Alright, my first story! It picks up during the events of "Pokemon Heroes." You don't have to have seen it to understand it, nor does it spoil very much (if anything at all). It does have some Altoshipping, so turn away now if you don't like that kind of thing.
"Speaking"
"Telepathic speaking"
I own nothing except for my OC's; Cain, Bastian, and Damian (Who is, by the way, not that jerk who previously owned Ash' charmander. I didn't know there was a "Damian" in Pokemon until after I wrote this).
All was dark and quiet in the late evening of Alto Mare. The sound of a door opening and closing was easily audible in the empty streets and canals. Two young men stepped out onto the walkways and could only see each other through the dark because they each wore white clothing. The older of the two stood in the doorway and spoke to his friend, who was already walking off.
"Cain, the museum's obviously going to be closed this late at night. Let's stay in our rooms and grab some sleep…"
The younger man looked at him, still walking forward while enjoying the warm breeze in the dark.
"Damian didn't seem to think it'd be closed, he told me that he'd be checking it out, and hasn't come back to the hotel since. If he's still there, maybe he can open the doors up for us." Cain beckoned for his companion to start following him. "Besides, Bastian, you slept enough on the plane ride over here. Let's take a look around anyways while everyone's still asleep."
Bastian was a tall, 21-year old man with short black hair and sharp facial features. He wore a white overcoat and dark pants, both of which were very clean. He just sighed and figured it was typical Cain, very awake even at midnight… what a pain in the neck. Cain had a somewhat conflicting appearance with Bastian- he was 18 and more than half a foot shorter, with longer, swept back dark brown hair. His eyes were a deep grey and always wide open. He, too, wore a white coat with dark pants, but they were well worn as opposed to Bastian's tidy attire. He also had heavy leather boots and a large belt on, which gave him a sturdier appearance than his lanky partner.
Bastian began to run towards and catch up to Cain, giving up his hope for some rest.
"So, have you ever been to Alto Mare before?" Bastain started conversationally.
"Nah, I've never even left Kanto since my family moved there."
"Hm. But imagine the history behind it! There's this ancient architecture, of course I can't miss the canal structure, the engineering used to build buildings on the water-"
"Plus those guardian Pokémon I read about. There are statues of them over there, see? "
Cain pointed to a pair of concrete statues 50 feet tall, visible in the little moonlight, with a dragon sitting atop each one- Latias and Latios.
Bastian didn't look as interested in the mythical Pokémon.
"Yeah, but there are only myths and some mosaics concerning them, I'm more interested in the architecture…"
"You're always talking about architecture and ruins, I'll bet you'd like looking into the Pokémon if you took your eyes off the rocks," Cain teased.
As they were talking, the two had made their way down several streets and were approaching the Museum of Alto Mare. But when Cain was about to step into the main plaza in front of the Museum, a gate shot up out of the ground and blocked the way with eerily writhing bars.
Cain jumped back a step.
"What was that! Is… Is there a curfew or something?" He said hesitantly.
The clanging sound of more bars shooting up out of the ground echoed down the streets from behind them, leaving only some side street as the pair's only open path.
"Eh… I don't like the looks of these bars. This way!" Cain took off down the side street, Bastian following.
"Cain, look- the windows are being barred too! I can hear more walls going up behind us.. it sounds like they're converging on that plaza."
Cain and Bastian ran down random paths, trying to find a way through the lockdown in a city they were very unfamiliar with. Meanwhile, they didn't notice an unnaturally large armored shellfish silently stalking them as it bounded across rooftops. Violence being it's only nature, the bony creature prepared to leap down on its prey and tear them apart with the powerful sickles it had for arms, when it heard the screech of an Aerodactyl several blocks away. The true targets were elsewhere. Remembering its mission, the Kabutops pivoted on its clawed feet and headed in the direction that its partner called from.
. . .
"Latias, look out!"
Ash Ketchum was clumsily steering a gondola along the canals, the only unblocked passage towards the museum and Latios, who was captured along with the Soul Dew in order to power the Defense Mechanism of Alto Mare. Latias was floating slowly ahead of him, the pure white and red dragon looking out for any danger ahead of them as they made their way to find the DMA and Latios. But the Aerodactyl that had been sent to capture the young psychic dragon was a predator, and naturally stalked them silently as it closed in on the dragon and human. The New Master had called upon his power, and would hunt down the Latias as She demanded. Besides, the Aerodactyl wanted revenge for his "murder," caused by a Latios. Seeing the machine that once destroyed Aerodactyl absorbing another of the Latios' species would make a satisfying revenge.
The Aerodactyl closed in on the unaware Latias, picking her up in his talons.
