No amount of time spent in this place could get them used to the changing doors. It was just too eerie. Each time one moved set Pixel on edge. She didn't understand how Vector could just tune them out like he did. He just kept walking, scanning his eyes over everything they passed, searching for something that none of them even knew how to identify.

They had to move slowly, keeping one arm outstretched since on several occasions they'd reached an invisible wall that had forced them to walk into the road or take a different path entirely. It had given rise to a lot of confusion as the invisible walls didn't make much sense. They just appeared, like solid invisible buildings in the middle of their path or jutting out from one of the stone walls.

In the short time they'd been there, Switch had changed from whistling to humming, but his voice wavered with nerves which only served to unsettle her further. She wound her scarf around her paws while she tried to spot anything that might key them in as to what they were actually looking for.

Vector stopped abruptly in his tracks and his ears stiffened.

"Do you hear that?" he asked.

Switch immediately stopped his humming, plunging them into silence. The three of them stood there, straining their ears against nothing.

"I'm sorry," said Pixel. "Maybe you imagined-"

"Shh!" Vector placed a paw on her arm and inclined his head on one side.

A sob. Pixel's heart leapt into her throat. It was very quiet. Almost inaudible. If it weren't for the city's unusual silence they would never have even heard it.

"Do you think there's someone in here?" she whispered.

"I don't know." Vector released her and slowly moved across the road, following that heart-wrenching sob. Before he even reached the other side, the sound faded. He crossed his arms and grunted. "Great."

"I don't know if I want to follow it, if I'm honest," said Switch. "I think it's fairly safe to say no one's alive in this place."

Another sound reached their ears. An explosion, or the build up to it. Pixel braced herself for an impact, but before the noise could even reach a crescendo it stopped, followed by that sob.

Vector scurried over to the sidewalk and vanished around the bend. Pixel shook her head in disbelief and followed after him. There was no way she was losing him in this place. Switch's heavy footsteps resounded after her, unusually loud. Part of her wondered if they should even make any noise in this place. If something was alive there was no saying it was on their side. Making a sound would only give them away.

When she found Vector again he was standing in a square. Empty market stalls lay scattered around, the wooden structures splintered and sticking out in dangerous, jagged points. A strange form lay against one of the stone walls. A pokemon, or what used to be one. The lower half of its body had turned to stone, but the upper part still resembled a throh in every way. Lying before him was an egg.

Vector stared at the throh, his jaw hanging open as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. He took one tentative step towards him and cleared his throat.

"Raw?"

The throh turned his neck stiffly but when his eyes landed on the meowstic they widened with a mixture of fear and surprise.

"Vector?" He shook his head slowly. "What... what happened to you?"

Vector flexed his paws as he stared at the other pokemon then glanced away. "It's a long story. Where's everyone else?"

"I don't know," said Raw. "That bomb didn't hold out long enough. Something triggered it. We all got... tossed into the air and when I finally landed I was transformed into this." He gestured to his grey lower half. "Right here it's just me and Sprocket."

Everyone's eyes went to the egg.

"Poor kid," said Raw. "I just can't watch this any more."

Vector took a step back as the egg began to glow, pushing Pixel towards the wall. Egg shell exploded out in all directions with a deafening roar then froze in the air, the sound coming to a sudden stop. Amongst the debris lay the small form of a pachirisu huddled into a ball with her paws clasped over her head. Her tiny body shook with sobs. There wasn't a single hint of the virus anywhere on her body.

Pixel took a step towards her, but Vector held her back. He'd heard it before she did. A sucking sound grew in intensity and every piece of shell flew back towards her into the perfect, unblemished form of an egg.

Switch hugged himself and looked around nervously. "Oh, I want to get out of this place."
"You and me both, brother," said Raw.

They fell into silence again, eyes drifting from the egg to the throh and back. Vector's paws twitched and he took a small step towards his friend.

"Raw... I can fix this."

