Chapter 9
POV: 3rd
Atmos ended up landing in the center of Lumiose, in the central plaza right around Prism Tower - a perfect circular shape that let him land almost curled up like a snake, rather than stretched out over a runway. The group quickly slid off his head, windswept but none the worse for the wear.
"Thanks for the lift." Maria gave Atmos a thumbs-up. "Think you can get everyone together and let them know that Team Flare's on the move?"
"It will be no problem for me," Atmos rumbled in reply. "Watch yourself, Guildmaster. There is no telling what it is that you might be facing now."
Maria nodded, and Atmos lifted his head and shot off around Prism Tower, quickly rising into the air and out of sight.
"Maria!" Tails came running out of the tower, Clemont on his heels. "What's happened?"
"Team Flare is making their move; Khrista said they've got a base in the city that's close by here." Maria jabbed a thumb at Khrista, who nodded grimly. "You guys might be unknowing next-door neighbors."
Clemont stared blankly at that as Tails' eyes widened sharply. "You're joking."
Khrista shook her head. "I'm not. They've got a base under the cafe Lysandre frequents. Do you know where it is?"
Clemont's brow furrowed as his glasses flashed. "Cafe...Lysandre…." His eyebrows shot up. "Yeah! It's actually named for him; it's over here!" He ran over to the edge of the plaza and past a Pokemon Center; the rest of the group quickly followed after him and reached a small building built completely of dark red brickwork.
Ada's pupils flashed blue for a second, looking intently at Tails and Clemont, "Okay, I'm not seeing any unnatural EM signatures attached to them. They're probably clean," Her gaze moved to the building itself as her pupils flicked through blue, orange, gray, and returned to their usual human black, "But that cafe's a different story. There's a secret door behind the back wall…" She made a continue gesture to Camanion.
"...Which certainly doesn't appear on the floor plans filed publicly with City Hall, in violation of fire codes among other things, I think we may have just hit paydirt," Camanion unplugged the earpiece from her computer and returned it to Hammerspace. Risa emerged from the computer in a swirl of blue energy, already in her armored combat form.
"That would be their lab," Khrista said with a nod. "There's a dish cabinet in there that we have to get out of the way of the entrance. The staff's Team Flare, too, so we're going to have to take them out before we can get in there."
"Easily done." Maria cracked her knuckles. "I won't be able to let my team go completely loose here, considering that Gol is a giant and would probably make the ceiling collapse if he was allowed to go wild. There's more than enough of us here to split up and take them out quickly, though, so let's get moving before they try to pull a fast one on us."
Maria stepped into the cafe ahead of the others, setting foot in a decent-sized room with a counter and a small number of tables. The entire interior was a deep, dark red, and there were only two people standing in the cafe - a man and a woman, both dressed like employees with no red to be seen on their persons.
There was an odd, glazed expression in their eyes, but they didn't look completely out of focus, which caused Maria to pause a short distance into the cafe as the others came in after her.
The man and the woman both turned their focus to the newcomers and pulled out a PokeBall each. They started to raise their arms to throw them.
"Shock Wave!" Khrista stepped forward suddenly, her shirt turning an electric yellow as a quick wave of lightning zapped off her and into the man and the woman, causing them to spazz before collapsing.
Clemont's jaw dropped. "Wow…."
"You can have time to admire my ability later; we've got other things to worry about," Khrista replied.
"The entrance is behind here, right?' Tails walked over to the innocent-looking cabinet with cups and plates, looking it over. "I don't see a hidden switch…."
"I bet it's a spoken password or something like that." Maria moved closer to the knocked-out man and nudged him with a foot, rolling him over just enough so that she could see the back of his neck. She flinched back and looked at the others. "They've got black boxes; we're going to have to be careful down there."
"Who says the door needs to remain intact?" Ada asked, She transformed into Composite with a flash. Composite aimed their left arm at the cabinet and focused. A previously invisible hatch in their forearm opened on top, folding into two halfs. A laser weapon rose from inside, aiming over Composite's shoulder. The laser spun on a turret mount, aiming down their arm. The barrel reshaped itself slightly and fired a cone of brown energy, seemingly dissolving the entrance and causing Tails to jump back. Once it was gone, the cone shut off and the barrel reconfigured itself again. Composite held out their right hand and the turret aimed at a spot just above it. A bright light flickered above their hand, forming a wireframe of some sort of grenade before filling it in. "Never underestimate the utility of a digitizing laser. Or a flashbang. Anyone else need equipment before we put this up?"
"Bu'ir? How do you even fit that thing in your arm?" Hunter asked, the question having never occurred to him.
"We don't, it rezes during deployment." Composite shrugged before glancing at the others, "Oh, and Risa, see if you can get one of those boxes off without hurting the host."
"I-I think I'm going to be fine." Maria stepped away from Composite a little.
"We're not completely defenseless." Tails pulled his three PokeBalls out of his tails as Clemont pulled out four of his own. He hid the PokeBalls away again. "What's so dangerous about the black boxes?"
