HEAT OF A MOMENT

February 12th 2097, 9:15 AM, Sledge Hammer HQ

Kris and Shane ran through the zigzagging corridors of the Sledge Hammer base, right towards the briefing room. After finally reaching it, they stormed right through the door. Lyra, Silver and Lieutenant White had assumed their seats. White stood up as the panting and badly worn duo arrived.

"About time!" White shouted as the two sat down, clutching to their chests. "We called hours ago!"

"We… were… in… Isshu!" Kris panted, finding it difficult to sound convincingly angry when she was so out of breath. "Or was it Unova now? Hard to keep track with these changes..."

"Rule number one," White started, but Kris interrupted her:

"Just how many 'rule number ones' are there?"

"Okay, rule number whatever," White said, "always make sure you can make a swift getaway, in case of situations like these. Now stop looking like you've just been running a marathon, for crying out loud! The boss is about to contact us!"

"The… boss man… himself?" Shane panted, having overcome his exhaustion only now. "Like… Kaminko?"

"Yes, he runs things around here," White jabbed. "Nice to see you pay attention."

"Guys, please!" Lyra shushed. "He's starting!"

Lyra turned off the lights in the debriefing room. As a projector on the back of the room was suddenly turned on, a hologram of Professor Kaminko materialized in the middle of the room. Apart from White and Kris, none of the Operatives had seen Kaminko in flesh before. Old and turning gray he might have been, but Kaminko's tall, imposing and authoritarian figure was more than enough to get the agents in line. They were all fascinated by his elusiveness, appearing only via a hologram and almost never talking with his underlings.

"Good to see that you have arrived safely from your last mission, agents Five and Nine," Kaminko said, calmly yet still with a clear, loud voice. "We're sending you two, along with agents Six and Seven, to oversee another mission at Stark Mountain. I'm not going to lie to you: it's dangerous."

"Wait, LT isn't coming with us?" Kris asked.

"I have important things to do here," White said. "After all, I have to take the fall when the four of you fail. Feels like I'm hanging on a thread here, I can tell you that."

"I wish you wouldn't have to go so soon, with so little training," Kaminko said, "but we have no time. Heatran has awakened. Though it is currently rampaging inside Stark Mountain, should it launch its destructive attack, the entire Battle Zone along with its thousands of inhabitants will perish."

"And that's terrible," Shane added.

"Shh!"

"Your objective is to use whatever means necessary to stop Heatran's rampage. That is all."

"Wait!" Lyra shouted. "Isn't this better suited for some military guys? I mean, I'll do it if I have to, but come on, even if we had several years of training, there's only four of us!"

"Extranormal Operations, and by extension, the entire organization of Sledge Hammer, exists for operations such as this one," Kaminko explained patiently, "this is our chance to show that our methods, the collaboration of science and nature, humans and Pokémon, work. To put it simply: brains and brawn."

"We got the deal, sir," White said. "I'll be posted near the radio again, right?"

"Yes. There's a thick layer of smoke around the Battle Zone, and our Fearow tend to get lost there. The Drifblim are too slow, so we're using a plane. Professor Elm and Blaine will take you there. Visibility is low, but I have calculated the exact location of your landing zone. When you're directly above it, you will do a parachute jump."

"Ah, the old 'death from the above' trick," White said sycophantically and nodded. "Nice one, sir."

Kaminko ignored White's statement.

"If you have any further questions, Professor Elm and Blaine will explain everything on the plane. We found a reliable pilot, so you needn't worry. Good luck to all of you."

The group did not have much time to prepare. They could only change into their civvies and prep their Pokémon, but after that, they had to get to the airstrip hidden in the woods. It was odd how no one, not even a random hiker, noticed a propeller plane taking off and eventually climbing to the sky.

The plane's pilot wasn't a member of the staff, and they couldn't get many good pilots on such short notice. As such, they took the first person they could get: a shady, tall man with a bushy black beard and sunglasses, which his face almost entirely. He didn't talk much either, but nevertheless seemed to pilot the plane well.

Prior to the plane taking off, Professor Elm and Blaine had dragged a gigantic glass tank into the plane, and placed it into a corner. A white blanket covered the tank, and Blaine sat next to it and looked threatening, effectively preventing anyone from taking a peek. Nevertheless, the others were curious. Kris was certain that she had heard splashing coming from inside the tank, but Elm started talking loudly soon afterwards.

