I don't know how many hours passed, but there was still no sign of Percy. I tried to nap on Solana's lap, but my anxieties kept me awake. The three of us were silent, as were the rest of the rangers save for little muttering. The rangers that were previously immobilized by poison started to wake up and weakly look around. They would probably never know that I was the one that brought the antidote.
I heard a skittering, clanking noise from the hallway and looked. A scizor stalked in the hallway, glancing into the cell at all of the captured rangers.
"Wha?" I mumbled, in my half-awake state.
"Oh, it comes around every once in awhile," Solana answered. "I think it's supposed to be guarding us. If anything, they're taunting us. That scizor could cut through those bars and let us all out, but they took away all of our stylers, so we can't get its help."
I absentmindedly grazed my hand along my waistline where my styler's holster was. I froze, and a wave of realization washed over me. Due to the chaos of capturing me and that kind woman's trust, they had neglected to confiscate my styler. I took it out of the holster and stared at it, as if I couldn't believe it was real. Solana gasped, perhaps too loudly. Other rangers heard and looked over, and when they realized what I had, chattered excitedly. A brief glimmer of hope flared up in the cell.
Spenser was upon me almost immediately.
"Give me that," he spat, grabbing at my styler. I twisted away and jumped to my feet as Solana and Murph held him back.
"No! It's mine, and I should use it!" I responded.
"We need to maximize our chances of success, so the most talented capturer should do it. Joel's been poisoned so he's out of commission, and you certainly don't fit that that description."
"No, I am skilled enough! I'm rank 10, see?" I flipped open my styler so he could see my newly bestowed rank. "You always say I'm not good enough, just let me prove myself!"
Spenser lunged at me, pushing past Murph and Solana. He wrapped one hand around my styler and twisted it up. With the other hand, he grabbed the front of my shirt and pressed me against the wall. My feet dangled off of the ground, and I was so stunned that I barely heard what he hissed in my ear.
"That styler is a chance for all of us to escape. I will have you arrested for criminal insubordination of you do not hand it over right now."
"Don't give it to him!"
"Spenser, get a hold of yourself!" The others tried to pull him off me, but he was strong and stayed firm. Once again, I faltered in the face of adversity and loosened my grip on the miracle device. Spenser twisted it out of my hand and backed off. Solana and Murph were immediately at my side to make sure I wasn't hurt.
The room tittered excitedly as Spenser approached the bars, facing the scizor. The creature glared at him and hissed. Spenser growled back at it and flipped the capture top out onto the floor. He didn't manage to make a quarter of a loop before the creature punched the top into the air, smashing it against the wall. From the cracking noise the top made, I knew the attack did a lot of damage. I had taken a few hits while I climbed up the mountain, so I knew it wasn't at full charge. Not to mention I was still at a low level relative to my rank, so the styler's charge capacity wasn't very high. The scizor only had to smash the top one more time before the styler was beeping frantically, signaling that the charge was very low.
Spenser shouted in frustration and raised my styler over his head, as if he intended to smash it on the ground. But before he could, Cameron wrenched it out of his hand. Spenser stomped to the back of the cell to sulk, as did the other spectating, hopeful rangers. When you're as attuned to emotions as a Pokémon ranger, you can tell when an entire room's hopes are crushed.
Cameron handed my styler back to me with sad eyes.
"Well, you might as well have a go at it now," he sighed quietly. He too returned to the back of the cell. I glanced at the styler—Spenser had left me one measly power unit, but at least he hadn't broken it completely.
"What are you going to do?" Solana asked. I looked at the scizor. It had an aggressive stance, and was hissing into the cell. I righted myself and approached it.
The Scizor hissed and spat at me as approached, and I knew exactly what it was trying to say.
What do you want, human?
"I-" I stuttered, contemplating how exactly I was going to word this. "I need your help."
Of course you do. So did the other man. I see that device in your hand, you're just going to try and manipulate me, aren't you?
"No! No, I-"
That's all humans are good at, aren't they? Just using Pokémon as tools.
"I'm a Pokémon ranger," I said softly but firmly. "We are dedicated to protecting and serving the people and Pokémon of Fiore."
You say that, but you're self-interested. When was the last time a human helped a Pokémon? My only experience with humans has landed me here, against my will!
"Those are the bad guys, we're just trying to-"
Oh, you humans and your black-and-white morality, it almost seemed to chuckle. Don't try to convince me, boy. You humans are all the same. I took a deep breath.
"Look, I know you're scared and hurt. You've been abused by humans, and they've never cared about what you want."
I said enough! It made a half-lunge at me while snarling, trying to intimidate me. Why should I listen to you, when humans have never listened to me?
