Disclaimer: I own neither Pokemon nor Monster Hunter. I wish, MH: Stories would have a sequel by now if I did.
"Talking"
'Thinking'
"Pokedex/Monster Encyclopedia entry"
Somewhere in the Orre region
"Gorigan, sir! The base is under attack!" the panicked Cipher grunt exclaimed, bursting into his superior's quarters in a panic.
Gorigan-who had been reading the latest reports on the status of their batch of shadow pokemon at his desk-looked up in surprise at the sudden intrusion into his private quarters. "So, they've found us, have they…" he muttered under his breath, with a look of distaste replacing the surprise on his face. Sighing loudly, he got up and headed out of his office, the grunt hurriedly getting out of his way before falling into step behind the large man.
"What do we do?" the grunt asked worriedly, struggling to keep up with Gorigan's quick pace. How was he so fast when he used his knuckles to walk like an infernape? Gorigan's initial reply was a derisive snort. "Against Lance, the Champion of both Kanto and Johto? Very little. Not even all of Cipher's admins together stand a chance against him. I'm surprised that we haven't heard any expl…"
At that moment, a massive explosion rocked the base, knocking the two down and showering them with dust and small chunks of debris. Coughing and hacking into his sleeve, Gorigan reached into his pocket as he rose from the floor and procured a communication device that he stuck in his ear. "Status report! What happened?!" he shouted into the devices microphone in between fits of coughing.
For a few seconds, all that answered him was static. Then, a female voice sounded on the other end. "It's Lance sir! He hit our doors with a hyper beam from his dragonite. They're in bad shape, but holding so far. What are our orde…?" Before the woman speaking could finish, the line cut out, replaced with a buzz of static. Their communications were being jammed.
The Cipher admin cursed under his breath. Though they had known that the dragon master was looking for them, the Cipher leadership had been under the assumption he was still in Johto. They had believed their spy network would have caught on to a champion in their region. Apparently, their spies were as incompetent as most of the other grunts in their organization. Caught completely by surprise, they didn't have the time to marshal their forces for a defense, or organize an escape. They seemed to be trapped. However…
There was one option. A last-ditch plan, to be sure, and one that wouldn't necessarily work. The reason that the base had been built right on top of this cave system in the first place. At first only to study the strange phenomena that happened within, to potentially increase Cipher's power. However, it was theorized that it would also make do as an emergency escape route. Nodding to himself, the admin made his decision.
As he began to turn towards the grunt, who had just finished picking himself up off the floor after the blast, his instincts screamed at him to turn out of the way. Obeying them immediately, he twisted to his right, seeing a throwing star scrape by his cheek where the back of his head had been a split-second earlier. Turning to where the weapon had come from, Gorigan felt his blood run cold.
Out of the shadows of the corridor stepped a man clad in a black and purple ninja's uniform with a red scarf around his neck. Gorigan immediately recognized him. It was the 'poisonous ninja master' Koga. A few years ago, he had been just a gym leader in Kanto, but he had worked his way up to becoming a member Johto's Elite Four. What was most frightening about the man, however, was not his skill with pokemon, but in his ninja arts. He had trained extensively in his own ninja clan, as well as the hidden clan in Kalos. His skills ranged from infiltration and espionage…to assassination.
'Lance's attack, and the explosion…they were just a diversion!' he realized, his already cold blood freezing a few degrees more. Thinking quickly, he knew what he had to do. Reaching for his belt, he pulled out a single pokeball. Across the way, his soon-to-be opponent drew one as well, with a small smirk on his otherwise impassive face.
Not turning away from his opponent, the Cipher admin glanced toward the trembling grunt who was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. Under his breath, just loud enough for his subordinate to hear, Gorigan ordered, "Get to Lovrina in the lab, and tell her to pack up and initiate the Twisted Reflection protocol. She'll know what I mean. Get going, now!" The last part of his order was shouted, as the terrified grunt looked too scared to move. After the shout, however, he needed no more motivation. He disappeared down the cracked hallway immediately, all too glad to get away from such a deadly adversary.