"No." Raw stiffly raised a paw. "Save the world first, then worry about us."

Vector stuttered with confusion but Raw waved him off.

"I don't know what happened after that explosion," the throh said. "But seeing you all white like that is enough to tell me something's gone wrong. You didn't come inside the Fracture with us, did you? Maybe that was a good thing. We clearly made a mistake. But listen... there's a lab. You know there's a lab. I always thought they had something to do with all this. They were meant to be investigating and curing diseases, but they were awful secretive. There's no hacking their systems now, it all got wiped out. But before it did, I got curious and I found something." He looked up at them, locking his eyes onto Vectors. "They were trying to make something. A pokemon."

The egg exploded again, the shell freezing in the exact same spot it had before. Sprocket's sobs cut through the silence making Raw visibly flinch.

"I didn't find out anything else," he said. "I got too scared to keep searching. The thought of artificially making a pokemon turned my stomach. It saw the end to my hacking days. There are some things better left uncovered."

Switch tensed and his face creased into a frown. "A lab?"

"Aye." Raw nodded. "Sounds perfectly innocent enough, huh?"

"There was a lab where I was staying..."

Switch's voice sounded oddly distant. Pixel looked up at him but he stared blankly across at the splintered market stalls.

That sucking sound cut through the air, engulfing the pachirisu once more and bringing her sobs to a sudden halt.

"Where can we find this lab?" Vector asked the throh.

"I had it memorised," said Raw. "It's somewhere near the centre. Keep following the main road and you should reach it. But I must warn you, if it were the lab that blew up I don't know how much of it is left standing."

Vector nodded. "All right. We'll get to the bottom of this. You'll get your body back." He looked down at the egg and his paws twitched. "Both of you."

It wasn't obvious if Sprocket had heard him, but Pixel really hoped she had. That hearing it would give the frightened pachirisu some hope. They turned away from the two pokemon and Vector gave one last glance back before they rounded the corner back onto the main road.

...

There it was. The lab. Its size and appearance intimidating in the ruined city. The roof lay caved in at one end and the wall beneath it had crumbled away. However there was no reaching that end of it as an invisible building blocked their path.

"I guess we have no choice but to use the door," said Pixel.

"I wouldn't want to walk through a crumbling wall anyway," said Switch. "Who knows whether it'll just come piling down on top of us?"

"He makes a good point," said Vector. "But we might have another problem."

He eyed the door as they approached it, watching as it slipped along to the left where it eventually stopped beyond the invisible wall.

Vector let out a frustrated breath and moved towards it, but the door vanished and reappeared behind them at the far end of the building. Pixel watched it advance towards them as though it was stalking Vector, but when the meowstic looked back and tried to reach it, the door moved back the way it came.

Switch stroked his chin in thought. "Hang on, let me try something."

Vector looked from Switch to the door as the human paced back and forth. With every step he took the door vanished and reappeared somewhere else on the wall, but not once did it appear directly before them.

"It seems to behave differently depending on who's moving," said Pixel.

Vector threw his arms in the air. "Oh, this is so frustrating! I'm just gonna blast our way through the wall!"

"No!" Switch grabbed his paw and tugged him backwards. "Don't! You've seen the state of it! You might bring the whole building down!"

Vector growled through his teeth and tugged his paw back from Switch's hand, but instead of lashing out at the wall he took a steadying breath and brushed his arm down.

"Fine," he muttered.

He looked the building up and down, searching for another clear way inside. Pixel glanced back at the door perched several feet away from them and took a step towards it. The door slid along towards them. With another step it warped and appeared on Vector's left. Its unpredictable movements were impossible to work with. She let out a small sigh and edged towards Vector, but as she moved the door stopped right before him.

He glanced at her and muttered, "Don't move."

It wasn't clear if he was talking to her or the door. He grabbed the handle in one paw and shook it, muttering under his breath. The door was locked tight. He raised his paw and brought it crashing down on the handle, shattering it free from the wood and sending it with a deafening clatter onto the concrete where it bounced away behind them.

