Hertz strolled down the empty corridors of Central Meta Hospital's mental health ward. One of the lights flickered so erratically he just knew spending too long in this corridor would give him a migraine. He had to make this visit quick. Hopefully he'd be a little more enlightened by the end of it.

Finally he arrived at his destination, stopping before a door marked 'M.H. Room 15'. A quick flash of his card key and the lock clicked open, allowing him to step inside. Another door separated him from completely entering the room - metal framed, the clear windows obscured by a mesh of heavy steel. The steel structure continued along to his right, reaching up to his torso. The rest of the wall was made from double-glazed perspex. That meant whatever was kept on the other side wouldn't be bursting their way out any time soon.

Huddled in a corner sat what at first glance appeared to be an archeops, but in the blink of an eye they transformed into a human girl, her long black hair flowing neatly down her back and contrasting greatly with her white hospital clothes. He knew all about this patient, well... what the hospital knew anyway. Maybe too much for his general area, but reading up on another patient's records in a desperate bid to find a cure to the virus would hardly be frowned upon.

He hoped.

At one point she'd been chained down to the bed to stop her from damaging herself or her doctors. Eventually she'd calmed down but no one could do anything about her going back and forth between two forms. Over time she'd just learned to deal with it, and it had been deemed safe enough to unchain her and keep her in a sturdy cell. It was certainly not safe to let her go free, and Hertz hoped desperately that the sole reason wouldn't hinder him getting the information he hoped to obtain.

It was a long shot and he knew it, but the plight of the poor servine and his own family was weighing heavily on his shoulders and right now he was going to try anything in his power to track down that meowstic. His current involvement with Bootstrap's investigation into the cracks would have to wait.

He pushed a small black button to activate the microphone and cleared his throat.

The girl looked up, her body changing to the feathered form of the archeops. The narrowed eyes that peered back at him unsettled him but he refused to let it show, instead returning her look with a steely stare.

"Annie, I presume?" he said.

Her form flashed back to human again and she pushed herself to her feet. "What do you want? I took my meds at lunch."

Lunch? He glanced down at his phone. It was coming up to supper time. Surely someone must have seen her in that time? He grit his teeth together and hoped the poor creature had just lost track of time.

The girl was now hugging her knees to her chest, staring blankly at the wall and muttering over and over, "Meds at lunch... meds at lunch..." until it transformed into, "Leds at munch..."

"I'm not here for that," Hertz said loudly to get her attention. "I'm here to ask you some questions?"

"Again?" The exasperation in her voice was clear and she pushed herself to her feet and slumped back against the far wall to face him, folding her arms across her chest. "Look. I don't know what happened to me. One minute I'm at home, the next I'm in your world with this-" Flash. "Condition."

He now stared at a disgruntled archeops and shrugged. "Your condition is actually why I want to talk to you. I'm assuming you're aware of the virus that's attacking System?"

"Somewhat, yeah. Don't affect me though, does it?" She paced over to the window and stopped about mid way, repeating 'does it' under her breath over and over as though she wasn't quite sure of the words.

Hertz eyed her curiously and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No, not especially. But one aspect might."

That interested her. An eyebrow rose as her form changed once more, but she said nothing. Just staring. Waiting. Two green eyes fixed onto him which seemed oddly bright in the white, padded room of her cell.

"I had... what might have been a solution," Hertz explained carefully. "But it was taken from me. One of the culprits has the same ability as you, albeit he can control it somehow."

She snorted. "Then why can't I?"

He shrugged. "I've no idea. But I will say one thing. As far as pokemon go, you have a spectacular type advantage."

The girl spread her blue and yellow clawed wings, looking them over before she lost the form then looked back at him with a start.

"You see," Hertz said slowly, "you have your problems, and we have our own. This virus could be the end of this world, and you're living in it."

She inclined her head on one side, which looked rather comical for an archeops. "Am I?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, but... I can't say if that's more for your sake our ours."

