Chapter twelve

The team was now under pursuit from the projections again. Barry and Roark carefully attended to Cyrus while Steven aggressively drove his way through the dark streets of the dangerous city. Wes opened a sealed up and locked hatch on the top of the bus to let out his Pokémon.

"Espeon! Use Psybeam! Umbreon! Screech!" Wes ordered. "Each of your pick your target, I don't care who it is! Cut off anyone who's chasing us!"

Espeon and Umbreon obeyed without question. They fired their moves and actually managed to tear out a few streetlights towards the army of Bronzong. As Wes expected, it had no effect whatsoever.

But that action of his was deliberate.

The streetlights rebounded off the Bronzong and trailed away. Within fractions of a few precious seconds Espeon fired another Psybeam onto the ground near the Bronzong, spraying debris on them. Umbreon took the opportunity created to use multiple Screech attacks at the Bronzong. Very soon, half the pursuing Pokémon were knocked out.

"Keep it up!" Steven made a hard right turn. "We can still make it!"

Cyrus choked. Barry looked at him and analyzed his condition; Cyrus was sweating and he was breathing hard.

"He's pretty weak, Wes!" Barry called out to him. Roark took out a few tools to see what he could do to sustain Cyrus.

Wes' GridBook sounded. He took it out and pulled out the bright image of Kellyn.

"Uh… Wes?" Kellyn scratched his head. "You've got several Porygon2 heading your way. What are you doing down there?"

"Kellyn, we've got Lucian. We're coming back immediately," Wes said quickly. "We've got more pressing concerns; Cyrus is wounded or something…"

"Then you'd better create a diversion to sneak away," Kellyn though out. "Actually, I think it'd be smarter if I helped you. Give me a second."

Kellyn used a few sections of his Styler. "Okay, you've got plenty of dark streets enough to make an effective getaway. I'll see what we've got in this depot. Kellyn out."

Wes snapped the GridBook shut and tried to look outside. Hmm… wonder how Kellyn will pull this off? What will he do…?

He took his mind off what the Ranger was going to do and focused on Espeon and Umbreon once again. "Keep it up, guys! Do it for the team! Do it for…"

Wes paused. He was about to utter out 'Rui', but is this going to work at all? Wow, why did he choose to embark on such an impossible task?

However, by that time Espeon had taken a severe hit by a psychic blast from a Bronzong. Wes immediately called back both his Pokémon and sat on his seat again.

"Steven! How far are we from the Ranger depot?!" Wes called out.

"We need about a few precious minutes to get there!" Steven called back. "It won't be long now! Say, have you cut off the Bronzong yet?"

"You could say that," Wes breathed. "Have of them have been knocked out. But as Kellyn warned there's a Golem army heading our way. Get back to the depot, double time."

"Just when you said you defeated the Bronzong…" Steven muttered. "Are you sure they won't be pursuing us now?"

"I'm pretty sure, or else they would have caught up to us by now. Bottom line is that we've caused a huge delay to them. It won't be long before they get up again," Wes pointed forward. "Get to the depot quickly, use the alleyways. They're dark enough."

Steven nodded. He gave a sharp turn and allowed the tank-bus to disappear into the night.


"Okay! Pachirisu! Grotle! Let's do it!" Kellyn aimed to the sky. "Minun! Do your part too!"

As this was a dream, the Pokémon could do things that reality couldn't. Grotle created a twisted stalk out of the ground and Pachirisu generated electricity to electrify the stalk. Eventually, Minun added more power to the stalk and fired electricity to split the stalk.

Lunick watched the stalk break apart. He could tell that Kellyn's plan was working since the stalk had already grown to the height of a small tower. Now it looked more like an overgrown tree. But he could tell that Kellyn had strategically placed the stalk in an area where the projections outside couldn't tell where it was coming from.

Now all they could to do was wait for the plant to spread out to where the tank-bus was. But really, there wasn't a lot of time to spare in the dream. Kellyn and Lunick took out their binoculars and searched for it with amazing speed. Pachirisu and Minun were still fuelling the plant with power.

"Kellyn… are there any potential risks to using this method?" Lunick looked at the dark sky.

"Give me the right aim and everything will go almost fine," Kellyn watched the stalk stretch its way to the streets below.

"Almost…" Lunick muttered. "Let's hope it works."

Kellyn lifted the binoculars to his eyes and pointed where Grotle was to aim the overcharged stalk of intensely focused power.

"Keep it up to the right, Grotle. The tank-bus is still a few blocks off," he said.

Grotle nodded. Kirlia simply sat down and watched.


"Wes! Cyrus doesn't seem to be getting any better!" Barry called out. "How much farther are we from the depot?!"

"We've almost there!" Wes looked out of the hatch. "Just one more block!"

