Suddenly Heather and another girl burst into the Battle Arena. Gail turned and greeted them, "What's the matter now?" she saw the concerned look on their faces.

"Seen a ghost... pokémon?" Bram chuckled along with Mookie, who burst into an uncontrollable cackle.

"It's... It's... Happening..." Heather started.

"Now?!?" Gail sighed.

"In a few minutes or ... less..." Heather answered.

Gail sighed again, "Not now! This is way too early. I don't want a repeat of last year's fiasco!"

Krystal looked at Bram and Jacen, who seemed to have the same idea she herself had just gotten, "Gail, we can help!"

"You? Help me?" Gail again paid attention to Krystal, "I don't know. This isn't is of your concern."

"But what about all those pokémon! You said some DIED because you didn't have enough help, and now you are turning us away!!! Why?"

Gail didn't have an answer for that.

"We can help Gail, and you know it," Krystal answered for her, "You know it. Please, I don't want any of them to die."

Gail stood for a minute, and looked at her friends at the door. She needed the help, but would she, could she let them help? She was usually so independent. It had taken her a year to realize she needed to hire assistants, and now came the next step. She decided to accept their help. She would do anything to save her little babies!

"All right. Come on. There's not much time, and there's a lot of prep work to do."

* * * Meanwhile * * *

Jared and Jannie finally met up after their "adventures" around town. Once again they were at the gym, but this time at the back door, going over a plan of action.

"Now do you understand?" Jared asked again.

"Not really..." Jannie answered, tracing circles in the dirt with her foot.

"Okay," Jared said, "Let me put it this way: Follow me in there, and try not to make us seen. Don't touch anything. Don't say anything. And don't breathe on me, I HATE that!"

"But" Jannie started.

"Look. It will work. We'll go in, find some disguises, and when those dorks aren't looking, we'll steal the best birds in the joint. Then we leave as quietly as possible, back out this door." Jared laughed at seeing his plan fall nicely together in his head, "Yes, those fools will be too busy to bother with us..."

"Okay," Jannie sighed. She knew there was no use arguing with him when he was on one of his power trips, "Ready Sandy?"

"Shrew, sand," she said.

"Then let's go," Jared said, opening the back door. He peered both ways, and seeing no one, entered quietly into the building. It was another long hallway of that lead to the main Hatchery. Jannie clumsily followed with Sandy bringing up the rear of the party.

They began to sneak around when two of Gail's younger assistants came around the corner.

"Great," Jared mumbled.

"Hey! You three! Come here, help us with this stuff. There's work to do!" Jared quickly came up with a plan.

"Us? Work?" Jannie cried, "I don't think-" Jared cut her off.

"Of course ladies, but what do want us to do exactly?" He asked slyly in his most mature, debonair voice.

"Take these medical supplies back to the Hatchery and Gail will probably need help, so stay there. Got all that?"

"Clear as crystal!" Jannie smiled nervously.

"Grrr..." Jared mumbled at the sound of HER name.

The two girls quickly loaded them down with medical supplies of all kinds, and just as quickly as they came, they vanished around another corner.

"That guy was a hottie!" he heard one of them say, as it echoed towards them. Whispers carried far in this building. He smiled at himself; he still had it. Good looks ran in his family... well his adopted family anyways, or so he thought.

It made the load easier to carry with all the hot air in his head. Jannie whined every so often, but Jared ignored her shrieking pleas and they headed into corridor after corridor til he saw a sign marking the Hatchery.

* * *

The last two minutes had been the most hectic any of our heros had experienced thus far. They had been ordered around by Gail to do numbers of different jobs as if she were their drill sergeant. Soon, there were piles of supplies and the tiled floor of the hatchery was covered in crib-like nests. Pillows lined the inside of the hatchery. Heather ran up and down the isles of eggs and was checking each one with a stethoscope, listening for any sign of the hatching to begin.

