The ground floor of the house was outfitted efficiently and expertly by the ship's crew, beginning to bear more than a passing resemblance to a breeding and day care centre. The fencing and the human furniture was left strewn across the ground floor and upstairs of the house in vague room allocations for the new resident to sort out for himself in the morning.

And so, one young man was left behind to wave farewell to the transporter, muttering to himself about how he considered the size of it rather ridiculous for the job it had just done.

"Howard "Howie" Baker, age 24. Pokémon breeder."

"Hmm. Sounds like someone to keep an eye on."

"We're not thieves, Liran." Chided the owner of the first voice, passing her companion the night-vision binoculars.

Liran took them with a pout and watched the new resident lock himself in the house. "Maybe I think he's the sinister one. Who moves onto an island in the dead of night with the aid of a massive boat and a hundred men?"

Cisco plugged a mobile network adapter into her laptop and started it up. "I'm afraid I don't think it has anything to do with us."

Liran watched his partner uploading some incomprehensible strings of data to their allocated section of the organisation's "innovation" database. She stopped typing for a moment, staring blankly at the screen as if deep in thought. "Or maybe...he could help us."

"Huh?"

"We need test subjects! We can't just keep poking about with our own Pokémon. I mean, look at Lieutenant Wang." Cisco swivelled the screen of her computer, displaying a picture of Liran's prized team member – his Gengar – and all his detailed statistics. "That's just not right."

Cisco and Liran had joined this particular organisation because it happened to be the only one interested in their invention; modifying Technical Machines to work with absolutely any Pokémon. It had spawned from Liran's fondness for Delta series Pokémon trading cards as a boy, and Cisco's penchant for programming. Now they had access to the organisation's massive digital repository of TMs and as much money as they could appeal for.

However, for a reason beyond their comprehension, they'd been posted in the Orange Archipelago.

"Excuse me for interrupting, but what are you doing in my bushes?"

Cisco and Liran snapped out of their respective flashbacks to see a rather irritated young man looking down at them. He indicated their camp fire, tent, and Cisco's rather suspicious-looking equipment.

"We were here first, Howard." Said Liran.

"All the same, this is technically my property. And I'm not sure how you know my name, but it's Howie."

---

Melody woke up with a start to the sound of a very loud impact somewhere in the vicinity of her sister's holiday home.

She failed to recognise the noise. An explosion? No. It couldn't be. The Orange Archipelago was one of the most tranquil places in the known world to live – no real threat from the dubious organisations she'd seen on the news, or otherwise. At least not since the incident with the collector ten years ago.

Her ears pricked up at the distant sound of voices, and she listened at the window for a few minutes, cussing because she could not quite work out what was being said. The noises, she concluded after a moment of thought, indicated a Pokémon battle. Should she go out and investigate? Should she stay indoors where it was decidedly safer and take a casual look in the morning?

Melody let curiosity get the better of her, convincing herself that she should check it out since the noises seemed to be coming from the rental house the new tenant had moved into this very evening.

Shamouti Island was approaching Festival season in the coming month – the time of the year being one of the factors panicking her – and the streets had already become decorated with lights. Despite her worries, they were a welcome sight at this time of the evening. Melody ran down the flagstone streets as fast as she could, the thumping of her sandals and her heart almost drowning out the commotion ahead. Carol's holiday home sat on top of the next hill, the other side of the cove constituting Shamouti's natural harbour.

Melody slowed to a halt at the bottom of the hill, leaning to rest her palms on her thighs and get her breath back. She was a swimmer, not a runner.

"Wait..." she muttered to herself, controlling her breathing enough to hear what was going on up the hill.

Nothing.

"Nothing?" Melody sighed and pulled herself upright. She shivered, suddenly realising it was indeed the middle of the night and she was no longer active enough to stay warm.

As she turned to walk back to her house, disappointed, a faint murmur of voices could be heard, drawing gradually closer to her.

"What do you see?"

"Let me just..." the voice paused, as if concentrating on something else. "It's a girl a bit younger than us. Long hair, sort of auburn. Oh. Oh, Cisco, she's looking."

"That's because you talk too loudly, Liran."

One figure on the hillside – 'Cisco' – halted in the manner of someone alarmed, though the other continued walking towards her, one arm raised to hold binoculars. The hair pricked up on the back of Melody's neck, wondering who these people were and what they were doing heading towards her.

"Liran!" Cisco shouted. He stopped, turning his head in an irritated manner to look back at his companion. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Melody.

"Who are you guys, and what were you doing up there by my sister's house?" she demanded, resolving that it was best in this situation to stand up rather than running away. Besides, in the dark, they probably couldn't tell she was scared.

"We were camping," explained Cisco – Melody now recognised her voice as being more female than not, even though her figure was slightly ambiguous, as was her haircut – "and your tenant up there told us to take a hike."

"Not before I wiped the floor with his-"

Liran found a hand slapped across his mouth. "Very. Anyway, love, we'll take our leave now. We don't really want to cause trouble. Well, I don't. Liran's another story."

Melody studied the two of them, dressed in what looked like a modified version of a company's uniform; black for the majority, accented with white and red. Cisco's hair was nondescript and short, bleached to a bright white, and Liran's appeared to have been chopped and coloured so many times that his hair was quite indescribable. It had settled at being slightly longer than his partner's, and a sandy blonde colour.

Melody held up a hand and waved indifferently. "Just don't go waking everyone up again, and stay off private property. You're welcome to camp anywhere on the island otherwise, of course. There's plenty of space." She cast one more dubious glance over them and turned to leave. "See you around."

---

"No, Carol. I object. I didn't sleep well at all last night." Melody complained loudly into her pillow.

"Melody, darling, you yourself asked me to wake you up this morning, because you're helping our new tenant organise himself and familiarise himself with the island." Carol opened the shuttered windows and tugged the bed cover back. "And he's paying you for it, you freeloading student."

Melody snatched her sheets back, groaned and then sighed. Carol was about ten years older than her – approaching 30 – engaged to a guy known only as "Rip", who taught kids and tourists how to surf down on the beach. They lived together here, and Melody was indeed freeloading, having completed her education a few weeks ago.

"You, my dear sister, need some direction. And even if it's just a few part-time jobs, so be it. You're not just going to lounge around here and wander aimlessly around Shamouti with your head in the clouds for the rest of your life." Carol sat down on her younger sister's bed, taking care not to sit on any extremities of the silent body under the sheets. "The tourist industry here in the archipelago is huge, Mel, particularly around our festival. You could look at that. You're a good swimmer and surfer, so you could even help out Rip down at the beach. I think you'd be going to waste, though. Look at that amazing qualification you got in meteorology and geology. You should have contacted that place in Hoenn."

Melody sat up in bed, gazing out of the window at the ocean. The Weather Institute near Fortree City in Hoenn had been a consideration of hers, but, as she'd convinced herself thousands of times, she just didn't want to leave her home. Besides, she wanted to get out and do research, not sit inside a stuffy building and look at data – at least that was her impression from documentaries about it on TV. Even so, something had to be said for their methods, since contacting them had got her through several assignments throughout the last two years.

"Maybe for work experience." Melody mumbled bleakly.

Carol rolled her eyes and stood up. "Well, let's focus on today. Get ready and then head up the cliff to help our new friend, okay?"

"Whatev." Melody yawned, hearing Carol leave the room. Reluctantly she dragged herself out of bed and wandered into the bathroom to prepare.

---

I think I'll be leaving the next part until the next chapter. Uh, so this is my first chapter featuring dialogue, and I feel it affects the rest of my writing somehow xD