they locked the doors down there. Chances have it we won’t get a decent chance for a day or two, unless you all fancy sneaking around at night to break in.”

Jupiter was troubled at this, but Eddie and Felicia didn’t seem the least bit concerned.  Neither, for that matter, did Mike.

‘I know where the labs are,’ Jupiter said. ‘They’re on the second-to-bottom floor of the base, on the east side. They aren’t difficult to find. How we’re going to get access, though, that’s rather more tricky…’

‘Nah, it’ll be fine,’ Eddie said confidently. Disregarding the somewhat hurt-looking Blaziken, he turned to the Pidgeotto. ‘Felicia, we’re going to go on ahead to the labs. I’m sure you can meet us there. On your way there, could you use your specialised talents to, ah, acquire some keys for access?’

Felicia looked at him blankly. ‘You mean ‘steal’, right?’

‘Yes. That.’

‘Oh. Ok. You could have just said, you know.’

Jupiter groaned. ‘Felicia, you know I hate it when you steal things. Please don’t make this another one.’

‘Sorry, Red Giant,’ the Pidgeotto said with a ruffle of her wings and a devious smile, ‘but we’re gonna have to if we want to get this stone back. I know you don’t want to, but there are other people to think about than you here. Besides, I haven’t had a chance to break into the science department for weeks.’

I stalled. This girl has broken into the science department before?

Yes, Cassie said in my mind. Yes, she has.

How did you know who I was thinking about?

It wasn’t hard to guess.

‘Fine, well, I’m not coming.’ The Blaziken folded his arms. ‘If Felicia’s going to be stealing things, then I won’t be accompanying you. I’ll see you at noon tomorrow for the swap.’

I was about to plead with him to stay, but Mike just shrugged. ‘Ok. See you later. Have a nice afternoon.’ The Blaziken just walked away with a sigh, shaking his head.

As soon as he was gone I rounded on the other three. “Steal?! Really? You’re going to steal the keys to get in the labs?!”

‘Well, yes,’ Eddie said as if this happened all the time. ‘It’s the only way we’re getting in any time soon.’

“But- but- but Jupiter’s walked off!” I protested, trying my best to look enforcing at a foot and a half tall. My instincts to maximize resources from P.R.T. missions were kicking in. “We might need him! We-“

‘I’m off,’ Felicia said without warning and suddenly flew away down the hallway before I could respond.

I felt a gentle paw pushing on my back. ‘I think we’ll get going too,’ Eddie said smoothly from behind me, and before I knew it we were off as well.

‘We should probably explain,’ Mike-Left said as he- they jogged alongside me, Eddie pulling me along by the hand effortlessly. ‘Stealing things isn’t new to Felicia. She does it all the time, in fact. Oh, don’t worry,’ he continued, seeing the look on my face, ‘she’s a thief but she's not greedy or anything. She steals things largely to prove that they can be stolen. In fact, she almost always puts it back after. It’s the mental exercise, you see. Putting her abilities to use. It’s a game, a very elaborate one. As you saw, Jupiter doesn’t like it very much.’

‘It’s not that she enjoys stealing,’ Eddie said as we came to a staircase cut out of the rock and started going down. ‘She doesn’t take any particular pleasure out of it beyond a craftsman’s pride in a job well done. It’s, y’know, a hobby.’

“A hobby?!” I managed.

‘Yeah. She has, er, specialized talents that she’d rather we didn’t tell you about. She’s good at it, too. Really good. Very analytical, Felicia. Always has a plan, and failing that always knows what you shouldn’t do.’

“Can somebody at least explain what the rush is for?” I said, failing anything else. I pulled my arm out of Eddie’s grip and started to run along with him across the floor, even on my little stubby legs. I'd been scared that at any minute he’d try and do a dramatic romantic pose with me, and then there’d be nothing for it but a punch between the eyes.

‘Well,’ Mike-Left answered, ‘Eddie kind of had a bet with Felicia a week or two ago. If we get there first, she has to pay for the next week whenever he wants a snack. So, he’s pretty keen to win.’

