Mike shook his head and Chase pressed closer to Mike's leg. He looked up to meet Matt's gaze to try an match the intensity but ended up blushing and turning away.

"No... I was just uh, thinkin bout what I'm gonna do now. I have a solid idea but... I'm just a kid and mom would never let me." He immediatly threw his idea to the side and looked down at his pokemon who was pressing against Mike's body for security and warmth. He didn't want to give Chase away but he was sure his mother wouldn't want a pokemon around the house.

"It was a stupid idea anyway..." he grumbled and stroked Chase's leaf.

Matt shook his and rubbed his eyes. This sounds familiar... kids going in circles he thought to himself as he took a deep breath and looked up. "Okay, quick thing. You've already come this far, why let her stop you? Just keep going on regardless, so what was this idea of yours? I'm all ears for it" he said to Mike, wanting to try and get his spirits up.

"I was thinking about going after that guy but I don't have any information on him, other than he was at Cianwood four years ago. For all I know he could be in Hoenn or Kanto." Mike sighed and shook his head.

"Yeah, I think you mentioned something about a guy back in New Bark Town. So, you dont have a name, or any other kind of information on him?" Matt thought of the possibilitis of finding such a vague person over. Chances werent good but it seemed to be the only thing keeping Mike going right now. "Well then, how about this; since all of us here are planning on going around all of Johto at some point now, and you have to start your search somewhere, you can come along with us and we'll see what we can find out about him in any of the towns we pass through. Or, of course, you can just turn this down, give up, and head back home. But that wouldnt be the right way for you to figure out what you want now, is it?" He asked, hoping for any kind of reaction in the positive from Mike.
Why am I so worried about helping him? Ah well, guess I'm just a bleeding heart... he thought to himself as he reflected on how into this he seemed to be getting.

Mike looked back at Matt and threw the idea around some more. If he was with a group they'd hold him down, restrict him to a strict line. On the other hand... maybe Matt could convince his mom to let him travel and look for the man and his Bayleef. It was a desision he had to sleep on, once he got a good night's sleep and maybe a meal.

"I have to think about it... are you leaving in the morning?"

"Sure, we managed to kill most of the day here anyway" he said as he looked out the window again and saw how dark it was gettinga and started to wonder where they would stay for the night. "Ah... I'm sure the pokecenter wont mind a few squatters in the lobby. Saw it a bunch of times in Goldenrod" he said to himself quietly.
"But yeah, feel free to sleep on it. I'm sure you'll come up with the proper decision by tomorrow."

"You know Alex your really kinda sweet when your not trying to work your way into my jumpsuit." said Chell flipping her ponytail with her hand, and chuckling a bit.

"So tell me how'd you start working here anyway, seems like a nice place, good people, good pokemon?" She asked

We should go out for real sometime, provided you aren't a degenerate Perv, before then." she added all before Alex could answer the first

Alex shrugged "Pops was one of my mom's closest friends from Hoenn. They both traveled to Goldenrod but there was a fight and they went their seperate ways. Luckily, me and Sandy here managed to patch up their relationship. Now they live here and I visit and help out here every time I could get out of my mother's grasp. Also I'd like that too. But I'll warn you. Being a degenerate pervert is how I say hello." He laughed mildly.
Sandy brought out some pokemon food for the pokemon. "We can house most of you here, ya know."

Steve, being a Munchlax, descended upon the dish with a vengeance, eating the entire plate offered to him...including the plate. What followed next was an earth shattering Belch of epic proportions.
Chell cracked up laughing hysterically.

Alex looked dumbfounded "He ate the plate. What is he? A gulpin? Swalot? No, they'de have shown some restraint."
He raised an eyebrow. "But look on the bright side, He proved my point right." He couldn't help but laughing a little along with Chell. "You know... we could wake people up with him. All we'd have to do is put him on top of a Belchtower!"
Cecily slowly munched on her food careful to make sure she was facing Steve so he couldn't steal her food.

Chell had begun to calm down from the hilarity of her partners Belch to wake the dead. Only for Alex to say something hilarious. She laughed her self out of her chair, and onto the floor, she stood up still laughing uncontrollably. He this state her eyes blinded by the tears of laughter, tripped and fell through the Kitchen window right on top of Alex.

Alex managed to catch her but still fell back. Luckily no one was hurt, "Listen Chell, when I suspected myself of being a fall-back guy, I didn't mean like this." He started laughing quietly along with her soon laughing as loud as her.