"Augh!"
"Wha- Hey, let go!" Ash burst out in sudden anger. Without thinking, he took a running jump off the gondola and managed to get a grip on the fossil Pokémon's tail. The Aerodactyl swung its tail against the concrete buildings, but Ash hung on, although his arms were severely grazed by the friction.
"Heh, it's going to take a lot more than that to shake me off, after all my flying- and falling- with Charizard and Pidgeot. Pikachu, thunderbolt!"
"Pikapi," Pikachu confidently yelled as he fired a bolt at Aerodactyl. The fossil let go of Latias in surprise, though the electricity conducted through him into Ash. The boy dropped into the water just as the predator climbed higher into the sky, out of their range.
"Latias, are you all right?" He called out.
"I'm fine, those claws didn't hurt too much…" She gasped when she saw the Aerodactyl bank and swoop down towards them again, charging up a hyper beam in his mouth. "Watch out!" Latias telepathically yelled to Ash and Pikachu, making herself invisible and backing into an alcove.
The beast swooped down over the water as he released the laser, this time aiming for the yellow rat that hit him before. Pikachu's agility let him jump to the side and away from the blast, but Ash was left stranded in the line of fire. He took the hit, partially blunted by the water, and was pushed to the bottom of the canal. Pikachu took initiative and jumped out of the water long enough for him to shock Aerodactyl again without the electricity conducting into the water and Ash.
"Ash! " Latias dove into the water and pulled him to the surface, cruising forward with him in tow. "Please, get up… we still need to save Latios... Ash?" The boy stirred and opened his eyes, conscious but weak from the blow. Humans weren't nearly as sturdy as Pokémon.
For a few moments Ash just relaxed and looked up at Latias and the night sky. He had been through worse; he can save the day now. Latias' brother's life was on the line. He then noticed something bright on a walkway beside the canal. The Trainer asked Latias to pull him to the edge of the water, where there were some water chariots to "borrow".
. . .
Cain and Bastian had managed to find their way to a canal that circled the main plaza in front of the Museum. Like Ash, they had to take this route because the waterways were the only unblocked paths.
Cain spat out some water. "Eh, I'm not big on swimming. Thanks for leading the way, Bastian."
"No problem. Maybe we actually can get into the Museum of Alto Mare after all; it looks like there are some lights on inside. But why don't you arm yourself… This lockdown must be a function of Alto Mare's Defense Mechanism, and someone must have gotten control of it," Bastian said.
"Right." Cain's duty was to protect Bastian during his field work, and was equipped and trained to do so. He pulled out a Pokéball and the two silently crept through the unlocked doors in the museum. Behind them, the plaza began to flood as an exhausted dragon as well as a fifteen-year old boy climbed out of the canals.
Cain and Bastian tried their best to walk through the concrete halls without their footsteps being heard by whoever might be in the building, keeping an eye out for signs of Damian or the whereabouts of the DMA. Cain had some trouble keeping Bastian from marveling at the historical works on the walls, but it wasn't far to their destination- they only had to make a turn down a single long hallway to find the room that was the source of the light. Distant yelling and a loud whirring sound could be heard from the ominous room.
"Wait, I can hear someone saying something," Bastian quietly said.
Cain leaned towards the doorway from the side, trying to remain unseen or unheard until he knew who might have activated the sudden lockdown.
"…What could you do to us? The Dew and DMA will keep us safe from the likes of some middle-aged man!" a female voice scoffed.
A man's deep, silky voice replied. He sounded far younger than "middle aged." "Yes, I wouldn't want to harm the mechanism… but I believe that your boss won't be pleased with your anarchy, hm? Perhaps if I…"
Cain had didn't know who the woman might be, but he knew with certainty that the man's voice had to belong to Damian, his superior.
"WHAT! H-how do you know about him? Our mission was supposed to be top secret!" A colder female voice shouted. "Well, no matter, my power will drown you. You even said yourself, there's nothing you can do to stop ME!"
Bastian leaned over to whisper to Cain.
"Well, sounds like someone's really gotten control of the DMA. I've done a bit of research on it, it's a machine designed to keep the city from flooding. It's supposed to be inoperable, unless it has some relic called a "Soul Dew." That'd explain the lockdown… think you can help Damian and shut it off? …Without damaging the Mechanism, that is."
Cain gave him a mischievous grin. "Gladly. Sit back and relax, bud."
The boy ran released one of his Pokémon out in the hallway, which immediately darted through the archway before it could be clearly seen. Its trainer followed, still holding the other ball. Bastian remained behind; fighting was Cain's thing, he thought. Hopefully he would stop whoever broke into the museum before the DMA was broken or drained of power. Damian told him that they would need it intact to investigate its workings better.
