Act Two: The Capture Of Lucario

Michaels wore a balaclava over his face and carried a machine gun in his hands, the stock pushed against his shoulder, the sights lined up with the Lucario's head. The moment the Pokemon let go of its aura shield he would take it out. He shook a bit as a cool breeze swept through the forest. The Lucario sat in a clearing surrounded by thick foliage. It had been a simple matter to surround him. Only two people were meant to shoot though. The other three would be back up in case the Lucario went on a rampage. Michaels was one of the shooters, the other on the opposite side of the clearing from him. The Lucario couldn't hold his aura shield for much longer, it would cost him a lot of personal strength just to repel the two bullets shot at him. At least, it should have. The Lucario didn't appear to be losing any strength and the shield stayed up, unwavering after even two whole minutes. This was unheard of.

"Omega Team, copy?" The voice of Holliday intruded Michaels' thoughts. Michaels pulled the tiny microphone connected to his earpiece closer to his mouth.

"Copy Holliday, this is Michaels over."

"The Lucario is protecting a Gardevoir. I say we lob a grenade at them. That should kill the shield."

The Lucario stood and the shield continued to envelope him and his companion who clung to him tightly. They began to run for it and Omega Team followed him, keeping their weapons trained on the shield.

"How do we proceed?" Michaels asked.

"Follow him. Don't let him out of your sights. He has to let up the shield at some point."

"Yes sir." Michaels ran as fast as he could, his boots pounding against the ground. The rest of Omega Team followed suit.

Running parallel to Michaels was Holliday who flashed him a look and then nodded at him. Michaels nodded back and pulled a tube from his belt that he attached to the bottom of his machine gun. He then grabbed a grenade and let it slide into the tube. They exited the forest and entered an open playground area. It was abandoned but for the Lucario and his companion in their shield. Michaels aimed his machine gun upward and prepared to fire his grenade at the duo when he felt an impact against his forehead and toppled over backward. He pulled the trigger and the grenade flew wide, blowing up a swing set.

"Michaels respond!" Holliday screamed into his microphone. It was no use. Someone had shot and killed Michaels. Holliday grabbed his Charizard's pokeball. There was someone else out there who was defending the Lucario.

"Release your fire types and burn the forest opposite. Got it?"

"Yes sir." Came a trio of responses.

Holliday found cover behind a tree in the forest on the opposite side of the enemy shooters, as did his men, and let loose his Charizard as the fireworks display that had helped drown out the sound of the violence ended. Holliday gave his orders to the orange dragon and watched it take off, meeting in midair with another Charizard, a Dragonite, and a Salamence.

They opened their mouths to turn the forest into a raging hell but were stopped by a creature flying out from the edge of the foliage. It exuded a purple aura that was almost like smoke. Holliday wanted to scream. It was like a devil.

It threw out aura spheres that flew at the speed of light. All of the Pokemon flying before it ate a mouthful of dark energy that blew apart upon contact, taking the upper half of their bodies. Blood and gore spattered everywhere, plopping against the Lucario's shield as it stood in the center of the playground, nowhere to go. The bottom half of the dragon's bodies splattered against the playground, the Dragonite's lower half hitting the top of the slide and leaving a trail of blood and guts on its way down it.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Davidson asked over the radio.

"The devil." Holliday replied.

The creature landed in front of the Lucario's aura shield. He punched it and it exploded, throwing the devil to the ground. Lucario ran at it and the devil was up, an aura sphere let loose. Lucario spun, the sphere passing his fur by centimeters. The devil crossed its' arms in front of itself as Lucario punched at its' chest. When the fist connected with the devil's arms, he pushed the Lucario backward and started a volley of punches of his own.

Davidson returned on Holliday's radio. "The Lucario was protecting a Gardevoir. Permission to engage?"

"Go ahead." Holliday replied and continued watching the battle between the Lucario and the white devil.