Matt turned to Sandy "wait, so you dont mind if we crash here then? Well, thats very nice of both of you" he said. Well... certainly better than my idea of crashing in the Pokemon Centers lobby he thought to himself
Rojo, meanwhile, started walking around her plate while pecking at the food. Eating it systematicly and always keeping an eye on Steve should he dare try to take any of hers.

Sandy smiled plainly "No problem. As I always say the friend of a friend is still a friend." He smiled and opened his arms. "Make yourselves at home." He eyed Alex and Chell still laughing on the floor. "As I see some of you have already..."

Cindy was far to intent upon eating her food to even bother paying attention to Steve, so Gereld watched for her, ready to warn her if steve moed in too close.

Sandy smiled "Come on guys and girls, I'll show you to your rooms." He pushed the King gently and went off to fetch Amy, who he had been worrying about before. "Dad, please don't kick children out of stores."

"That'd be great, Sandy." said Gereld, picking up cindy and following sandy.

Mike quickly fell asleep but he couldn't stay that way. Something was haunting his dream... a nagging memory of that boy and his Bayleef. He kept on hearing his voice but it would cut out when he would call his pokémon by name.
"What ya think bout that... Use Vine Whip..."

Before he realised it morning was here and he desided teaming up with Matt would get him closer to his goal... but something wasn't right. There were ridiculous amounts of police going towords New Bark Town.

Matt woke up, feeling refreshed after the chance he had to sleep. He got up and looked around for his backpack and Rojo, and finding the latter sleeping on the former. He thought momentarily about how he has yet to return her to her pokeball, but doing that to her wouldnt feel right. He just shook his head and smiled slightly as he gently nudged her awake, and getting a sharp peck in retaliation went off to sleep again. "Yeah, good morning to you too" he grumbled as he left the pack where it was.

He looked out a nearby window and saw a crowd of people watching the road to New Bark Town. He didnt even say anything to the others or bring Rojo with him as he headed over to the crowd. "Hey, what going on here?" He asked anyone who was willing to listen.
One woman half turned to look at him "you didnt notice? There are a bunch of cops that just went rippng down to New Bark Town. No one has an idea what happened but now you can start to smell the smoke from.... something" she said.
Matt didnt even listen to the rest of what she had to say, he ran straight down route 29, needing to see whatever the hell was going on himself.

Alex had been nervously pacing around and talking to King. The Nidoking had been a great friend to Pops because of his gentle demeanor. Though he did on occasion fight it was his preferance to stick behind and watching. Alex started as Matt burst out of the door. He jumped back and landed near Cecily's tail. The Blue croc quickly avoided it, dodging out of the way. "Sorry King! Talk to you later!" He took of after Matt with Cecily in tow.

Chell, always a light sleeper, heard the commotion of Matt, then Alex charging out the door.
She leaped from the bed and ran full speed at the door. Before he could reach the knob however, she tripped over a familiar blue lump in the floor.

"MUUUUUUUUU LAXLAXLAX MUUUUUUUUUU LAXLAXLAX" snored the lump, known as Steve the incredibly lazy, yet still Lovable, Munchlax.

"Steve wake up, you silly sleepy head." she said in a squeaky voice, when that didn't work she threw a brick at his face, this woke him, alot.

"Come on Steve Mattie and Alex have run off, time for us to follow them." she said as her and Steve leap from the window and headed in Matt and Alex's direction.

Matt had reached the town, or atleast what was left of it at this point. There were a number of cops, walking amongst the ruined town and looking for something, taking crime scene photographs and setting up police tape. None of them paid Matt any attention as he took a few steps toward it.
The smell was even worse now, the burnt wood and belonging was overpowering, but there was something else in there that made him want to wretch. But what was worse then the houses were the bodies laid out amongst the ground, they werent covered so Matt could easily see how they were all brutaly murdered in some way, shape or form. He took a few steps towards the town, then stopped. He could see his house from where he was, the familiar building was burnt to the ground. He stared wide eyed at the scene that was going around him, and simply couldnt process it. He started to put a hand through his forehead, and halfway through the motion stopped and let it fall back to his side. He couldnt think, he couldnt feel, he didnt know how to take this.

At this point one of the cops looked up from his work. "Hey, kid. What do you think your doing here?" He asked in a gruff voice as he started walking towards him.