Koga watched on, waiting to get past his current obstacle. The man had talent, that much was obvious after managing to both detect and even dodge his shuriken. However, the admin wasn't his main target. His mission wasn't to amputate the arms and legs of Cipher. His goal was a lobotomy: cut off the head of the ekans, and the rest of the body would die with it. He needed to find Ardos, Eldes, and Greevil, and end this quickly. It had taken months to find the location of this base without tipping off any of the spies they knew Cipher had, and he didn't want them to go to ground and disappear again. Narrowing his eyes, Koga came to a decision. 'I'll just have to speed past this man, and avoid fighting him.'
As Koga rushed forward, intent on shooting past his opponent, Gorigan opened the pokeball he had palmed a few moments ago. With a shout of "Mean Eye!" a gengar appeared in front of the oncoming ninja. Immediately, multiple eyes phased into existence, glaring at the onrushing elite and freezing him in his tracks.
"Damn," Koga swore, realizing his mistake. There was nothing for it, he would have to defeat his opponent, and quickly. As he looked on, the Cipher admin pulled out a second pokeball, and tossed it into the air, while shouting "Go, Shadow Hypno!" The pokemon that appeared from the ball resembled a normal hypno, but Koga knew better than to let appearances fool him. If it was indeed a shadow pokemon, and the malicious intent in its eyes led him to believe it was so, then he would have to be very careful.
Taking out a couple of pokeballs of his own, Koga considered his situation for a moment before he released his partners. The hallway they were in was pretty plain, made out of concrete and without any sort of decoration. However, it was also fairly spacious. Maybe they transported supplies through it? No matter, that would just give the ninja more room to work with. Glancing down, he noticed large cracks in the floor, running the entire length of the corridor. An idea started to form in his mind, before quickly finalizing into a plan.
Looking back at his opponent, he depressed the buttons on the balls in his hand. Two figures emerged in a burst of light, before becoming recognizable. The first was a large purple moth-like pokemon, a venomoth. The second was red spider-like pokemon, his ariados. They were some of his most experienced fighters, and would certainly help him end this battle quickly.
After a few moments of tense silence, the Cipher admin started off the battle. "Gengar, Night Shade on the venomoth! Shadow Hypno, Shadow Storm!" Immediately, the gengar's eyes widened, a red glow coming from them as it turned its gaze toward the large moth. At the same time, the corrupted hypno released a spinning vortex of dark energy, before directing it toward the bug types. Koga, however, wasn't going to just sit there and do nothing.
"Ariodos, use spider web on the Gengar! Venomoth, counter the shadow storm with Silver Spore, max coverage" he commanded, causing his partners to spring into action. Venomoth's wing started fluttering faster, and yellow-tinted silver particles began appearing before shooting off towards his opponents. Meanwhile, the ariados spat a glob of sticky webbing at the ghost-type, the bug-type move shooting off at an impressive speed.
The webbing sailed toward, then straight through the gengar, having no effect and splattering onto the ground to its trainers right. Meanwhile, the Shadow Storm and modified Silver wind clashed together, with the latter move quickly overcoming the shadow-typed move and spreading towards the ghost and yellow humanoid. The admin's view of his opponents became distorted, then almost completely covered by the sheer size and spread of the moth's move.
"Gengar, use Shadow Sneak to dodge and then attack the ariados! Shadow Hypno, bear it and then use Shadow down!" the ape-like man countered, hoping that the wide-ranging move would affect his obscured enemies.
The admin's hopes were almost immediately dashed, however. The gengar was able to dive into its own shadow, but that was about as far as it got. Another shadow darted forward, smashing the gengar right out of it's shadow, before the Silver Wind variant hit both of his pokemon, knocking them back and severely damaging them both. As the wind cleared, both pokemon struggled to get to their feet before their bodies spasmed. They were paralyzed. 'Stun Spore in the Silver Wind!' Gorigan realized, a sense of panic rising in him. Almost immediately, a second Silver Wind-this one normal-hit his paralyzed pokemon, instantly knocking them both out.