"They're mind control devices." Maria swallowed. "You're going to have to watch your backs in there - it could be more dangerous than watching out for a Pokemon that knows Hypnosis."
"Suit yourself," The digitizing laser spun to point over Composite's shoulder and sank back into its hatch, which closed and became seamless again. Risa tossed a box to Composite, who caught it and put it and the flashbang into Hammerspace with a single smooth motion, "We've been analyzing these black boxes, but the only other specimen we have is badly banged up, so we couldn't do any hardware analysis. Speaking of which, once we're done with them, you can take first shot at destroying them Maria."
"Y-yeah, sure." Maria nodded.
"We should concentrate on taking care of Team Flare first before they can set off that weapon," Khrista pointed out with a dark frown. "Hopefully we'll be able to stop them here."
"Then let's go before they make a move ahead of us." Tails motioned for the group to follow him, then disappeared into the dark entrance that had been behind the dish cabinet. The others quickly followed, going down a dark stairwell until they entered a not a dim, red and black chamber. Walls that came up to Maria's neck separated them from other parts of the room, with small openings that had odd, glowing blue panels with arrows on them breaking the walls into chunks. At the other end of the area they'd stepped into was a set of red, metal doors - an elevator.
And standing in front of them was a man in a dark suit with red accents, and bright red hair that exploded off his head like a lion's mane. The man's appearance flickered.
"A hologram," Maria muttered.
"On it," Camanion murmured in response, pointing her computer at the hologram and tapping away.
"Lysandre!" Clemont exclaimed.
"Welcome," the hologram of Lysandre said. "The world will soon reach the point of no return. Saving the lives of all is impossible. Only the chosen ones will obtain a ticket to tomorrow. Do you want to have a ticket, or do you want to stop me? I tried to save people – and the world – with the profit from this lab. But my efforts had no effect…The world was too vast…and too full of fools that I couldn't save through my hard work alone." Lysandre shook his head. "That's why I decided the only way to save the world was to take it all for myself. I don't expect that I will ever make you understand how I think and feel…Try to stop the ultimate weapon if you must, but to do so, you will have to explore our lab and have Pokémon battles with all you meet." He looked back at the elevator. "Oh, and as for the Elevator Key, one of the Team Flare Scientists you've met on your journey has it." Lysandre looked back at the group. "Saving everything…The world is suffering because of this absurd dream…."
The hologram flickered and died.
"That was almost word-for-word what he says in-game." Khrista frowned. "Except he's supposed to fight you here in the middle of that."
"The hologram thing means that something's changed." Maria looked around, noticed the glowing blue panels with the arrows, and groaned. "Sliding Tiles, great. Those things are annoying."
"As annoying as Warp Panels?" Khrista pointed at a glowing yellow, circular panel that was under where Lysandre's hologram had been a moment ago.
"Even worse! With those things you can't see where you're going!" Maria waved a hand wildly. "At least I can fly over these walls and avoid the Sliders, but Warp Panels are something else."
"They can't be hacked, either, so we're going to have to try all the panels we can find in order to find all the information we can," Clemont said worriedly. "He mentioned scientists?"
"Yeah; he probably means those girls with the visors we've been running into, like the one at the power plant." Maria's brow furrowed. "I think there's...four of them, at least."
"Give me about ten seconds, I think I've found a map," Camanion clicked a few controls, murmured something, and projected a hologram from her computer, "Yup, no need to hunt-and-peck."
The map of the lab showed a large chamber split up into smaller rooms by the short walls, with the main entrance at the bottom, two rooms on the right side, one room on the left, and two more rooms along the top.
"This doesn't tell us where the scientists are, but it does give us a good place to start," Maria noted. "They're probably hiding in one of the rooms that branch off this one - shouldn't be too hard to get to them, if we move fast and fly rather ran run. I'd rather not slide across a chamber because I stepped on one of those arrow tiles." Her nose crinkled up in annoyance at the thought.
"If I had to guess, I'd say the keys would be farthest from the entrance, but our friend here," Camanion gestured towards the absent hologram, "might be smart enough to not do that. If he was really smart, he wouldn't have left the maps on a network-connected machine, but he probably just took the labels off and thought he was secure. I see this all the time and it never fails to be the weak link."
"Lysandre's networks are usually more secure than this," Clemont said worriedly. "Something else must be going on."
"Setting a trap," Maria muttered. "He's making things too easy."
"This room's a recharge room, I think." Khrista pointed at the room that was on the left. "We can leave that one be, unless it might be a good idea to double-check everything just in case."
"It might be," Tails agreed. "I'll go check that room out. You guys take on the other ones."
"Well, since I can't fly like the rest of you seem to be talking about, I'll have to wander around down here." Clemont motioned to the glowing blue tile. "Maybe I'll run into other Flare Grunts and get information from them on what's going on."
"Watch out for ones who have black boxes on the backs of their necks." Maria motioned to her own neck. "It looks like hitting them with an electric charge does something about making them go haywire, so since you're the Electric Gym Leader you might be able to do something about it."
Clemont gave Maria a thumbs-up, then ran for the glowing blue tile that pointed out of the room and shot off with a yelp of surprise.