Alex caught up to him and stopped. He looked at Matt who seemed frozen. "Shit!" Alex grabbed Matt "Excuse me and my little brother, officer. We just heard a commotion from the other town and came to see." He pulled on Matt. His hand was cold. "Come on, Mattie. Our mom is waiting for us to get the milk!" He tugged on Matt's arm harder. Matt didn't budge. "That's it. Cecily! Bite him!" Cecily clamped down on Matt's leg carefully only applying pressure and not breaking skin.

Matt was brought partialy out of his stupor by Cecily biting him on the leg, he looked down and mumbled something in agreement with whatever Alex just said. He could see that there was an officer bringing something out of his house...
Matt couldnt look anymore and shook his head and turned away from the scene. He felt freezing cold and sick to his stomach for some reason.

The officer looked at the two. "Hmm, alright then. But dont come back here, the entire roads supposed to be blocked off. There was an attack last night, the only time I've seen brutality like this was when the Rockets were stilla around..." The officer looked distant, and then glared at the two, looking stern now. "Now, when you two get home stay indoors for the time being and stay alert. Theres no telling if the perpatrators who did this are going to strike again soon" he said as he turned and headed back to his work.

Alex pulled him away. "Be careful I'm not going to lose you to police work." Alex put an arm over his shoulder. "Just try to shut it out Matt. Please. We need to be strong for the others." He tried to put on a smile as he walked Matt back to the others in their group.

Chell, ran into New Bark right behind the others.
"Oh dear gods in heaven, what happened here?" said the girl, in shock at the surroundings.
This amount of pure carnage was too much for her, she collapesed into Alex's arms sobbing into his shirt.

nom

Alex tried desperately to stay strong for them. Luckily his will power won out. "We have to go. Make sure Amy and the others do not see this. Matt I need you to gather the others at the edge of town going up to violet city. We need to go there soon." He hugged Chell tightly to his chest. "Listen to me, Chell. I know this will hurt but I need you to stop crying. The best we can do is get as far away as possible, ok?" He kissed her on the forehead. But there was no passion or lust in it. It was like the kiss of an older brother to a young child. Comforting. "Now come on Chell. Let's go."

Chell looked up at Alex, with tear stained doe eyes, a stream of mucus near her nose. "O-Okay." she mumbled into his shirt. Steve hugged her leg tightly, just to let her know he was there for her.
"Yeah your right, we have to be get the group outta here, the younger kids shouldn't see this no, not ever." she said still not letting go of Alex's hand

Alex's eyes narrowed to slits. "I know. If we need to get to somewhere important. But we should take the long way. Who ever did this clearly has no problem with hurting others."
Shit. This is a terrible first date.
Shut up, ya moron.
He grimaced as he and Chell walked into town hand in hand. Alex prepared for Amy to judge him again and give a serious bruising but as long as she didn't see what happened back there... it was fine.

Matt walked back to where he knew the other two still were, if anything they still had to be back where they stayed the night with Sandy. Alex was right, they couldnt let any of the others see it, especialy not Mike or Amy. He had to think about getting out of there, not what he saw.
He didnt realize that he was already infront of the building they were staying at. Once he walked inside Rojo was waiting for him, having dragged his mostly empty back-pack with her somehow, Mike was already down there minding his own business but the others couldnt be found.
"Hey, wake up! We're moving out!" He yelled up at them, his voice sounded brittle and hollow

Alex turned to the group of people gathered around him. "Listen, everyone. We need to get moving. Let's head up this route. It'll lead us to Violet city." He growled and pointed up the road. "I want everyone to keep their Pokemon out and ready. We will probably encounter wild pokemon."

"Alex that sounds like a great idea." she said, just a little louder and cheery then normal, to Matt and Alex it would seem like she was trying to hard. To the others, they probably wouldn't notice.

Steve had wander over to Rojo and gave her a look, it was concern for Chell. The Munchlax was worried about his friend but was clueless as how to help

Alex motioned for the rest to follow him. "We have to keep moving. Let's go." He put his arm around Chell's shoulder and whispered encouragement to her. She needed it. He could tell. After he had finished encouraging her, he went over to Matt and spoke a few words into his ear.
Cecily looked over at Steve Still think he tries too hard? Her tone was not mocking. It was matter-of-fact.

Matt listened to what Alex said, and nodded dumbly. He started walking ahead, he didnt even want to think about back there. "Okay, so you lead the way Alex. Lets see how far we can make it" he said, his voice was rather dull, he didnt even try to put any feeling into it.

Rojo looked over at her owner and nudged him, he didnt even look down. Whats wrong with him? Is he feeling well? She asked Cecily, having no idea what was wrong.