Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon or any of its characters. All OC's belong to me and a few from several other authors.
A/N: Sorry for any grammar or spelling errors. An edited version will be up soon.
Over two months?! Really Hodge! Are you that lazy? Sorry guys. School, writers block, and gaming kept me away from writing. Hope this extra long chapter makes up for it. Relax and read.
"Prisoner 622 step forward!" the Warden shouted.
I hesitated for a split second before stepping out from the long line of prisoners. The Warden looked up from his clipboard and walked down the line. He stopped right in front of me and gave me a cruel grin.
"So you're the new prisoner that arrived yesterday?" he asked, looking me up and down. "A Ash Ketchum is? From the records I have on you, it says you rank as a first lieutenant."
"Yes sir," I told him, keeping a neutral face. Best not show this guy I had a fear or weakness.
The Warden nodded. "Judging from your accent, you're a Kantonian. Let me be the first in welcoming you to your new home. Welcome to Infierno Agujero Lieutenant Ketchum. What do you think of the ASHR's maximum security prison for POWs?
I turned my head to the side and glanced at the landscape. Barren waste lands and rugged mountains filled my eyes. The rugged terrain surrounded a town size prison of bunkhouses and underground mines. A chain link fence and active mine field made up the perimeter. All in all it was exactly like the stories had said it was.
"Impressive," I finally replied, bringing my eyes back to the warden.
"You damn right it's impressive." He reached into coat pocket and pulled out an Orange Islander Cigar. "No one has every escaped from my prison." He stuck the cigar in his mouth and lit it with a lighter. The warden took a long drag before blowing out a puff. "And no one ever will."
He took a few more puffs before flicking the cigar away. "Alright," he said, blowing out the last of the smoke. "We have had a nice little chat, but it's time for you and your fellow POWs to go to work."
I looked over my shoulders at the grim-looking prisoners before turning back. "What kind of work?"
The Warden grinned. "Well a war doesn't run itself now does it? As a way of repaying for you sins against the ASHR, you're going to work your fingers to the bone in the bone in the mines. Digging the precious metals that with help us win this war." He motioned the armed guards behind him. "Get this group to mines."
The head guard saluted. "Yes sir." He ordered the other guards to surround us and another to push me back in line.
"Now march you URP dogs! Move it!" The head guard to the point of the group, while the other marched to either sides of us. Everyone of them was armed with an assault rifle pf the "Beedrill" series.
We marched in a single file line, at a steady jog. After jogging for several minutes, we stopped in front of a giant iron hatch in the side of a hill. Two armed guards stood at either sides of the door.
"A fresh batch of the mines, sir?" one of the guards asked.
The head guard nodded. "Twenty fresh workers."
"Good thing too." another one of the entrance guards replied. "We lost eight more workers in a cave collapse yesterday. You ready to herd them in sir?"
"Yes, open the gate."
The entrance guard pounded the door with his fist and yelled for someone inside to open the doors. I could hear the sound of bolts being pulled out and the iron doors slowly creaked open.
"Say goodbye to sunlight," I heard someone behind me mutter.
I turned around and looked at a grim-faced middle-aged man. He had his eyes on the ground as he continued speaking. "The last time I was down there, I was there for a month."
"Hey you stupid dogs!" the head guard yelled. "Quit standing around looking like lazy Miltank and start marching!"
I tore my eyes from the grim-faced man as we began marching again into the black mouth of the mine. I glanced over shoulder as the iron doors closed behind us with a loud groan.
My first week down in the mines was absolute Tauros crap. As soon as we entered the mine, we were given a pickaxe each and worked like animals.
The darkness and humid air was bad enough, but the guards up top were angels compared to the ones down here. Each one of the mine guards carried at leather whip, pistol, and electric probe. If a worked wasn't working hard enough or fast enough, they were whipped or shocked.
I was half way through my second week in "the Pitt" when I got my best break since I'd been captured.
We were working on a new tunnel in the mines, me, Demo, and an older man in his sixties. Demo was the closest thing I had to a friend in this prison. Demo had been in Infierno Agujero for three years, after he'd been captured during the Ever Grande Campaign. He was ten years older than me, but he'd shown me the ropes when I got here.
"Damn rock," Demo swore as he clipped away at the tunnel entrance. "And we're the ones who have to do it."
"Hey!" a guard walking by said. "Less talking more working. We don't feed you so you can sit around and be social. I want to hear metal on rock."
"One meal a day of stale bread and salt meat isn't enough to snack on," Demo muttered under his breath after the guard was out of ear shot.
"Stop complaining Demo," I said. "I would rather do this then choke on coal dust in the lower levels." Just as I finished speaking; the old man next to me growl as his pickaxe got stuck in the rock.
"Damn it," he said through gritted teeth, as he struggled to free the tool.
He tugged for a few seconds before stopping. "One of you boys mind giving me a hand."
"Sure old man." Demo dropped his pickaxe and walked over to the older guy. The man stepped back as Demo grabbed the handle and started pulling. "son of a gun, it's in there good." He grunted as the pickaxe slowly began to slide out of the rock.