I slowed, but then Mike nudged me and I had no choice but to speed up again. “So why are we rushing? How could she get there first? She has to go in a different direction first, steal a set of keys that will be highly secured, and then has to come all the way down here past loads of people and detection measures. There’s no possible way she could get there after doing all that and still be faster than us-“

We rounded a corner.

In front of the lab door, Felicia looked up at us. ‘Looks like someone owes me some snacks,’ she said with a smile.

‘_{I told you, she’s talented,}’ Mike-Right muttered to me under his breath. Eddie walked forward and held his paws up. ‘Alright, alright, well done you. You have got the keys, I take it?’

‘Ask a stupid question, why don’t you. Have you two been escorting C-Diana down?’

Eddie smiled. ‘I’d be her escort anytime,’ he said smoothly, before the icy expression on my face cut him off.

There was no way she could have got the keys, even if they weren’t in security, in that time, yet she produced them and dangled them in front of Eddie’s face all the same. I frowned. Who is this girl? What’s her secret?

Cassie?

Yeah? What is it?

Felicia. How is she so good at stealing?

Ah… eheh… Sorry, she’d be mad at me if I told you. And yes, she would know if I did.

Damn it. Oh well, never mind. Have you heard anything from Cameron?

Just occasional bursts of random stuff. He seems nervous about something. I haven’t been able to keep in touch long enough to find out what he’s doing.

A thousand scenarios flashed across my mind’s eye at what that Ampharos could be up to. I was starting to regret that quip about finding lots of new ways to ruin his body instead.

However, there was nothing I could do about that from over here, so I let it go. Instead, I turned back to see Eddie and Mike stepping into the lab room. Not wanting to appear slack, I hurried in behind them. The lab room inside was bright and hard on the eyes, with lots of shiny white plastic and neat bench rows. A group of Pokeumans were gathered around on bench, of which the leader seemed to be the Armaldo. He must have turned at the sound of the lock clicking, because he was already facing us as we stepped in. ‘How on earth did you-‘ he started, then as the Pidgeotto strolled in behind us, stopped and said ‘Oh. Hello, Felicia. I thought you said you weren’t going to break into my lab for a whole month.’

‘I tell you what sir, I’ll make it a new month starting from today,’ Felicia said calmly. ‘This one’s important though, so I kind of had to.’

‘Oh, and all those ones earlier weren’t important,’ the Armaldo muttered. ‘Alright then,’ he said in a slightly louder tone of tired resignation, ‘since you’ve gone to such lengths to get in, what do you want?’

I stepped forward to the bench they were stood around. “We want that,” I said, pointing into the centre of them.

The Armaldo craned his neck. ‘Cassie, you can get Dark Gems anywhere. I don’t see why you’d want that one especially.’

“Oh,” was all I said, since they clearly weren’t working on what we’d thought they were at this point. “Sorry, what I actually meant was…” I scanned my eyes around the room desperately, “that.”

This time I managed to point at the right thing. The stone was sat a little further down the desk on the right, just outside the circle of lab technicians. Only a couple of inches away, as if taunting me.

The Armaldo raised an ‘eyebrow’. ‘Now now. I was told that was dangerous. I’m not just going to give it to you.’

“But we need it,” I said, trying to put force across in my tone. “It’s incredibly important. It turns out that it had beneficial effects that we didn’t know about, and it wasn’t actually that dangerous at all to anyone. I think it’s only a risk at certain times-“

The Armaldo wasn’t buying any of it. ‘Nope, sorry. If it has these beneficial effects then we’ll identify them for you. Sorry, but this has to be studied by adults, not by teenage kids, regardless of your...’ he cast an eye toward Felicia, ‘skills.’

“But, but, but…” Out of the corners of my eyes I saw the others back away from me in the hopes that I’d be able to fix this. I started patting myself down unconsciously with my hands as I tried to think of something that we could use, and found an object on me. I took it out, and almost wanted to laugh. Somehow, Cassie’s Helping Hand had managed to steal Eddie’s Brightpowder again.

The Armaldo craned to look at it, then shrugged. ‘Brightpowder. Well, that’s nice. Did you get it out for anything particular, or is this just a random thing you do?’