"Subtle," said Switch.

Vector didn't so much as look at him. He slipped beyond the door into the laboratory.

Pixel and Switch exchanged glances and he waved towards the opening.

"After you," he said.

She gave him a smile then rushed for the door.

Which moved.

Her heart sank. It was going to take them forever to get inside.

"It's split us up," she said.

"Don't worry, I have an idea," said Switch. "But you'll have to forgive me."

"Forgive you?" She looked up at him to press for more information but instead she let out a squeak as he scooped her up off her feet.

"This is the only way I can think of for us to stay together," he said. "Just pretend we're flying."

She fastened her claws into the shoulder of his jacket and looked back over her shoulder at the wall. It was impossible to imagine they were flying. It was nowhere near as smooth. With every step he took she felt herself jostled against his chest. She focused her attention on the door, watching it vanish and reappear randomly. He'd move left and the door would warp several feet to the right. He'd move right and it would move beyond the invisible wall. Back to the left sent it further beyond the wall to stand alone amongst the crumbled debris.

It was too risky to take more than one step. If he went too fast they would risk missing the door entirely. After what felt like an eternity, they heard Vector's voice beyond the wall.

"Don't move!"

Switch froze, clutching Pixel to his body as they both stared at the door two paces to his left.

It vanished and reappeared so it was directly in front of them. Vector's blue eyes leered at them from the doorway.

Switch didn't wait around to ask questions. He ducked through the door and once inside he set Pixel back down onto the ground.

"I'm sorry about that," he said. "I do try to respect boundaries here since, you know... you're not pets like back in my world."

Pixel brushed down her scarf and gave him a small smile. "It's okay. You do bounce a lot though."

He grinned and folded his arms behind his head. "I've always been told I have a spring in my step." His smile fell and he looked back down at Vector. "So, how did you know where the door would end up?"

"Easy," said Vector. "When I walked down this corridor it appeared right before me. I guess, somehow, the building wants me out. I tried it a couple of times and I was going to tell you to wait right where the door appeared. Finding you directly outside it was just a coincidence."

"Huh! Impressive." Switch looked back at the open door. "I guess it'll be easy to escape if we need to then?"

"I guess." Vector turned away and began marching down the corridor.

Pixel and Switch fell into place behind him, eyeing up the walls as they passed. Noticeboards were nailed to the walls, filled with old notes about events long since past, or information on hygiene and diseases. The thought of any viruses or bacteria lying in spilled pots beyond those walls unsettled her greatly.

They reached a set of double doors at a crossroads in the corridor. Beyond that door was a large room and on either side of them the corridor stretched out on either side, lined with door after door. Vector took the left one and Switch immediately stopped him.

"Do you have a plan?" he asked.

Vector looked back at him and shrugged him off. "Yeh. I want to go to the explosion site."

"And what if it caves in?"

A small grin spread across Vector's face and he laughed. "Are you forgetting I smashed your foot free of rocks? I think I could deflect a cave in."

"Yes. You might be safe," said Switch. "But what about us two? We'd be crushed."

Vector looked from Switch to Pixel and his smile fell. His eyes softened with worry and he let his paws relax at his side. "You don't have to come with me. In fact, don't. I'll go and explore then I'll meet you back here and tell you what I find."

Pixel placed a paw on her chest and looked over his shoulder down the dark corridor. She could see the pile of debris at the end. The faint light leaking in through the crevices in the wall. If that was where the Fracture happened then that might be where the source was.

"No," she said. "I'm coming with you. I told you I would. You're not doing this alone."

He locked his blue eyes on hers as he searched for a response. There was no sign of anger on his face, but his two tails swished from side to side stirring up the thick dust that had settled after the explosion. Finally they returned to their default position behind him and he took her paw in his.

