CHAPTER 7: THE FIGHT FOR RAYQUAZA
The Albatross rocks again as yet another bombshell strikes its hull.
"The ship can't take much more of this!" Winona yells over the gunfire coming from all around them.
Drake calmly sets a hand on the wheel. "She can hold out a bit longer."
The ship is now about a mile away from the Colossal tower where Rayquaza was said to live.
The three smaller ships tailing the Albatross are much weaker, yet much faster. They are slowly gaining on Drake's ship, and he has to make a quick decision.
"We need to turn and fight!" Lance shouts. "These men are faster than us, and they won't let up until one side is dead!"
Wilma shakes her head. "I fear that plan will result in our deaths, little brother. If we can get away on our Pokemon, the ship will go down, but at least no one else will suffer."
Winona steps in. "You're both wrong. If we just keep going and defend the ship with our Pokemon, we'll make it."
Wilma turns to Drake. "It's your ship, father, and you're wiser than all of us. What should we do?"
It takes Drake a long time to answer. He gazes sadly at an invisible object in the distance.
Finally, he sighs. "I agree…with Winona." He turns to the crew. "Stay on course, men! We'll make it to that tower, even if we die trying!"
Then he looks back at his family and takes out a Pokeball. "Let's show these pansies what dragons can really do."
Further off to the west, high in the air, another force is closing in on the tower. This one much smaller than the others.
Alex Rawson's one-man blimp is surprisingly less decorative than most Rocket vehicles, being just a single black balloon that resembles a floating bowling ball.
Rawson eyes his four pokeballs nervously; Giovanni hadn't allowed him to bring any backup, so these four Pokemon were all he has for protection.
He looks out over the crumbling ruins of the tower, hidden among which Rayquaza was said to be. Alex's plan is to simply let the Flying Four, or Team Galactic – whichever one gets there first – take down Rayquaza. He would than ambush them with his powerful Pokemon, and whip out a dark ball, claiming Rayquaza for his own.
Rawson had briefly considered keeping Rayquaza to himself and using it to lead a coup on Giovanni, but then realized that Giovanni was so powerful, even a legendary was a surefire shot of defeating him.
So Alex sits and waits as the wind quietly brings him toward his last chance of greatness.
However, other dangers are slowly coming into play, stacking the odds against not only Rayquaza, who sleeps peacefully and undisturbed atop his tower, but Agent Rawson, Team Galactic, and the Flying Four.
The first of these comes in the form of a man, an assassin who has slowly crept to the tower long before the others. He now swings himself through a window and onto an ancient staircase without a sound.
He does not know who these people are. He does not know what they have come for. All he knows is that his master Koga was paid by a man named Cyrus in a distant region to kill one of the trainers that is now approaching the tower.
His orders were surprisingly vague: go into the tower, stay away from the dragon at its peak, kill any one of the Flying Four; whichever one does not matter. Sensei Koga had also warned him that a Rocket Agent would be present, and instructed him to kill the man only if the opportunity presented itself.
The allows himself one of his rare smiles. The job is amazingly simple, for one that pays so high.
This man is not like other men; he is no hero, he is no villain. He is not obsessed with righteousness, yet neither is he bent on destruction. He has no friends and no enemies, and only obeys one man on Earth. And nobody, not even himself, is quite sure of his real name.
The man is known only as the Jackal, and his job is to kill.
"Alright, here's what we're going to do!" Drake calls to everyone not busy keeping the ship afloat. "Winona, you are to take the helm, use any Pokemon you can think of to keep this ship moving forward! Lance, you come with me, we're going into the air to hold off Team Galactic!"
"And what do I do, father?" Wilma asks.
He turns to her. "You, darling are going to have to face Rayquaza."
She is shocked. "On my own? Father, I can't-"
"Yes you can, sweetie," He cuts in, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I know you can."
Wilma takes a deep, sad breath. "Oh, alright."
Drake sighs again, staring off into space with dead eyes. "We're all getting to old for this, especially myself. You know, next week is my seventy-eighth birthday."
Wilma nods. "I know."
Drake looks into her eyes. "Wilma, the world needs you. In case we don't see each other again, well… I love you."
She hugs him. "I love you to." She looks at her father for what could be the last time, and turns to jump onto Charizard.
The Jackal slips through a hole in the roof, knowing he must continue to climb to find a vantage point. Sneaking up yet another flight of stairs, he realizes he is at the top of the tower. As he walks into dazzling sunlight, The Jackal sees one of the most spectacular things in his life.
Rayquaza is curled up on the center of the roof, snaked around countless crumbling columns, lost in a deep sleep. He takes another step forward, and realizes he is being watched.