. . .
As Cain entered the room, his attention was immediately brought to a huge, revolving machine that had to be the DMA, which filled nearly the entire space with its intimidating mass. It somewhat resembled an observatory telescope made out of a heavy metal alloy. But where the lens might be there was instead some sort of radar array, plus an arm sticking out halfway up the length of the machine. The extension was orbiting the central device, with a cockpit at the end which held a silver-haired woman in it. At the base of the DMA, a large blue and gray dragon was encased in a floating cage of metal loops. Cain recognized it as Latios, the (supposedly) mythical guardian dragon of the city, adding to the mind-blowing display inside the room. He was curled up and seemed to be in pain and unconscious. After a moment of staring at the machine and dragon in awe, Cain realized that there were more people in the corner- another woman with large hair in dark clothes on the ground, glaring at Damian. Neither of the criminal women seemed to intimidate Damian, who merely stood with his arms crossed, admiring the spectacle. He had long golden hair that went down to his shoulders, and wore a red velvet suit with black leather shoes.
Damian's bright blue eyes glittered as he shifted his calm gaze from the unknown woman to Cain, still standing in the doorway, surprised at Damian's lack of fear in front of the dangerous mechanism.
"Ah, Cain. Excellent timing. Perhaps you would like to aid in arresting these Team Rocket members?"
"Hey shut up, you're not supposed to know who we are!" The angry silver-haired woman in the cockpit yelled. She was getting irritated at this man who wasn't running in fear of her newfound power.
Damian just smiled innocently. "Ah, my mistake. But you really must be removed at once. Cain?"
"Y-Yeah?" Cain was put off guard, as he was prepared for a deadly showdown, not a display of manners from his superior.
"Please incapacitate the young lady piloting that dangerous device for me. I'll apprehend this one over here." Damian turned his attention on the blonde woman and pulled out a pistol and, to everyone's surprise, a military saber. Who uses stuff like that these days?
"Eh… Espeon, quick, use psychic on him! Don't let him hit my gorgeous body with that nasty gun!" She stammered. No reply came.
"Your Espeon has been taken care of. As has your Ariados," Damian calmly revealed to both criminals. "Now Cain, are you going to put a halt to their control over the DMA or not?"
"Right! Go, Cloyster!" Cain finally focused on the DMA and threw a Pokéball down in front of him. A large, grey-shelled oyster popped out in a burst of light. In the depths of the armor was a small black pearl with violent eyes. This "head" had a spike protruding out from above it, with two more large spikes on either side of his shell.
"Cloy!"
"Alright, freeze her with an ice beam!"
But the heavy iron cockpit closed shut and began spiraling up towards the pinnacle of the machine, out of harm's way. The beam instead hit the machine's base and encased it in solid ice.
"Guess we'll have to get more altitude. Cloyster, throw a surf attack at the machine, and then freeze it with ice beam!"
"Cloy-STER!" Cloyster clamped his shell shut for a moment, and when it opened back up, a torrent of water burst out of it and towards the machine.
The cockpit, now at the top of the tall room, opened up again.
"Really, you're using water attacks against a machine designed to control floods! That surf is barely a puddle to me. Behold!" The villainess waved her hands and the water rose up into a column and paused. Then it turned back around and rushed towards the Cloyster and his trainer.
"Cloyster, freeze it anyways, we need to keep the upper hand over the water in this room!"
"Cloyster-cloy!"The armored Pokémon fired an ice beam at the body of liquid, freezing it into a smooth wave of ice.
"Now, use icicle spear to shoot her out of the air!"
The Cloyster rolled over to the mass of ice and dug his front spike into it, creating some large cracks. As he pulled the spike out, a sharp crystal remained stuck to it and began glowing with the Pokémon's power. Then it fired at mach speed up straight towards the cockpit. But at that moment, an enormous shattering could be heard reverberating from outside the room; several glass mosaic windows broke and the concrete walls shuddered. The cockpit also closed instantly, faster than the Rocket's reflexes could have done in retaliation to the icicle spear. The ice shattered on impact with the iron doors and fell to the ground, nothing left but powder, and the whole machine began moving in faster, erratic motions.