"Think I'm a problem?" she grumbled. "Wanna get rid of me? That why they feed me tranquillisers? Tranquillisers... Tranquillisers..." She was off again, slowly pacing the room as she mulled the word over.

"If you don't want to be a problem then be a part of the solution!" Hertz snapped.

She span on the spot and clasped her hands behind her back, giving him a sweet smile that seemed extraordinarily creepy under the current circumstances.

"What? You want help off me? How can little Annie help?"

"You could start by telling me about the human male who can also change form," Hertz went on. "Then I could perhaps... get you out of here? You could help me track him down."

She snorted with amusement. "You want me to get outta here and help you search for some human/pokemon freak?" She laughed, doubling over onto her knees. "Gimme a break, doc. I can't even hold one form for more than five minutes!"
Well, at least she was aware of her problem. Putting aside her fascination with words and blank walls, that is.

"Do you know him?" Hertz asked.

"I dunno." She leant back against the wall again and placed a finger on her chin, which then became a claw. "What's he look like?"

"Tall. Brown hair with red highlights. Golden eyes. Flight jacket. And when he changes form, he's a talonflame."

"You didn't list pants."

"What?"

"Pants. You didn't list pants."

Hertz swallowed his exasperation. "Black. Do you want the colour of his boots as well?"

"No. I think I'm fine. Hang on."

She was silent for a moment, repeating his description so many times the words began to get mixed up and mispronounced. Finally her green eyes locked back onto him and an innocent frown twisted across her mouth.

"No. I don't think I know him."

Hertz let out a sigh of defeat. It had been a long shot and he knew it. Right now he was just clutching at straws. "Well, thank you for your time." He slowly turned from the window.

"You done with me now? Not taking me with you?"

"No, I... honestly think you're in the best place for you." He paused, meeting her eyes briefly. "I'll see if I can find a doctor on my way out and remind them they need to give you your medication."

She shrugged and skipped back to her corner where she flopped down and began humming to herself. The rapid personality change she'd just gone through was tiring even for him. He swiftly left the cell and locked it behind him, hoping to slip out before Bootstrap discovered where he'd been.

He wasn't sure the marowak would understand.

...

More of the jungle's foliage was becoming visible as the pool of egg shell fragments thinned out. Pixel's feet crunched over the last of them before her toes finally touched the lush grass. She was thankful the blood-splattered trees were behind them now. It had been hard to discern whether the blood had anything to do with the egg shells, but whatever the case was she really didn't want to think about it. The Binary Jungle had a strange feel to it as it was. Wisps of binary code drifted up from both the ground and canopy, but the stuff on the ground was different. It was identical to the strange mist-like code that rose up off the ground after Vector erased the black cracks. Harmless mist that they could wade through with no hindrance.

It would have been a picturesque, vibrant landscape if it weren't for the black cracks. They spread like a web over the canopy and zigged and zagged through the jungle, slicing through the trees which had either broken at their contact or stood warped and twisted in a surreal way that left Pixel feeling incredibly unsettled.

"I feel like I've walked into some surrealist's painting," said Switch.

"Tell me about it." She turned her eyes away from one particular tree, its trunk twisted into a screw, and tried to focus her attention on getting through the jungle.

Vector, who had been silent since they'd been faced with the morbid task of climbing through what looked like a massacre scene, let out a relieved sigh as he reached the end of the egg shells. He took one look at the corkscrew tree and placed a paw on the crack running through it. The jagged anomaly vanished with a snap, but the poor tree still stood as warped as ever.

"Well, that's a shame," said Switch.

Vector grunted with agreement and tore himself away from the tree. "I just hope the berries we're looking for aren't warped and twisted as well."
That was a good point. With the state the jungle stood in, the trees they were looking for might have been destroyed or damaged. Pixel dreaded to think what eating a potentially contaminated berry could do. She hugged her arms to herself and followed after the black and white meowstic.