The moment Davidson moved out of his cover behind an oak tree to aim at the Gardevoir both the Lucario and the white devil had turned to him and shot off an aura sphere. The aura spheres smashed against the man, one disintegrating his face, the other leaving a basketball sized hole in his stomach. He died instantly.

"Dammit!" Holliday cried. The Lucario and the devil had resumed their fight.

That's when the three men on the opposite side of the park came out into the open. One of them wore a lab coat and carried a rifle. The other two held machine guns not unlike those carried by Holliday's men and wore fatigues and bulletproof vests. They stood to either side of the scientist who ran a hand through his curly black hair. He looked at the Gardevoir and she back at him. He shook his head and started toward her. Lucario wanted to go and protect her but fell to his knees as the devil's fist met his solar plexus.

"I assume you and the Lucario are an item." Holliday heard the scientist say. "I have no intention of harming you, nor him if you submit to us. If you can't convince him to give up like a good little boy than Mewtwo will have to bloody him up a bit. No matter what path he chooses the men shooting at you will be taken care of. Our interests are polar opposites and I fear that my former employer is going to get in my way if he continues this behavior. And it is never a good idea to get between a mad scientist and his experiment." He directed this toward Holliday whose neck hairs stood straight at this sentence.

"You put the guns down and we'll spare your lives!" Holliday cried back.

"Oh, hollow threats from a dead man. I love them. Are you new to the organization? I hadn't heard much about it after Sinnoh. Everyone was told it had fallen apart, your leader had died, and there was no hope of a restoration. I knew better than to think that." The scientist turned toward the Lucario. "A strange inconsistency in the story of your leader's death is the fact that he was shot through the head multiple times. By the Lucario, the only one in the vicinity. Now tell me something, how does a Lucario shoot a submachine gun?" He turned back to Holliday. "It's simple really. He didn't shoot. Your boss shot at the Lucario and missed. The Lucario inflicted massive amounts of physical damage but never used a projectile weapon. On top of that, the police reports stated that your boss's body was burned in a fire, thus the reason there was no trace of his body. The only fire in the area had been an illusion brought on by my Darkrai clone. In other words, if Ketchum thinks he's being sneaky and expected me to be stupid enough to think him dead, then he's more of an idiot than I would have thought. After all, I was the one who injected him with nanomachines that would suppress pain and heal his body at one hundred times the usual rate." The scientist smiled and opened his arms theatrically. "Then again, he thought I had died as well."

"Who are you?" Holliday asked.

The scientist glanced at Mewtwo and Lucario, still fighting. Lucario seemed to be backing toward Gardevoir. The scientist turned back to Holliday. "The short answer, I'm a ghost. The long answer, I'm the original Daylan Hernandez. The one whose arm had been cut off and later killed by a Gengar was a clone I created, much like the Darkrai and my own Mewtwo. The problem with clones being you can only make one from a single specimen. If I spliced my genes and screwed with my blood and brain waves any more I'd end up killing myself. Not only that, but I've realized that cloning does not produce the perfect replica of a person's brain. It can create a perfect copy of the outer shell, but the inner clock work is only seventy-five percent correct."

"So you're the Daylan who worked with our boss two and a half years ago?" Holliday asked.

"I've already stated, that was a clone. All the money made from that operation was funneled to me. Whether it failed or not had no bearing on me. I still got my money, I got to test my clones, and I was able to raid the Team Rocket facilities after they were disbanded and take all the tech I wanted."

"The boss is gonna kill you!" One of Holliday's men cried out.

"Does he still wear that pathetic white mask? Is he still an angsty bitch who can't get over his wife's death?"

"Asshole!" Daylan's provocation worked. Both of Holliday's men ran out from the forest and shot wildly at the three men around the Gardevoir. Daylan raised his arm and shook his sleeve back to reveal a long bracelet. Suddenly, the trio and the Gardevoir were enveloped in an aura shield like the Lucario had been holding. The shots bounced off and Daylan smiled sadistically. His men took aim and when the Team Rocket soldier's clips ran dry, the shield was taken down and Daylan's men took them out with precise shots. Dark spheres of aura exploded from the weapons and Holliday then noticed that they weren't normal machine guns.

