Surprisingly, it only took the Abra an hour and a half to wake up from the latest bit of exertion. When he did, it was to the sensation of being hugged and cuddled close by Lucy. It was still slightly weird to be the same size as her, but the affection hadn't changed from their days in the lab. They'd always seen each other as siblings, and comforted one another when they got too deep into their memories.

"Lucy?" Vincent muttered as he moved to return the hug, which caused her to start a bit, but she relaxed after a moment.

"You were really scary, Vincent," the Riolu muttered. "Sam said you got really really mad and broke the connections on purpose. Why would you do that?"

Vincent shook his head and groaned as the pain hit him. "I...I remember seeing an Arcanine and a Ninetails...they said something, and after that, everything is covered by...a sort of red haze. I can't remember anything past that except for you telling me to Teleport. Did it work?"

Lucy sighed, but nodded. "Yeah. You pulled it off and got us from the casino to here in one go."

Vincent nodded, but suddenly sat bolt upright. "Bit! I remember Bit! Is he here?"

"Ye-Ye-Yes, master Vincent, I am HERE." The Porygon-Z drifted from a corner of the room to in front of the duo and bobbed its head at Vincent. The sudden arrival startled the Abra, but he quickly calmed himself and smiled.

"Bit, it is wonderful to see you, and to see you upgraded as well. Did it help you any?"

The Porygon-Z tilted it's head to the side and emitted a ticking noise while it considered the question. "Ha-ha-half of the erRORs were corrrrrrected when this sub-sub-subject was transFERred and upgraaaaaaaaaded. Errors still pre-pre-present in many SYStems."

The Abra frowned at that. "Don't you have some way to correct them yourself? That's an ability you should have, right?"

Bit let out a few dinging noises at that. "Self-self-self repair is a FUNction this suuuuuuuubject possess, but Doctor Nur-Nur-Nurem forbade this subJECT from using iiiiiiiiiit."

Vincent's frown deepened, but waved a hand at the Porygon-Z. "Then as your new master, I command you to fix the rest of your errors and get back to me when that's done."

At that, the Porygon-Z resumed it's normal stance and hovered back until it was in a corner again. "Beginning self-self-self diagNOsis and reeeeeeeepair. This u-u-unit shall reMAIN in standby moooooode until repairs are complete. Estimated time un-un-until comPLEtion: six hooooooours."

Vincent sighed and turned back to Lucy. "Okay, Bit's looked after. So what about you, Sam, that Iron Will guy, what happened to me?"

The Riolu sighed and hopped off the bed. "I'll go get them, and hopefully you'll not go crazy from having one link up..."

The story had been relayed to the little psychic as to what he'd done when angry, and he was slightly shaking in fear when he heard the extent of the damage he'd inflicted. "I...I did that?"

Sam nodded at the question. "You seemed really mad at the Rangers. Why?"

Vincent took a deep breath at that before replying in a voice near devoid of emotion. "Because in all the years I spent with him, they never found me. Never found us. I mean, just by the sheer amount of bodies he left in his wake, unless father was incinerating them or having them dumped miles away, someone should have found us before this...this world-shift happened."

Iron Will hummed at that. "Perhaps your father was clever enough to evade them, but Iron Will thinks it more likely that they simply did not have enough members on staff to catch him. It always comes down to a problem of not enough of something. Not enough time, not enough money, not enough people."

The Abra sighed at that and looked down to the floor. "I...I know that it wasn't their fault they couldn't catch him. But suddenly having someone to blame...it gave me a place to put all that...blame and anger that had been building up all those years. It could only have been worse if I found him again..."

Sam drew close and laid a claw on the Abra's right shoulder. "I swear to you, if we ever encounter him here, I'll take his head off myself." At this, the claws glinted ominously, and those that saw it gulped. The Abra shuddered a bit, but sighed and nodded at the sentiment.

"Come, little ones. Let us eat. We did well at the tables today, and Iron Will will go out and get some food for us."

Dinner that night was a simple affair, but filling. At least, for those that could eat. Vincent picked at his food and left in the middle, stating that he wasn't hungry. The rest of the diners looked at each other and gulped as well. Suddenly, the sense of foreboding in their guts were more filling than any meal could have been...

Vincent sighed for the umpteenth time while staring at the ceiling. He was trying to get to sleep, but for some reason, all he could think about was his life in the lab and the pain it had caused him...or the sensation of anger he'd felt at the Rangers.

"Why...why would you do that to the Pokemon?!"

"To know. To understand. To comprehend."

"...Know...Knowledge shouldn't come at the expense of life!"

"...That...is your...and your alone...very, very weak opinion, subject thirty-seven."

"My NAME is VINCENT, DAD!"

"Hi, I'm a Riolu! But they all call me Subject Thirty-Five."

"That's silly. You should have a name."

"Well...huh. Never thought about that. Can you give me one?"

"Yeah...I'll call you Lucy!"

"Huh...That's a nice name. So what's yours?"

"They all call me Subject Thirty-Seven, but I think my mom called me Vincent. Dad sometimes calls me by that name, but not often."

"That's silly. Hey, would you like to be my friend?"

"...I'd like nothing more."

"LUCY! DAD, NO!"

"Begin the operation."

"VINCENT! VINCENT HELP ME!"

"Well, hello there little ones. What are your names?"

"I'm Lucy, and this is Vincent!"

"What's your name, sir?"

"...Wait, you understood me?"

"Yeah, I always have. The other humans think I'm weird, but why wouldn't you want to understand Pokemon? They have so much to say!"

"Some of us, anyways. I'm Sam."

"Cool name. Wanna join us for our make-believe session?"

"...Why don't I tell you a story instead?"

"And now, subject thirty-seven...inject the serum."

"I will not! This is wrong, and if you could hear them, see them as more than just subjects, then you would know that too! Hey, hey let me go! Sam, no, I swear I'm not doing it, I swear it isn't me, it's him!"

"Let the record show that subject thirty-seven injected the serum into subject thirty-six himself."

"I...I don't...blame you..."

At least the bed was comfortable, even if it wasn't exactly lulling him to sleep.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and Lucy poked her head in. "Vincent? You okay?"

The Abra looked up from his lying down position and waved Lucy over. "No...I'm not. I'm not sure I ever will be."

The Riolu jumped up on the bed and hugged him close. "Is this about us coming here and you being an Abra, or..."

Vincent shook his head. "I was already half-mon anyways, or didn't you hear what the staff kept taunting me with?"

Lucy drew back and shook her head. "What they called you didn't matter. What that..." Here she shook a bit in suppressed rage, but continued anyways. "What that man did to you doesn't matter. You chose to become our friend. That would have happened even with a communication barrier."

Vincent blinked, but looked at the Riolu with a new view of her maturity. "When did you become so...deep?"

Lucy sighed at the question. "I think somewhere between the house and the latest casino, I began to realize the...depth of what we were forced into, what we had gone through. I...I'm dealing with it, but it's...it's not pretty."

Vincent sighed again and held Lucy close, hoping that proximity would help her deal with all the terrible memories she must have had. The two little Pokemon cried softly into each others' shoulders, and would have done so until they fell asleep, but this time, there was an interruption.

A soft series of knocks on the front door of the apartment.

Author's Notes:

Short chapter, mostly to link this one and the next crossover chapter between myself and A New World, A New Ranger.