This story is highly inspired by the Pokemon 0 story by Afroshock. If you haven't read it then I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, his stories have not been updated in years and I am unsure how to properly reach him. No characters from the original will appear here, and apart from a mention by name.
Prologue:
Each ant emerged from the skull bearing an infinitesimal portion of brain matter. The double thread of ants shuffling between corpse and nest crossed at a diagonal the human trail beside which the murdered woman had been thrown. As a shadow crossed the morning sun, a dozen ants became crushed beneath the leathery bare feet of six boys plodding down the trail from the road toward the lake, each bearing a sixty-kilogram sack over his head, none of the scrawny youth weighing much more than the luggage they carried. The surviving ants continued their portage, undisturbed. So did the men. Farther downslope, the path ended in a tangle of foliage at the edge of the bay, with a lake visible beyond. The six boys dropped their sacks and sprawled beside them for a short rest, using the sacks as pillows. The oldest smoked a cigarette: three others began chewing on gnarled stalked of sugarcane; another scratched insect bites around his missing toe.
A helicopter flap-flapped by, very loudly, and the group became eerily still, looking up through the screen of leaves and branches as the big olive-green chopper went by, like a bus wearing a beanie. It was the same sort used by the armed forces to land troops to battle, but the markings desecrating its exterior showed it was no longer piloted by soldiers. Three black men in overalls and tank tops crouched in the broad doorway in the chopper's side peering down at the lake. The man in the center gently running his fingers through the feathers of a Talonflame perched on his shoulders.
The six smugglers, invisible beside the trail, watched and listened without reaction until the helicopter chuff-chuffed away across the sky, westward into the brush. Then they all talked at once, with a nervous enthusiasm, agreeing the helicopter had been a good omen. Having just searched this area, it was unlikely to return for some time. And how lucky they themselves hadn't arrived twenty minutes earlier; by now, they would have been visible and helpless on the open water. Since luck was with them, they should seize the moment. Their two canoes were dragged out of hiding-the rifles safe within, the ancient, untrustworthy outboard motors still attached at the rear of each boat-and were pushed into the water. The sacks were loaded, the men arranged themselves three to a canoe, and they proceeded slowly out across the bay, southward, the motors stinking, the low morning sun in the eastern sky stretched their shadows across the calm water.
Forty minutes later they had progressed fifteen miles, heading east now toward the narrow strait between the mainland and an island. The border between Johto and Kanto a line seen only on maps-bisected the bay, and not far beyond lay the tiny, unimportant village of Erdin, their tended landfall. A much shorter route for smuggling lay directly across the bay but the shore there was heavily patrolled this year. And because so many floodlight-bearing helicopters prowled the border at night, the risky daytime passage had become safer.
All six heard the chuff-chuff at once, over the nasal sputter of the outboard motors and looking over their shoulders they saw the giant thing sailing toward them through the sky, like something on wires attached to God's fingers. Heading the way, wings spread wide like an angel of doom was the Talonflame, its eyes no doubt fixed on their huddled bodies. There was no escape this time; they'd been seen, the helicopter was floating in a circle around them, its open doorway filled with pointing men.
It was guns they were pointing and then firing. The smugglers had been prepared for arrest, for some brutality, possibly for torture, but they had not been prepared to become target practice in a great bathtub. Two of them dragged old Enfield rifles up from the canoe bottoms and returned the fire. The chopper occupants, not expecting armed resistance, had flown too low and too close, the better to score hits on their fish in the barrel. Instead of which two men in the helicopter doorway staggered back into the darkness within, and the Talon flame that had been circling them above dropped like a full sack down from the air, crashing into the water beside a lone rifle. The helicopter, as though God had been startled at his play, jerked upward into the sky and tore away northwestward, toward land.
The youth in the canoes were now terrified. The helicopter would soon be back, possibly with others. There wasn't much time to reach that invisible line in the water and the dubious safety of Johto. To the left was the safety of Kanto, low dark folds of hills, but they were in great fear of returning there. Directly ahead mounded an island, ten miles long and a mile or two wide and covered in thick brush, but the soldiers would expect them to hide there and would have hours of daylight to search. To the right, a cluster of tiny brushy islands lay like suede buttons on the water; after a quick conference, the six agreed to make for one of these. They ripped open the sacks and dumped the contents into the lake, both to lighten the boats and to make it possible to deny that they were the coffee smugglers.
They chose an island at random, pulled the canoes well up from the water's edge, and covered both their boats and themselves with layers of the brush. But they were boys who had never been in the sky and were unaware of the clear lines the canoes had made in the mud and the brush, arrow shafts leading from the water directly to their hearts. When the helicopter did return within the hour and, after only the slightest hesitation, landed on the island of their hiding place, they could only believe it was devilry.
The officer in the helicopter was extremely angry. When the six boys were found and lined up in front of him, he beat their faces with his fists and lashed their arms with a piece of brush. They had killed one of his men, wounded two others, and cost him a well-trained scouting bird. It was a personal humiliation, an official disgrace, a blow to his hopes for military advancement. It was a blot on his copybook. The six denied they were smugglers, which only enraged the man more. He kicked at their legs with his boots, while an expressionless white face watched from the helicopter doorway. And when the contents of their sacks were found, the man turned cold and dangerous in his fury.
He ordered the six boys to lie on the ground on their bellies. He ordered his comrades to pour gasoline onto the sacks and to spread one sack on each prone person. Then he personally set the fires. The flames in sunlight seemed to dance midair, lightly, inoffensively, while the tan burlap darkened. The boys writhed and screamed beneath their burning blankets, and the rancid smoke rose into the clear sky as the white man in the helicopter lit his cigar. The men broke up the canoes, and then boarded the helicopter and were flown away, through the drifting smoke.