"Because I'm listening to you right now." The scizor lowered its shoulders, relaxing its aggressive stance. "I hear you, and I know you feel betrayed. These people, they've used these stylers to force you to do things you don't want to do. But this styler I have here is different- I'm sure you felt it when the other guy was using it. It won't take your free will. That's the difference between us humans. Please, let me help you." I reached through the bars, trying to touch it comfortingly. The scizor looked me in the eye.
How can I help?
"Just hold still." Quick as a flash, I whipped the capture top out and drew a loop around the Pokémon. It didn't try to fight back, and one loop was all I needed. Capture complete.
With a few quiet clicks, the cell bars fell to the ground with a loud clatter. The ranger's styler cancelled out the effects of the super styler, but did not make it a friend Pokémon. It acted of its own free will helping us, and I didn't have to say anything for it to know it was free to go.
The rangers immediately mobilized, picking up the injured and moving out into the hallway. When Solana stood, her upper body movements were stiff. I hadn't noticed before, but it seemed like someone had given her the outer jacket of the ranger uniform to wear, but she was still barefoot and wearing a hospital gown.
Spenser stepped onto one of the cut bars and grabbed an intact one, pulling himself above the crowd.
"Everyone! Our priority is to get the injured to safety. Rangers rank 9 and up, come with me!"
I was walking by him as he jumped down and he looked at me.
"Spenser, I-"
"I said competent rangers," he hissed. "You should help move the injured and get out of my way."
Needless to say I was furious, and so were Murph and Solana. We watched as he led a group of high-level rangers away into the corridors.
"Did he not just see how you got us all out of there?" she said, exasperated. "We all saw that! How backwards do you have to be?"
"The man's an ass and we know it," Murph replied. "Let's prove him wrong. Let's cause a little more chaos, huh? Give these guys a cover so they can get out." For whatever reason, I agreed. I was mad, and probably not thinking straight, so I wanted to prove Spenser wrong. If I had been of sound mind, I would have fled with the others and left that horrible place. It wasn't long before the whole base was flooded with rangers and alarms were sounding.
The first thing the three of us did was find a charging station. The super stylers used the same charging mechanism as the regular ranger stylers, so mine was compatible. That way, as were sprinted through the halls and the bad guys set Pokémon on us, I was able to capture them, calm them down, and send them away. Still, there seemed to be no Pokémon that weren't under the control of the super stylers, and they wouldn't stick around to help assist me. That is, until we found where all of the rangers' partner Pokémon were being held.
Because of the special bond partner Pokémon have with their ranger, they were unable to be controlled by the super styler. So instead of using them as weapons, they had all been locked in small cages, in rows and rows in a spare storage room. Solana found her plusle nigh instantly and tried to calm it down, while I did my best to try and pry some of the cages open.
"Guys, wait! What about this?" Murph pulled a lever on the wall, and all of the cages opened at once. Solana and I had to cling to the cages as to not be swept away by the stampede. Murph and Solana whooped and hollered as the Pokémon filled the hallways, knocking down anything and anyone in their paths. We set out to create chaos, and chaos we made.
After Solana had plusle perched on her shoulder and Murph had slowpoke under his arm, we proceeded through the base. We never found where the confiscated stylers were, but my one styler was enough to defend the three of us from the low-level grunts. In retrospect, I should have fled the base as soon as possible. But I had my two best friends at my side, and I wanted to spite Spenser, so we travelled through the twisting hallways, freeing any subjugated Pokémon from their masters.
As we went deeper into the base, we came across less humans and more Pokémon. Some were being used as power generators, so we freed them to cut the base's infrastructure. We even came across a metagross that appeared to be working as a communications server. I captured it and took it along as a friend Pokémon, in case I needed to use a poké assist. While I was at it, I gathered a small parade of Pokémon to assist me should I need their help.
The halls were quiet, and the rooms seemed to be dormitory-style. The hallways were dark since we had cut the power, and I used my capture top as a light to guide the way. We turned a corner and the hall seemed to open up into a huge, cavernous room. I have to admit, having my friends with me gave me confidence, but they also apparently suppressed by intuition of when danger was near. Doors closed behind us, and a stage lit up, lighting one of those four kids that had attacked both me and Solana.
"I had a feeling I would be seeing you again, Lunick," the boy said with a smile. I really didn't even care that he knew my name.
His light hair was done up so it looked like he had two horns on his head. He wore a long, black jacket and carried an electric guitar. It wasn't the same Pokémon-controlling guitar he had back in the Krokka tunnel though—I had watched that one get destroyed. It still looked modified, though. Perhaps a new model? Still, I could see a standard super styler on his waist, and I prepared myself for if I needed to fight.
"You know, I don't know if we've all been properly introduced," he continued.
"Yeah, It would be nice to call you something other than 'those fuckers," Solana spat. Murph let out a chuckle. The boy didn't seem deterred—he almost seemed a bit amused.