"I can't guarantee your safety," he said. "But I get the feeling you'll just follow me anyway."

A small smile played at her lips and he returned it before he turned to advance down the corridor, letting her fall into place beside him.

Switch looked around nervously then ducked through the doorway to follow after them.

"You're coming too?" Vector asked.

"I've come this far haven't I?" said Switch. "I might as well see it all the way through."

Unlike the doors outside, the ones along the corridor remained static. Each small window showed nothing but darkness and in the end Pixel gave up trying to see beyond them. They were all locked shut and Vector had no interest in bursting through them. His focus was on the crumbling structure at the end of the corridor.

The closer they got to it the more light there was to go by. She could now make out the signs above the doors. 'Berry Treatment'; 'Poisons and Antidotes'; 'Burn Lab'. Then one room caught Vector's attention. 'Evolution'.

His brow furrowed and he released Pixel's paw to peer inside. "The wall in here is blown in."

"That's not surprising," said Switch. "We're right near the explosion site."

"Evolution," Vector muttered. "They were trying to make a new pokemon... I wonder..."

He tried the door, but once again it was locked. He braced himself to strike it, but Switch nudged him aside.

"I've got this one," he said.

He brought his boot down against the woodwork, creating a sickening crack as the wood splintered around the hinges. Another kick saw the door thrown backwards into the room.

"There," said Switch. "I thought I'd save you the effort."

Vector looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "You could have brought the rest of the building down on us with that little stunt."

"And your counter attack would have been perfectly safe?"

The meowstic shrugged and slipped into the room, treading carefully around the shattered door.

Pixel followed after him, her eyes scanning over the room and taking in the mess of paperwork, crumbled rock, broken tables and scattered elemental stones.

"You think this is where they were making that new pokemon?" she asked.

"I think it's very likely," said Vector. He lifted a small, round stone out of the debris and turned it around in his paw. "Looks like they were covering every aspect of it too. They even have mega stones."

"Maybe they were trying to make a mega meowstic?" said Switch.

Vector frowned at him. "Is this really the time to make jokes?"

Switch simply shrugged.

Pixel gathered up a fallen notebook, sending a few loose pages back to the ground. She flicked it open and glanced over the first page. A large, red 'confidential' stamp was printed right beside the title.

"Finding the missing link," she read. "A confusing mystery in evolution."

Vector appeared at her side and looked over her shoulder, his eyes scanning over the title. Switch scooped up the torn pages and leafed through them.

"Whatever this missing link is, they did thorough work," he said.

The room dimmed and warped around them, and Pixel let out a gasp when she found herself standing in a dark room lit only with ultraviolet light. The file was no longer in her paws but the room was littered with papers that in this light seemed impossibly white, and Vector's fur seemed luminous under the light from the dark sky. Something glittered red in the corner and she looked up at a statue of a persian, its eyes blinking from red to green and back.

"Where are we?" she asked. "This... this isn't the lab..."

Switch stooped to grab some of the papers off the floor. "These are different to the ones you dropped," he said. "This... this is talking about mew."

She tentatively grabbed one of the papers and swallowed drily. She couldn't even read the title. It was in some language unknown to her.

Vector took it from her and turned it around to view it from every angle. "This makes no sense. What language is this?"

"It's a human language," said Switch. He leant over him and pointed at the title, "'The Mystery of Mew – Cloning from a Fossil.'"

"Mystery of mew?" Vector repeated with a snort.

"I think we're in my world," said Switch slowly. "Back in my world... mew is classed as a 'mirage'. Humans claim to have seen one but... it's been dismissed as a legend. They don't exist."

"That's why you were so surprised when I told you about Retro!" said Pixel.

"Exactly. But what I don't understand is how they can clone something no one has ever confirmed to exist." He leant back on a dusty table and scanned over the documents in his hands.