Maria jumped up as her hoverboard detached from her back, landing on it as Khrista's shirt shifted to electric yellow and sky blue. "I'll go start with the room that's on the far top left."
Khrista went into a hover. "I'm going to hit the middle one up there then. I may only have Evie with me, but I don't think they'll be expecting me to show off." She grinned widely.
"It looks like there's an open space here that could be interesting." Tails tapped at the upper left corner of the map, which was an open space that was part of the main floor plan, but blocked off. "It's probably by itself for a reason; I'll go check it out."
"...I'm not sensing anything alive in that top right room," Hunter mused, "But there's something in the middle right."
"That's what our thermal says," Composite added, visor glowing orange, "But there's a lot of heat-generating equipment in the top right. You wanna go check it out sis?"
"C'mon Risa, I'll call you back when I get there," Camanion floated up and jetted towards the indicated room. Switch took another second to react, but he quickly followed.
"You wanna take on whoever that is?" Composite asked Hunter.
"Oya manda! Let's hunt!" The Metroid responded excitedly and took off, followed closely by his parent.
POV: Composite
"Hello, Mobian," Mable, the blue-haired scientist from the frost cave said as we landed in the middle right, pulling a PokeBall, "Did you bring your Pokemon?"
"Hello, shabuir," Hunter responded, attempting to knock the ball out of her hand before she could activate it. The first was a success. The second, not so much. "We don't need Pokemon to bring you down."
"Houndoom, Go!" A dog with horns and a pointed tail emerged from the Pokeball.
"It's Dark/Fire, Hunter, take point!" We thought we heard a cry of anger from Camanion, but it was just a generally angry-at-the-world tone rather than yelling at a specific person, so we ignored it. Probably an especially nasty network setup.
"Do I get to slow down time too?" Hunter asked, in a jocular tone.
"Shut up and take it down," we rebuked with a laugh.
"Flamethrower!" Mable ordered her Houndoom into the fight.
"Tackle!" We ordered Hunter.
The Houndoom inhaled and shot a burst of flame at Hunter. The Metroid simply took the attack head on, spread his mandibles in a smirk, and shot forward, slamming into the dog. Neither collapsed, but the Houndoom was staggered from the force of the impact.
"So you're immune to fire? Okay then, Sludge Bomb!"
"Keep going, it's not like you have anything else."
The hound coughed up a ball of slime that both of us easily dodged. Hunter made a sort of head-shaking motion and slammed into the Houndoom again, "When will you learn that You. Can't. Hurt. Me."
"Snarl!"
The Houndoom growled at Hunter "What are you? I've never seen a Pokemon as ugly as you!"
"You're not too cute yourself, pal." Hunter turned to us, "Can I please eat him?"
"No, ad'ika, you can't. Just tackle him again."
"Okay…" Hunter slammed into the Houndoom a third time. The poor thing was decidedly weak at the knees now, but still standing.
"Why does nothing work on you?" Both the Pokemon and Trainer demanded in perfect unison.
"Because I'm not a Pokemon, di'kute," Hunter slammed into the Houndoom one more time, causing the Dark/Fire type to collapse. "Now can I eat it?"
"No!" We repeated.
"How would you eat it, you don't have a mouth!" Mable asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"I'm a Metroid, we eat life energy… 'Cept me, I can eat electricity too. And don't bother with electricity on Bu'ir either, they're immune."
"Well then…" She recalled the fainted Houndoom, "How about ice? Weavile!" A black, humanoid-feline creature with a sort of red crown and clawed hands exploded from the ball she threw.
Hunter gulped, "Mom? Tag in?"
"Step aside and don't call us that,"we took a ready position in front of the Pokemon.
"I don't fight Trainers," the creature said, "Let the other one back, I can smell his fear."
"Well, it's a good thing we're not a Trainer then. Say, can you regenerate limbs?"
"No, why?"
"Lucky for you, that just greatly limited our options," we drew our blades and dulled them, "Lucky for us, katana can do more than cut."
"Enough talk, and sometime you're going to tell me how you talk to Pokemon, Night Slash!" Mable got impatient and ordered a start to the fight.
"Crossroad Killing!" The Pokemon snarled, lunging forward, claws shrouded in dark energy.
"Unfortunately, we get that reference," we stepped forward, swinging our blade. The resultant clash sent sparks flying and neither were noticeably damaged.
"Low Sweep!"
Weavile shot forward, attempting to sweep our legs out from under us. We fluidly stepped back, avoided the attack, and stepped back in, knocking the off-balance Pokemon to the ground. "You need to learn better tactics. Now I'm going to chop at your legs and head, Stop me."
The Pokemon hopped up and snarled, "Don't lecture me Mobi - augh!" He took a blow to the head and had his legs swept from under him at the same time.
"You know, this is way too much fun." We said happily to Oy'an.
"Quick Attack!" Mable was obviously feeling left out.
"Oh, what are we ever going to do?" We asked in a tone of mock distress. Our head circuits shined brightly while our arms dimmed as we transferred more energy to cognition processes. We used our newly enhanced reflexes from the power reallocation to dive out of the way of the charging Weavile and counterattacked, sending it sprawling.