Cain maintained his composure, sure that he still had a trick to deactivate the DMA. Ever since he arrived in Alto Mare, he knew that Bastian and Damian would only be conducting research, and didn't think there would be much harm in the way. The DMA was a machine purely to protect a town from water, after all, what could it do to attack him inside this room? Yet, glancing at the Latios in the cage, he could tell that it was in a lot of pain, and it would only be right to free the graceful-even-in-peril Pokémon. But following the tremor that ran through the museum, a wet boy a few years younger that Cain ran through the archway into the room, followed by a sleek red dragon. This dragon was far smaller than Latios, maybe half his length at four or five feet. Cain recognized her as Latias, surprised that a human boy would be accompanying her. What he knew about Latias and Latios was little, only a few legends that were in a brochure, but it said that Latias and Latios were never seen out in public, but protected the city from danger. It made sense that they would make an appearance now.
"Brother!"
"Latias! Watch out, there are dangerous people in here," Latios shot a pained look towards the Team Rocket members, as well as Damian, who had long ago knocked out the blonde with the hilt of his saber and was tying her up in a corner.
"Don't worry, we got past everything that they've thrown at us… we have to get you out of there!" Latias telepathically said aloud to Ash and Latios, ignoring the people in or around the DMA. "Ash, please, help break this cage," She continued, ramming into it. The loops gave off a nasty shock when she touched it, but Latias ignored the pain; saving her brother was her greatest concern.
Ash and his Pikachu began attacking the cage. The teen tried pulling at the hoops, enduring the pain of the shocks, while his Pokémon charged up a thunderbolt and fired it to no avail.
Cain figured that his little strategy might be in place by now. He also wanted to end the pain for the poor creature and stop the machine from doing any damage.
"Alright, Gengar, knock her out!" He called out to nothing that was visible. Damian, who didn't seem fazed by the quake or the behavior of the DMA, expectantly looked up at the sealed cockpit. A faint "thunk" and a short cry could be heard from within, but nothing else happened. Damian sighed.
"I presume that was your Gengar who snuck inside there? A good effort. Yet, I'm afraid something has damaged the controls and put it out of manual control. That dragon," He gestured towards the Latios that was trying to reach out to the Latias," looks to be unwillingly powering the device. Let us assist them to 'pull the plug' and be done with this skirmish."
Damian walked over to the cage, Cain following, where Ash had been knocked back from Latios by the cage again. He looked up at Damian and saw his sword that he held to his side.
"Hey, you're not going to hurt them are you?" He said protectively, getting up and standing between Damian and the Eon siblings.
"Please, I only wish to help." Damian laid a hand on Ash's shoulder and firmly pushed him to the side, then raised his saber up over his head. Latias suddenly noticed the man ready to strike, and squealed in worry. But as Damian brought his weapon down, it caught between the revolving hoops and stopped them, allowing Latios to be pulled out by the shocked dragon and teen.
"There we go. The DMA should shut down now…" On cue, the humming of the machine was cut off and the whirling slowed to a stop.
Latias collapsed to the floor, looking at her brother with concern. Ash put his hand on her back a moment, then looked up and called to his Pikachu,
"Hey, Pikachu, come over this way!" The two then ran around to the opposite side of the DMA that Cain was standing by.
Sheathing his sword, Damian left the room and turned immediately to look at where Bastian had been hiding outside of the room. Cain wanted to find out a bit more about these legendary Pokémon that he was lucky enough to encounter, and stayed inside with the other group of a teen and the Eon dragons. He courteously stepped around the dragon siblings to see where the black-haired kid had gone. He was astonished to see an old man and a girl tied against the wall by what looked like a web. Both seemed to be almost unconscious, probably from asphyxiation by the webs over their mouths. The Pokémon trainer was pulling away the webs around their waists, and the man staggered forward. Cain ran forward to help support him.
"Wh..who..?" He managed to say, trying to catch his breath and looked around the room. Then the man saw Ash, who was working on pulling the webs binding the girl, who looked to be between his age and Cain's. "Ash! Please… don't let… anyone... touch the dew... Only Latios," He managed to huff and nearly collapsed, nearly crushing Cain. "Ash" looked at the elderly man in concern.
"Don't worry, Lorenzo. Bianca, are you okay?"
She swallowed and began drawing large breaths.
"Y-Yeah.. I just need a second," she replied as she leaned against the wall. "Is Latios… alright?"
"Yeah, Latias and I got here… then some guy with a sword helped us free him." Ash then finally looked over at Cain, who was starting to think of what he had gotten himself into by not leaving immediately. All these people knew each other and the dragons, probably quite personally. He might be interrupting something that he shouldn't know about, but introduced himself anyways.
"Hey... I'm Cain." He started simply, putting his free hand out to Ash, his other one supporting Lorenzo, who was starting to get his breath back.