The clips contained some sort of black, mist-like substance. The aura that surrounded Mewtwo.

The aura spheres that tore through Holliday's men literally disintegrated their skin to nothing but bone. Holliday wanted to run for it. This wasn't part of the mission. His boss would want to know everything that transpired, would want to know about Daylan and the Mewtwo. The mission had failed, Omega Team was done.

"Fuck!" Holliday cried and ran the opposite way of Daylan.

Daylan let him go. There was no harm in letting him tell his boss that their operation had been a failure and the better man had won. Now Daylan could focus on Lucario and his apparent girlfriend. He turned to the green Pokemon and offered her his hand. She looked at it, then up at his face, her eyes full of fear. Daylan blew out an annoyed breath.

"I'm your friend. I wish you no harm. Maybe you don't understand me, but I want your boyfriend to stop fighting. And if you can stop him, I'd be happy. It would save him a lot of pain, would save me some time, and would get you two back together much faster. Nod if you understand me."

The Gardevoir nodded and Daylan offered her his hand again.

"I can't call off Mewtwo. He's a creature of bestial instincts." Daylan explained as he helped the Pokemon up. "He follows me, but he doesn't obey me all the time. Especially when it comes to someone trying to kill him. He doesn't take it lightly." He nodded toward Lucario and Mewtwo's fight. While Lucario had been trying to get close and protect Gardevoir, Mewtwo had turned him around and backed him as far away from her as he could. The Mew clone was smart, that was for sure.

"Mewtwo! Let him submit!" Daylan yelled and Mewtwo looked over his shoulder with a sneer. Daylan whispered to Gardevoir. "If Lucario submits, Mewtwo will at least give him that. Mewtwo knows the mission isn't to kill Lucario, but will stop at nothing to get him as close to death as possible without actually killing him. Submission is the only way to stave off this fate."

Gardevoir nodded and started yelling at Lucario. It all came out as "Gar-gar-gardevoir" to Daylan, but to Lucario, it meant a lot more.

"Please stop fighting Luc!" Gardevoir said, her eyes filling with tears when she saw Mewtwo's fist meet Lucario's muzzle. Lucario was seeing stars and nearly fell over. "I love you! I don't want to see you in pain!" Lucario stopped and let the words settle in his head. "Don't do this to me! You're hurting me as much as you're hurting yourself!"

Lucario looked over Mewtwo's shoulder at Gardevoir and dropped to his knees, putting his hands behind his head. Mewtwo frowned, wishing for the fight to continue. Lucario looked down at the grass and smiled to himself.

Mewtwo pulled him up and dragged him over to Daylan. Lucario fell to his knees again and the two men guarding Daylan secured a pair of flexi-cuffs around his wrists. Lucario looked at Gardevoir.

"Everything will be explained later." Daylan said as the two guards hefted Lucario up and started him out of the park.

Daylan turned to Gardevoir. "We'll drop him off here in the morning."

Before Lucario could disappear from her sights, he turned to her. He gave her a longing look.

"I love you too." He said and disappeared into the night with the three men.

Gardevoir fell to the ground, tears stinging her eyes.

Treecko later found her there, along with the bodies of three men and four Pokemon. He took her away from the site of all the violence before the police could take her in.

"So what is the Gardevoir to you?" Daylan asked, sitting in the backseat of a jeep with Lucario, his cronies taking the front seats. Lucario had been rather solemn. He stared at his feet and looked as if he were in deep thought. Daylan knew he wouldn't try to escape though. Mewtwo sat atop the Jeep, just waiting for him to move.