"How could you…? I was going too fast to see?"
"Not when you're seeing in slow motion you aren't. Now, you got any more attacks? We're just starting to enjoy ourselves." We grinned and pretended to wipe blood off of our swords.
"You're too cocky, Ice Shard!" The Pokemon formed a spear of ice from thin air and threw it.
We waved our hand dismissively and sent the spear flying into the wall, "Psychic!"
"You fool! I'm a Dark Type, Psychic Type attacks don't - Waugh!"
"We're sorry, did we accidentally give you the impression we were using an attack you're immune to? We meant Psychic Throw!"" The Weavile slammed into the wall, collapsing in a heap.
"I'm okay," He raised a hand and waved it feebly before letting it fall, "...No I'm not." He fainted.
"I seem to have lost. Well, I have no choice. Here's the elevator pass." Mable passed a key card to us and returned her Weavile. "Now… The power of the Legendaries… To give and consume life -"
"I could fit that bill," Hunter piped up, "I can heal as well as harm. Looks pretty much the same for the first few seconds too, because that's how long it takes my target to feel it. If I'm eating that's about when the screaming starts."
"... Right, Well, with that much power… What would happen if we were to power the Ultimate Weapon with that?"
"You… You idiot! You're using something that powerful without even knowing what it'll do?! How stupid are you!" We cried in shock.
"'Mad Science' means never stopping to ask 'What's the worst that could happen?" Hunter quoted.
Help! A voice rang out in our head. We recognized it immediately as telepathy.
"Did you hear that?" Hunter asked, "She sounded scared."
Please? Can you hear me? I can see you. The voice continued.
Where are you? Who are you? We asked back, probing for the source with our weak psionic sense.
I'm right behind you, I don't know how you haven't spotted me! As for my name… I don't really have one. You can call me Espeon.
The two of us turned around and saw a lavender Pokemon that resembled a dog-sized cat with a gem in her forehead and a split tail. She was locked in a crate that was a bit too small for it.
"Let's get you out of there, shall we?" We asked. They opened the crate, allowing Espeon to step out and stretch painfully. "Are you okay? Did Team Flare hurt you?"
You! The Espeon turned to Mable, You inhuman… … … monster! How could you possibly want to kill everyone?
"The world is dying, humans and Pokemon are destroying it!"
"We'd tell you about how well that turned out for Horizon, but we already told you about that in the cave yesterday," we looked at the scientist, "Oh, and if you have any black boxes left, we'd like you to hand them over."
"I don't have any," Mable said defensively.
Our visor flashed blue, "We think you're lying. And we don't like liars, do we son?" We drew one of their blades, which we'd sheathed after the last Pokemon had gone down. It visibly sharpened into its normal form.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" She turned her pockets out, dumping two of the black boxes onto the ground. We telekinetically swept both up and placed them in Hammerspace.
"So it's okay for you to call me 'son' but not for me to call you 'mom,'" Hunter complained.
"We're the parent."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Want to go check on sis? I'm sure she's doing fine, but she's always got something she wants to share, so let's go. Espeon, can you climb the wall?"
"Easily," The Pokemon leapt up, effortlessly scrambling over the wall.
POV: 3rd
"Oh, by Simon, Sajuuk, and Starclan!" Camanion shouted, enraged, "This place doesn't even have aircon! How have these servers not overheated?" The room was full of admittedly well-racked servers with well-done cabling and a proper map of the room next to the door.
Risa teleported in with a flash of blue energy, "Your sister works with Simon."
"Needed a third S word." Camanion plugged in her earpiece, pointed her computer at the map, and started to tap a few controls."Okay, we need to access the main file server most likely. If that fails, we'll try the backup servers. People never think to encrypt those things, even though they store the same mission-critical data as the primary." She turned to Switch, who had landed just after her, "Okay PFY, how do we do that?"
"Uh…" Switch obviously hadn't expected to be put on the spot, "First we find out if it's a virtual or physical server."
"Very good! It's a virtual on ESXi." Camanion listened to a readout on her computer, "Then what do we do?"
"Then we… find the host machine and-" Switch started.
"No, ESXi hosts don't have access to the guests," Camanion shook her head.
"Oh, sorry, was thinking in Hyper-V… So we need to find the console." Switch thought for a moment and looked at the map, "Which is right over here. There's two." He tapped the shift key on one of the consoles and sat down. "It's logged in as admin, but it's locked."
"And…" Risa asked, "Where are passwords usually stored?"
"Uhh…" Switch looked at the monitor itself, lifted the keyboard and looked on the desk, "...Under the keyboard."
"...And we're in. Okay, how do we find the info we want?" Camanion prompted.
"Uh… what info are we looking for?" Switch asked dryly.
"You make a good point… Now, what's the fastest port on these machines?"
"Em… USB 3?" Switch asked.
"Sorry, wasn't asking you… Okay, Looks like these bad boys have Thunderbolt. Let's do this," She pulled a cable out of hammerspace and plugged it into a small almost square port on the computer and then into her own machine.
