The Saviours

When you are young, you are always told to cherish things, to not take them for granted. But there's a problem: you never know which things to cherish most and even the slightest misjudgement can break your heart.

Another thing you are taught is that you should never lose hope. And you shouldn't. In the dark times that still haunt the memories of civilians, I nearly lost hope and in a way I'm glad I didn't, but I also lost something I should have cherished far more. But we can't go back and correct our mistakes; we live on and learn from them.

All I can say is that at least it's all over now.

Drake – Acting Head of G-Men

"Come on," I urged Ritchie as I dragged him down the deathly silent corridors of the League tower. We were almost at our destination on the sixth floor. We stopped outside a thick mahogany door, decorated with a brass plaque which was engraved to read:

'Drake Mandrake – Leader of Hoenn Elite Four.'

And now he was the Acting Head of G-men since Lance disappeared, though that wasn't mentioned. That's part of what we were here for; we had begun our search for Ash Ketchum and Lance, who was also Ritchie's cousin. They had disappeared a little over two months ago and things had progressively got worse since. Only the Sevii and Orange Islands remained unaffected.

"Duplica," Ritchie said, gently breaking me away from my thoughts. I shook my head quickly and went through the door. Behind the door was a small reception-like room, decorated with regal walls and carpets. Opposite the door leading to the corridor were a grand set of double doors, probably leading to Drake himself. To the right of the door was antique desk and behind it was Drake's secretary, a small mousy woman, who was busy stacking papers.

"Drake will be out in a moment," she answered robotically, without even looking up at us. Sure enough, Drake exited his office and gave some papers to the secretary. He glanced at us cautiously.

"Ritchie and Duplica?" he asked coldly.

Beside me, Ritchie shifted furtively and nodded. "Yes, sir."

"This way," he ordered, gesturing lamely towards his office. As we followed behind, Ritchie gave me a warning glance and it confirmed my belief that something was amiss; Drake was an acquaintance of Ritchie and had always been polite. His coldness now was completely out of character.

Or maybe he's changed like everyone else - war does that to people.

I thought about this as we sat down. Since Ladening had been voted President of Kanto, a new criminal organisation, Team Eon had surfaced, wrecking havoc among the four main regions - far worse than that of its predecessors. Everyone lived in fear and the G-men were like resistance fighters, warring against Eon, while the government did nothing. People were killed daily with many more just vanishing. Almost like a dictatorship, a nation ruled by fear.

"How can I help you?" Drake asked in the same cold tone, bringing me away from my thoughts.

"We're on a search for Ash Ketchum and Lance De Vere," Ritchie answered cordially.

"Why both together?" he questioned, narrowing his eyes in scrutiny as he tried to catch us out.

"Both disappeared around the same time and Misty and Cynthia vanished together afterward." I replied unsurely, a little unnerved by his scrutinising gaze that seemed to bore into me, searching for any foul intentions.

"Very well," he answered after a while. "I am pretty certain you are trustworthy friends."

I let out a breath I didn't realise I had been holding.

"But," he added in a quiet, threatening tone that made me shudder. "If you misuse the information I am about to trust you with, you will regret it; understand?"

"Yes, sir," we answered earnestly.

"I'll start with when Ash came to me. I invited him to join the G-men, you see, but he wanted to join anyway…"

The tall young man strode proudly into Drake's office, his black cape swirling behind him. Despite his strength as both a trainer and a man, even Drake felt the slightly imposing air of radiating from this man and the sagely Pikachu perched proudly on his shoulder.

Drake himself was sat behind his enormous old desk, observing the hustle and bustle of the Indigo Plateau through the sixth floor window. He greeted the man with a smile and shook his hand.

"It's great to see you again, Ash," he greeted.

"You too, sir," the man replied with an amiable smile as he removed his black hat, revealing a ruffled mop of raven hair.

"Since we invited you to join, we can skip formalities, but I need to know: why are you joining us now if you rejected our invitation not twelve months ago?"

The young man stared intently at Drake for a moment, and then placed the Pikachu down on the chair wordlessly. They remained in silence for a moment while the young man scrutinised Drake, then he sighed and began to speak.

"You have seen many dreadful things - you will not be shocked, so I can tell you my real reasoning for being here." The man paused as he started to pace up and down the room. "As you know, John Ladening has just been elected President of Kanto; the public were easily fooled by his rusty promises and lies."

"What on earth do you mean?" Drake interrupted.

"John Ladening is not what he seems. He is evil," Ash answered exasperatedly, still continuing to pace about the room. "He has joined the four teams together to form Team Eon and he plans to manipulate the bosses into helping him take over the entire Pokémon world."

"I thought Magma and Aqua disbanded," Drake objected loudly.

"So did I, but they regrouped and were lured by Ladening and now he plans to use all of them to summon the Great Dragon."

"But what has becoming President got to do with it?"

"He can censor broadcasting and gain the trust of the public so no-one will suspect anything."

Drake sighed - defeated - he didn't like Ladening much himself, but he didn't want to believe Ash. Then he gave the man a concerned glance. "How do you know all this anyway?"

"For the past nine years I have been infiltrating the various teams and for the last six months I was in Team Eon."

"Won't they recognise you?" Drake asked, suddenly worried in case Team Eon were to attack.

"No worries, I borrowed a Ditto off a friend, wearing it as a mask it's a perfect disguise."

Drake paused in his narrative a moment as he turned to look at me in realisation.

"You are the friend who lent him a Ditto," he stated, almost accusingly.

I nodded. "After Ash won the Indigo League, he asked if he could borrow my Ditto on a semi-permanent basis while he went away. I thought nothing of what he was doing and gave him Dit right away."

Drake nodded. "That's not all I can tell you, but I think it will be best if I take you to see the other G-men first. Together our memories are likely to generate more information."

Ritchie nodded. "Lead the way, sir."

Drake took us towards the lift and we went down to the basement. Along the way he explained how the G-men used the twenty-ninth floor, which could not be reached by the general public and the only way to get there was through a lift concealed in the basement.

The ordinary lift reached the basement and the doors slid open to reveal a dark and dank corridor, a harsh contrast to the classiness of the rest of the building. Drake strode ahead, leading us through a complex maze of passages until we eventually reached a door that looked like it should open to store cupboard. Instead, we were greeted by the familiar inside of a lift.

As we stepped inside, I noticed that instead of a number of buttons for the various floors, there was a keypad, presumably intended for a security code. Drake hunched over the keypad, so we could not see, and typed in his code. The lift then whirred into life and began its ascent towards the top of mysterious twenty-ninth floor.

A/N: So I've had this story milling around in my head for some time now, but the idea was originally the events leading up to the disappearance, but then I had a brainwave, wrote three chapters in one day and the story has just flowed from there. Many hours that should have been devoted to homework and coursework has been spent on this story so I hope you enjoy it.

As of right now (15:29 on Wednesday 17th February 2010) I have almost the entire story written out.

Great thanks to my beta Jenn for all her help in the writing of this story and to my brother who has read through every chapter thus far to provide a second opinion.

Feedback (both kind and critical) is greatly appreciated.

Princess Tiger