The man whips around, and in a brilliant flash of light his Grovyle appears. Facing him is Alex Rawson who has sent out not one, but two Pokemon, a Swampert and an Exploud.
"Funny," Rawson says. "I would've thought an assassin would have been more, ah…stealthy?"
The Jackal sneers. "And I would have though an agent from Team Rocket would have been less ill prepared for a fight."
"That's commander, to you."
Grovyle steps forward, but Rawson shakes his head. "Tut, tut." One false move and I order Exploud to roar, awakening our little beasty here."
"That's suicide."
"That's just business."
The assassin raises his eyebrows. "That's how you want to play? Well then, I suspect you never saw me drop Toxicroak's Pokeball when I turned around."
Sure enough, Toxicroak appears from behind Alex, and stabs him with one of its deadly blades before he can even begin to look surprised.
Unfortunately, Rawson's scream of pain is enough to awaken Rayquaza.
The humonguos monster sleepily opens its huge eyelids, which resemble large, green sheets of metal. It sees the several Pokemon around it and is suddenly wide awake. It roars in anger, throwing itself into the air and smashing a huge hole in the tower under it.
Calling back Grovyle and Toxicroak, The Jackal calmly leans over Rawson.
"Sorry, mate." He says in his slight accent. "That's just business."
He then proceeds to dive off the building. Rawson is left to the wrath of one of the strongest, and most angry, beings on the planet.
Wilma is gazing at the strange approaching meteor shower when Rayquaza awakens. She is so distracted by it launching up from the tower and come crashing down on an unseen opponent, she doesn't even notice the Jackal jump off the edge and skillfully land between from the rocks down below.
"Oh, no." She mutters. Her already – impossible job had just become much harder.
Only a few hundred K's away from Earth now, Deoxys and his meteor shower approach Earth at an increasingly mind-boggling speed. Its alien brain hones in on the energy signature of Rayquaza's rampage.
"Target, sighted. Identified: Rayquaza. Estimated impact time: ten minutes. Power derived from meteor power source: four-thousand megawatts. Chances of success: 9999999999999 to 1. Initiating attack formation...now."
Swimming through the water with textbook style and speed, The Jackal grabs onto the lead Galactic ship's anchor and crawls up. As he jumps onto deck, several men point their guns at him, but Saturn waves them away.
"Ah, you must be the assassin, Mr….?"
"Call me the Jackal."
"Very well. Mr. Jackal. Welcome aboard my ship. As you can see, we are in a bit of the situation."
The assassin looks to the left, where Drake and Lance are riding Salamence and Dragonite respectively and have taken down Galactic's second ship.
The Jackal nods and sends out a Fearow. "Let me take care of them, you get to the monster. Oh and, by the way, I took care of your Rocket friend"
Saturn nods. "Your services are much appreciated, Mister Jackal."
"As is your money."
As Wilma and Charizard shoot toward Rayquaza, it finally notices them. Roaring in rage, it lets loose a huge blast of energy. Charizard just gets out of the way in time before the attack misses and lands on the tower, causing it to shake even more.
Wilma realizes all too late that she will never beat Rayquaza in aerial combat. She commands Charizard to dive out of the way, but Rayquaza attacks again, this time grabbing Charizard in its huge teeth.
Charizard roars in pain, and Wilma is thrown off. Though she is an old lady and not accustomed to these sorts of stresses, she manages to call back Charizard in mid-air. However, now Wilma's in trouble: she is falling, two thousand feet in the air, over the open sea, at the mercy of a huge dragon. As Rayquaza shoots forward to finish her off, however, a savior in the form of a meteor nails Rayquaza in the chest.
As Wilma hits the water with a painful *SMACK*, dizzy with aching bones and a piercing headache, she looks up in amazement to see a volley of meteorites pounding Rayquaza out of the air. Then something else comes forward from the meteor shower: a Pokemon unknown to her. It looks like some sort of alien, deriving power from the meteors.
As the thing continues to blast different beams of energy at Rayquaza, Wilma realizes she has to make a decision.
"Well, that thing can't be friendly." Wilma finally decides. "Go, Altaria!" jumping onto the hummingbird Pokemon, Wilma commands it to shoot toward the alien Pokemon.
Upon getting up close, she recognizes it as Deoxys, an alien virus Pokemon that could change its form upon contact .
Wilma watches in amazement, as Deoxys changes into its attack form in the blink of an eye. After blasting Rayquaza with a deadly Ice Beam, it quickly switches to defense form to block Rayquaza's next strike. It then switches to speed form, moves to a different spot.
Wilma realizes that Deoxys is not only powerful, but incredibly smart, too. She takes out another Pokeball and tries to imagine how on Earth she could defeat it.