As Professor Elm and Blaine stood next the tank and whispered something with each other, the Operatives sat uncomfortably on one bench, barely talking to each other. They were all in their civilian clothes now, and Kris was particularly interested in seeing Lyra's and Silver's. Lyra, who was biting her nails and fumbling with her Poké Ball, was wearing a red shirt underneath blue overalls that somehow managed to end way above the knee, showing more leg than necessary. The most bizarre of her clothes was the big marshmallow hat that even had a red bowtie on it. Everyone was too nervous to comment her on her choice of clothes, however, and for what it's worth, her shoes seemed solid and perfectly built for climbing. Also noticeably, she still had that orange, bulletproof vest on, despite it being harmful to mobility. Though she was sitting next to Silver, she constantly kept herself at arm's length.

Silver didn't want to show that he was nervous, and indeed, his face didn't show any signs of chang, except that he had clasped his hands in a way that made it look like he was praying. But that couldn't be possible, not in Silver's case. Either way, Silver was wearing a black shirt, light gray pants and black, fingerless gloves. His already long red hair had grown even longer, but he was just letting it carelessly rest on his shoulders as he was deep in his thoughts.

While Shane was paler, quieter and a lot sweatier than usual, he hadn't bothered to wear anything stylish or practical, which explained why he was wearing his red flannel shirt inside out. Kris herself favored her usual running shoes, blue jeans, blue denim jacket and red top, trusting that she wouldn't need anything warmer, seeing as the area around Stark Mountain was most likely pretty warm by now. Kris kept constantly looking out of the window, noticing that after a few hours of horrible silence, they were approaching Sinnoh airspace.

"Should be only a few minutes now," Kris said. "You guys ready for this?"

"What a question!" Lyra snarled. "This is what I have been preparing for throughout this entire training! I wasn't the one sitting in my room making illegal phone calls!"

Kris wanted to shoot a response right back, but decided against it. She still remembered what professor Elm had said earlier.

"Guys, in case they have to bring us back in little boxes, I have a few questions to ask," Kris started. "Lyra, I'm curious, and please, let's try to avoid fighting… why did you join?"

Lyra seemed to contemplate on whether or not to shoot back a mean remark, and scowled at Kris at first. But after assessing Kris' words and realizing that she was being genuine, she lightened up a bit.

"What's this all of the sudden?" she asked with a normal, non-prissy voice. "Why do you care?"

Kris shrugged.

"Just passing the time, I guess…"

"Exactly!" Lyra said. "I was supposed to become a Pokémon Trainer, just like with everyone else. I had a Pokémon, I had the training, I had the knowhow… and then Gold got himself killed at the Radio Tower, and it made me think."

"He shall be missed by mysteriously impregnated teenagers everywhere," Kris remarked. "Amen."

Lyra frowned, but went past this comment.

"After that and the return of Team Rocket, I don't know… being a trainer just didn't seem as cool anymore. But unlike many others I knew, I wasn't going to just mope about it. I wanted to make a difference, and when Elm contacted me, you know I was first in line!"

"I'd like to hear about all the things you did after trainer school, Lyra," Kris said. "I think I know too much about the things you did while there."

"Hey, you already asked one question!" Lyra said and quickly reverted to her old self again. "That's none of your business anymore!"

Kris let out an exasperated sigh. A good start, she supposed.

"Yo! Mr. Frown!" Kris said to Silver, waking him from his thoughts. "Why did you join this group?"

"Why wouldn't I join?" Silver asked back.

"Hmm, let me see…" Kris said and started to ponder sarcastically while rubbing her chin. "In order to become an agent, you had to suffer months of horrible training, undergo a dangerous surgery without consent, throw away your privacy…"

Silver unclasped his hands and looked at Kris directly into eyes while composing an answer.

"I believed that the things I would do were worth it," he said blankly. "So far, I'm honestly not too sure if I made the right solution."

"I haven't seen you around too much," Lyra said to Silver. "Weren't you born in Cherrygrove? Why weren't you in the same school as me and Kris?"

Silver started recollecting:

"Well, back when I was a kid, just a ten-year old little red-haired runt scuttling from store to store, breaking in and stealing whatever I could find…"

"What did your mom say about that?" Shane asked.

Kris and Lyra both did a simultaneous facepalm.

"Hm," Silver said and smiled oddly. "Well, let's see… I probably could barely speak coherent sentences when my dear father walked out of our home. He never came back, and I never got to know him. When my mom just suddenly found a note from him one morning, let's just say that she did not take it well. If there was some sort of scale what insanity could measured with, let's just say that it didn't take long from her to go from 'loopy' to 'Zubatshit insane'."

Shane looked away from Silver and seemed to be embarrassed that he even asked. Kris and Lyra stared at Silver as he calmly told his story.