His sense of panic rising, Gorigan returned his downed pokemon. Looking towards his now-unobscured opponent, he began another delaying tactic. "Why did your ariados use Shadow Sneak as well? And your venomoth use Silver Wind? I didn't hear you call out any commands," he asked, hoping to get the Elite to waste time talking to him. And the tactic seemed to work.
"Simple. Though they may not have the ability, Ariados and Venomoth do have compound eyes. They can see me even when facing away from me. I trained them to make specific responses to certain hand signals. Not quite as effective as a psychic telepathing their orders, but the tactic is still quite useful," the ninja stated.
"That's right, keep talking," thought Gorigan, his hand slowly reaching towards his belt to summon more pokemon. If he could just keep him talking, the others would have a better chance to get away…
"You're probably wondering why I'm wasting time talking to you, when my priorities are elsewhere," the purple-clad man continued, causing the Cipher admin to pause. Why was he wasting his time talking? The man was an elite ninja, most likely sent to destroy the head of his organization. He wouldn't waste time standing around explaining his techniques. Quite the opposite: he wouldn't explain his techniques to anyone, period. So why…?
"It's quite simple really," continued his opponent. "I needed to keep you distracted long enough for Muk to make his way over to you."
Immediately after the poison master's statement, a wave of purple sludge emerged from the crack in the floor to his left, causing him to curse and stumble away from the poison type slowly coming towards him. Almost immediately though, his feet and knuckles got entangled in some sort of sticky substance. Looking down, he realized that he had gotten stuck in the webbing shot toward him earlier.
It all clicked into place in the admins mind, as the purple goo slowly made its way up his form, apparently intent on smothering him within its vile body. He had been led into a trap, the entire time. The sticky webbing? Meant to trap him to the floor and keep him still long enough for the slow-moving muk to reach him. The wide-ranging, vision-blocking Silver Wind? Meant to keep him from seeing the Muk, wherever it had come from, as it traversed the crack in the floor. The talking, and explaining his techniques? Meant to give the muk the time it needed to get to him. But where had the pokemon come from? Even through the cloud of silver the venomoth had kicked up, he would have noticed it being released.
As the master ninja recalled his own pokemon, the pollution pokemon finally covered the admins head, cutting off his air flow. He struggled weakly for a few seconds, then went still. As Koga walked over to his now-unconscious foe, the his muk slithered off the ape-man's form, and started making its way towards him. Koga briefly considered killing the man; he was an enemy leader, and it wouldn't take but a second to slit his throat. However, he could be useful for intel later. And if he proved useless, well…his clan needed victims to practice their torture and interrogation techniques on.
Koga stooped down and held out his arm towards his purple partner. Muk soon slithered onto his arm, and from there it spread its body to cover his upper body and chest area, conforming itself to look like nothing more than clothing. There was a reason the ninja always wore purple. Now, to find his real targets.
Elsewhere in the Cipher Base
"All right grunts, pack up the essentials and prepare to move out!" a pink-haired scientist shouted, causing a flurry of motion as grunts and other scientists started packing the most essential equipment and downloading files onto hard drives. A moment ago, a gibbering-with-fear grunt had sprinted out of a service hallway, with the news that base manager Gorigan had encountered the Elite Four Koga, and was attempting to delay him. The grunt had also mentioned that Gorigan had ordered initiating the 'Twisted Reflection' protocol.
Hearing this, Lovrina had acted immediately. She knew that Gorigan would only order that protocol if it were absolutely necessary. And the fact that Koga of all people was in the base, while Lance was outside of it trying to bust in, validated his decision. It was time to leave.
"Have Greevil and his bodyguards been evacuated yet? And what about Snattle?" she asked a passing grunt, making him pause.
"I saw them being led toward the tunnels just moments ago, ma'am. I believe I heard them arguing about something," the grunt replied, before continuing to pack away some sensitive equipment.
'Good,' the young scientist thought, before pulling out a small remote. 'Then I can use this to buy us some time. The grunts outside are all just cannon fodder anyway.' And with that, she pressed a button on the remote.