“I…” I thought rapidly, then had a brainwave. “Have you every thought about combining it with some of your other stuff? For instance, do you know what it does around, say, that Dark Gem?”

The researchers looked at each other. ‘No,’ a Krokorok said honestly.

I figured I was doing pretty well for thinking on my tiny feet. “Well, why don’t you try it? It might be a worthwhile experiment.”

‘Hey, that’s mine-‘ Eddie started before I shot him a glare and he backed down.

“Good boy,” I muttered as I allowed the bag to be taken out of my hands.

‘Well,’ the Armaldo said, ‘thanks for the suggestion. However, that still doesn’t change the matter of that stone. All of you, get out.’

“Shall do immediately sir,” I said obediently.

The Armaldo just nodded and turned back to his bench with the rest of them. I turned myself and walked to the door, gesturing for the others to follow me, ignoring the confused looks some of them gave me. As soon as we were out of the door, I broke into a sprint.

‘Hey, were are you going?’ both of Mike said as one as they caught up to me as I ran. ‘Why are we running? Mr. Green’s a nice guy, he’s not going to shout at us for what we did.’

“No,” I said without slowing down as the other two caught up behind me, “but he might be angry when he realises what I’ve done.”

‘Why? What have you done?’

I looked at Felicia flapping alongside me as we ran, her wings a little wave of motion, and decided this was my best chance. "You know what? I'm not saying until Felicia shows me the secret of her talents."

'But-'

"No buts. If I never know, you never know."

Felicia sighed. 'Couldn't have done it better myself. In fact, should've seen a demand like that coming. Well done, Diana.'

And so, as we were running, she took a deep breath, and showed me.

I almost stopped dead. "...Wow. That explains a lot."

'Don't you dare tell anyone.'

"Oh, don't worry. Having seem it, I wouldn't do that."

'Good.' Felicia got back up to full speed with us again as her wings sped up once more. 'Now tell us, why would Mr. Green be so angry at us?'

“Simple, really. When he was talking, my Helping Hand picked up the stone. And I just walked out of the lab with it.”

And at that point, irrational as it was, I couldn’t help but wonder what Cameron was doing...


-Cameron-


We'd managed to avoid me having to go out in public much yesterday by firstly the search for the rock (which now sat, glowing softly, in Elisa's cabinet where she assured us she would not allow it to be stolen) and then by me staying in Diana's room and anecdote-swapping with Mark and Justin, before they dragged me off for their game marathon, and by doing some light training in the morning. That had run dry now. We couldn't push that idea any further. And we still had an entire afternoon to reasonably fill before the awkward lie-in the next morning that could sufficiently stall time until noon. A weekend day too, so I couldn't even tag along to Diana's classes and pretend to be interested. I sighed as I considered my usual options, and why they were all out the window. Hanging out: little relation to the people I'd be with. Training: Elisa had already got me away from that today. Getting a book or a game or something for myself: apparently not Diana's style. Aargh. Living someone else's life for them is hard. I'd take mine back any time now.

In the end I said 'Let's just do something Diana would normally do, and then I don't have to worry about being out of character. So long as it's not dancing.' And it turned out we did just that, but not what any of us were expecting.

"She likes drawing," Eyan suggested as we lounged in their room. "Maybe you could leave something artistic of a different nature. Give her a mix of styles, or something. I'm sure she'd appreciate it."

You touch my notebooks and you're dead meat, sheep boy, I heard Diana's gentle words from early come back to my mind. 'Er... Well, I'm no Van Gogh, but I can give it a go. I mean, I don't get much chance to draw things with paddle arms! I think though that if I'm going to do something artistic for her then I should probably use a different notebook to the ones she does. For, er, safety reasons.' Eyan's slight nod indicated he knew exactly what I meant by that. 'Where can you get them?'

Eyan offered to show me to the shopping area of the base. We were down a few levels into the base as I walked alongside Eyan, trying to chat and casually bully him in the style of that weird 'vindictive best friends' relationship he and Diana seem to have when a voice called from behind in the black corridor. "Ah! I knew I'd find you two if I looked hard enough!"

