As he silently crept down the darkened hallway, he knew something was not quite right, that something was amiss. He tapped his headset. "Phoenix, you still there?" Nothing. "Phoenix, do you read?" Still nothing. Steeling his nerves, he pressed on through the darkness, only to be stopped by a few steps later by an extremely loud klaxon. "DAMMIT!" he yelled, just as gunshots rang out from down the hallway. "Phoenix, what is your loca-" He was stopped midsentence by a red and orange shape flying out of an adjacent hallway. "About time." A small clinking sound, amidst more gunshots. "We need to get out of here." All of a sudden, a massive smokescreen billowed up between the two intruders and their pursuers. Still more gunshots. "They must be using infrared optics. Throw out a heat wave." For reasons incomprehensible to the soldiers, the temperature in the room suddenly rose to a little more than 100 degrees. "What the hell?!" one of them yelled. "Thermal optics just went haywire!" "There's nothing wrong with it," replied another, "it's just MORE THAN 100 DEGREES IN HERE!" "How the hell did that happen? Nothing's on fire…" Down the hallway, the two heard their would be pursuers talking. "We still have to get them, or we'll look like idiots. After them." 'Hah', the man thought to himself, 'haven't you yet learned that it isn't that simple?' "Alex, go. Reflect. Block off the hallway from both sides. Box them in." A bright flash of light, then a third someone appeared in the hallway. It held up its hands. Then something weird happened. Somehow, through arcane methods unknown to the soldiers, a shimmering wall of light appeared on either side of them. "What the actual fuck just happened?!" One of them tried to shoot the three people down the hallway. "NO!" Too late. The soldier pulled the trigger, and sent the bullet chambered in his firearm ricocheting all around the tiny room. They all knew it was coming, but couldn't do a single thing about it. They watched, almost in slow motion, as the tiny piece of metal hit one of their own. They watched as the red mist of both life and death exploded from the wound. The thing that happened next shocked every one of them to the very bone. The man they were trying to kill walked over to them and said, "Hold him still." The soldiers looked over and saw that their dying comrade was convulsing. Still they hesitated. One of them raised his weapon, but for some reason, the metal bent fully in half. The third being lowered its glowing hand. "Hold him still. Do you want to save him or not?" This time, they obeyed without question. The third being passed through the semitransparent glowing wall, causing all of the soldiers to point their weapons at it. It just shook its head, as if saying, "You idiots." All of their guns folded too, without so much as a movement from the strange being in their midst. It bent down and laid its hands on their fallen comrade, inches from death. It closed its eyes. (Start Lugia's song) When it opened them again, they were glowing gold. One of the soldiers tried to run, and smacked straight into the wall. Laying its hands on the fallen soldier, it began to hum a sweet song. The soldiers, who before were squirming, fidgeting, and talking, all fell silent and still. Glowing energy floated through the air, swirling around the soldiers looking on and forming long tendrils of energy that wrapped themselves around their fallen comrade. The soldiers looked on in wonder and amazement as their friend, their brother, opened his eyes and sat up. "What just happened?" he said. Then he noticed all of the people gathered around him and the strange something that had its hands on him. He screamed. What IS that? Whatever it was had gold glowing eyes, though they were slowly fading, and he could faintly make out what looked like… a red chest spike? 'That's not possible…' he thought. 'I'm just hallucinating after being shot,' he thought. Then he passed out. The rest of the soldiers looked at the man who appeared to be the master of this being that just saved a man's life through some strange magic unknown to them. "Why… Why did you save him?" one of them asked. "No one deserves to die, no matter what they have done. There is forgiveness for everyone." The glowing thing, having finished healing the soldier, released the box containing the group of soldiers. "Attack me if you will," the man said, "but know that it will always be on your conscience." Having said that, the man walked down the hallway and out of the complex. "Who was that?" one of the soldiers asked. "I don't know, but he had to have been really powerful and smart, to put up some sort of heatscreen and then box all of us in with just that- some sort of strange invisible box." "Then how do you explain how he literally brought someone back from the dead?" There were varied responses to this. One said, "I don't think that was him." to which another replied, "What, did he use magic or something?" A few men laughed, but others cast their eyes about uneasily as if they wanted to believe that he did but didn't want to look stupid. "What was that other thing, with the glowing eyes and hands?" "Maybe it was that thing that brought him back," another said. The captain of the squad stepped up. "Nobody says anything about this to anyone. Got it?" he said in a gruff voice. They didn't want to get beat up. Outside the strange man was listening to every word that they said. "Little do they know…" he said to himself, pocketing a glowing purple gem.