Bram brought in more of the handmade nests and spread them out on the floor. Krystal was filling bottles with baby pokémon formula and setting them on a cart. Gail kept shouting out orders as Jacen walked by with his arms full of blankets and more pillows. He stopped to rest for a second and looked into the large incubation chamber. Suddenly he saw an egg move very slightly. He pressed his face up to the window and peered closer. He thought he heard a faint sound. He couldn't make it out exactly through the glass, but it was a squeaky, clicking noise.

He dashed to Gail and reported what he had seen and heard. Quickly, he showed her the egg in question and Gail's eyes went wider than the ocean, "Okay people, this is it! Drop everything and grab some handling gloves."

She opened up the incubation door and propped it open with a large box. Then she set the heat to the hatch setting and prepared for the first arrival. Gail had 5 other assistants plus Heather on staff to help, but looking at all the eggs, she felted overwhelmed. Even with the three extra helpers, she prayed it would be enough.

Soon they all gathered around the egg. It was crowded with the nine people all staring at one small off-white egg. Krystal stared at it so long, she could see the tiny pink specks that dotted the it's pearly surface.

It jumped suddenly, making everyone leap with it. Gail pushed everyone out of the way and put her ear to the egg. She heard the sweetest sound ever and she closed her eyes to take in the moment. The small life inside chirped and pecked on the shell. She pulled away as it began to peck harder and harder. It pecked once more, creating a crack in the shell. Everyone oohed and awed as it began to open wider. They saw its little egg tooth pop out and its beak protruded right behind it.

The little one pushed out its body, breaking the shell further and it took its first breath of air, chirping loudly. Its wings spread out as the sides of the egg fell. It was wet from being in the egg and although it was a bit scraggly, it was actually pretty cute. Gail grabbed a pink towel from the floor and wrapped it up in it. The little one squirmed as Gail pronounced, "A girl," and she handed it to Heather, who cooed at it and headed outside the chamber.

"How does she know?" Jacen asked one of the girls.

"Gail has spent her life around pidgeys. Believe me, she knows," she answered with a comforting smile.

Bram had been listening while all this was going on and heard more eggs going through the same process. More were starting every second that passed. Bram hurried towards one a few steps away, and watched it break out. Gail picked up a stack of blankets and Heather followed her. She took the pidgey and wrapped it up in another pink blanket, and handed it to Heather who again rushed off. Bram continued on down the line, making sure none of them fell to the floor. He almost bumped into Krystal who was doing the same thing.

Jacen busied himself by taking pidgeys from Heather and placing them in nests and trying to calm everyone (even Gail) down. The duration between each hatching was getting shorter to the point where at least a dozen were hatching at once. The rest of the girls were busy drawing baths so they could clean up the babies. They didn't even notice when three familiar figures burst into the room.

"PREPARE FOR TROUBLE!" Jannie blurted out, but to her surprise, nobody heard her war cry.
"Make it-What!" Jannie poked Jared, interrupting him, "What!"

"They're ignoring us!" she whined pointing at all the people hurrying across the room.

"Okay... I'll handle this," he said, "Hey you!"

One of the girls they had met in the hall stopped, "ME?"

"Yeah, what's going on?"

"As if you don't know silly!" she giggled, a pair of pidgeys in her arms, "Take this one," she handed him a pidgey, "And be careful with it! I have too many now!" Once again she stormed off.

"What?-I-I don't know what to do with it!" he handed the blue bundle to Jannie, who then handed it to Sandy who immediately mothered it.

"Well, I don't know!!" Jannie whined again.

The other girl passed by, "Hey, quit fooling around! Get over here and help us out!"

Jared felt somehow they had no choice at this point, so he Jannie and Sandy joined the pidgey brigade! Soon they two were busy trying to keep everything under control, and doing a good job of it. This didn't last long as Jared and Krystal bumped into each other.

"Ouch! Hey-It's YOU!" Jared glared at Krystal, shaking his fists.

"What? What are YOU doing here? Stealing pokémon I bet!"

"No, just watching the pidgeys, as are you I suppose?"

"Quit arguing," said Gail as she passed by, "Pokémons' lives are at stake here! Now get back to work. You two can feel free to duke it out later at the Arena."