Eyan and I half-turned to face the Nidoqueen coming up the corridor from behind us. I forced myself to mask my confusion as she continued "Good thing you always seem to travel together then! You’re making it easy for me."

"Lucky for you, Rebecca. What do the P.R.T. need from us now?" Eyan asked calmly and once again I gave silent but sincere thanks to Eyan for continually sliding people's names into conversation for my benefit and generally being my own exposition fairy. That at least meant we didn't have to keep coming up with reasons for Diana not recognising people she's known for ages.

'Let me guess,' I chimed in as I felt to be (in)appropriate, 'someone driving a van carelessly on the highway who needs to be stopped and to show their delivery packages?'

"Correct in one, Diana. We’ve got a track on a van that needs intercepting. Fortunately we managed to pick it up some distance away, but we don’t have much time to stand around talking too much. Come on.”

I stalled. ‘Wait, we need to go out on a PRT mission right now? Is there no-one else?’

Rebecca frowned. “That’s not like you to turn down the chance to break into a van at high speed. You are both currently down as being available, and of all the available ones you two are the highest ranked. Now come on, we’ve lost enough time already. It’s a mercy these mountainsides aren’t easy to navigate by road.” She turned again and marched away, stopping to look back at the two of us. “Come on!”

Eyan sighed. “Duty calls,” he said in a calm voice that made it very plain to me that I actually don’t get a choice in this. Not if I want to stand any chance of vaguely impersonating Diana and her gung-ho tendencies that apparently even I don’t display enough already.

I sighed theatrically. ‘I was just hoping I wouldn’t have to spend an afternoon teaching minions how to pass their driving test,’ I quipped with mock exasperation to hopefully cover my fumble as we broke into a jog behind the Nidoqueen.

Several turns and direction took us through floors and rooms that I hadn’t even realised were in this base, until we arrived at one of those areas that could be anywhere in the universe and still be recognised as a command centre. Mostly it was the people busily rushing from checking things to relying instructions to be in the right positions. Just like good old home. I was surprised by how little briefing we had to be given - Rebecca simply told us where the van was on their surveillance and how fast it was going, and then we were simply pointed towards a surface passage with a smile and a "Good luck, as always!" It was almost kind of jarring - people like Max had sufficiently convinced me that the PRT wasn't the most uptight of places, but I'd still imagined there'd be a full briefing and planned course of action first. On the other hand, maybe they trusted Diana enough to not have to do all that with her.

Not much help for me in that case.

Diana and Cassie's thoughts had been buzzing around the back of my head for ages, but I forced myself to shut them off now, or at least tune them out. I had quipped in before when I overheard something particularly amusing (or confusing), but I got the feeling that Diana, whatever she was doing that prompted some of these thoughts of hers that I'd been hearing lately, was quite busy enough without having to explain PRT recovery to me as well. At least I could be confident Cassie wasn't likely to screw up in my body. She seemed too quiet for that. Pretty much the opposite of Diana, then - if she can't mimic my personality, she wouldn't stand a chance with that one. I was suddenly grateful I was a long way away from either of them.

I quizzed Eyan instead. 'So it's as simple as finding a van and punching a hole in the back doors, right?'

"Right, although in practice it's a bit more complicated. Stopping the van essentially means forcing it to crash - don't worry, there's ways of doing it that stop anyone getting hurt," he added, on seeing my expression. "The drivers will almost certainly have a go at us, but they're easy to overpower. I can probably do that myself, since you're not familiar with Diana's moveset. Then all you do is-"

"Hey there!" We both turned our heads as we walked to see a mirror coming up to us up the passage. Except only I was reflected in it. Then I blinked and I realised it wasn't a mirror, it was an actual Ampharos, who jogged up alongside us with a slightly sheepish look on his face. "Looks like they managed to scrape together the three of us for this one, eh? Maybe they're just not taking any chances. Come on then, people out there need helping!"

"Nice to have you with us, Tommy," Eyan said with a nod as we kept up our pace. Daylight was building at the end of the tunnel. "I'd have thought we could handle it between Diana and I, but I certainly won't turn down extra help. You might come in useful."

