Thanks for all the support you've guys have provided me through the years. This is the third attempt at the story that first brought me to Fanfiction. A Soul Adventure, all those years back, was a means for me to learn to be a better writer, I never thought it would come this far; last year I started my first major writing project and reached the point of having written over 50,000 words among all my stories. While this is not the greatest I could or can do, it was a milestone. Now that I've reached this point, I'm going to take a step back and try to build up for the next milestone. By the end of spring, I believe that I will have exceeded 100,000 words and I will have exceeded 10 stories. Thank you for sticking by me this far, so thanks guys. I now present first part of the rewritten, Going Further, enjoy.

Welcome to RiptideZ's "Going Further," a non-profit fan-produced fiction product under the ownership of set penname: RiptideZ.

DISCLAIMER:

All copyrighted items mentioned or used in this work belongs to their rightful owners at the Pokémon Company, Game Freak, Nintendo, and other brands mentioned below or later under terms of Fair Use. The author only owns their own creations. This author is an adamant supporter of Constructive Criticism, please read and review, be mindful however, this author will delete your comment if it is considered of ill-intent or overstated such as being already stated more than a few times. If anything is wrong with the writing piece, contact RiptideZ through the Review section, or Instant Messaging."

Chapter 1: Cipher's Weapon

Words: 3328

Franchise: Pokémon

[Team Rocket]

[Rocket Boss, Identity Unknown]

[Syndicate HQ – Game Corner Basement, Celadon City]

Footage on a wall-mounted projector played within the darkened sound-proof office, the structure located within the bunker complex underneath Celadon City, run by the Kanto Rocket Syndicate.

The viewer sitting behind an aged and glossed oak wood desk was masked in the darkness, his silhouette and his suit colored to the blackest night could be seen within the dim light of the monitor. The shadow behind the desk, likely the most powerful individual in Kanto, was an enigma, but even more unknown was the object passing into view on the screen.

A bird's eye view taken from the port-side, extreme weather camera onboard an unmarked, gray L-100 Hercules cargo aircraft, a civilian equivalent of the Unovan-built AC-130H Spectre, a military attack gunship used by the Unova Coast Guard. Its wing tips and large rudders passed lazily through the clouds maintaining its altitude above a fast moving object flying just above the water on the coast of Mainland Kanto.

Currently the object was still 15 minutes out from Southern Kanto, flying past the islands of the Sevii territory, just now passing a large ominous volcano glowing hellish-red in the starry night, Mt. Ember, its smoke bellowing constantly adjourning the dark clouds moving with the buzzing aircraft. The island, referred to as Knot Island, was the closest island settlement to Kanto and considered a popular vacation and tourism spot due to the Phoenix National Park and hosting one of the largest assortments of migrating Pokémon in the region.

The Syndicate had even made a foothold in the local populace with the advent of possibly capturing the rumored and elusive Moltres that called Mt. Ember home. However, all attempts so far have led with nothing but possible evidence to the specimen using the area as a resting ground during the summer months before migrating elsewhere.

However, tonight was not a night guaranteed to the exotic Pokémon or the vacationers that had come to enjoy themselves.

Tonight, a lone comet skipping across the ocean at an estimated 60 knots glowing a ghostly white and its body painted a midnight black. It measured around 35 meters in length and featured a shape matching that of many dragon-like Pokémon. The glow of the light twinkling in the sparkling sea made it difficult to identify the entire object, the only noticeable forms were a domed beak of sorts and a long serpentine tail with two protruding structures much like that of a plane's rear wings. It appeared as if the tail was sparkling as the unnatural light bended against the reflection of the salt water below the object. A scene revealing what appeared almost like magic.

A lone fisherman looking for a late night catch was knocked back by the small tidal wave on his lonely pier as the beast flew by at a streaking speed. The sight was caught on the high-definition speed camera of the Hercules as it flew over, receiving a light chuckle from the enigmatic man watching the monitor.

The glowing light, the unknown creature at its heart, suddenly bounced skyward with a 75-degree assault toward the clouds and reached a nice altitude a little short of the weather plane that followed the object. Either the creature was ignorant, deliberately ignoring the plane, or was simply deaf to the humans currently watching it as it flew onward. A rumbling began to take the camera as the plane was hit with a spontaneous stream of turbulence and the clouds around the glowing light began to dance with a lack of grace. A swirling depression in its infancy.