Daylan knew pretty much everything about Lucario, had been following his trail ever since he had become a Pokemon. He knew that Lucario wanted to get away from the human world and Daylan had tried to track him but had only been able to figure out his general vicinity. So he had used the ashes he found at the pyre where Lucario had burned his body and created a new Sean Ratchet. He knew that this would lure Lucario out at some point.

And it had.

Daylan asked his question again. "What's the Gardevoir to you?"

"None of your business."

"I'm not your enemy. If you think I am then you are sorely mistaken. If I was, I wouldn't have saved you from Team Rocket and left the Gardevoir alive. You can trust me. I am only an enemy to those who incur my wrath. You have not."

"Then why have you taken me?"

"I want to examine you. I know everything about you Sean Ratchet. I was the one who created the clone of your human self. My clone of myself and the Darkrai were not under my control. They were directly under the influence of Ash Ketchum. If they hurt you, I apologize. It wasn't what I wanted."

"You worked with Team Rocket. You're my enemy." Lucario had figured out that his human self was a clone the moment Daylan got involved. He had been lured out. Daylan had gotten what he wanted.

"I'm a free agent. I work for whoever pays me. You of all people should understand that. I believe you were a member of Team Plasma before you…"

"Shut the fuck up." Lucario muttered.

"Why not talk about Team Rocket instead then. I figure you heard my conversation with the Rocket hit man. It should have come as no surprise to you that Ketchum was still alive. They say you shot him and burned his body in the flames the Darkrai produced. So you didn't actually kill him. Did you know he survived? Did you intentionally leave him alive?"

"No. I thought he was dead. His heart rate stopped. I felt it."

"It's a rare quality to be able to stop your heartbeat." Daylan laughed. "Ketchum's better than I thought. So the whole time he survived and the media tells us he died and Team Rocket fell from power. It did fall from power, but it was still operating on a much more underground level than before. I think the government was covering up. They wanted everyone to feel secure after the war so lied through their teeth. Now he's back and he apparently has been tapping into my phone conversations."

"Everything's catching up to me." Lucario muttered.

"That's why I was asking about the Gardevoir. I fear for her safety as much as your own. Mewtwo said that you were also friends with a Treecko. A little birdy also mentioned a Lopunny had been seen travelling with you the first half of your time in the forest. You two were alone. She took care of you. What happened to her?"

"If you know so much, then you tell me."

"Well we were under the assumption she disappeared."

"She did. I don't know what happened to her."

"You two were lovers? Or just good friends?"

"We had gotten to the love part by the time she disappeared."

"And you and the Gardevoir? Is she your new girlfriend? Are you moving on?"

"I love Gardevoir, but I don't understand how. Maybe more as a mother figure than a mate. Lopunny…"

"You came to Onyx City to find her. You travelled the forest to find Lopunny."

Lucario nodded.

Daylan exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Would you join me if I could promise to find Lopunny for you? I will expend all of my resources in securing her if you will do a simple job for me."

"What?"

"Protect me. If you follow me and work with Mewtwo as my guards for the next couple days I will find Lopunny for you."

"There's a catch."

"There always is." Daylan smiled. "I'm going to Cherry Grove City." Daylan stopped to allow Lucario to feel a pang of nostalgia. That was where Tsubaki lived. It was where Jenny had died. "I know you have a past there but you will be able to assist me in taking down an enemy who I know you want dead. I'll be working with a group of rebels who want rid of the oppressive nature of the Yakuza. You can help me help them kill Chairman Miyagi."

That name sent hundreds of images through Lucario's head. The party. Jenny's death. Kishimoto being thrown into the rotors of a helicopter. The Ronin assassins.

"You promise me Lopunny, I promise you Miyagi will die." Lucario said, baring his fangs.

"It's a deal." Daylan pulled a knife from his pocket and took the flexi-cuffs from Lucario's hands. They shook hands. "I still want to perform some experiments on you. Nothing severe, just X-rays and such. In the morning I'll allow you to tell your friends that you're off. Then we'll head for Cherry Grove."