"Now while that's going, let's see if we can find anything interesting," Camanion clattered on the keyboard, searching the file server for anything with 'Ultimate Weapon' in the document, "Say what you like about Team Flare, they do have good taste in keyboards. This board is almost as good as mine."
"And the difference is…?" Switch asked.
"These ones don't have powered USB hubs and headphone jacks."
"Well, look what we have here," Risa murmured, bringing up the files she'd found on Camanion and Switch's computers.
"Well, I think you've just found us a motherlode," Camanion said a solid ten seconds of amazed silence later.
"The Ultimate Weapon was created during a war in Kalos. One of the kings, named AZ had a Pokemon that was killed in battle by his brother… The original purpose was to resurrect the killed Pokemon… But it was modified by AZ because he couldn't make himself stop there… Once he realized he couldn't destroy his creation he took the activation key and fled, apparently cursed with immortality sometime during the process. His brother sealed the weapon itself, but he didn't have the key to bring it online…" Switch read out loud.
"Didn't Composite say something about how they saw a giant after the power plant incident that Clemont identified as AZ?"
"I think so," Camanion nodded.
Switch completely ignored the two and continued reading "AZ's brother told his son about the weapon before he died, all the way down the line to… Lysandre! Well, that explains a few things, but it certainly opens some new questions."
Camanion's ears twitched as she heard someone approaching. "Team Flare technical support, how may I maim you today?" She asked in the same tone she'd use to answer the phone.
"Hey sis, you got anything good?" Composite asked with a snort of laughter.
"Believe it or not, yes. Me and my team of wetwares actually had time to get some productive work done while you were out doing whatever you were doing."
"Your sister has a strange sense of humor," Espeon commented.
Camanion spun her chair around, "Oh, and who might you be?"
"I am currently known as Espeon, since I have no true name and that is the name of my species," the lavender cat responded.
Camanion glanced at her computer for a translation and grinned, "Well, hello Espeon, where did my sister find you at?"
"She was crated - in a crate much too small - in the room just over that wall," Composite pointed at the wall, "After defeating Mable, we found her near the door. We probably would have spotted her right away if we'd gone the regular route. Speaking of Flare scientists, we got the Elevator Key."
"Good. Let's go meet up with the others," Camanion gestured toward her screen, "We've got a lot of important data."
"Actually," Switch said, amused, "I think you're forgetting something…"
"What?" Risa asked.
"How about a little bit of 'asset denial?'" Switch asked innocently.
"Yeah, forgot about that. But this is just erasing data. Asset Denial involves explosives," Risa corrected. She gestured at the screen, "Okay, multicasting an rm -rf on root… now! That should wipe them clean… and just to be sure… give it a quick disk zeroing over the lot of them. Now we're ready to go check on the others."
"Good," Espeon purred, "That should slow them down somewhat," She turned and jumped onto the wall and set off towards the main entrance, the rest of the group quickly following once Camanion unplugged her machine from the computer..
As Camanion, Composite, Switch, Risa, Hunter, and Espeon came over the walls, two people Composite recognized as the Doctor's assistants bolted up the stairs. Since none of the others pursued, none of them did either.
"Hey, guys, did you get the - whoa!" Tails' eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Where'd you get the Espeon?"
"Team Flare had me locked in a cage. I was planning to make my escape when they opened it to feed me or remove me, but when Composite and Hunter dispatched Mable's Pokemon - and quite elegantly too, I might add - I made my presence known," Espeon twitched her tail-tips in satisfaction, "And they haven't got me, I haven't decided whether or not to follow them yet."
"As for Mable, we've got good news and bad news. The good news is we got two Boxes and an Elevator Pass. The bad news… Mable's not being controlled. We don't know if she actually believes in Team Flare's cause or if they've got something on her, but if she is being controlled, it's through conventional means."
Camanion projected a sort of quick-and-dirty executive summary of the information they'd retrieved from the Flare computers, "I've got plenty of info about the Weapon, but to summarize; AZ built device to resurrect a dead Pokemon during war. AZ modified machine into weapon. AZ ended war. AZ stole key so that it couldn't be used again. AZ's brother sealed weapon away and told his son. Our mutual friend," She gestured to where the hologram had been previously, "Is a descendant of the brother. Any questions?"
"Everyone knows that Lysandre is royalty," Clemont commented. "At least, people in Kalos do. AZ, though…."
"That man we saw coming back from the power plant," Khrista replied. "He's AZ - the one who set the weapon off."
"But that's impossible!" Maria countered. "Not unless he got affected by some kind of...some kind of time distortion or something to keep him alive."
"It could be Xerneas," Tails pointed out. When the others looked at him, he added, "He's a Legendary Pokemon that represents life. Maybe he made it so that AZ would live forever as a result of what he did?"
The others looked at each other.
"It could be possible," Maria admitted. She frowned. "But what about the weapon? Lysandre sounds like he's got everything he needs, so then this key…."
"If this is anything like the games, he's got AZ on the floor below this one." Khrista pointed down at the tiles at their feet. "We can take the elevator down and get him out of here."
