Konnichiwa minna-san!

Disclaimer: I really do wish I owned CLAMP and pokemon. I don’t.

Chapter 2

The next morning, Gary walked down the hall and knocked on Brock’s door.

“Oh, hello Gary.” Brock said, surprised to see him up so early. “It’s a Saturday today. What are you doing up so early?”

Gary scowled. “Shut up.”

“Is that any way to treat your best friend?” Brock looked worried. “Did something happen to your grandfather? Is that it?”

“No, that’s not it, but thanks for your concern.”

“Than what is it? Or did you suddenly realize the wonders of being an early bird?”

Gary laughed, but sobered up quickly. “It’s my persocom, Brock. I think there’s something wrong with her.”

“I see. Suzie and I will come take a look then.” The two padded softly down the hall’s dusty floorboards until they reached Gary’s apartment. That had caught Brock’s attention like nothing else would.

Brock loved persocoms and technology, even though Suzie was his only model. He claimed that it was unfair to devote attention to a horde of persocoms and looked down on people who owned more than six. That was an unreasonable number to take care of, he asserted.

Inside they found Gary’s persocom sitting there, apparently waiting for his return. “Misty!” She cried excitedly the moment she saw him.

Gary colored slightly. She wasn’t even that cute! However, he felt a… bizarre attachment to her…

“Well, let me check.” Brock said, inspecting Misty carefully. “She certainly doesn’t resemble any models I’ve come across…”

Gary watched as Brock checked Misty over for any markings or ID tags, even going as far as to strip her, but really, it was only a computer, so he shouldn’t feel anything, right?

It was a pity she was so flat though, like a board…

“I’ll hook Suzie up and see if she can identify Misty’s manufacturer.” Brock finally said, as Suzie smiled at Misty and opened her own ear, taking out a red cable and hooking it up to Misty.

“Okay, Suzie. Run a class one diagnostic scan.”

Suzie nodded as her eyes began emitting regular pulses of light. Three minutes in, though, she toppled over.

Brock gasped as he ran and caught her before she crashed into the ground. “What the?”

“Was that supposed to happen?”

Brock hastily disconnected Suzie’s cable from Misty. “No! Of course not! Suzie! Wake up!”

There was no response from the fallen woman.

Brock took another look at her and than cursed. “She’s been completely wiped! What kind of persocom in that?”

“I don’t know!”

“I’ll have to re-install everything! Sorry, Gary, but I think this is out of my area of expertise.” Brock carefully picked up Suzie with a frown.

“Well, do you know anyone who can help?”

Brock nodded. ‘Here. Go to this address. The person there should be able to help you. I have to go fix Suzie now.”

Gary sighed. He should have known that it would not be so simple…

After a few minutes, he decided just to head to the place Brock had mentioned. He and Misty left the house and began walking down the street. Luckily, it was only four blocks away.

The house was modestly sized, of a plain red and white style just like all the other houses around it. Brock rang the doorbell and instantly, the gate slid open. Walking inside, he found four girls waiting for him.

They were dressed in clothing of matching styles, of a sort, and he sensed that they weren’t quite human. No, they were persocoms then, just like his Misty…

“Oh? Fancy seeing you here.” Lance said. “What was it you needed?”

“My persocom – I have no idea what brand she is.”

“And Brock couldn’t handle it? Interesting.” Lance said. He indicated what looked like a giant screen TV. Covering an entire wall of the room and took out a cable. “Let’s plug her into this then…”

Gary nodded as he opened up Misty’s ear and Lance clipped the cable inside. He watched as the computer roared to life.

Misty might be able to short-circuit Suzie, they were both human-sized persocoms after all, but surely she couldn’t take out this monstrosity of the government’s, could she?

For a while, nothing happened, and Gary began to relax. It was all right. Misty’s name flashed up on the screen, as Misty, her owner was set as Gary with his address and phone number, and it said she had self-teaching software. However, just as her programs list began to display, there was a loud boom of noise and the computer fizzled, sending out sparks as it crashed and shut down.

Lance cursed.

“I take it that was not supposed to happen either.” Gary said dryly. Inwardly though, he was quite surprised. * I never suspected my persocom was so powerful… *

“It seems incompatible with the most basic functions.” Lance shook his head. “However, as she has self-teaching software, she ought to be all right.”

“What do you mean all right?”

“Well, she will be able to survive in this world, although I highly doubt she’ll be much use as anything but a companion for a while.”

Gary sweatdropped. “But I need a computer.”

“Well, that I may be able to help you with.” Lance returned in a few minutes with what looked like a cute red puppy. “Here. It’s not very powerful, but it’s all I have on hand that I can part with now.”

While Gary set up his new laptop, for that was what the puppy was, and yes, it had e-mail and web access and all the other things he had wanted from Misty.

It even had 50 GB of storage space. This he could definitely use. He said goodbye to Lance and headed back home.

Misty was oddly quiet all the way, only breaking the silence with an occasional “Misty”.

End Chapter

Completed 12/2/05

I guess I feel a little sorry for Misty after all those fics, but only a little!

Phantomness: ^^
Ash: *sigh*