Lucario knew something was up, but didn't know what. How Daylan knew so much about him, especially his time secluded in the forest, was something that was up for debate. Nonetheless, the prospect of having Lopunny back in his arms was something he couldn't refuse. He had been searching for her for a long time. Gardevoir knew but had fallen in love with him while helping him search. And the cherry on top would be getting his hands on Miyagi, the bastard who had killed Jenny.

Lucario would do anything to get Lopunny back.

Even help a scumbag like Daylan.

Devon sat his feet up on the table and perched his saucer with a tiny cup of tea atop it on his chest. He watched the television sitting on the table and pointed his direction. The news was on. A dashing reporter spoke of things that weren't quite as lovely as her countenance. Dead Pokemon at a playground, bodies lying about, the kidnapping of two ten year old trainers by a man on the sex offenders list. Devon shook his head and switched the channel to a game show where men dressed in Pokemon outfits ran around slapping each other with fish. Devon took a sip of tea and laughed as a man was slapped so hard with a fish he fell down.

"What the hell are you watching?" Cristian took a seat beside Devon, a cold beer in his hand.

"Eh, I'm waiting for a guy to get hit in the bollocks. That'd be entertaining."

"You're an idiot." Cristian took a swig from his beer.

"Would you rather I turn on the soaps then?" Devon grabbed for the remote beside his feet but Cristian got to it first. He turned the television off and threw the remote aside.

"The supplier is coming tomorrow. Let's stop screwing around and get some work done."

"Hey mate, I beat the crap out of a couple of Yakuza at the tea and sandwich place."

"And I shut down a drug production plant."

"Fucking overachiever." Devon muttered. "If I were a cop I would be able to do that much. But I took the easy route and became a trainer. What about the other people? What have they been doing?"

"Posing as another Yakuza family and fighting Miyagi's men."

Devon wasn't listening. "I'll rally all the men here. I apparently don't do enough so better show my worth." He drank the rest of his tea and stood, making his way into the next room in the tiny apartment.

Lucario was asleep. Daylan had injected him with a tiny dose of a drug that would keep him in dreamland for at least the next eight hours. That was all he needed. He started taking X-rays and began to take what he needed from the creature's body. Some blood, a bit of fur. As far as the brain was concerned, Daylan could use a generic. All he wanted was the creature's body and powers. Mewtwo watched the whole ordeal with not the least bit of interest. A few scientists milled about, helping with the proceedings, but it was otherwise a boring night in the laboratory.

N handed a stack of bills to the lead investigator, a balding man in a leather duster and old fashioned pinstriped suit, and ducked under the yellow DO NOT PASS tape. He passed all of the bloody playground equipment and made a beeline for the bodies of the human men. He stopped next to the first one he saw and the Officer Jenny in charge of the crime scene came to stand beside him.

"He was shot through the forehead by a fifty caliber sniper bullet that we found embedded in the ground behind him. The shooter was in a tree, probably that large oak, and took him out." The Jenny watched as N bent down and pulled the man's black bullet proof vest off exposing a big red letter.

"Team Rocket." N cursed. "Why are they still around?"

"That," Jenny had a wide eyed look on her face, "is a good question."

"Holy shit. Why was a Pokemon doctor called here? This is disgusting!" The voice belonged to a twenty year old man in a white coat and a sleepy look on his face. N turned toward him and got a good look at his face.

"Holy shit is right." N said, replacing his expression with Jenny's. He now had a wide eyed look while she had no expression.

"What?" She asked.

"If that's who I think it is…"

"Day's breaking. I'm heading out for doughnuts. You have any specifics you want N?" The lead investigator asked.

"Get me a bear claw." N said, trying to dismiss the man.

"You got it. Black coffee, right?"

"Yeah." N moved him aside and started toward the black haired man inspecting the bodies of the dragon Pokemon.