"Yes, but unless Lysandre somehow didn't get the key off - or out - of AZ, then getting to the elevator and rescuing him will only solve part of the problem." Espeon made an agitated flick of her tail, "We'll still have to get to the weapon and disable it. Somehow I doubt that he's here, otherwise he wouldn't have used the hologram Camanion mentioned while we were coming back from the server room."
"Regardless, if AZ is here, rescuing him might prove to be to our advantage." Maria moved closer to the elevator. "So let's head down a floor and see about getting him out of here."
"We're going to go a floor lower after that," Khrista added. "There's another guy in the base we haven't run into yet - Xerosic. If this is anything like the game, Lysandre probably left him here. Or a hologram of him. He's standing in the room that activates the ultimate weapon right now, and I bet he's waiting for us to get down there before turning it on."
"You're an Avatar," Espeon said. It wasn't a question.
Khrista nodded. "Yeah. And Maria's the one who clobbered Cyrus the first time around."
"Well, that's certainly encouraging," Espeon almost smiled.
Maria scowled as she reached the elevator. "And it sounds like more problems are coming up ahead of us that could be as bad or worse than Cyrus." She folded her arms across her chest. "So let's get moving and see about getting AZ out of here before we meet this Xerosic guy."
"In that case, let's move." Composite pulled out the Elevator Pass and slipped it into the elevator slot. The group crowded on and went down one level.
The next level down led into a hallway made of gray stone. It went forward a short distance, then turned sharply to the right.
Khrista moved in front of the group, motioning for them to follow her quietly as her shirt shifted to bright gold and black. Maria and Evie moved after her, followed by the rest of the group, and as they turned the corner, they came across a cell. Instead of bars, however, zapping lines of dark energy zipped between open points at the top and bottom of the entrance. There was a key pad to the right of the cell door.
And standing inside that cell was the giant they'd seen after the events at the power plant.
"AZ!" Khrista moved in front of the cell, hoping to get the giant man's attention.
The man looked up at Khrista's voice as the others moved closer. Maria moved to stand to Khrista's left, her hologram flickering out and leaving her armor exposed.
"You...what are you doing here?" the former king of Kalos asked. His voice was surprisingly quiet for someone his size. "Who are you?"
"I'm Khrista Langstrom, and this is my friend Maria Carlsdale." Khrista nodded over to Maria, who gave a nod in greeting. "The others with us are Camanion, Composite, Hunter, Risa, Switch, and Espeon." She motioned as the others came into view themselves. "We're here to get you out of here and stop Team Flare."
"Apparently they're planning to use one of your former possessions," Composite added, "Now normally we - I - personally would just drop some titanium rods from orbit and bomb it back to the stone age, but apparently it would probably blow up and wipe out half the region. And even if that didn't happen, there are a lot of innocent civilian Pokemon within the blast range."
"This is some serious security," Camanion interjected. "By the time I've sliced it they'll have gotten bored with waiting for us and flipped the Big Red Switch."
AZ shook his head. "The ultimate weapon is far more powerful than your mechanical creations. It was crafted from a material I made sure to destroy after…." He trailed off, shook his head again.
"We can think of a few that are more powerful, but in this dimension you're right, though a powerful but weakly defended weapon can be destroyed by something smaller. We've seen it happen before. Now let's see about getting you out of there. Oy'an, we're going to need some overwatch. Sync up." Composite held a finger up and Hunter tapped it with one of his outer mandibles. There was a slight energy discharge and the Metroid slumped slightly, only semi-conscious of the physical world. Composite turned to Risa, "You coming sis?" The two placed their hands on the keypad, and Composite explained, "This is why Fcon chose our design." The two exploded into swirls of red and blue energy cubes and were absorbed into the panel.
POV: Risa
I reformed inside the computer, Composite behind me back-to-back.
::I'm locked in,:: Hunter's voice said both in my head and from a floating spheroid above us.
"Weapons are hot," Composite said. They drew their Identity Disk from Hammerspace and placed it on their back, where it seemed to suspend itself. They drew their blades, sharpening them and Igniting them with a flash of energy. I held out my hands, left in front cupped upward and right behind cupped toward my shoulder. My BlasTech DC-17m Interchangeable Weapons System rezed in my hands. I clipped on a pair of ironsights and slammed a clip into a receiver on the left side
"Weapons are hot," I confirmed. I sent a command to my internal terminal and my emotional suppressors came online. Not a module Camanion gave me, I made it myself. I don't know if it's something wets have that I don't or if it's unique to me, but when I'm in combat I don't need the distraction. I went from slightly jittery to focused with laser keenness. Camanion makes plenty of machine jokes, and I suppose I technically am a machine – aren't we all? – but when I go into combat, I'm a machine in more than the usual sense.
::Incoming!:: Hunter's voice squealed. Composite sheathed their left blade and drew their Disk with the free hand. I raised my weapon to my shoulder and sighted up. A pair of spindly first-response drones stalked around the corner in response to the intruders. Composite whirled around and sidestepped, throwing their Disk at one of the drones. I fired two bolts from my rifle, melting its head cleanly. Both of the two glowed orange and dissolved into wireframes before disappearing.
