The shadowy pall of night hung over Goldenrod City, shrouding the usually busy streets with a chill gloom. It was an unusually cold night, and it had rained the previous day; so the first signs of frost were visible on the silent roads twinkling in the moonlight. The only signs of life anywhere in the city were the dull yellow lights marking windows scattered here and there in the night.
From down a dark road, there suddenly came a bright flash of light. It pierced the gloom for an instant, illuminating the buildings for hundreds of metres around. Stillness returned, but after a moment it was broken by a man's voice, deep and serious.
"Good job Electabuzz, return."
From around a street corner, a figure cautiously surveyed the surroundings. He gazed intently through his black mask at the large office building directly opposite him and checked his watch. When the lights in the building winked out all at once leaving only their image burned into the man's eyes, he appeared satisfied and set off at a quick pace down the road. A quick glance left and right saw no lights in the city for about a kilometre.
Meanwhile, from high up on another building, a woman dressed entirely in black narrowed her eyes as the lights began blinking out. She quickly reached into her pocket and pressed the speed dial on her Pokegear. After only a single ring it was picked up.
"Yes?" a man's voice on the other end, harsh and impatient.
"This is Tanya, time is…" she broke off to check the time on the Pokegear, "0117 hours, in Goldenrod City." She waited patiently for a response from the other side.
"Go ahead with the report," came the reply.
Tanya smiled. "Tell him that we have it under control." She hung up before the man on the other end responded. She was running out of time. From her belt she pulled a pokeball, maximised it and hurled it into the night sky.
"Go, Pelipper!"
The arc of white energy took the form of the large pelican pokemon. It began circling round Tanya's head while it waited for an order.
"Go find the others," she stated simply, "and lead them here, to me. Understand?"
"Lipper, pel, peli pel!"
"Okay, off you go then," with a wave of her arm, Pelipper soared down into the street below and out of sight in the gloom. As soon as she was sure Pelipper was gone, Tanya rushed to the service stairs that led down and out of the building.
In the underground retail complex in Goldenrod's elite North Sector, another man was waiting with a scowl on his face. He was slumped against the wall, one leg cocked and braced him up, and the other foot tapped the floor rapidly. He checked his watch and sighed heavily. A sound from the exit stairway caught his attention: the rapid honking cry of a Pelipper. Upon investigation, he found Tanya's pokemon with two more men waiting with it. Instantly he recognised it.
"So where's Tanya?" he asked.
"Business Sector. We have to go meet her."
Sprinting down the street now as fast as she could run, Tanya searched the dark sky for traces of her Pelipper. She paused for breath at an intersection marking the boundary between the Commercial Sector and the Business Sector and stood there for a minute, her heavy breaths coming as thin clouds of steam in the chill air. From above her there came the unmistakeable call of her faithful pokemon as it glided slowly down to her. Jogging along the street behind it were her three colleagues. Tanya smiled warmly at her pokemon before recalling it back into its pokeball.
"Max, Barry, Kris," Tanya greeted each of her team mates in turn, "I think we're a little late."
"You don't say?" Barry snorted with a hint of sarcasm, gazing around at the blacked-out streets. "So what do we do now?"
"He's on the move," Tanya said, "The fastest way out of Goldenrod would be the train, five blocks away."
"Um, he cut the power, right? The train won't run," Kris observed.
"Wrong, the Goldenrod-Saffron train gets its power from the station in the Kanto hills," Max contradicted. "Even with the blackout, the train still runs on auxiliary power."
"Right," Tanya said grimly, "so we move quickly, Barry and I will lock down the station from the control room, here." She gestured to a tiny square on the Pokegear map. "Max, you and Kris need to storm the station and prevent him from leaving. Stay together, keep a pokemon out."
Almost automatically, all four of them summoned a chosen pokemon. Next to Tanya appeared a Golbat, Barry summoned an Umbreon, Max chose Heracross, and Vigoroth would fight for Kris.
"Let's go."
Having reached the train station, the four trainers paired off and went their separate ways: Tanya and Barry slipped round the back where a light could be seen glowing in the control box, while Max and Kris hurried towards the front entrance. The main entrance was blocked with a large iron grille over the wooden doors. Max and Kris glanced at each other.
"Heracross, Vigoroth, use Strength," Max ordered. Rearing back, the two pokemon smashed their weight into the metalwork, which gave an audible groan under the strain.