Pixel and Vector waited patiently for the human to explain, straining their ears to pick up what he was muttering beneath his breath. Pixel found her eyes wandering while she waited. The room looked just like any other lab, but everything was broken. The wall was blown through just like the room they'd been in before. But that persian statue unnerved her. Sitting, staring, its eyes flashing from green to red, looking like it would pounce at any second.

"They found a fossil," Switch finally said. "They were trying to clone it from one of its hairs. But where..." He lowered the papers and looked over at the rubble. Then he stood and rushed from the room.

"Wait!" Vector bolted after him.

Then the room warped once more and Switch froze in the corridor, stumbling to stop himself crashing into the wall.

"Well that was fortunate," said Vector. "I don't trust this place one bit."

Switch placed his hand on the wall and shook his head. "Me neither. Why were we just in my world?"

"If this is where you came through then it kinda makes sense," said Vector. "I think we're closer to your world than we realise. Those invisible walls..."

"They're buildings," Switch finished.

"Yeh. I kinda worked that out before you took off. You could have got stuck in a wall or something if we came back. We need to move carefully if that happens again."

Pixel felt a chill run down her spine at that thought and she shook her fur violently. "I really want to get out of here."

"Well, we need to suss this out first." Vector moved back into the room and retrieved the dropped file, flicking it open to the first page. "Finding the missing link," he read. "All pokemon lay eggs and hatch young, but one particular pokemon had confused us for centuries. Kangaskhan. This pokemon, which is only female, always hatches with a joey in its pouch which remains with it all the way through into adulthood and then death, never ageing but seemingly sentient. Why is this? We intend to find out."

"So they were researching kangaskhan?" Switch scratched his hair. "Back in my world we see the joey as a symbiotic parasite that every kangaskhan carries."

Vector was flicking through the pages, quickly scanning over them. "This says one of their theories is that the joey is actually the male and the two have never separated. Listen to this – 'During mega evolution, the joey leaves the pouch and fights with the 'mother'. This is evidence that somehow the joey can be separated. That it is actually a separate entity.'"

"Were they actually running tests on a kangaskhan?" Pixel asked.

"Yes. They had a volunteer. I'm just skimming over them, they seem pretty generic." Vector's expression had grown bored and he looked like he was about to put the folder down, but then something caught his attention and his eyes widened. "Looks like they never finished the experiment."

"Well, this place did blow up," said Switch. "I imagine a lot of experiments were left unfinished."

"Maybe some of the loose pages finish it?" Pixel offered.

"There might be. This is dated a week before the explosion," said Vector. "They had removed the joey and were keeping it separate from the kangaskhan to see how it reacted when it was alone. Three scientists were left during night shifts to monitor it and to try to avoid any adverse effects." He looked over at the rubble at the end of the corridor. "And they were doing those tests in the evolution research lab."

He tucked the folder under his arm and moved over to the pile of rubble at the end of the corridor.

"You don't seriously think they're linked to that explosion?" Switch asked. "It was just a kangaskhan."

Vector adjusted the folder in his grip and tried to clamber over the crumbling rocks. Switch gave a heavy sigh and shook his head.

"All right, fine," he said. "But if we get crushed..."

He shrank down into a talonflame and rose into the air, grabbing Vector in his talons. The meowstic let out a small yelp of surprise but he wasn't in the air for long. He was deposited into the wide lab space and was soon joined by Pixel and Switch.

Before any of them could take in the room it dimmed and they found themselves in that ultraviolet world. Another persian statue stared at them from beside the crumbled mound through a pair of blinking eyes. The whole room was filled with large glass cylinders, their surfaces cracked and shattered. Glass littered the floor amongst pools of dried blood that looked alarming under the ultraviolet rays. Above them was a gaping hole where the roof had been blown in during an immense explosion.

Switch was shaking from head to foot and he ran a hand through his red and brown hair.

"I can't handle this," he muttered.