We shot down the corridor in front of us, traveling down the circuit board to the access control, Hunter guiding us along. A large program guarded a lower area with its back to us. I grinned, signaled a halt and swapped the ironsights for a proper scope, slapped an extended barrel onto my blaster, and swapped the clip for a larger clip with different ammunition.
"Hello scumbag," I sighted up and placed my crosshair firmly on the back of my target's head before firing a long beam with a solid core, "You're dead." The target whirled around just in time to take another shot to the eye and derezed.
Composite grinned and clenched their own right fist, summoning an HECU SPAS-12 shotgun. They pulled a similar clip to my own. Their own shotgun reshaped itself so that it matched mine except for the shotgun grip.
The slightest flicker of envy snuck past my suppressor, "I wish my kit could copy like yours, Mine only has five modes, yours can do anything up to… what exactly?"
Composite shrugged, "Pretty sure it's anything up to the size of a shoulder-launched rocket. We haven't really stress-tested it yet. Not worth the trouble of finding some black market SAMs."
I leapt down, followed shortly by my sister. "Do you think maybe this was too easy?"
"How so?"
"Except for the big one, we've only encountered a handful of first-responders, not even proper grunts." I pressed a button near where the big program had been standing and opened a hidden chamber. This was obviously the primary authorization control center, with large consoles and streams of what I recognized as cryptographic code lining the walls.
"Let's dance," Composite murmured. Apparently this was where most of the defenses were, "Sister, cover us," They raced in, blades flashing to deflect incoming fire.
I deftly removed the barrel, scope, and clip from my weapon, replaced it with a large barrel module, and slapped a grenade into it, eliminating a group of grunts with a single shot. Composite got to work slicing a panel as I kept the enemy's heads down.
Several nanoseconds later, almost a full millisecond in fact, the panel flashed green and Composite announced, "Okay, we're clear, let's get out of here. Make a hole!" They made a sweeping motion with their hand, sending grunts tumbling in all directions. We raced through the open tunnel out into the main corridors. I aimed my blaster behind me and gave the grunts a goodbye present In the form of a sixty-round hosing.
I clicked off my suppressor and was instantly flooded with a sense of exhilaration and thrill. It's really quite enjoyable. Maybe the wets have it right after all. I'll have to look into that.
POV: 3rd
About three seconds after the pair entered the computer, the electric bars dissipated with a loud zap and the two AIs were violently ejected from the panel, both breathing hard.
"Whew," Risa gasped, "That was… fun."
"Fun," Composite grumbled, "Isn't the word." They turned to AZ, "So, you're free. What will you do now?"
"Whew! Always get a kick out of doing that!" Hunter perked up and flew over to check on the pair. "Are you two okay?"
"Yeah, we're fine," Composite said, "Just a little exhausted, that'll sort itself out in a couple minutes."
AZ hesitated, then stepped out of his cell. "I need to take back what was taken from me. I am going to Geosenge." He started to move past them, then paused and looked at the group. "Keep your wits about you. The descendant of my brother...he is not quite right." Then he moved around the corner and out of sight.
"We're going to have to give the elevator a couple seconds if we're going to head down to Xerosic," Khrista commented. She frowned. "I'm surprised, though - he didn't give us that story he gave us in the game…."
"Story?" Maria cocked her head to one side.
"Yeah - the one about how he lost his Floette in the war and made the machine to bring it back to life, only to have it leave him when he used the machine as a weapon. I think he ended up living for so long because he was close to the thing when it went off - like it gave him eternal life or something."
"I can understand that," Camanion commented, "All of it is understandable as it happens."
"That may be, but what we're doing is changing some things," Khrista pointed out. "If I didn't know about what usually happens, I'm sure we'd be missing pieces of the story."
Maria nodded a little, frowning. "Yeah…."
"We should be able to get to the next floor now." Tails started towards the elevator. "We have to stop the weapon before it gets activated; hopefully, we will be able to take care of that here so that we can rescue the Pokemon in Geosenge without having to be on a timer."
Maria shook her head a little and gained a determined expression. "Right. Let's take care of this Xerosic guy."
"I doubt it'll be that much of a problem, if he goes to press the button, we do have at least four people on our side capable of using telekinesis to stop him," Camanion nodded to Composite, Khrista, and Evie.
"Five," Espeon added.
"Six," Hunter corrected.
"Since when?" Composite asked.
"I'm not good, but I can knock someone's hand off course, and a couple hours ago. Did I forget to mention that?" Hunter asked innocently.
The group moved back to the elevator and crowded inside again before heading down to the third floor. The hallway that the elevator opened out to once again turned sharply to the right, as it had on the second floor.
Khrista and Evie moved to the turn in the hallway and stopped.
Evie's ears unfolded and went straight up like a rabbit's. She backed away from the corner and hissed, "There's someone there. He doesn't feel right."
"Must be that Xerosic guy." Maria moved to join them. "So he's in a room right around the corner here?"