"That's a compliment, I'm sure. I thought I was always useful!" Tommy the Ampharos smiled sheepishly. "Ah, sorry. You alright, Diana?"

'Mm?' I blinked and tried to rouse myself. I had been scrutinising Tommy, examining his appearance as an Ampharos. It was like looking in the mirror after a long time. You never quite realise how you look from the outside. 'Oh, right, yeah. Just got caught up... thinking about something. Sure, you can tag along for this one. Why not? We all ready to roll out?'

Tommy bought it, mercifully. As much as I wanted to do something like an 'Ampharos bros' fistbump with him, I got the feeling we were kind of committed now to not telling him who I really was. Such a shame. I tried to get in touch with Diana about it but she and Cassie seemed to be discussing something happening in Cassie's base, so I decided now was not the time to intrude.

We made it to the end of the passage and the bright glare of the outside resolved itself into the panoramic view that still made a deep impression on me even the second time I'd seen it in two days. This time, though, there was a flash from somewhere up the road below us of light gleaming off a car's windows. This time, we were on a job.

Oh boy...

I am not ready for this. But I'm pretty sure I can pretend to be.

'You ready, Diana?' I heard Eyan say somewhere next to me. 'Tommy can help me with my role in our plan. Don't worry, it'll be fine."

"Wait a minute," the Ampharos objected on my other side, "we have a plan? Why wasn't I told about this?"

I took a deep breath, forced my quivering nerves to stand still, and turned to face Tommy with that slight cocky smile of Diana's. 'You didn't need to be told, because it's the same plan as always!' I turned back to face outwards. 'Improvisation! Let's go!'

My feet hit the ground outside and immediately I forced myself into running. The slope of the mountain was just at that point where you had to keep watching yourself and one stumble could lead to you sprawling into a halt several feet lower with a broken leg. However, as if naturally counter-balancing it, Diana's body was so lithe and light on its feet that even I could look graceful in it as I ran down the side of the mountain without the slightest misstep or fall, tempted almost to take huge leaps down the hillside if it wasn't that I didn't trust myself to make the landing. Somewhere to my left I was aware of Eyan almost bounding down the hillside, looking totally unperturbed by such trifling things as gravity. Behind to my other side Tommy, whose Ampharos body I can confirm is not naturally built for sprinting, downhill running or keeping up with faster species, and that on the whole Ampharos are not cross-country runners nor natural sprinters that are highly dangerous over short distances, stumbled along slightly more as his awkwardly skewed body weight tried to bring him down the side of the mountain in a big heap.

Eyan reached a small out-cropping literally next to and a couple of feet above the side of the road and dropped down low as he stopped, the van mercifully not having gone past as we drew level with it. As I skidded to a halt next to him and dropped down myself he closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. "Ok. I've made an illusion around us to stop them seeing us before we ambush them. This has seriously helped save our butts before. Don't worry - the roads up here are too snaky and precarious for them to be driving too fast for us too stop."

'Very encouraging,' I said, although I meant it as well. 'So how far away are they?'

'My estimate? About forty seconds. Get ready.' With that Eyan turned back to scanning the road. I took a deep breath and forced my nerves down for the hundredth time as Tommy scrambled down from above and caught up to us. "Sorry for being late. Nearly wound up in the infirmary again on the way down," he mumbled as he got into position.

I was too nervous to even say something like 'Yeah, try not to do that' in response. I'm doing a PRT mission. I'm officially about to rescue someone. So many times I'd seen or mostly heard this being done. Now I was actually doing it myself.

'Uh, hey, Eyan,' I managed as the sounds of the engine grew louder. 'Have we ever tried helping the brainwashed guards as well?'

Eyan blinked. “What?” he replied, and at that point the van rounded the corner, coming at speed. Abandoning philosophy, we leapt into action.

