Chapter Three
"You're slow, Cooper! Get moving!"
"Like you're moving any faster!"
Mark and Heather glared at each other before turning their eyes back to the path. Or, rather, lack of path. The road was covered in undergrowth and all sorts of other obstacles that slowed them down. Sparky, being much smaller than the humans, had gotten ahead and now waited for them on the other side of a tangle of vines. Mark hacked the plants aside with his knife, but was having difficulty; a machete would do more good than the little shank he used as a weapon. Heather, of course, was complaining more than helping.
"This is why I hate being inland. On the coast, there are no huge forests that you can get caught in, or stupid pokèmon that jump out of nowhere and try to hurt me…" the woman was whining.
"Why don't you help, then? Or at least get your pokèmon to do something useful." Mark suggested irritably.
"Ace is a vaporeon, what good would she be in a forest?"
Grumbling to himself, Mark slashed at the last bit of vines and broke into a clearer area. Sparky looked up at his tiring trainer before running ahead again, leaving the humans behind.
"Slow down, Sparks!" Mark called, summoning the energy to run after his pikachu.
"Hey! Wait for me!" cried Heather, stumbling along behind.
A few minutes later, the group had finally arrived at their destination: Fortree City. Heather slumped down under the shade of a tree house to rest with Sparky right beside her, but Mark couldn't sit down just yet. He turned his head left and right, searching for what he had come here for.
"Why you insist on travelling to such ridiculous places just to talk to people is beyond me." Heather groaned. Well trained in ignoring his partner, Mark paid her no mind and walked a little further into the city. "I'm surprised Archie doesn't take you out for treason, or something. I mean, you're always meeting with the enemy. Discussing our matters with the enemy."
"Shut up, will you?" Mark snapped. He didn't feel like putting up with Heather's point of view today. Today was supposed to be a good day. No whiney chick was going to ruin it for him.
Come on, where are you?
"Mark!"
A grin spread across the man's face as the voice reached his ears. He turned and found a slightly taller young man standing in the shadows, a worried expression upon his countenance and exhaustion in his dark blue eyes. The man sported a red and black outfit; a muscle shirt, long pants and boots with a jacket hanging over his shoulder. Team Magma's uniform.
"Jamie! There you are!" Mark exclaimed, hurrying over to his little brother. "You got taller again; there's no way you're only eighteen."
James put on a small smile. "Caught up with you, didn't I? And passed you by. You must've got Mom's genes."
"And you're a lot stronger, too," commented the older Cooper, taking in James' large muscles. Worry tainted his voice. "How hard are they working you? They'll kill you at this rate, I swear…"
"What are you, his mom?" Heather called from her seat.
"Hi, Heather." said James half-heartedly. He cared as much for the girl as Mark did. Even so, she had never failed to accompany Mark on a trip to meet James, so she couldn't be all bad. Maybe slightly annoying, but definitely not bad.
"So, you had something to tell me?" asked Mark. James frowned, appearing uncomfortable again. This didn't surprise Mark. After all, James was more or less working as a spy for Team Aqua. If Magma found out, he would be dead. So far it had been working out, though. Ever since Mark had run away nearly ten years ago, James had been supplying his big brother with information. Or, at the very least, as much information as a pawn could gather.
"They're planning an attack for tomorrow. Everyone's talking about it." the youngest Cooper began, ruffling his fluffy brown hair nervously.
"Slateport or Lilycove?" Mark inquired, knowing that James was talking about an attack on one of Team Aqua's bases.
"Definitely Lilycove."
"Land or sea?"
"Um…" James scratched his chin as he remembered. "They have a few teams on Mossdeep right now, and a few more in the cavern by Sootopolis. So I would assume by sea, but I'm not one hundred percent sure."
"A guess is better than nothing. Anything else?"
James shook his head. "That's all I heard. Just make sure everyone's guard is up, okay? This… This might be your chance to take down Magma once and for all. You just have to get everyone in Aqua prepared."
Mark nodded and placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I'd go up against Rayquaza to get you out of this hell."