"The best part was when I was about five, though," Silver said and still kept smiling, though the tone of his voice was far from happy. "I was out that day, can't remember what I was doing, but I will never forget what I saw when I came home… my mom face down in the bathtub, her wrists sliced open, blood everywhere. I think I sat home about four days before someone finally caught the smell. Funny, though," he added sarcastically and wasn't smiling anymore, "now when I think about it, it didn't seem like a 'domestic accident'…"

"Son of a Snubbull, man, I'm sorry," Shane muttered. "Is it too late to say 'forget I asked'?"

"Yeah," Silver said. "But it has been almost twenty years now. I have already dealt with the past. Trust me."

Silver clasped his hands again and started staring into the distance. Lyra coughed and decided to steer the conversation on to safer tracks.

"So what made you join, then?" Lyra asked Kris.

"Me?" Kris said and pretended not to hear the iciness in Lyra's voice, and shrugged. "Dunno. Part of it has to do with professor Elm just dragging me into this place. And I guess I had nothing else to do. Oh, yeah, and I get dental."

Kris was aware that Lyra, Silver and Shane were staring at her and most likely wishing to get a more satisfying response, but Kris refused to give one. Just asking all those personal questions was difficult enough for her, but actually answering something back… Kris shuddered at the thought. She barely knew these people!

Everyone fell silent again. But the peaceful silence was soon broken by the scratchy voice of the pilot, who announced where they were - unnecessarily, since they could just look out a window!

"Currently flying over Sunyshore City," the pilot said, and Kris raised her head a little upon hearing this - hadn't she heard that voice somewhere before?

No one else seemed to notice anything, though, and Kris wasn't sure if she could connect the dots at this point.

"Excellent, excellent, we're right on schedule," Elm muttered to himself nervously while looking out of the window.

"This is how we're going to do it!" Blaine announced and cocked his ever-present shotgun, which seemed unnecessary, not to mention unwise in such cramped quarters. "You four," he pointed at the agents, "will skydive exactly ten seconds before we reach the destination. The destination," Blaine tapped a map taped on the plane's wall, "is Stark Mountain's crater!"

"So we jump in and have ourselves a little barbeque, with us as the main course, got it," Silver deadpanned.

"You better watch your tone-"

Elm interrupted Blaine before he got dangerous. Instead, he offered his own half-assed reassurance:

"I know all the ashes and lava coming out from the crater at the moment are a bit unsettling," he said while nervously rubbing his hands together, "but do not worry, should there be an eruption, it's not like you will last long, and… oh, dear, I probably should have changed the phrasing…"

"I thought Stark Mountain was supposed to be dormant?" Lyra said and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, yes, um, I guess, technically," Elm flustered and pulled up his glasses, "but the presence of Heatran has always been a hotly debated subject. There have been no signs of Stark erupting in the past, but… I'm afraid that we have upgraded Stark's classification from 'dormant' to 'likely to erupt'."

"'Likely', huh?" Kris said. "That sounds promising…"

"Stop whining!" Blaine shouted, causing the agents to flinch and retreat from him. "You signed a contract when you joined, and besides, you're not going to die! It's a simple operation: we're just going down to kick Heatran's ass, wherever that is, before anything happens! Got it?"

"Skydive, find Heatran, kick its ass, get the hell out," Silver said while counting with his fingers, yet again with venomous sarcasm ."I think I got it. Gee, this sounds almost too easy..."

"I would love to talk about this some more, but we're only thirty seconds away from the destination," Blaine said as he checked his Pokétch. "Aw, crap, I forgot… did any of you sign your wills before leaving?"

"What?" Shane squeaked, his voice shaken and high-pitched. "Buh-but…"

"He's just kidding, really," Elm said and glared at Blaine briefly, "everybody, grab parachutes and get ready!"

Seconds later, Kris, Lyra, Shane and Silver were equipped with parachutes while holding onto whatever they could as Blaine stared at his Pokétch and rushed them and Professor Elm opened the plane's hatch. The agents were almost swept on their feet by the blowing wind, and gulped as they looked down. Expecting to see some scenery, they only saw a thick cloud of volcanic ash. Fortunately, all four of them had protective eyewear and respirators, necessary to make the jump through the ash.

"Pilot, what's our altitude?" Blaine yelled at the pilot over the plane's noise.

"Twelve thousand feet, and this is as high as I can get!" the pilot shouted. "If you wanna go, do it now!"

"JUMP!" Elm screamed at the agents, fearing that they didn't hear.

Though they could barely stand upright, let alone hear anything due to their terror, they eventually got themselves together after a few seconds of shaking. Wanting to show that she was capable, Lyra jumped first. Kris refused to be left in Lyra's shadow, so the second Elm signaled her to jump, Kris followed. It was Shane's turn next, but he could barely look down.