Literally. I sprang into the air with what I later theorised was Diana’s muscle memory kicking in and touched down with a thump on the roof of the van, feeling it swerve beneath me as I dropped into a brace position. Please, please, you two, don’t cause this van to crash with me on it. Eyan’s claws cut straight into the metal and he hung on the frame of the van from the outside as it sped along the road, the drivers cursing and swerving in confusion. Tommy had also dropped onto the roof as well and looked across at me almost expectantly, but I called out ‘I’ll take the back! You two stop this thing first!’ and he nodded. Grabbing the side of the van’s frame tightly, he swung his weight down so that he was latched onto the other side of the van from Eyan as I moved backwards, ready to hold on for sheer mercy at the high-speed stopping. The driver of the van glanced up from the road and saw a bright yellow Ampharos holding onto the side of his van only half a foot away in the wing mirror.

Tommy smiled as he saw the driver’s shocked expression. “Just letting you know, I’m closer than I appear.”

The two moved at once, with trained skill. Eyan thrust out a paw and a shot of darkness covered the front of the van, blocking the windscreen and making it impossible to see where anything was. The driver let out some very PG-unfriendly language and wrenched the wheel round, bringing the van to a screeching halt as it spun so it was now facing the mountainside wall. The winds threatened to tear me off the top as I hunkered down, my tall and lanky body not making it easy for my to assume a compact and hard-to-move form. The driver and his passenger were struggling to their feet again in the front of the van but Tommy had already twisted round so that he was in position to immediately pull the driver’s door open and threw a straight punch at the driver. I heard a sound that sounded terrifyingly like one of the two drivers pulling out some sort of knife, but then Eyan followed Tommy’s motion, punched through the passenger seat window, reached inside and a second later tossed something that gleamed metallically over his shoulder, letting it bounce away down several feet of hillside.

As hard as it was, I forced myself to stop being impressed. I have a role to play in this job too. I scrambled across the top of the van like a gangly and awkward crab, levied myself off the back and dropped to the tarmac. Since there was reasonably little chance of me missing, I took a deep breath and threw myself at the van back doors with a Jump Kick.

Taking the time to slowly pick myself off the floor, I cautiously attempted to put weight on that foot again. Ahhh. Owwww. That’s why you don’t do that. I tested it carefully. It almost certainly wasn’t broken, but it hurt like heck. Diana… I’m really, really sorry. I know I said I wouldn’t. Please understand.

I then suddenly realised that she can technically read my thoughts at this point, and immediately barred out any mental track or thoughts that weren’t specifically on task. I’d rather she didn’t find out before I’m out of her body again.

Oh, goodie. The door lock had cracked open. Well aren’t I a lucky one?

I hurried, thought not too quickly, over to the back of the van and heaved on the doors. Come on, you hunk of scrap metal! Open! I gave it another pull and the doors suddenly broke away from each other, making me almost fall over. Only the need to give a good first impression to the kids inside kept me upright. Speaking of which…

My eyes adjusted to the dingy gloom inside the van. Oh boy.

“Who- Who are you?!” the girl with the Blitzle ears cried. “What are you? What’s going on?!”

“Jean, calm down!” the older-looking girl with the tusks and tail of a Haxorus said comfortingly as the boy with the Plusle-like face and the boy with Beautifly-like eyes and nose-stalk looked like they were going to cry. “I’m not going to let you all get in danger that easily!”

‘Don’t panic!’ I shouted over the noise of the half-girl-half-Loudred who had begun to call out at her new species trademark volume. ‘I’m a good guy! I’m on your side! I’m here to help you! Er… all of you.’

“But what are you?!” the boy who looked like a Wartortle continued to shout at me with the apparently-named Jean the Blitzle-to-be. He, and the other eight of them crammed into that van, had been restrained in chains that he and some of the others, like the lad who had a distinctive Pangoro fur pattern growing on his body.

‘I’m a member of the PRT. Be quiet! We don’t want the guys at the front to come here!’

“What’s your name?” the Haxorus girl asked almost accusingly, not having flinched, backed down or appeared even slightly apprehensive the whole time.

‘Cameron,’ I said automatically, and then almost bit through my tongue. However, although I’d flipped out inside, none of the kids found this strange at all. I took a breath of relief as I realised that not only would these guys have any way of knowing what my name was but also, and this was the first time I had ever been thankful for this, that my clearly female physical nature hadn’t contrasted oddly with this because Cameron is a gender neutral name.