"I'm Ash. Thanks for helping us out back there! I guess you're a Pokémon trainer, huh?" He replied more enthusiastically than Cain would have thought, as the kid looked over at Cain's Cloyster. The boy was a few inches shorter than Cain, and maybe fifteen years old. His black hair and white-and-red cap were soaking wet, and he had an enthusiastic look on his face, despite being electrocuted by the DMA several times.
"Great to meet ya. Any of you need any help?" He looked to Bianca, who was slightly taller than Ash. She was then probably somewhere between Ash and Cain's ages. She wore a green polo shirt and white skirt with a beret, also white. She stood up and walked towards Latias and Latios, having regained some strength.
"No, you should probably go." Lorenzo had answered before Ash could, and was now standing upright. He had a stern look on his face and looked past Cain, who saw Damian coming back into the room with Bastian behind him. Bastian was going nuts over observing the DMA for the first time, and Damian just walked straight towards Lorenzo while ignoring everyone else.
"A-Alright." Cain figured they didn't want him interrupting whatever they might be doing with the legendary dragons, or have him stealing that "Dew" he had mentioned to Ash. "Oy! Bastian! Let's get some rest now... we'll take a look at the machine tomorrow."
Bastian turned around at hearing his name, and finally noticed Latias and Latios, still resting close together while Bianca kneeled next to them. After a moment, he replied to Cain,
"Okay. Damian, will you be alright?"
"Yes. Cain, you are dismissed." Damian said. "I must speak with this man about the events that have occurred, as the police force and media will probably show up now that the DMA- and presumably the lockdown- have been deactivated."
"Thank you sir." Cain did a small salute, recalling his Cloyster and Gengar (who came down from the now open cockpit, leaving behind the unconscious Rocket inside) and then left through the arch with Bastian they had come through, looking back at the dragons who had been reunited.
. . .
Cain flopped down on the bed at the hotel, not too tired, but going over what just happened in his head.
'The DMA Bastian and Damian were supposed to be studying was taken over by Team Rocket… then that Guardian Dragon was being used as a power source. I guess that's all that they focus on anyways… technology and rare Pokémon.'
Bastian had sat down in a chair and immediately pulled out a notebook from his bag and began making notes. While he was writing, he started to speak to Cain.
"So, who were those people in there? The kids didn't look like someone who would take over the Defense Mechanism."
"No, there were some women who took control. They were part of Team Rocket, but Damian stopped one of them. The other was inside the DMA- I knocked her out with Gengar, but the whole thing just kept spazzing out anyways."
"What? It was out of control? Tell me what happened!" Bastian shot at Cain, worried. "We came here to see how it works for Silph Co., and if the controls have been fried, then we're going to back empty handed, and this whole trip is for nothing!"
"Well, it seemed to be operating smoothly until there was some sort of shock wave that ran through the room, and from there it seemed to just spin around. I don't know if it did anything. It stopped once Damian freed the Latios from some sort of cage."
Bastian sighed.
"So now it's powered by mythical Pokémon? That's going to look good in the report… 'technology damaged by felons, powered by Pokémon from fairy tales."
"But they aren't fake, you saw them there! Latias and Latios!" Cain replied, frustrated at Bastian's negative attitude. "Besides, can't you just fix the thing?"
"I don't know... I guess if we actually can power it with . If we can see how it works, maybe we'll be able to build a replica that doesn't need DRAGONS to power it," Bastian said sarcastically. "So what about the other people? Those teenagers that were with the Guardians?"
"Oh yeah, I got their names… the trainer was Ash. Seemed nice enough, he had a Pikachu and went to help untie the other people. There was Bianca, a girl who had been captured for some reason, and she seemed close to the dragons. They're both younger than I am... 16, maybe 17." Cain tried to remember who else was there. "Then there was an old guy, he just collapsed, but recognized Ash. He was tied up too, nearly fainted from how tight the bindings must have been. I think his name was Lorenzo."
"So they didn't do anything to the Mechanism?"
"Aside from shut it off, no. And if Damian told me that pulling the Latios out of the machine's imprisonment would stop it, then that probably wouldn't have hurt it," Cain added.
"Alright. They're none of our concern then.. well, good night." Bastian closed his notebook and left the room.
"'None of our concern?' You're starting to sound like stuffy ol' Damian," Cain teased.
"Or maybe you just enjoy the company of strangers too much," came from Bastian reply from the hallway." Cain shook his head. Bastian was being really aggravating, though he couldn't tell if it was on purpose or if it just came naturally.
10 pages sure boils down a lot in translation from MSword to ... oh well. Length isn't important (speaking of which, most chapters might not be this long)
Rate it high, rate it low, just give me your opinions so I can hopefully make this into a much better story. Next chapter should be up soon (a week or so)... I've got plenty of free time to write.