"Good, now lift it up," Kris said quickly. Its locking mechanism smashed, the gate slid up easily into its housing above the entrance. The entrance proper was guarded by double wooden doors locked with a simple key lock.
"This one's all yours, Kris," Max said, motioning to his partner. Kris swiftly pulled out a lock pick and after a terse couple of minutes clicked the door open.
"How do you do that?" Max asked Kris as they and their pokemon dashed inside.
"Practice makes perfect, my man," Kris replied with a grin.
In the control box around the back of the train station, Barry worked to disable the gate controls to prevent the train leaving. Tanya stood by occasionally glancing around to check that they were alone, Golbat hovering above. She heard a whoop of triumph from inside the box, shortly before Barry emerged with Umbreon on his heel.
"'Ain't no train leaving here anytime soon," he informed Tanya.
"Nice work," Tanya commented. "Now let's get inside."
Inside the station the masked man had heard the commotion at the front entrance. Panicked, he resumed tapping on the keyboard in a vain attempt to activate one of the trains. The computer beeped repeatedly and told him that what he was trying to do was impossible. His face twisted in a snarl as he heard Kris and Max's footsteps audibly falling on the cold tiled floor. Hurriedly, he grasped a pokeball and threw it before sprinting for the platform. A Graveler emerged, threw a threatening gaze to the empty reception area then rolled off after its master.
Seconds later, Kris and Max arrived at the console where the masked man had been standing. It took them a second to check the computer, then:
"Hey, look at this," Max said. He pointed at a CCTV camera feed from the platform where the man could clearly be seen with his back pressed against the wall. On another camera, Tanya and Barry approached the platform from a service entrance, unaware of the masked man's presence.
"Looks like our man hit a dead end," Kris smiled. "Us on one side, them on the other."
"He won't go out without a fight," Max motioned to the bulky form of the Graveler standing guard by the platform entrance.
"Then we should go now," Kris said, switching off the monitor and running for the platform.
Down in the service tunnel, Barry stopped before a heavy metal door labelled
"Platform 1".
"This should take us in the train station," he said to Tanya, who jogged up slowly behind him.
"Is it locked?" she asked. Barry tried the handle. It clicked softly.
"No," he replied. "Umbreon, you go first. Faint Attack anything threatening."
"Um," the Dark pokemon nodded, before slipping through the open door.
"Okay, in we go," Barry muttered.
He pushed the door gently, both of them silently offering thanks for the hinges, which were in good repair and did not squeak. Barry went in first after Umbreon, whom he found crouching behind a bench on the platform. Barry saw Golbat swoop up into the metal girders above, while Tanya moved round the back of platform, taking cover in the shade of a vending machine. On the opposite side of the platform, Kris and Max crept forward towards where they knew the Graveler was waiting at the entrance to the main station. The masked man, pressed against the wall through which he could hear Kris and Max approaching, suddenly bellowed a command to Graveler:
"Explosion, NOW!"
All four team mates heard the voice, and each one had only a split second to react.
There was a glare of light, and a shockwave rushed through the station moments before there was a mighty roar of sound. The Graveler exploded, throwing a wall of force and debris crashing through the platform. Shattered walls collapsed, bringing down sections of the roof over the platform and train track. Tanya rolled out of the way moments before a twisted girder slammed into the vending machine in front of her, crippling it. She yelled a command to Golbat, now dodging falling stone and metal.
"Golbat! Wing Attack that guy!"
The giant bat instantly dive-bombed towards the masked man who was hastily trying to make his escape. With expert control, Golbat dived in low, slicing the man's legs out from underneath him with a swift blow from its wings. As the dust settled, the man opened his eyes to see Tanya, Barry, Kris and Max standing over him, their pokemon all watching him with glares like laser beams.
"You and your illegal activities have been officially neutralized by four Thunder Rank officers of the Pokemon Celestians," Tanya reeled off coolly. "We have reason to suspect that, you, anonymous criminal, are wholly or in part responsible for the theft of several evolution stones of unspecified value, as well as being wholly responsible for the destruction of platform 1 at the Goldenrod Station. Do you have anything to say?"
The masked man looked at them all with a mixture of shock and confusion. He somehow managed to stutter out a sentence:
"Who – who are you people?" he gasped.
"Yeah," Max grinned. "Most of them say that."