At daybreak Lucario awoke in the back of the Jeep with Daylan beside him and the two cronies in front. He had spent the whole night dreaming of his time in the forest with Lopunny and realized how much he missed her. He couldn't wait to have her back. He hoped that Daylan could be trusted to keep his word. Because if Daylan didn't bring Lopunny back to him, he would kill Daylan.

"Here we are. Hurry please. The park is closed due to the police investigation of last night's activities. She shouldn't be too far from the spot you left her." Lucario nodded and one of the cronies opened the door for him and watched him head for Gardevoir.

"Everything is going according to plan." Daylan said, yawning. "I'm tired. Wake me up when Lucario returns."

He found her with Treecko. She lay asleep against a tree. Treecko sat next to her and looked up as Lucario approached.

"I'm leaving." Lucario said.

Treecko smiled. "The past just won't leave you alone, eh?"

Lucario nodded and looked down at Gardevoir.

"I'll take care of her for you." Treecko said. "I'll explain everything. You'll be back, right?"

Lucario knelt beside Gardevoir. "I don't know." He pushed his mouth against her forehead in the Pokemon equivalent of a kiss.

"You never explained the past to her, did you?" Treecko asked.

"I still don't want her to know."

"She had a lot of questions about what happened last night. I had no idea how to answer her about your powers and why you could fight like you do."

"Leave it a mystery. Please."

"So what are you doing?"

Lucario explained everything.

Treecko nodded and put his hand out. "Good luck Luc. Come back with Lopunny. I only knew her for a couple of weeks, but I could tell you two were made for each other. Whatever happened to her, I'm sure you two will be reunited."

Lucario took his hand and shook it. "Thanks for everything. Tell Gardevoir I love her."

"You got it."

Lucario started back toward the jeep when he heard a scream coming from the playground area. He dashed that way.

N punched Sean in the stomach, doubling him over.

"Why'd you leave?" N whispered in his ear. He stood aside and let Sean fall to the ground. "Why'd you leave me to tame two gods? Why'd you leave Plasma?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about." Sean wheezed.

"Bullshit!" The police wanted to intervene, but decided against it. The only reason he paid a bribe to the police was because they felt that if they were caught being bribed to let a criminal in, it would sound better than letting him in because they were scared.

"Please, I have amnesia…"

"Zekrom bonded with me and Reshiram was bonding with you. When you left it went on a rampage! It nearly destroyed Unova! Plasma had to move to Johto because it destroyed our whole fucking facility! Zekrom hurtled into a volcano with it and they both died! You did all of this to your own brothers, to your father, to your mother? You did this to Reshiram?" N kicked Sean in the side repeatedly. Sean screamed.

"Bastard! Fucking! Die! Worthless! Piece! Of! Shit!"

Lucario had heard everything. He ran past the police and the yellow tape and tackled N.

"I meant for Team Plasma to fall. I meant for you and both the gods to die."

"We were best friends! We were brothers!" N said as Lucario punched him in the face. He had no idea that Lucario was the one speaking and not Sean.

"If Team Plasma ever rears its head again, I'll destroy it!"

"I'll kill you Sean!"

"Try it." Lucario knocked N out and stood, grabbing Sean and giving a feral look to the Jenny's coming to restrain him.

"I'll kill all of you if you interfere." Lucario bluffed. The Jenny's reached for their pistols, unphased.

Lucario sent an aura sphere at their feet that blew the ground out in front of them. He dragged Sean toward the Jeep.

"What the fuck is going on?" Daylan asked as Sean got into the backseat.

"You already know each other." Lucario said. "So no need for introductions. We're taking him to Cherry Grove City."

This threw a tiny wrench in his plans, but Daylan didn't think it mattered if he helped transport his Sean clone.

"Why is he coming?" Daylan asked.

Lucario explained. Daylan nodded and frowned.

Now Team Plasma was involved. An unknown variable. Daylan hated unknown variables.

"Let's go." Daylan said and the jeep started on the long road to Cherry Grove.