"Anyway, you should at least know our names. I'm Billy, the oldest, and my siblings are Tiffany, Garret, and Clyde. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves?" He strummed a chord on his guitar."
"Ahh!"
"Hey!"
I whipped around. Solana had been snagged by a super styler capture line, and Murph by two. I saw a glint out of the corner of my eye and leapt in the air in time to avoid getting a capture line around my ankles. My styler was already out and I was ready to fight. Billy's top came at me again, but I wasn't holding back this time. I smashed my top into his again and again, without even giving him a chance to right himself. It shone through there that I was a skilled ranger, and he just a rock star wannabe. I crashed into his top just right so that it went flying off into the darkness of the massive room, effectively disarming him.
I turned back to my two friends. Solana was held by a boy of bulkier build, the one named Clyde. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open as she shook, frozen in place. She gazed off into the distance, and I could tell she was having flashbacks to her torture. That is, until the boy grabbed her around the waist and sniffed at her neck. Solana snapped out of it and immediately drove her heel into his foot. As he screamed, she pulled out of his grip but was still held by the capture line. Whenever he tried to pull her back in, she snarled and lashed at him, as if trying to bite him.
Murph was held by the other two siblings—the youngest, boy and girl, named Tiffany and Garret. They pulled him in two different directions, and he thrashed although they held him tight. I could see the fear on poor, brave Murph's face. He had seen firsthand what these four kids had done to me and Solana, and he was likely terrified of what they might do to him. It was that moment that I realized that of the three of us, he was the only one that didn't have scars wrapping around his body. And as the super stylers revved up their built-in poké assists, I knew that wasn't going to be true much longer.
What happened next was instinctual, although saying that to a jury might make my case worse. I signaled to metagross that I needed its assistance, and then simply pointed to my friends in need. The three siblings noticed it charging a hyper beam, and they were able to dive to the side. The beam lit up the room, and decimated the wall it had struck with a deafening explosion. Everyone was silent as the dust settled. It had distracted the kids so that Murph and Solana broke free, and they ran to my side. I was frozen in place, dumbfounded by what I had just done.
For the uninitiated, when a ranger joins the ranger force, they must take an oath. The most critical part of this oath is to never ever, under any circumstances, use a Pokémon as a weapon. No matter what the situation is or if you are attacking human or Pokémon, it could be treated as a crime. Some call it 'The Ranger's Oath' or 'The Primary Directive' or even 'A Forbidden Sin' it's so serious. Many people see it as the defining principle of what rangers are. It's so strictly enforced that it has superstition surrounding it; some believe that using a Pokémon as a weapon is a sign of corruption and will bring great tragedy
And I had just used a fucking Pokémon as a fucking weapon. My mind was rushing, trying to justify it in my head. I had acted without thinking, which was probably the worst fact of all. Why was my natural instinct to go against what was fundamentally what rangers are? It took Murph and Solana shaking me to bring me back to the world of the living.
"Well, a hearty congratulations for finally standing up for yourself," Billy said, giving a slow clap. I turned to face him. His siblings had picked themselves up off of the floor and stood beside him. I signaled to metagross again—this time that it was free to go. I released it to prove to them that I would never again do what I just did. "You know, you are a pretty good ranger. Would you maybe be willing to put on a show?" He strummed a riff on his guitar. The ground began to rumble beneath us. A gigantic tyrannitar emerged from the shadows, obviously enraged. "Oh, and don't worry. It's been directed to kill."
The tyrannitar tore up the earthen floor in a rampage, throwing rocks at me and my team of friend Pokémon. Murph and Solana retreated to safety, which I totally understood, I mean, I was the one with the styler. I directed my friend Pokémon to do whatever they could to help, but even through snarled vines to trip it and bubbles of water to confuse it, I simply could not get in enough loops to subdue the tyrannitar. I did, however, manage to get enough loops to lessen its blind rage and actually try to communicate with it.
"Tyrannitar! Please, what is causing your rage?" I called to it. I lashed at me with a mighty roar. "Please! I want to help you!"
I… I could hear it trying to call out, so I drew another loop around it. But that only seemed to make it madder, and it stomped on the ground in rage.
"Speak clearly so I can hear you, please!" I called out again.
I… I really hate guitar music!
I pressed my lips together momentarily to keep from laughing. But within a second, I was back to serious face. Tyrannitar was a Pokémon known for making and communicating through earthquakes. The guitar's loud vibrations were probably what was confusing and enraging it.
"I'm not the one you want! That boy over there, he's the one with the guitar!" The tyrannitar momentarily stopped its rampage to turn to the four kids. Billy had been playing his guitar this whole time, because that was how he was controlling his Pokémon. It let out a mighty roar and stalked towards them.