The camera continued to shake but at the behest of the man within the bunker kilometers away from the plane, switched the view to the four-choice spectrum, revealing the standard full color image, the temperature gradient, energy levels, and the wind measurements colored in a full, cool gray palette. The buildup of energy and its rapid emission was beginning to make the operators of the plane nervous.

"Sir, the target is increasing in power level and its speeds are increasing steadily as we speak. We're experiencing an unknown source of turbulence that we're assuming is originating from the Pokémon, but we can't be sure. I don't know if we'll be able to hold this position for more than 5 minutes before the wind becomes too much for our censors and our engines to handle. Your call, sir."

Essentially the phone operator had stated the obvious, but the Mafia Boss took the advice in stride; the operator was right, now was the time to retreat. He wasn't like the stereotypical Mob Boss, he cared for the men under his command. "Orion, this is Blackbeard, you're clear to pull out. Report back to Vermilion Airport, be vigilant, I expect your operations chief to provide me with all relevant data by the morning."

"Roger, sir, Orion out." The camera automatically switched to replay mode as the plane switched off its recorder and veered off from the target.

The previously dimmed lights in the room switched to half brightness and illuminated the office building with a series of click sounding comparable to a car driving across loose gravel. The man behind the desk was also revealed in his full glory. He wore a business-like suit, black in color, made of expensive leather fashioned in the style of a trench coat. His fedora cap sat unattended on a small rack on the wall behind the man, a small, capital letter R-pendant lay upon the edge of the trench coat's collar; it glared in the light of the hidden lanterns of the underground office.

The tall man held a muscular stature, measuring at 6'03'' and age 42, he was a giant for the average Kanto-born citizen and had the body of a competitive swimmer with wide shoulders and a mostly straight posture. His hair was aged, mostly black, but some notable silvery hair had broken through. His eye sockets featured bags underneath, and his brow featured a three line indention of long stressed, crease marks from continuous frowning, a once youthful face destroyed by the emotional pain of a stolen life.

The room itself wasn't much beyond the required necessities that did little to match the seemingly massive size of the room. A huge wall-mounted monitor stood at the far wall playing the camera data in repeat; the other walls were adjourned with a few trophy cases containing small amounts of gold and other precious metals, along with large bookshelves covered in books. A few filing cabinets containing shipment and operation histories stood in the corner. A pedestal in the middle of the room revealed a group of round spheres, colored in yellow and black against gray separated by an indented equator. Six Ultra Balls, designed to contain a trainer's Pokémon. A few house plants here and there matched the saturated green walls and set the room's serious mood, however the lack of windows created a depressing tone in the office.

A set of double doors marked the entryway leading to the rest of the complex, a set of chairs, six in total sat in front of the Rocket Boss's desk, and sitting in the central chair behind the desk was one middle aged man, a Giovanni Umbers Junior, the de facto leader of the feared Kanto Rocket Syndicate, a corporate mafia dedicated to controlling the Kanto Underworld. However, as his name suggested, Umbers was not the first, his father Giovanni Senior had passed on in '93 from lung cancer and had left the family name to his only son, Giovanni Junior. The senior's previous cause of death was enough for the middle-aged leader to agree never to take a cigar ever again after a few times of using them in his earlier adulthood…long before he ever became the leader of a national crime organization.

"Mr. Giovanni, sir, your son is here to talk to you." The leader's secretary, Ariana, said with a ghostly whisper of interest.

"…Send him in." Giovanni said with a tired sigh.

"Right away, sir… Seth…" Ariana's voice became muffled as she cut off the transmission and ushered the Syndicate Leader's son into the office. The secretary knew well not to disturb the aged man when he was emotionally unstable with his lack of sleep and the amount of stress he put up with, the levels he covered with alcohol and an emotional mask.