"I'm sorry to ruin the touchiness, but, like, what kind of attack is this going to be?" Heather demanded, approaching the men with Sparky on her shoulder and looking just as concerned. The graveness on James' expression remained.
"Do you remember Mount Chimney?"
Both Aquas nodded. None of them could forget the bloody battle that had occurred atop Mount Chimney a few years back between the two gangs. The fight had been pulled apart by a couple of young, strong-willed trainers, so neither Aqua nor Magma won that day. A good thing, too; Magma greatly outnumbered Aqua. The latter would have lost for sure if the battle were to have continued.
"It's supposed to be like that, but more of an ambush, I think. There's going to be a lot of people and a lot of pokèmon, that's for sure. But maybe if they loose their element of surprise…" James trailed off with a shrug.
"Awesome. Great work, Jamie." Mark grinned. "We'll take 'em out, don't you worry."
"And if we don't, we'll just keep trying until we do, like always. I mean, they have to give up eventually, right?" Heather offered. "Like, that is, unless we go down first. But we're getting stronger, and I will most certainly not be defeated by a bunch of Magma losers."
"That's right. Everything will be right eventually."
James didn't look all too convinced, but he nodded. Then, frowning anxiously, he stepped away from the other two and nervously looked around.
"Anyway, it was really great seeing you, Mark, but I gotta go. If they find me with you…"
Mark understood. Meeting his brother's gaze, he put on a determined face.
"Don't get hurt before I can save you," he said. James forced another smile.
"You be careful, too." That said, the younger brother turned and hurried into the city, keeping close to the trees so that he would be harder to see by the population up in the branches. Mark watched him go, an ache tugging at his chest. He wished he could just take James and run somewhere safe, but it was too dangerous. Magma was not fond of losing their pawns.
Suddenly, Sparky leapt onto Mark's head and gave the man a harmless little shock to pull him out of his thoughts. Mark winced and swore under his breath as the jolt tickled his nerves. His pikachu jumped down to the man's shoulder and frowned disapprovingly, as if telling Mark to get his head out of the clouds.
"Sparky's right. We need to start heading back so we can tell everyone about the attack." said Heather, already walking back the way they came.
"Don't act like you can understand exactly what he's saying." Mark sighed, patting his pokèmon on the head before following his human partner back into the forest.
"I probably understand him better than you. He said 'stop standing around like an idiot so we can, like, get back to Lilycove already.'"
Mark and Sparky rolled their eyes in unison, but neither bothered to argue with the woman.
---
"An ambush?"
It had been an hour or so since Mark and Heather made it back to Aqua's headquarters off the coast of Lilycove City. Mark had just finished explaining everything James had told him to one of his best friends in the gang, a young girl named Jenna Elk.
"Magma's getting pretty damn cocky, thinking they can sneak up on us out here." Jenna spat, her voice filled with venom. She was only sixteen years old, but her hatred of Team Magma had driven her to join up with Aqua three years ago. A tough trainer with an irritable personality and a seemingly unbreakable spirit, nobody cared to question Jenna's motives and instead embraced her as one of the strongest members on the team.
"I'm sure they have some sort of clever plan. Of course they'll know we'd be able to see them if they came from sea." Mark pointed out. Jenna shrugged and took a few steps along the shoreline of the beach outside the base.
"Did you tell the boss yet?" she asked, pushing her blonde bangs from her face as the wind played with her hair.
"Heather's telling him now."
The girl nodded slowly. "Dragonfire and I could watch out for them from the sky," she said, referring to her charizard. "Though I suppose it might be more productive to just send a few lookout birds up there… Some water pokèmon would do good to patrol the ocean. Magma's stolen submarines before, so I wouldn't put it past them to try and come from underwater."
"Yeah, that's a good idea." Mark agreed.
"Edward's already off training with Sparky somewhere, though, otherwise I'd send him out now... Why that floatzel enjoys being electrocuted so much is beyond me." Sighing, Jenna sat down on a rock and stared out at the ocean. "You said it's going to be a big army, right?"
"That's what I heard." The man was careful to make sure he didn't mention having gotten any information from James. Mark's brother or not, Jenna downright despised anything having to do with Magma. If she knew Mark had been talking to James at all, she would probably call him out for treachery, just as Heather had suggested earlier that day.