Immediately, the entrances from the main part of the base to the laboratories, as well as the cave system connected to them, became blocked by large steel doors. It wouldn't hold forever, but it might just buy them enough time to get away.
At the same time, the argument between Cipher's Grand Master and his body guards was heating up.
"It's foolish, unnecessary, and extremely dangerous!" an irate Ardos exclaimed, face reddening in frustration. Greevil had gotten it into his head that he had to leave one last parting shot to the invaders, and was adamant about doing so.
"That it may be," replied the Cipher Grand Master, with a tone of forced calmness. "But I don't truly care. These 'heroes' have been a thorn in my side, and I abhor the thought of them invading my base and getting off scot-free. And besides," he continued, as he pulled out a pokeball from its place on the belt underneath his robes. A wicked grin split his face as he rolled the sphere around in his palm before enlarging it. "This will be an excellent opportunity to test the power of our newest addition."
Hallways of Cipher Base
Lance marched forward through the hallways of the base, passing by the bodies of unconscious humans and pokemon alike, cape fluttering behind him. Well, most were unconscious. Anyone standing near the doors when his partner blasted them off their hinges were most likely gone.
Passing a group of groaning grunts, the dragon-master found one that still looked relatively awake, though obviously too hurt to move. Reaching down, he gathered the front of the man's shirt in his fist and, in an impressive show of strength, hauled him up and held him against the wall.
"Where is your leader?" he asked, eyes as hard as rock. If the look in the champion's eyes wasn't already enough to scare answers out of the terrified grunt, the massive dragonite growling behind him did the trick. The smell of ammonia filled the air, as the peon lost control of his bowels.
"Th-th-they're in the lab!" the grunt cried, pointing desperately down the hall. Loyalty was all well and good, but he hadn't signed up for this!
"Are you sure?" questioned Lance, digging the knuckles of his fist into the man's chest. The grunt gasped in pain, a small amount of blood starting to come from the corners of his mouth. Internal damage from the blast, most likely.
"Y-y-yes!" the injured man gasped, desperate to stop the pain.
"Good," the champion replied before slamming the man's head back into the wall, knocking him unconscious. No sense in letting a potential enemy stay awake. Releasing his grip on the knocked-out grunt's shirt, Lance continued down the hall he had been pointed towards. Dragonite followed him, before letting out a questioning growl.
Though he couldn't understand the words exactly, Lance had been with his partner long enough to get the gist of what he was asking. "Yes," he sighed, not faltering in his pace. "We're going to go all out. Capture if possible, but don't hesitate to take out the target if necessary."
Dragonite let out an understanding huff. Lance may be able to take a life when necessary, but he wasn't trained for it like Koga had been. Nevertheless, their enemy was that dangerous. Team Cipher couldn't be allowed to continue existing, not with their goals and ambitions.
Continuing on, the cape-wearing champion soon came to a corner, from which he heard some sort of sizzling noise. Peering around the corner, he found Koga standing in front of a metal wall, cutting off access further in to the base. Two of his pokemon, his muk and his toxicroak, were repeatedly using toxic on the wall, acrid smoke coming off it.
Though he hadn't made any noise, the Elite Four ninja still somehow sensed his presence. Turning around and looking at Lance, the poison master began explaining the situation without preamble. "I was delayed by a Cipher Admin, and upon reaching this corridor found this wall coming down from above. I was unable to get inside in time."
"I thought that was your thing," Lance replied with a grin, which earned him an irritated huff from his friend. Walking over to the slab of metal in their way, the champion had to let out a small whistle. The door had to be at least a yard thick, and obviously treated to withstand toxins and acids, as the poison types had made very little headway.
"Stand back." Lance commanded, also stepping back behind his dragon partner. Knowing what was coming, Koga quickly recalled his pokemon, before joining his leader behind the champion-level dragon. Though, not without a small jab at his friend. "Ah yes, the brute-force method. How original."
Lance merely grinned before replying, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it." Then, turning towards his starter, Lance gave the command. "Hyper Beam."