Pixel looked up at him with a sympathetic nod and clasped her paws together as she looked over the room. One of those cylinders wasn't like the others. It was lying in total ruin, sharp shards of thick glass sticking up from the base. She moved over to it and ducked to read the sign just below where the glass would have met the metal.

"I can't read this," she said. "I think it's in your language again."
Switch joined her and when he read the sign he let out a low groan and rubbed a hand over his face.

"Mewtwo," he said.

Both Pixel and Vector looked up at him and she wound her scarf around her paws.

"I've not heard of a 'mewtwo'," she said.

"No, I guess not," said Switch. "Neither have I. I'm guessing, like porygon, it's man-made."

"So you humans were creating pokemon?" Vector grunted.

"Apparently." Switch stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked over at the state of the room. The rubble. The glass. The blood. The destroyed roof. "But I'm guessing it backfired."

The room warped around them once more, bringing them back into the evolution research lab. Tables scattered on the ground burnt and broken, the floor littered with paperwork most of which was singed black, shattered computers and what looked like two beds covered in a glass casing, each one beside the remains of a large ECG machine that lay in pieces on the ground. One pod was cracked while the other looked like it had been blown open as something tried to escape. Pixel wondered if it had been the kangaskhan.

"Hey, guys." Switch was looking down at the papers on the table, spreading them out with one hand. "Did you know every pokemon species is numbered?"

"What do you mean?" Vector joined his side and took one of the sheets.

"This lab. It has every species catalogued and numbered. My world does the same thing, but it varies depending what country you're from. They've highlighted the kangaskhan."

Vector narrowed his eyes at the list. "So they have."

Pixel peered over his shoulder, noting the arrow beside the kangaskhan's name. "'Missing Number?'"

"I guess that's what they were calling the joey." Vector placed the list back on the table and looked back at the two beds. "It's a shame we'll never know exactly what happened here."

He moved over to them and pulled himself up to look inside the one that was cracked. His eyes flew wide open and he backed away from it, his paw going to his chest.

"Is... is something still inside there?" Switch's voice came out oddly high and his golden eyes went to the cracked pod.

"It's the kangaskhan," Vector managed. "What's left of her anyway."

Mama?

All three of them stiffened and twisted their heads to pinpoint the child-like voice.

Mama!

But it was impossible. It seemed to be screaming from everywhere at once.

Mama! Mama! Mama!

The computer monitor beside Switch sparked and the tower lit up, noisily humming to life. The speaker crackled and popped, drowning out the eerie voice, then a recording broke through the static, the words coming out in bursts as the audio cut at odd intervals.

'Something's going wrong!'

'Nothing's ... wrong. It's fine.'

'No, the kangaskhan! ... heart's stopped!'

'What are you talking about? She was fine five minutes ago!'

'... to the emergency room! Stat!'

'What about the joey? I can't ... it! It's gone savage!'

'Then leave it! We ... to hurry!'

'No! Mama! Bring back my mama!'

Banging. Crackling. Shattering glass.

The voices in the audio merged together as panic increased, interspersed with banging and screaming from a tormented child. The next comprehensible words were; 'Fire!' 'There's a fire!' 'Get out of here! Now!'

Then the audio cut out.

Silence.

Pixel's breath came in heavy bursts and she was aware of her friends' breathing as each of them stood, motionless, bracing themselves in case something else happened. The broken computer had fallen silent, its monitor no longer sparking.

Mama?

Everyone's breath froze and their eyes went back to the pods. They now seemed a lot more ominous than they had previously.

Pixel took in the shattered casing, the damaged ECG machine with its frazzled wires. The audio played through her mind and she could almost see the chaos playing out in the room. The source of that fire. But what had exploded?

Exploding eggs.

That blood.

Her paws flew to her mouth as she tried her best to block out the image of that kangaskhan joey meeting the same fate as the pokemon that hatched from those eggs.

All this was the result of a terrible mistake.

The Fracture hadn't just started with that explosion. It had started the day that joey had been separated from its mother.