"There you go," he sighed with relief as the tool gave way. He twirled the pickaxe in his hand before handing it to the old man.
"Thank you," he gave a slight bow. "I don't know what the guards wou-." his sentence was cut short , as a softball sized chunk of rock broke from the ceiling and fell on his head. He fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
"Crap!" I dropped my tool and rushed over to the old man's side. A trail of blood was running freely down one side of his face. His eyes were closed, but his breathing seemed fine.
"You, Prisoner 622."
I looked over my shoulder and found the guard from earlier standing over me.
"Get this old dog to the Doc. He's down on Level Three."
I grabbed the old man's arm and draped it over my shoulder. Demo was about to grab the man's other arm, but was stopped by the guard.
"Only one of you needs to drag him. You, Prisoner 1344, will keeping chipping away. This delay is slowing progress."
Demo gave the guard a murderous look before glancing at me. I shrugged and began dragging the old man down the tunnel towards the lift. Once there I pried open the rusty doors of the old elevator and pulled the old man inside. I sat him down against the wall and pressed the Level Three button.
The Doc was the man in charge of taking care of the wounded and sick workers in the mines. I'd never met him before, but ever worker thought highly of him.
The lift came to a shaky stop and I dragged the old man out as the door slid open. The old man began mumbling jibberes as I followed the red arrow pointing towards the medical bay. Light flooded out from a door in the side of the tunnel, with a red cross hanging over the door.
"Hey Doc," I yelled banging on the door. "I got a man hurt real bad out here. He needs help."
"Hold your Ponyta! I'm coming!" a deep voice called. The door shook as the locks were undone and the door opened.
A man in his late twenties or early thirties appeared. He had familiar looking spiky brown hair and tan skin.
It couldn't be...
"Brock?" I asked looking at the man in the dirty white doctor coat.
"Yes? Who are..." His eyes widened and he took a few steps back. "Ash, is that you?"
I smiled and laughed. "Yep Brocko, it's me. The one and only Ash Ketchum. Where the Hell have you been?"
"So you've been here all this time?"
I was sitting on a bench watching Brock bandage the old man's head. Brock said the man only had a minor concussion and would be o.k.
"Yep," Brock said, as he washed the blood off his hands at the sink. He wiped his hands off on a white towel and sat down in a chair across from me. "In the early days of the war, during the Ever Grande Campaign, my squad was surrounded and we were forced to surrender. This is the third prison I've been sent to. Since I was medic, the ASHR thought I'd be very useful in helping them take care of the prisoners of war." He hesitated a minute before continuing. "So how is my family?"
I felt like the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
"Last time I saw them, they were worried sick about you. Your mom and dad don't have a clue where you're at. Your little brother Forrest joined the URP marines a couple of months ago; I heard. Needless to say, they think your dead."
Brock nodded grimly. "That's what I thought. I thought I was going to have to stay here till one of the sides finally won, but it looks like the ASHR may come out on top. So I'm going to move on to plan B."
"Plan B?" I asked curiously. "What's plan B?"
"Well you see," he reached and grabbed an empty water bottle by his feet. "I was thinking of a way to get everyone out of this damn place."
"What?!" I looked over my shoulder at the door to make sure it was closed before turning back. "Are you planning a prison break? An uprising?"
He nodded. "I have been cooking up one for the last five months, but I've been a little hesitate. But now that your here; I think we can this thing off."
"Why do I make a difference?"
"Because," Brock said, fiddling with the empty water bottle in his hands. "You've had a lot more military training than me. You could lead this rebellion. What rank are you?"
"Lieutenant. First lieutenant."
"He's a Colonel," Brock pointed to a man sleeping in a bed in the far corner of the room, "But he's blind in one eye and has a bad limp in his left leg. Out of the three thousand of us here, your the highest ranking and most capable leader."
"Brock this is the most fortified war prison in the world. Five hundred armed guards, human and Pokémon, guarding three thousand unarmed prisoners. We may outnumber them, but they would still chew us to pieces. But..."
That caught Brock's attention. "But what?" he asked.
I'm so going to regret this. "But even if we have a chance. Even a sliver of a chance, I'd rather take it and die trying to escape; then die in this dark hole." I wiped my sweaty forehead and let out a sigh. "So what's the plan?"
Brock gave me a half-hearted smile. "I hope you don't think it's suicide." He grabbed a broken stick and began doodling in the dirt. "There is two exits from the mine. The main entrance and the railway. The railway is the key..."
A/N: Cliffhangerrrr! Hey guys what's going on? Again, sorry for the long delay. Thanks to Summer Break coming up, I'm going to have a lot of time to update my stories.
I though about making this chapter five thousand words long, but I nearly hate writing that much. So you'll have to settle for two thousand for now.
I can't say when the next chap with be up. It'll come when it comes. Please leave a review, favorite, and follow so I know you guys like my story. It'll motivate me to write better. Later.