“Which guys?” the Plusle-like boy shouted at me, helpfully signposting his rough age by the fact that he still dealt with stressful times by shouting hopefully. “Who are they? They’re scary!”

‘Calm down! For now, they’re a bunch of maniacs who want to lock you up for being different. I’m here to help take you somewhere with other people like yo- like us where we can live freely and not have to worry.’ Something like that, at least – the age range in that van was somewhat impressive, but the average didn’t look that high and you may as well overemphasise the good points at first.

“What, like the X-Men?” a kid with large Sylveon ribbons flowing off his head and a big pair of pink ears asked curiously, drawing a few excited and interested looks as well from some of the younger ones in there.

I paused, about to automatically slap down the comparison that we’d all heard a hundred times by now living in a Pokeumans base, then realised it would fit the job well enough here. ‘Sure, kind of like the X-Men. You know that bit in the film where all the public and the crazy zealots are trying to get them to wipe each other out? Yeah? Then stay quiet while I get these restraints off you.’

I ended up resorting to using Drain Punch to power up my fists and simply shattering the restraints by brute force. The younger kids seemed nervous and jittery as I helped them out of their restraints first while the older ones like the Pangoro boy were more patient and restrained, the Haxorus girl standing arms folded as if she’d been totally expecting this to happen and was assuming direct control of the situation. Thankfully Eyan and Tommy came round from the front of the van and helped me, mostly by stopping the kids from running off while I helped the others. Eventually we piled them all out of the van and onto the road, where they all huddled in a group like children on a particularly nasty school trip.

“Ok, is that all of them?” Tommy checked with me as I helped the Pangoro out. “Right, then let’s not waste any time. Eyan’s taken a list of names.”

“But what’s going on?” several of the kids cried desperately.

‘We’re Pokeumans,’ I explained slightly further. ‘If we don’t stay in these secret bases, like the one we’re going to help show you to, we’d be in serious trouble with humanity. Life’s never going to be the same again, although that's not a bad thing. Yes. Real people do turn into Pokemon.'

There were a lot of troubled reactions to this relevation - only as one can really expect. The Haxorus girl, to her immense credit, barely seemed to blink as she took it in. I got the feeling she was trying to be the protector - at least of the girl she called Jean, if not everyone else. A big sister? Of course, protectors never show weakness. The weirdest reaction was the Wartortle-to-be, who beaned happily and declared that he had 'called it'. "All my conspiracy theories, validated! I never thought it was Pokemon, but I know there was something happening behind the scenes in the world!"

"Is everyone ready?" Tommy called out, bringing attention back to the front again. "Then lead the way, Eyan."

I ended up bringing up the rear of our little group, keeping an eye on the smaller kids who struggled more with getting up the hill. My still-aching foot didn't really help things with that. After what felt like a long time, and very definitely a lot longer than it took to get down, we came to one of the illusory boulders that covered the entrance to the base. Eyan reached and stepped through the rock, drawing a few 'Oooooh's from the younger kids, and one by one we guided them in.

Tommy and I were last on the outside. The (other, even though I ought to stop thinking of him as such) Ampharos stepped towards the base, and I said 'Hey, Tommy?'

"Yeah?"

'Just thinking, down there on the road, a lot of your moves seemed to be punches or bolts of electricity. You ever considered a move that makes use of your tail?'

"My tail?" He looked down at his big, striped rear appendage and frowned. "Not really. I mean, it's just sort of there, isn't it?"

I smiled slightly. 'Just a thought I had. A guy I know says that he found having a move that used it properly very useful. Something to consider.'

Tommy blinked. "Well thanks, I guess. Wait, do you stand to profit somehow from this? Is there a bet going on?"

'What, I'm not allowed to give advice to my guys?' I said to keep up the role I was playing, before stepping into the base. 'Bet those tiny stubby legs can't catch me!'

I didn't know what I'd been expecting from these days. Anything by now, I'd have said. But having the chance to help rescue people and bring them to safety made me feel good. I hadn't realised I'd have this chance to really help someone from this. I wasn't going to be joined the Long Island PRT any time soon, but I guess the heroism to help others did make me feel warm inside. Like I'd done something to help the good guys win.

Food for thought.