Khrista nodded. "We shouldn't have to worry about him doing anything against us here; he might try to test you in a battle, though." She looked back at the others. "It might be a good idea to keep your weapons ready but hidden, just in case. I don't know what is going to be changed from the game, but it's a good idea to be prepared, just in case."
Composite looked around, visor glowing blue, "Well, we're not going to be able to sneak up on him, there's a camera right outside the door. Either that or a motion detector, either way it'll spot us."
"Always paranoid." Maria rolled her eyes and sighed irritably, then stepped around the corner and into the open doorway on the wall to the right. The others followed.
The room they stepped into was mostly dark, except for the bright orange lights that lit up a central path that led past computer servers and to an open area at the back of the room. The back wall had a monitor in the middle - it wasn't active at the moment - and two panels on either side of it, each with a button. To the left was a blue button; to the right was a red one.
And standing in front of the monitor and the buttons was a man in a red jacket and pants with skin so pale he almost seemed to be glowing white.
"So the PokeBalls we received and the Pokémon we've gathered are where they need to be." The man tapped a few things on a tablet and grinned. "Add it all up, and it means all preparations are complete!"
"Like we're going to let you make use of them!" Maria came to a stop a short distance from him, hands on her hips. Khrista stopped to Maria's left and folded her arms across her chest as Evie stood to her Trainer's left and mimicked Maria.
The man looked up, eyes in goggles with red glass focusing on the group. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I wasn't expecting you here so soon! I would have thought that you would have had a harder time trying to find the Elevator Key!"
"Puzzles like that are old hat," Maria replied.
"Had way too much fun doing it," Composite added.
"Shut your operation down, Xerosic," Khrista said. "We're not letting you activate the weapon."
"We will do whatever it takes to stop you," Espeon snarled.
"...Yeah, we'll go with that," Hunter telepathically murmured to the cat.
The man - Xerosic - let out a laugh. "I'm not about to shut it down - it's not even activated yet, after all! But you can try!" He motioned to the buttons that were on either side of the monitor. "Choose! One button will activate the weapon! One button will shut down all our operations and prevent us from making use of it!"
Composite held out their hand slightly and seemed to commune with the machine, "From what we can tell… both controls are armed. Maybe they select a firing mode?"
"It's blue for Xerneas and red for Yveltal, isn't it?" Maria's eyes narrowed as she looked at Xerosic with disapproval. "I'm not stupid; I know the main colors of the two Legendaries that live in this region. So I choose neither."
Xerosic burst out laughing. "Correct! Well done! However, unlike Lysandre, who would have said that he would have disbanded us as soon as you had said such a thing, I cannot allow your decision to stand - which is why I will activate it!" He held up a remote control just as his thumb pressed down on a button with the Flare logo.
Click.
"No!" Maria lunged towards Xerosic, intending to tackle him to the ground, but she ended up going through him with a crackle of static.
"Should have expected that," Camanion said, "Both the hologram and the remote."
The screen between the two buttons lit up, crackling with static for a moment before clearing up, revealing a circle of wooden cabins, surrounded by stones of various sizes.
"Geosenge," Khrista said grimly. "It's starting."
Three prongs of stone in the center of the town jolted, then sank into the ground. There was a moment of eerie stillness, then an explosion of dirt and stone as a large, iridescent object erupted from the center of town. It spun slowly, then faster as it released bursts of red and blue light before unfurling like a giant flower with two layers of three petals.
The flower hovered there, then dropped to the ground, smoke rising from a red-black pole in the center of the petals.
"Oh no," Maria murmured worriedly. "This is...oh no."
"We've got time," Khrista said. "They need time to charge that thing up - we can get to Geosenge and still stop them before they fire it and destroy everything. But we need to move now."
"Keely!" Composite's Ki came online with a flicker of a hologram, "Get to these coordinates immediately, and get Condor prepped for launch, we may need air support."
::Affirmative Commander:: came the AI's calm reply.
"Much as I'd love to see a re-entry burn," Camanion nodded, "We'll have plenty of time to watch that later."
"There's nothing left for us here, let's go." Hunter said solemnly.
"Hunter, could you not?" Risa asked.
"No; he's right." Maria turned to look at the others, her PokeDex already in hand. "Atmos, meet us in the Central Plaza. We're flying for Geosenge as soon as we meet up with you."
::Understood, Guildmaster. The Guild is on high alert and sending a team in; they'll meet us there::
"Good; at this point, we're going to need all the help we can get." Maria slipped the Dex into her subspace and started moving out of the room. "Come on; we've got a time limit that the avatars didn't have, and I'm not about to let any more time slip past us."
Risa patiently waited for Maria to finish talking before snorting slightly and saying, "You wouldn't be agreeing with him if you got that reference," before following the rest of the group out.
"Actually," Hunter murmured, "That reference is all too appropriate."
Sorry for the delay, the real world went nuts yesterday and today.
And don't worry, Composite won't be getting a new companion every story. FWB suggested it and I decided that, among other things, having a full telepath along for the ride could be helpful. Also, Espeon's personality helps with rounding out my eccentric group.