"In that case, we won't be able to take them head on." Jenna narrowed her green eyes, obviously concentrating. This was another reason Aqua kept her around; despite her age, she was an excellent strategist.
"What's on your mind, kid?" Mark questioned, taking a seat beside her. She didn't answer right away.
"…If we stay here, at the base, we're on the defensive. That's bad for us, because as much as we have the elemental advantage, we lack numbers. They'll overpower us…" Pausing, she stood and walked toward the water, the tips of her boots touching the tide. Lilycove was just within sight, and for a moment the girl stared at the city, chewing her lip. "So we need to be on the offensive."
Jenna turned away from the ocean and walked past Mark, toward the other side of the island. The man watched her, almost able to see the cogs turning in her head. If she hadn't come to Aqua, Mark was sure she would have been able to get very far in life. Unfortunately, revenge was more important to her than success.
"There's no way they'd be able to come through Lilycove. They'd be delayed by the police and all the heroic trainers who happen to be hanging out. If they're really coming with an army, they'd come by sea, like you said." Jenna continued. "Probably mostly from Mossdeep, because it's closer than their base in Sootopolis, but it doesn't matter. Either way, they're coming to attack this island."
"So I'm assuming you have an idea?" Mark pressed.
"Yeah." Again, she didn't elaborate at first. Instead, she walked back toward Lilycove and regarded it with a contemplative countenance. A minute passed. A smile spread across her lips. "When Magma attacks, we won't be on the island."
"What?"
"We know Lilycove from top to bottom. We could easily hide the team in the city without being detected. Magma will go after the base, but nobody will be there when they start storming. We'll have to be quick, but…" She paused once more, eyes shifting back and forth as though she were reading directions only she could see. "If we're quick, we'll be able to ambush them while they're looking for us on the island.
"Of course, they'll be suspicious if no one's there when they arrive. We'll have to leave a few guys here to act as guards, so that Magma thinks there are people in the base. While they're distracted with that, the rest of us can use the element of surprise to attack them and push them into the base, where we can easily take them out.
"If all goes well, we'll be able to take a great deal of them before they even realize what's going on. Then, the rest of them should be easier to take care of."
The girl turned to Mark as she finished, looking for his opinion.
"That sounds brilliant," the man commented. "How do you come up with these things, Jen?"
"It's not that hard," she replied with a shrug. "You just gotta think things through a bit. Look at the situation from all angles."
"Well, simple or not, you could be a life-saver." Mark told her, jumping to his feet. "Come on; let's go tell the others your plan."
He started to head inside, but Jenna didn't move. She was staring out to Lilycove again, a distant look in her eyes. Mark frowned and walked over to her. Standing next to her was odd; she was more than half a foot shorter than him, and overall a lot smaller. It was weird to think about how much loathing was contained in that tiny body of hers, but Mark could practically feel the emotion coming off of her in waves.
"You okay?" he asked her.
"We're going to win this time." Jenna declared after a moment, eyes focusing and acquiring a determined fire. Her fists clenched at her side.
"I hope so. I don't know how much longer we'll be able to put up a fight."
"No. We're going to win this time," the girl repeated, tone dangerous. She glanced up at Mark, her dark gaze more like a glare. "There is no 'hope'. It's going to happen. I'm not going to let them get away this time. I'm going to destroy them."
Her switch to singular pronouns made Mark feel a bit uneasy. This girl craved blood, and she was set on drawing it, even if she had to do it herself. This lust had always been something about Jenna that unsettled Mark. Girls weren't supposed to get so bloodthirsty. Especially such young girls.
Jenna apparently sensed Mark's discomfort, as she exhaled softly and turned her sight to the ground. A deep frown had disturbed her countenance now, her brow furrowing.
"They killed my parents, Mark." she said simply. "An eye for an eye, right?"
With that, she cast one last look at her hometown before turning heel and strutting toward the base. Mark watched her for a minute before following. Then, letting out a deep breath just as she had, he focused on the matter at hand.
He had a score to settle, just like Jenna.