"Oh, man," he moaned. "Here's an idea! What if I stay here in the plane to help you guys out, while-"

Shane was silenced when Silver pushed him out of the plane. For a moment, Elm and Silver heard Shane screaming, until he was out of reach. Elm glared at Silver.

"You could have given him a heart attack!" Elm yelled.

Silver shrugged, and while smiling smugly and unapologetically, Silver jumped as well. Elm looked down, but everyone had already disappeared into the thick cloud. He and Blaine struggled and closed the hatch, drowning out all the excess noise from the plane.

"Pilot!" Blaine shouted into the cockpit. "How much fuel do we have left?"

"If your people are fast, we shouldn't have to refuel," the pilot replied. "If they get out…"

"Don't you worry about that," Blaine said. "Also, put some ear protection on whenever we talk about important things. Because uh… we tend to speak loudly. Got it?"

"Sure."

"Just keep circling around Stark Mountain," Elm advised.

"Roger that!"

Elm closed the cockpit door, giving the pilot some privacy. The moment he confirmed that neither Elm nor Blaine could see him, the pilot removed his sunglasses and his obviously fake beard, revealing an all-too-familiar moustache underneath.

Though Fernando was searched before he took the job as a pilot, he had prepared. Obviously he couldn't have brought anything suspicious to the plane - radios, Poké Balls, weaponry, grenades or other things he normally kept in his pockets. But it would have been foolish to think that Fernando hadn't prepared for this. He had memorized Giovanni's frequency, and wit the plane, he had a fully-functional radio in his hands.

Fernando looked behind him, wondering just how the soundproof the door was. He grabbed the microphone and headphones, putting the latter on his head and preparing to contact his master.

"Check, check, master Giovanni, do you read me?" Fernando said as quietly as he could. "This is Fernando, over!"

For a moment, Fernando could only hear static, but eventually heard the familiar, low, silky, manly voice of his master.

"This is Giovanni, and I'm assuming we're not going to bother with keeping secrets. So you found a secure way of contacting me?"

"Secure?" Fernando laughed. "Hardly! This is Blaine we're talking about here. It's not enough that he had the cockpit bugged before I even took off, my guess is that he's listening at this very moment. But who cares, 'cuz I've got the plane, and they won't do a thing about it… yet."

"So what have you learned?"

"Whoever funded this project must have had their glasses hidden that very day. I'm telling you, these guys are barely a threat. I was perplexed by one of them, though… this surly, red-haired guy reminds me of someone… someone who is also called 'Sakaki'…"

Fernando couldn't hear anything but Giovanni's breathing coming from the other end. Giovanni was taken aback by Fernando's knowledge, obviously. But he couldn't just go and show it.

"Keep an eye on him," Giovanni said simply. "Now," he continued, unperturbed, "what else have you found out?"

"You'd be surprised how easily I got the info. When I got on the trail, all I needed to do was take this engineer guy for a drink, and voila! Now I could wallpaper my house with all these files! Rest assured, only thing the engineer remembers is waking up the next morning… it's amazing what Sleep Powder can do! Anyway, the Committee has poured a lot of money into this project, sure. But their biggest singular investment was six billion poké-dollars on neural implants which cost about a million each. It looks like all these 'operatives' have little chips in their brain which do… something. Hell if I know. But it's expensive, and thus is has to be good!"

"Interesting, but I cannot see how I could reap the benefits."

"Just think of what you could do with these implants, boss," Fernando said alluringly. "Or… with someone with those implants. From what I can tell, they allow people to use powers beyond their imaginings… I don't know how they actually work… yet. I also obtained some interesting files from Professor Elm's laptop, which wasn't so hard to get to."

"Yes?"

"Design documents for some kind of genetically enhanced super-Pokémon," Fernando whispered. "Now, let's see… a powerful, genetically engineered Pokémon designed by Blaine… a familiar scenario to you, isn't it, boss?"

"I have little use for the design documents," Giovanni said, and Fernando could hear the excitement in his voice, despite Giovanni's attempts to keep himself calm, "but I think I might find a buyer for them. Fernando! Find everything you can about this Pokémon, but stay on your toes. It seems like they'll be on to you at any moment. What are they doing at Stark Mountain?"

"It has something to do with Heatran, obviously, but I will find out more when they get back… if they get back. Oh, before I forget… over!"

"Over and out."

Stark Mountain

After several minutes of fumbling in the dark, Kris finally found her way out from under the parachute that had collapsed on her after landing. Kris took a look around the rugged landscape around her. Everything was covered in volcanic ash, which was still raining down like snow. And it was warm. Kris took off her jacket, though it didn't do much good as sweat was still dripping down her arms, while sweat from her head was making its way on her protective goggles, blurring her view.