"Stop! I'm commanding you to stop!" He shouted, playing a frantic riff on his guitar. It's didn't stop the approaching monster. I suddenly realized that if he had truly commanded this monster to kill, it probably would not hesitate to kill the one that was making the guitar music it hated so much. And I certainly didn't want to see the four of them slaughtered, so I called out to him.
"It's the guitar! Stop with the guitar!" Billy removed his hands from the instrument and let it just hang around his neck by the strap. He held his hands up so the tyrannitar could see he had stopped playing. The monster glared, growled at him, and then retreated into the darkness, to wherever it is Pokémon go once they've been released from a ranger's assistance.
The room stood silent. The floor was treacherous and torn to shreds. The four kids seemed speechless that I had saved their lives, even after what they had done to me and my friends. Murph and Solana ran to my side.
"Dude, you can talk to Pokémon," Murph said matter-of-factly. He wasn't asking a question- he was stating it as if it were true.
"No, I- no, I can't," I responded.
"Yes! I was going to say up with the scizor in the cell, but you really can! It's the only way we got out of that cell, and it's the only way you were able to calm that tyrannitar down. You didn't even complete that last capture! You just convinced it! With words!"
"I'm not that special, I'm sure," I mumbled.
"There are folk legends about people like you," Solana said, putting a hand on my shoulder. I certainly was embarrassed from the praise, but I also blushed because it seemed like I wasn't just a good ranger- there was evidence that I might be one of the best.
"I really wish you hadn't seen that," Billy mumbled from the crumpled stage. He and his siblings were spread about the stage, scattered from the attack.
"Yeah, you're welcome for saving your lives!" Murph shouted across the room at them. Took the words right out of my mouth.
"I think it's safe to say we shouldn't let this leave this room, right guys?" he said with a malicious grin, turning to look at his siblings. They seemed to know something we didn't and they all nodded and grinned in unison. Billy pressed a button on his Pokémon control guitar, which triggered a giant red button on a pedestal to rise from the stage. He walked up to it confidently, and with great flourish, pressed it down.
The ceiling lights in the hall turned on, lighting the whole place like an auditorium. The ground began to shake, and red warning lights began to blink. Alarms blared along with the haunting robotic phrase, "self-destruct sequence engaged."
"What the actual fuck?" Solana screamed at them. "We just saved your asses!"
"It's nothing personal," Billy went on. "We had orders from dad to destroy the place if anyone could overpower us." Clyde elbowed him sharply in the side. "I-I mean boss! The boss told us to self-destruct if something happened. No familial relation at all, haha! Anyway, later!" a platform on the stage descended, taking them into the ground, undoubtedly to an escape hatch.
"Come on! We have to get out of here!" Murph shouted, pulling me back towards the door we had entered through. Although they had closed behind us, we never really checked to see if they were locked. They weren't. Brilliant.
As the three of us ran back up the hallway, rattata and spinarak wriggled out of every orifice in the walls to also flee the collapsing base. Ceiling tiles fell around us. As we turned a corner, we came face-to-face with someone I hoped to not see until much later.
"What the hell is going on?" Spenser roared.
"Th-those kids, they activated the self-destruct sequence!" Solana squeaked. "We have to get everyone out!"
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he shouted, looking directly at me. "I give you one job, and that is to get the fuck out of my way! You see what happens when you don't listen?" Once again, my disdain for him was snuffed out by guilt. It was probably true—if we hadn't confronted those kids, they might not have been forced to destroy the base.
"Spenser, I-" I stuttered softly.
"Do not fucking speak," he spat. "There's an emergency exit up the staircase behind me. I'm going to get everyone out of here. Get out of my way, and don't make me tell you twice." He rushed away, styler out in his hand. I was feeling that crushed feeling again were I knew that I was wrong, he was right, and I had fucked up big time. Murph grabbed my arm and gently tugged me up the stairs towards the emergency exit.
The emergency exit led out to a ledge along a cliff. Pokémon were pouring out of the exit and either running down the path or scrambling down the cliff face. We could hear massive, metallic sounds coming from inside the base.
"They need help! We should be in there!" Solana said indignantly.
"No, no, he's right," I responded. My voice croaked as I fought back tears again. "I fucked up. I really, really fucked up." I fell to my knees, and they were both beside me once again, trying to comfort me and urge me on. But as my friends were cooing over me, we saw a man rush out of the emergency exit. He wasn't an escaping ranger, and his clothes only vaguely resembled the uniform of the evil organization. He looked at us, scoffed, and continued running. We watched as he ran off, and instead of going down the mountain to the safety of Wintown, he ran up some ancient steps toward the Fiore Temple.
"Well that's suspicious," Murph muttered. Solana and I agreed. We knew we had messed up, but maybe we could still do some good. Without a word, we gathered ourselves and followed him up to the peak of the mountain.