In an instant, a large plant appeared above the tank-bus and shocked all of the Pokémon pursuing Wes and his team. Fortunately, the plant didn't seem to have any aim for any part of the tank-bus. Instead it seemed to only act as a mobile shield and camouflage while allowing the transfer into the depot. Better yet the Golem army Kellyn had mentioned earlier had been wiped out by the destructive web of stalks from the sky.

The mall doors opened silently in the dark and the tank-bus came to a silent halt. The first thing done was Wes and Roark carrying Cyrus out and laid him down near the wall. Cynthia, after waiting a while for them to come back, had taken out medical supplies from the Ranger depot and attended to Cyrus. Steven and his Metagross came out holding Lucian and carried him to a separate room.

Wes gave out orders to everyone else. "Okay, we need to get our supplies and objectives done as quickly as possible. We can't afford to have the projections close in on us."

"What happened?" Cynthia asked him.

"I think Cyrus has been poisoned," Wes looked at Cyrus. He was shuddering and his skin was pale with several dark spots on his skin. "Cynthia, I need you and Steven to do some surveillance outside for a few minutes. If a projection does so much as move a trash can, you need to hold out a little and retreat back inside."

"Got it," Cynthia affirmed. She took Steven by the wrist and dragged him to the wall. "We've got a big job to do. You've got Metagross?"

"Ready when you are," Steven smiled and started to gather their things.

While Cynthia and Steven were preparing, Wes threw a scolding at Kellyn and Lunick. "What happened?! Those projections are unnatural, you hear me?! They're on the attack on us! Can you explain that?! Those projections are trained! Why?!"

Mars looked at them. "How could they have possibly been trained?!"

Lunick took a deep breath and explained. "Lucian's had an extractor to teach him how to defend his own mind. So his subconscious has themselves armed and ready to attack. That, combined with Lucian's fortified intelligence has his mind practically locked."

"So why didn't you tell me in the first place?!" Wes glared.

"Well, we unquestionably weren't prepared to be ambushed were we?" Kellyn raised an eyebrow.

"Oh come on he's dying! What do you make of that?!" Wes yelled.

Barry walked over with his Torterra and readied a bunch of leaves. Wes instinctively sent out Espeon and used Psychic to hold Torterra in place. "What are you doing?!" Wes shouted at him.

"I'm going to wake him up!" Barry said as if it were obvious. "Just use a Leaf Storm and he'll be blasted away to reality."

"No! It's not going to work," Wes shook his head.

"Of course it will, if you die in a dream you wake up!" Barry shook his head.

"No! This case is different…" Wes trailed off, he saw Rui near the flight of stairs leading to the Ranger depot. He would talk to her later.

"What do you mean?" Barry said calmly.

"We're sedated," Cynthia had been listening in to their argument. "The compounded sedative is too powerful for us to wake ourselves up. We have to wait for the sedative to wear out before we can get up again. Don't try getting yourself killed right now."

"Great, so what would happen if any of us does die?" Barry said.

"We drop into limbo," Wes said unhappily. "That's what will remain of us."

"You've got to be kidding me! No. No! We can't have that!" Lunick stared.

"Limbo?!" Mars was alarmed. "What's that supposed to be?!"

"The space of the in-between," Kellyn kept his voice normal. "It's nothing; just undisturbed subconscious that sets the divider and space between reality and a dream. There's nothing you can do… your mental self is basically trapped. It has nothing except from what might be left from anyone sharing the dream who's been there, that means you, Wes."

Cynthia sighed. "It could take up to a century, a hundred years, for the sedation to wear off. Maybe even more than that if we die, it could be infinite! And then somehow we can finally wake up from the thing."

There was a moment of silence.

Barry shook his head and glared at Wes. "Great, just great. Here we are, battling Lucian's mind for a hundred years and if we die we'll drop into limbo until we finally blow ourselves up and screw our minds."

Cynthia and Steven went outside to do their surveillance while the rest of the team carried Cyrus to a metallic white table and placed him down there.

"How are we supposed to cure him now?" Roark stated. "Anyone got any Pecha berries? Antidote of any kind, perhaps?"

Mars grimaced. "Afraid not. Why would I put them in the first place?"

Lunick grabbed Wes' arm. "Well? Could you explain these dangers we were going to be dealing with and didn't tell us? Wes, it's not like you."

"Danger was out of the question in this there weren't meant to be any Pokémon wars, or else you might have seen them yourself. Didn't I tell you to examine him?" Wes retorted.

Cyrus was looking worse now, and he choked several more times. The poison was getting to him.

Kellyn motioned for Lunick to let go of Wes, but he didn't. Instead, Kellyn went up to Wes and quietly asked him. "What are you hiding, Wes?"

"There wasn't any alternative to get down five levels," Wes finally said.

Lunick tightened his grip on Wes' arm and whispered bitterly. "So?! You've said you've never done inception before. But was this meant to be an experiment, and we're your test subjects –"

"I'm doing what I can do to get back to my best friend, that's what I'm focused on," Wes clenched his fist. "Any problem with that?"