The Binary Jungle was oddly quiet. Not a sound rose from the canopy other than the rustling of leaves in the wind. There was no sign of any life, yet she was certain pokemon lived in this jungle. Sooner or later they would stumble upon a village. A village that she was certain would be abandoned or consumed with destruction from the cracks and virus.

They paused as Vector examined a thick web of cracks. None of them were small enough to pass through it. He made short work of it, setting off a series of snaps which were like explosions in the silent jungle. The gap it left was more than enough for Switch to pass through.

As they moved along, Pixel absently gazing up at the cracks arcing high above her, Vector doubled over as coughs racked his body. Her attention snapped to him and she rushed to his side, placing a paw on his back.

"Are you okay?"

The words seemed fairly pointless. Red streaked his paw as he ran it across his mouth while throwing her a disgruntled sideways glance. Her eyes drifted to the ground and widened as she spotted small specks of blood dotting the green grass and curling ferns.

Allergies. He'd told her he had allergies, but surely they couldn't do that?

"There's no need to push yourself, buddy," said Switch. "We could have found another way around."

"Will you two stop worrying about me?!" Vector snapped.

He took in a ragged breath then shrugged Pixel's paw away. His reaction hurt a little and she held her paw to her chest as she watched after him. Something wasn't right. Part of her couldn't help thinking he was hiding something from her.

Switch ducked to place a hand on her head and she looked up into his reassuring smile. He didn't say anything, just ushered her on and they followed after the meowstic in silence. What Switch had said, however, seemed to have struck home. Every mess of cracks that blocked their way were scrutinised by Vector for a moment before he turned away and looked for another way around.

Knots of the wretched things blocked their path on several occasions and after a while it looked like they weren't going to make any more progress. It wasn't long until Pixel spotted the corkscrew tree, still free from its damaging crack, rising up on the opposite side she'd previously viewed it. From this angle she could see a warped hole at the top of it. Either damage from the crack or a hole made by a pokemon at some point in its existence – a hiding place an arboreal or flying pokemon had made as a child, long since abandoned. Whatever it was, she couldn't decide.

Still blindly following Vector, she scanned the branches of the trees. The only berries she spotted were mago and maranga, their sparse numbers clinging to the branches of twisted trees, or scattered on the ground where a hefty bough had been blasted from its trunk.

The dirt trail wound into a clearing and Pixel's paw crunched on something in the grass. She didn't need to look down to see what it was. The entire clearing was filled with egg shells, the tree trunks splattered with blood. It was becoming more obvious the two were linked.

She swallowed drily, hoping desperately that she didn't have to walk through it. Thankfully, Vector looked away from the clearing and stepped off the path, climbing over thick ferns to get deeper into the trees.

Heavy, bulging roots and tangled plants made the trek through the trees incredibly difficult and the three of them were exhausted when they found another path to follow. The smell of rotting fruit stung their noses, the culprit being scattered maranga berries crushed beneath the tree that had once held them. The tree lay across the path, its branches tangled with another tree that had been pulled down by the maranga in its fall. Corrupted binary code rose from the fallen tree and its damaged fruit amidst the zeroes and ones that Binary Jungle was famous for.

They were about to turn away from the tree, to put it behind them when a shrill scream cut through the air like a hot blade. Three pairs of eyes snapped to the foliage on the other side of the path and they froze. Every muscle in Pixel's body was taught as she braced herself to either fight or flee, but nothing else came. Just one scream. One, and that was it.

"What on earth was that?" Vector muttered.

He sprinted towards the foliage, leaving Pixel with an outstretched paw as she failed to stop him. Switch joined the meowstic, glancing back at her as he stepped over the ferns. She gave herself a mental shake and followed after them, scrambling as her feet tangled in the roots and stems of some hidden plant.