The door opened with a squeak and entered a thin, young man with a tall complex measuring at 5'10'', he wore Aviator sunglasses, no matter where he went in public, his business-casual sweat shirt and contractor khakis made him out to appear like a young businessman enjoying the end of a business trip. He held himself in a righteously confident light, each step he took with a certain emphasis as his presence seemed to focus all the light on him as he entered with an effective stride. His name was Cethin Umbers, the eldest son of Giovanni and a free-lance information broker employed mostly to the Rocket organization, his common business name was "Osiris," but he often was called Seth by virtually everyone he knew personally. Much like his father, he held a very direct mindset toward business, when he became set on a goal he didn't wary from his sight. He never lost sight of his path. However, unlike his father, he had yet to see the consequences of his decisions, he so far lived without fear or guilt, almost as pure as a new born child; that is if you could compare a 23 year old hacktivist veteran to that of a creature that didn't even know how to open their eyes.

"Sup, Boss?"

Giovanni chose to ignore the snarky inquiry and eliminate his son's emotional mask.

"Dammit, Seth, I'm your father, not your supervisor. Get your head out of the sand and help me here."

"Sure dad, what do you need?" His mock seriousness all but evaporated.

Giovanni pointed toward the monitor behind the young man revealing the multiple rolls of footage and initial data taken from the flight recorder aboard the Hercules weather plane only minutes earlier.

Seth folded his arms across his chest and put a finger to his chin, "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"We believe it's a Pokémon, want to try and guess which one?" Giovanni stated with a deathly seriousness.

"I don't even recognize it, please; do enlighten me." Seth stated waving his hand.

"I've analyzed the information myself and I believe it's an Orre-based Lugia, one of a herd of 20 or so. We don't know why it's this far from home, but I need to ask you, do you know anything on an organization known as Cipher?"

"Cipher… No, their name has passed my desk several times before, but no, I've never had any contact and I don't have any data on their inner workings. Essentially, if I didn't work for you Dad, you would be as much of a phantom as they are to me now."

"…You don't have a desk…"

"Shut up, you know what I mean!"

"Alright, alright…" Giovanni said tiredly, throwing his arms in the air in mock surrender, "from what I know and the notes a colleague sent me by e-mail, by the way, these files are highly confidential, they're not even within your abilities to get a hold of just yet; mind you—"

"Hey, dad!" Seth said annoyed in his father's admittance of doubting his abilities.

"Let me finish. Okay? Now as I was saying, this data is covered completely in black ink, my friend took a very large risk to pull this file for me uncensored digitally. According to this file and my time spent with the Navy's R&D division, before I joined the Rockets, and before your grandfather passed away, I worked with "Shadow Pokémon," Pokémon totally obedient and more powerful than that of regular specimens, at a cost. Back in the eighties, me and my colleague and several of our coworkers were working on how to breed more obedient Pokémon, but in the process, we learned much about Pokémon physiology, the experimentation found that our project was successful but after six months the drugs given to them would completely eliminate the Pokémon's ability for conscious thought and become brain dead, slowly killing the creature. It was deemed immoral and the blacklist project was formally closed by the government for all time."

"The drug was a neurotoxin found on an island near Orre in the form of berries, the fruits were harvested and turned into a fine powder that was ingested into the Pokémon. Orre is currently the only region where Shadow Pokémon can naturally occur in the wild, however, it seems the data collected from the R&D project was either stolen or independently reproduced. While the practice, has been recorded to have been practiced by many past civilization in Orre's history, this is probably the first that has been done to a "legendary," that's dangerous. I want you to start focusing your searches on this topic, all other issues are secondary. Got it?"

"Yeah, dad, I've got the idea." Seth said with a crisp salute as if he were in the military.

"Good man, take care of Silver, will you? He's been quite a shutout lately with his mother no longer among the land of the living." Both Seth and Giovanni winced at that thought.

"Will you be home tomorrow?" Seth replied in a darker challenge, reminding Giovanni of his own duties as a father, a duty he had for too long neglected and probably would continue to.

"Do you really want that answered?"

"Never mind, but you owe him, you owe both of us. By the way, why didn't we ever use this Shadow stuff on our Pokémon?" The young info broker asked curiously, his head tilted to one side his eyes hidden behind the shades.

"You know very well why, we may be shady, but we don't cross moral boundaries. We aren't monsters like some people portray us out to be."

"Grandfather would've done it."

"I'm not him; get the hell out and get back to your job. Tell Silver "hi" for me."

"Yes, sir." The son of Giovanni stepped toward the double doors and with a click exited the sound-proof office.