Salamence and Dragonite are doing what appears to be a complex dance around the Galactic ship, though they are really attacking it. With their respective masters on their backs, they corkscrew around each other toward the bow of the ship, dodging bullets as they go. The two then split off to either side of the hull, dragging a devastating Dragon Claw along each side.
Then the two spring back up into the air, and launch their attack on the next ship.
Commander Saturn's crew is tossed about as Dragonite and Salamence launch a volley of attacks along his ship.
"Can't you DO something?" He shouts at the Jackal, who remains perfectly motionless. Finally, he replies, "A suitcase was sent to you before the mission. Do you have it?"
"Yes, its down below."
"I'll be needing it."
Saturn grins. "Corporal, fetch this man's luggage!"
Despite his old age, Lance sits on Dragonite, laughing. "This is TOO easy! It's like we're playing with them!"
"Keep your head, son!" Drake calls over the roar of the wind. "We're still in danger!"
"Bite me!" Lance shouts back, and commands Dragonite to go into a downwards spiral, simply showing off.
Drake finds it hard to believe that a man like Lance, well into his fifties, could stand to showboat hundreds of feet in the air on the back of a raging dragon. Though Drake admired his son's enthusiasm, he still held onto his understatement that they were getting to old for this.
He commands Salamence to follow Lance, then calls to his son, "Stop it, you're going to get hurt! Focus, you Idiot!"
Lance responds by raising his middle finger disrespectfully, not taking his eyes off of his target. His laughter almost drowns out The Jackal's gunshot.
Saturn whistles as the assassin's bullet hits its mark perfectly, and despite the fact that Lance was moving at a high speed, the bullet went directly through his temple.
Suddenly, The Jackal grabs Saturn's arm and roughly shoves him to the side of the ship.
"What the hell are you doing?"
In response, The Jackal grabs a buoy off the wall. "Hang onto this tightly."
Then he pushes Saturn off the ship.
It seems like slow motion for Drake as the sniper's bullet strikes Lance in the head, and he topples off Dragonite. The huge dragon spins its head around, unable to tell why its master has suddenly fallen off. Drake's shout is drowned out by Dragonite's roar in anxiety as it realizes its master is dead. Lance topples into oblivion. His body is never found.
Rayquaza and Deoxys are still locked in their epic battle, and Deoxys is winning.
As Rayquaza lay exhausted on its tower after the last hit it had taken, Deoxys begins to charge the killing blow.
Though it cannot speak, Deoxys says in its mind, "Goodbye, old friend."
Rayquaza lowers its head in defeat, and has never felt more helpless.
The ball of energy in front of Deoxys grows larger and larger, and Deoxys prepares to fire…
*BANG!*
Just as Deoxys launches the attack, a huge force slams into it. Rayquaza raises its head just enough to see Deoxys disappear, and its attack miss the giant dragon by only a few meters.
Deoxys is thrown out of the air as Wilma's Tyranitar dives into it and grabs on. Deoxys tries to levitate, but Tyranitar's weight is too much. The huge beast then lets loose a devastating Dark Pulse, draining Attack form Deoxys' energy.
Finally, the two topple into the water, and Deoxys shakes Tyranitar off. Unable to swim, Tyranitar founders in the water as Deoxys angrily prepares to punish it.
"Foolish savage, you dare – " but it is cut off as it realizes a huge shadow is looming over it. Deoxys doesn't even have time to change forms before a very enraged Rayquaza literally tears it to shreds.
As Saturn topples into the water he comes up sputtering just in time to see the Jackal dive into the water.
"What is wrong with you? Are you out of your mind?" He shouts in anger.
The Jackal points up. "I have specific instructions to keep you safe if I can. Sadly, the same cannot be said for you crew."
Saturn follows his gaze to see several devastating Draco Meteors crush his ship, incinerating everything on the deck. He can't imagine anyone could have survived.
"Now swim to the last ship," The Jackal commands. "We're getting away from this rock."
As Salamence and Dragonite land with Drake on the Albatross, Winona runs up to greet them. "Father, what happened?"
She stops and gasps as she realizes Lance is not with him. A tear trickles down from Drake's good eye.
Despite the danger of Rayquaza attacking her, Wilma rushes forward on Altaria to call back Tyranitar. After it is safe, she realizes the mighty Sky God is staring at her intently. Rayquaza growls and approaches lowly, opening its mouth as it gets closer.
Wilma shivers as she realizes, this is it. This is my whole life's work. And I may be about to die.
Rayquaza gives another growl, pauses for a terrifying momment, and stretches out its long, serpentine tongue, and then... licks Wilma's face. A sign of friendship.
Wilma sighs with relief. Her mission, and her lifelong dream, has finally been accomplished.
But she does not yet know the fate of her lost brother.
THE END
