Glitched

5 - Rescue Mission

A/N - I have had no motivation to write for the past week. Hopefully this will wear off soon and this story won't be put on hiatus... That's the good thing about writing chunks in advance. I've got 12 chapters written for this so far.

...

The buildings blurred past as Pixel and Leaf zipped along on a pair of hoverboards, following the flow of traffic in hot pursuit of their base. Cyan Island was visible above the skyscrapers, trudging steadily along as it followed its circuit.

"How close are we now?" Pixel asked.

Leaf looked down at his digital map. "Its moving over Proxy City. That might prove problematic if we need to board there, especially now the sun's setting."

She pursed her lips and fixed her attention on the island. Hopefully their fresh purchase of hoverboards (much to Leaf's dismay when he had to fork over three-thousand credits per board) would give them the edge they needed to avoid any unwanted conflict. The outskirts were renown for the hostile pokemon that inhabited them.

A loud horn rang out through the streets as the traffic came to a sudden stop, shattering any hopes the pair of them had about making it through Proxy City before sundown.

"What's going on?!" Leaf whined, straining to see around the rear of a particularly large lorry. "Argh, we're never going to make it at this rate!"
Pixel hopped from her hoverboard and scooted over to the side of the road. The head of the traffic jam was hidden from sight as the chain of traffic vanished around a sharp bend between a department store and an electronics tower that displayed an advert for a new camera on a massive LCD display.

She returned to her hoverboard and Leaf looked over at her.

"Any joy?" he asked.

She shook her head. "We'll have to move on foot if we want to get past it."

He dismounted his board with a sigh and tucked it under one arm, waddling onto the sidewalk on his hind legs. She followed after him, casting a glance back at the motionless traffic. Many of the other hoverboard riders followed their example, gathering their boards and deciding to go on foot.

"You know what would be useful?" said Leaf. "If we could fly like your human friend."

"I think it would be more useful if we could get the drifting continent to move backwards and come for us," said Pixel.

"You don't want to fly?"
She chuckled. "Not especially."
He grunted and paused at the edge of a narrow road to allow a lorry past as it deviated from the traffic. "I suppose any desire to fly went out the window when you fell off Switch's back, huh?"

Before she could answer, he waved a paw to silence her and turned his focus onto his headset. They walked across the street in silence, joining the pedestrians on the other side. He appeared to be having some difficulty hearing the speaker on the other end as he apologised a couple of times and had them repeat themselves.

Finally, he looked back at her, but his expression caused a flood of nauseating anxiety in her stomach.

"That was Byte," he explained. "They're actually in Proxy City but they're not having the best time."

Her eyes widened and she picked up pace to walk beside him. "What's going on?"

"They've had a run-in with the vigoroth brothers. We're going to need to hurry." He pulled out his computer, dodging the pedestrians without even looking up while he scrolled through a map of Meta City. "There are several side streets we could take to avoid this traffic, provided it doesn't go the full length of the city."