The two of them sighed, and went their seperate directions, as the chaos reached its climax. Pidgeys began to fall out of the higher nests as they hatched and became restless. Bram pulled a baseball mitt from his cape and topped it with a pillow for comfort. He dived and caught pidgey after pidgey and never missed.

"Knew I should've played Little League," Bram commented with a laugh as a pidgey fell on his head, "OooooWWW!"

After twenty more minutes of madness, it began to quiet down, as most of the pidgeys were hatched and placed in secure nests. Only four eggs were left, and Gail had them moved to a different chamber, "That's the biggest ratio, we've had in a long time. These four are the only late bloomers this year, but they should hatch in a week or so."

Gail announced the next task, "Now the naming begins!"

"The Whosit?" Krystal asked.

"Now we take record of each pidgey, tag them and name them. We'll start with the ones here in the front and work our way back." Gail replied.

Everyone had become very tired at this point, but nonetheless they kept going. Jannie was having the most fun, and gave the most 'unusual' names one would give to a pidgey. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, Gail usually let her use them, but some like "Stinky Peach" and "Pinky Pete" just did not fit the poor little pokémon.

Jacen, Bram and Krystal had each grown attached to a particular pidgey. Krystal saw a little one near the front who she had given the name of "Beaker" because of his bulgy beak. Bram had come across a strange one indeed; it was purple, an odd shade for a pidgey. Mookie found it funny , and pointed it out to him. By translation of Bram, Mookie said a good name would be Casper, which did suit her, but it was usually a guy's name. Then again Ashley was once just a guy's name (like Ash), but now girls more frequently use it. Jacen found his near the back of the lot. She was a dark reddish color, and her name was Phoenix.

Jannie and Jared however, seemed to have their eyes on all the pidgeys at once. They were taking care to note which ones that appeared strongest. How in the world they knew what they were doing is beyond us. Evil does that to you.

Gail finally finished recording all the data that her assistants had collected for her. She began to enter the data into her computer program. Krystal approached her.

"Uh, Gail,"

"What is it? I'm busy right now..."

"Well, are we done now?"

"Yep," Gail said, keying along, "I just have to input all this data to my database. Thanks for all your help."

"You're welcome." Krystal sighed.

Heather came by and took over entering the data, and Gail stood up, "Oh , your clothes should be done by now. Stormy," she called to a girl who walked by, "Could you go grab Krystal's clothes from the laundry room?"

"Sure thing, I'll be right back."

"Before you leave, I want to give you each something." Gail said to her , walking towards the pidgeys' nests. I believe every good trainer need s to master the basics before they can ever become a true pokémon master. Pidgey maybe the most basic of pokémon, but I think of it as a strong foundation to an even stronger trainer. I want you guys to have a pidgey. You deserve them after helping us out."

"I-I-Thank you so much!" Krystal cried, running straight to little Beaker's nest and plucking him out, giving him a small hug, "Jacen, Bram, did you hear that? We get to keep one!"

"Really?" Jacen said, "I don't know about that, I've only had one pokémon my whole life. I'm not sure I'm up to taking in another one."

"Oh, don't be silly!" Gail said, "Every good trainer needs a pidgey, and every good pidgey needs a trainer! Hey, it can only help you. Pidgeys are very handy! Many people use them as messengers, to find missing things, or just for fun!"

"Well, since you put it that way..." Jacen said.

"Great!" Gail said, "You won't be sorry!"

Jacen choose Phoenix, and Bram took Casper. Gail gave them some pokéballs that had Aviary Gym stamped on the bottom, "Please spread word about the gym, we can use some more employees and volunteers, even some more trainers for me to battle."

"I'll be sure to put in a word for you to the other trainers and the League Heads Gail. I'm sure they'd help you get some funding." Bram said reassuringly.

"I certainly hope so," she replied, "We can't keep coasting along like this. Sooner or later our gym could crash and burn. Anyways, thanks again for all your help. Because of you, the pidgey population is right on schedule."

They all waved goodbye and exited the gym. Stormy caught up to them before they left and gave an ecstatic Krystal her clean clothes. They then followed the path down the hill the gym sat upon, onto their next adventure.

End of Chapter Seven
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