"Hello!" Kris called. "Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me!"

"I'm here, Zimmerman, stop that stupid shouting!"

Lyra emerged from behind a large rock, accompanied by her Cyndaquil. Kris wanted to believe that Lyra had been cowering behind the rock previously.

"You haven't taken your Totodile out from it's ball yet?" Lyra said in annoying, shrill voice. "Did you forget our orders already?"

"I don't think they heard you in Twinleaf Town yet," Kris said and rubbed her ears, "and I was just about to. Oh, and just BTW, it's called 'Croc'. 'Waylon' was also good, though I think 'Croc' is more hard-hitting…"

Kris opened her Poké Ball, and Croc materialized in front of her, jumping in joy and ready to bite anything on it's path. Still, they were up against a legendary, and Kris had only a semi-obedient Totodile with cavities. Did Kaminko really expect them to survive?

Silver and his Sneasel soon arrived to Kris and Lyra, and acknowledged their presence simply with a curt nod. Sneasel kept jumping around, swinging its sharp and long claws around, scaring Lyra's timid Cyndaquil.

"Come on, Scorch!" Lyra yelled at the Cyndaquil. "Be a man!"

"Scorch?" Kris asked with her eyebrow raised.

"Hey, it's better than 'Croc'!" Lyra argued.

"How so?"

"It just is."

"Say, where's Shawn?" Silver asked to break this argument. "I don't think we'll be needing him much, but it would still be good to have the whole group together…"

"The name is Shane!"

Kris, Lyra and Silver looked up, and saw Shane hanging a few feet above them, his parachute entangled to a jagged rock.

"A little help here?" he whined.

"Sure thing," Lyra said. "Scorch! Swift!"

Lyra's Cyndaquil spat a sharp, glowing star towards the parachute's strings, cutting them instantly and dropping Shane on the rocky ground below.

"Ouch!"

Lyra just laughed cruelly, when Shane rubbed his back, got up from the ground and opened a Poké Ball. Shrew popped from the ball and blinked its eyes, finding that it was difficult to see amidst all the volcanic ashes. Kris didn't pay any attention to Shane's predicament.

"Stop fooling around, Shane," she said. "How do we get into the cave? Lyra, illuminate the area!"

"Who put you in charge?" Lyra asked.

"I did," Kris stated. "And perhaps you should seek the guidebook for reference…"

Lyra anxiously took the Sledge Hammer guidebook from her pocket and started going through it, until eventually letting out a pained groan when she found the right page.

"Huh… I guess you're right," she said. "Your Pokémon is the most likely to inflict damage on the target…"

Lyra was having an internal conflict, finding her principles challenged - she wanted to follow the rules, but she most certainly didn't want to act under Kris' command. Eventually, she bit her lip and sighed.

"Okay, fine," she muttered. "Be the leader if you want it so damn badly."

"I do want it," Kris said and smiled obnoxiously. "Now illuminate the area, and don't make me repeat myself again!"

"Scorch, Flash!"

The flames at the rear end of Lyra's Cyndaquil grew larger, shedding some light into the darkness of Stark Mountain. The entrance to the cave was just next to them, but to get to Heatran's chamber, the group would have to navigate through a complex network of tunnels. None of the operatives were too happy about this. Silver simply frowned like he always did and paid no attention to the arguing of the others, until he noticed something.

"Wait!" he shouted before Kris, Lyra and Shane could enter the cave. "Guys, look! Up there!"

Everyone looked up, squinting to see through the layer of smoke and ashes around them. Something the size of a truck was standing on four legs on the edge of Stark Mountain's crater. Using the PokéDex integrated into his Pokétch, Shane instantly scanned the creature, his eyes widening at the prospect of seeing the famous legendary.

"Heatran, the Lava Dome Pokémon. Boiling magma circulates through its body, that is made entirely of rugged steel. It dwells on volcanic caves, using its cross-shaped feet to crawl on ceilings and walls."

"There's our target!" Kris announced.

Heatran opened its mouth and roared at the agents, flames and smoke pouring from its huge mouth. Then it crawled back into the crater, but it wasn't alone. Dozens of Weezing started to erupt from the crater, and they began to float towards the agents. Similarly, several Slugma and Magcargo started to crawl at them from the crater.

"Oh noez!" Shane screamed. "They're slowly coming to kill us!"

"That Heatran's gonna be one tough es oh bee to take down!" Kris thought out loud.

"Well, obviously," Silver finished the conversation as the four agents ran into the volcano.