With a heavy sigh, Giovanni slumped into his chair and looked toward the monitor. He thought about the trajectory of the Lugia, a straight path heading toward Southeast Kanto, toward the lesser-populated region, just barely missing Cinnabar Island, the place where his father's failed cloning experiment had failed nearly a decade ago. Heading straight for… the town of Summer, Kanto; only an hour drive from Pallet. Looks like someone was going to have a rude awakening, but in all fairness, Giovanni really could care less, it wasn't his problem. He had more important things to think about.

He looked toward a small portrait on his desk, a young woman with brown hair with deep, red highlights grinned at him wearing a pair of familiar Aviator sunglasses, his son's sunglasses, his wife's sunglasses, she was wearing a sun dress in the picture taken by Giovanni on their honeymoon nearly two decades earlier. Neither son had been born yet, nor had Giovanni yet to join the Syndicate.

The image was peaceful, just the two of them enjoying the beach under a large umbrella listening to the sounds of crashing waves along the coastline and living life as it should have been.

"I'm sorry Mary, I shouldn't have gotten involved. You've sacrifice everything for me, huh?" He said sadly to no one in particular except the far off grave containing a body that had taken the Syndicate Leader's hopes and dreams with it.

On the adjacent side of the desk was a portrait of two Giovanni, Junior and Senior, taken from the successor's college graduation and the day he joined the Navy. The two's smiling faces were a stark mockery of the deceased Senior that Giovanni remembered. A fake and imposter, but yet, a better father than the real one could ever be. The one in the pictures was simply a mask, one that he had adopted himself.

Giovanni spoke with distain, "Look what you've done, asshole. You've taken my wife, my children, my innocence, my consciousness, my dreams, my life; all because you put your corrupt business before family. Good riddance, I hope they have a special spot in Hell boiling warmer than the rest. You deserve every punishment they can throw at you, you piece of trash. I hope you suffer in Hades, Dad."

The Boss grabbed the picture case and photo with little care and lobbed it across the room like a shuriken, the square-shaped case smashed into the floor and shattered, being made of glass, into a million or so pieces. The photo was ripped in places and Giovanni chose to ignore it as he put the stress of his personal life in the back of mind and turned back to the immediate disaster about to occur.

He brought his hand down with a loud smack that sent the cluster of pencils and pens rolling around on the wooden desk. The leader's pistol, a Government Model 1911, rattled dully as the surface below it shook.

With a few key strokes along his keyboard, the wall-mounted monitor and Giovanni's desktop switched from the footage from the Shadow Lugia and to that of a map of Kanto.

Giovanni began to design a diagram using his electronic-stylus pad and began to type up a reacquisition order for some Rocket members to infiltrate emergency services and recover data from the coming disaster, or at least what would be left over after the attack. He hoped that his intuition, the belief that the Lugia would only attack the town of Summer was correct, as even under the influence of the neurotoxin, it could be expected that at least the beast's survival instincts would be intact and keep the creature near water, its source of livelihood, was correct.

Whether the dragon continued or not, there was going to be a lot of dead; in his territory and he had no way to stop it, at least not discretely. The thought made him feel guilty, no matter the moral boundaries he refused to cross, the lives he refused to take, the toes he had chosen to avoid stepping on, no matter his mental compass, he couldn't do anything and he assumed the blame internally. He was very much likely the cause for this incident, directly or indirectly. Since his father's death, Giovanni had attempted to lead the Syndicate away from his predecessor's blood-filled reign, however his work had caused an unspoken Schism in his organization, and he knew well that sooner or later, something was going to snap. He was definitely not prepared.

He needed his scotch, he was starting to think too much again. He pressed an intercom button and made a call to Ariana to bring him another alcoholic beverage, an escape from the pain and prophecies.

Meanwhile, as Giovanni contemplated his situation, the black sea dragon colored a shade of coal black and purple with glowing blood-thirsty red eyes, entered the skies over the coastal town of Summer, a peaceful small city with a heavy dependency on tourism and the families of employees working out in the new business district an hour's drive north in Pallet. No one below, all asleep with twilight just out before the horizon, suspected their world would come crashing down starting with an ominous roar, a rude awakening, and the brightest light anyone had ever seen, a blazing aura able to illuminate and block the sun's rays splashing everything with a dazzling white light.

For the people of Summer, and especially that of an early teenage boy, their world was suddenly set alight with the sound of an ominous scream.