Inside the lab, one section of the defensive doors exploded outward. Smoke billowed from the wreckage, though it was quickly dispersed. As the two intruders made their way through the used-to-be-a-wall, the lab that they were looking for came into view. Or, what was left of it at least. It looked as if it had been stripped of everything that wasn't bolted down, and even some pieces of equipment that had been.
Across the lab from them, a man stood in front of the entrance to another corridor, pokeball in his hand. Though he looked like a harmless old man, Lance and Koga recognized him immediately. This was their target, Greevil.
Lance stepped forward, his dragonite following his example and standing in front of his trainer, adopting a threatening stance. "Greevil," Lance exclaimed, raising his voice so he could be heard in the large, high-ceilinged room, "surrender immediately, and drop that pokeball! You are under arrest!"
The Grandmaster of Cipher, however, just let out an amused chuckle. "He he he…Your posturing is…amusing, at best." Before either Lance or Koga could react, the robed man threw his pokeball into the air, shouting, "Behold! This is the power of shadow pokemon! XD 001, Shadow Blast!"
To his two opponents shock, and horror, a lugia burst forth from the ball, screaming in rage before leveling a malevolent glare at the dragon master and his ally. But this lugia was different than what the legendary species was supposed to look like.
Instead of a white body and wings with a blue underbelly, it was a malicious shade of dark purple, with its stomach and back fins a tarnished silver. It's eyes glowed red, glowing with a wicked intent, while the fins above its eyes were jagged and the same tarnished silver as its stomach.
More than that though, it's form was smaller than reports suggested. The two spikes on the end of its tail were slightly blunt, and the plates on its back were slightly smaller. It looked…young.
"XD 001!" Greevil cried, drawing the attention of the corrupted legendary. "Shadow Blast! Obliterate them!"
Lance's eyes widened in shock and fear before crying, "Dragonite, Hyper Beam! Full power!"
The young, corrupted Lugia tilted it head back, before unleashing a massive beam of dark energy from its maw, shockwaves from the blast nearly covering its form. At nearly the same time, Lance's Dragonite opened its maw, and a blast of white energy spilled forth, heading on a direct collision course with the shadow blast. The two attacks met in the middle of the abandoned lab, a loud roar filling the air as they struggled for supremacy before promptly exploding.
The blast threw Koga, Lance, and Dragonite back, a massive cloud of debris and smoke filling the air. The shockwave also ripped up the ground, cracking the floor and ceiling. A few seconds later the smoke was blown away, the heavily damaged but still-conscious dragonite sending a small gust of wind from his wings to clear it. As the rest of the smoke cleared, Lance groaned in frustration from his position on the shattered floor.
Where the tunnel Greevil had been in once was, a collapsed pile of rubble now stood, effectively blocking pursuit. Both Greevil and the corrupted Lugia were nowhere to be seen. As he rose, Lance turned toward Koga, who was also just picking himself off the floor. "I suppose it's too much to hope that he's buried underneath all that, isn't it?" he asked, earning a curt nod from the ninja.
Looking around the now-destroyed lab, Lance realized that simply having Dragonite blast through the rubble probably wasn't the smartest of ideas. The ceiling looked like a Golem had used earthquake on it, and even as he looked, bits of rubble were still crumbling from above. Any explosions would more than likely lead to the entire cavern collapsing around them. Glancing at the Kanto-native ninja, the two men shared a quick nod before Koga dashed off. Lance knew he was looking for an alternate route through, though the chances of him finding one was more than unlikely. They would need to bring in professionals to clear the rubble safely, and that could take days, if not weeks with the amount of damage done. Cipher would likely be long gone by then.
Turning around, cape billowing behind him, the champion returned Dragonite before walking toward the luckily undamaged exit. Though they had taken down the base, and dealt Cipher a crippling blow, they had ultimately failed their mission. He couldn't help the feeling of foreboding that came over him. He had a bad feeling that a great many people would suffer for their failure.