Switch vanished beyond a thick tree, bent over like a bridge where a violet crack cut through it. She ducked beneath it, spotting the black-tipped tails as they vanished into a bush. To any other pokemon, vanishing into a bush in this jungle filled with its deadly cracks would have been a foolish move. She decided to skirt around it instead, finding herself standing beside a rocky outcrop covered in moss and jungle plants. Trees wound and twisted atop it where a web of cracks covered it as though they were trying to keep whatever lived inside them trapped. The cracks stretched out over the canopy for as far as they could see, occasionally stretching down to the floor in a frozen, violet lightning bolt.

"Did you see who it was?" she finally asked.

"No," said Vector. "But whoever it was might have gone inside."

She followed his gaze to the outcrop. A deep cavern ran inside it, but the entrance was overgrown with plants. If anyone had resided inside, they didn't now. But that didn't mean whoever had screamed hadn't taken refuge in what was likely an empty cave.

"Should we look for them?" The waver in her voice didn't go unnoticed. "I mean... there's no saying they're definitely a virus victim, is there?"

Vector glanced at her then moved towards the cave, keeping his body low. She followed after him, her small form swallowed by Switch's shadow as he ducked to enter the cave mouth. He steadied himself by placing a hand on the ceiling as he crept after them.

The further they went the darker it became. Water dripped from somewhere deep inside, but the ground felt dry beneath her feet. Eventually, Vector came to a halt and she had to stop herself from walking into him.

"Is there a problem?" Switch asked.

"Yeah," said Vector. "It forks off here. One path moves up, the other goes down."

Pixel peered past him, squinting in the dim light. The path moving upwards looked a lot brighter, but something was flickering at the end of the other path. A deep, pink light that gradually changed to red, then purple, then blue. It was oddly familiar. Relaxing.

It reminded her of home.

"I think the upward path leads outside," she said.

"I was thinking that," said Vector. "But what's making that light further down?"

He didn't wait for a response, instead ducking down the narrow tunnel. She swallowed audibly then followed after him. If it weren't for the relaxing sensation the gradual, changing light was giving her she would have asked him to reconsider. The tunnel didn't give them much room, though. Her head was almost brushing the ceiling, causing her to duck down.

"Don't worry, I'm coming," said Switch.

The sound of his feathers brushing against the rough wall told her he'd opted to take on his talonflame form. He hadn't been left with much choice.

As the tunnel wound to their right, someone yelled. Every hair went on end and she froze, eyes searching the tunnel ahead. She thought she saw someone dart out of the way. Someone small.

Then they yelled again. Constantly. Screaming as they fled down the tunnel.

Vector scurried along, keeping himself low. It was all she could do to keep up with him. Her breath was coming in heavy bursts, a mix of exhaustion and fear. Finally, the tunnel ended, spreading out into a wide room. The source of the light lay in the form of a rocket-shaped lamp atop a desk, accompanied by computer monitors.

The lamp, like the light, was familiar. She could see it now. On a desk as she sat beside her friend, working on an investigation. It wasn't possible... why was it here?

A small, black pokemon floated in the air, its form that of a letter A. Pixel recognised it as something she'd only seen in picture books, but the name of its species escaped her. They darted back and forth, drawing the attention of the other pokemon in the room. Two of them, also small and black, turned their single eyes to look at their screaming companion. An X and an exclamation point.

"Really, Alarm," one of them said, although it was hard to guess which one since they lacked mouths. "What is it... now..."

The exclamation's eye widened and the X followed its gaze to the group of pokemon who had barged into their den.

"Is there a problem?" This voice was female, and Pixel felt her heart leap into her chest.

The odd light. The lamp. That voice. All so familiar.

Her hands clasped to her mouth when she saw the familiar pink, feline form float out from beneath the desk, a pair of white-framed glasses clasped in her paw. One lens was blue, the other red. Her pale blue eyes widened with surprise, causing her paw to freeze part way to her head and the glasses to clatter to the floor.

"Pixel?" said the mew.

It couldn't be... Pixel shook her head in disbelief. She had to be dreaming? She lowered her paws from her mouth to speak, the lone word alarming her two friends.

"Retro?"