Chief Omna looked out from the entrance from the Hall of Rites. Situated on a large ledge on the side of a mountain, the view his location provided was impressive. Below him, and across the chasm, his village lay sprawled out, the buildings shadowed by the mountain they had been built beside. Spray from the waterfall to his left kept the temperature cool, and the sound of falling water nearly drowned out all other sounds. Nearly. Quiet, inquisitive chirps and shrills could be heard alongside the laughter of their newest rider-to-be from inside the cave, bringing a smile to his ancient face. It was good to know that despite the hardships he had endured, Lute could still find joy in life quite easily.
Outside the cave however, a more serious event was taking place. As the village elder watched, a group of riders, alongside their azuros, dragged the final pieces of wood into the new barricade surrounding the village. Not even a year ago, their village had been the epitome of peace. A small group of riders had been sufficient to ward off the occasional bulldrome or yian kut-ku that wandered through. Now, a tall wall of logs, topped with sharpened spikes surrounded them. It was a testament to how quickly that tranquility had fled.
Hearing the doors to the Hall open, Omna turned and faced the young man emerging. His chocolate-brown hair was mostly hidden underneath the hood of his new rider armor, which he had dyed red and blue in honor of the rathalos hatchling that had perished defending him and his friends so many months ago. On his back he wore the simple iron greatsword that he had chosen to wield, and his new kinship stone shone brightly on the gauntlet the held it. Though, the ancient elder's interest was soon focused on the form slightly hidden behind the youth, poking its head out to observe him.
The young velociprey that Lute had hatched was a fine specimen, with vivid, sky-blue scales, and deep blue claws. It shuffled nervously on its hind legs, its large toe claw tapping the ground with anxiety, while its foreclaws were kept close to its white underbelly. Though it now only reached as high as his knees, the wyverian knew that it would grow quite quickly in the next few months. By the time the second part of the kinship ritual arrived in six months, the newborn would have grown into a mature velocidrome, and be big enough to ride. Even now it seemed to be twitching with energy, ready to run off at a moment's notice.
Looking back up at Lute, Omna said "Now that the kinship ritual is done, it looks like your monstie needs to run!"
Lute merely nodded his head, his smile and a quick grunt showing his agreement with the rhyme before running off, his newest companion bolting after him immediately. Chuckling quietly to himself, Omna once again looked out over his village, his family. Near the gates, something caught his attention. Dan, the head rider and man in charge of village security, was taking a small group of riders out, most likely to patrol for threats. Omna's smile slid from his face, and he whispered a quick prayer to the sapphire star to keep him safe.
Turning, the village elder began to make his way towards the village, going the same was as Lute and his new partner, though as a more leisurely pace. Eventually he arrived at his home, separated from the rest of the village by the chasm, though accessible by the sturdy bridge that spanned the gap. Making his way inside, Chief Omna took a moment to look around his home. As always, his eyes almost immediately gravitated toward the two stone murals that took up nearly the entire portion of his back wall. The first depicted the Tale of the Five, of how their world had come to be. The second, however, was of the Legend of Redan and the Guardian. Walking up to the mural, the village chief ran his withered hands over the carving.
The village elder sighed, closing his eyes and lowering his head. This legend was dear to him, and its words carried great power, but also a warning. The darkness, the blight was coming again. Hopefully, more saviors would rise up to defeat it.
Ash looked up from the PC he was using as he felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Looking behind him, he surveyed the lobby of the Pokemon center he was in, looking for its source. Finding nothing out of the ordinary however, the young boy turned back around and shrugged it off. It was probably nothing.
A/N: And so, the story begins. This is my first time really trying to write a fic. Though it's technically my second, my first story never really got off the ground. I had just kind of started writing whatever came to mind, without a plan on where I wanted it to go. Much more prepared this time!
As with most authors, reviews and PM's are much appreciated! I enjoy constructive criticism, and need it in order to improve my writing. Flames, however, will be ignored.
As of right now, I'm not sure on how I'm going to handle an update schedule. I work long hours on a graveyard shift, while trying to have a life as well. For now, updates will just come when they come. Hopefully I'll be able to work out a schedule eventually. However, I'll try to make sure the next update comes within a couple of weeks. Until then, peace out!
TheFauxWriter