That was it. Barry turned his back on him and sat down on a chair. "So you really did know about the violence we were about to encounter. You brought us into a battlefield without any hope of escaping? Brilliant, Wes, I applaud to you for that, we're basically just screwed."


Steven and Cynthia sat down on a bench outside the empty mall. The Ranger depot was carefully disguised above them as a monument on the building's top. Cynthia noticed that the projections were behaving rather more aggressively. She moved closer to Steven.

"What's going on with them? They seem to be moving a lot faster."

"They sense that Lucian is held captive by us," Steven muttered. "Which means they'll be looking for him and not to mention the dreamer, me. If they manage to kill me… that might wreck everything."

Cynthia looked at Steven. "So what do we do now?"

Steven brought her face to his. "Here, kiss me."

She blushed and leaned closer to Steven's mouth, her own lips slightly parted. Then they kissed each other for a few seconds, something the two of them enjoyed. When they let each other go, Cynthia turned her attention to the projections. Some had lost interest in them, others still stared at them suspiciously. "Some of them are still looking at us," Cynthia sighed.

"Yeah, it was worth a shot," Steven nodded.

"Do you really think so?" Cynthia kept her gaze away from the projections. "So why not do it again?" she rested her head on Steven's shoulder.

Steven tilted his head on Cynthia's. "Maybe another time when we've given our report to Wes," Steven smiled lightly. But he kissed her anyway and the two of them left discreetly for the Ranger depot.


Inside the empty mall, all the eyes were on Wes. "So it's over, we've lost," Barry said. "There's no way out, and we're surrounded by Lucian's killing machines."

"No!" It's not over yet!" Wes shouted. "There's still hope, I know it. We just have to continue on with the job and keep going deeper into the levels. When we've done what we can we get out using the kick like we said in the first place as quickly as possible."

Barry turned around. "Forget it. That will just raise the stakes. We'd have to complete the job alive and at the same time trying to keep Cyrus alive. I'm calling it quits."

Wes armed his Snag Machine. "We have just over two days on this level and I highly doubt that any of us could survive that long holding out against Lucian's forces. I can assure you that each and every one of us is going to die so we might as well continue on with the mission anyway."

Steven and Cynthia burst into the mall. "They're getting closer or at the very least discovered who we are; we have to move in ten minutes."

"Pachi! Pachirisu!" squeaked Kellyn's Pokémon. Kellyn raised an eyebrow.

"What's Pachirisu saying?" Roark said.

Lunick chuckled. "I think Pachirisu is pointing at their faces," and the team looked.

Cynthia's cheeks were enveloped in a bright pink and she touched her lips carefully. "Would you believe… a Pokémon Champion's conversation?"

Wes coughed. "I suppose so… you must have kissed."

Steven was holding Cynthia's hand. "What makes you say that?"

The entire team applauded quickly. "Congratulations!" Steven and Cynthia smiled.

Wes looked at his watch. "Okay… now down to business. Let's go wake Lucian up. Barry, you'll need to come too."


Lucian woke up in a dark room. He couldn't see nor could he do anything. It occurred to him that his wrist was being held in a shackle, so he couldn't get anywhere either.

The next thing that happened: a bright flashlight shone onto him and so was temporarily blinded by the light. A voice came out of the darkness.

"So… Lucian, the president of HSBC… we require some of your services, are you willing?"

Lucian shifted. "I've got plenty of contacts who will know where I am. This should be simple."

"This WON'T be simple!" said the voice. "In your head office, you kept some key contract papers of yours about turning over the bank to someone else. So where are those papers of yours for the transmission?"

"You won't get anything from me," Lucian simply said. "I never kept any such papers in my office. I just keep my business stuff and all those Hall of Fame records in there. Any more to come?"

Another voice came in. "But you should have the papers at least, so where are they?"

"I have no idea."

The voice spoke in a more serious tone. "We'd like you to meet someone who might make you change your mind. Are you up for it?"

"Oh, and who might that be?"

"Give me a minute," said the voice.


Roark took the time to examine Lucian's book. "Imported from a faraway land, there's nothing we can really use it for. Let alone the writing inside it."

"Are you sure?" Barry sat down in front of a mirror. "Let me take a look."

Roark tossed the book to Barry and he opened it. Barry flipped through most of the pages and came to the back of the book; there were just a few blank pages. But the odd thing about it was there was a worn out but neatly written sentence at the start.

I've always loved to spearhead the bank with my many own reasons, but only one stands out from all of them.

Wes reappeared with the team. Barry waved a hand and held out the book to Wes with the page opened to where Barry was reading.

"Do you think we could build on this?"

"It's sufficient," Wes read it quickly. "I'll let you do the building."

"Got it, anyway…" Barry turned to the mirror.

"You've got half an hour to make this work; time is the essence."

Barry turned to stare at Wes. "Are you serious? You're expecting me to complete six hours' worth of forger work in half an hour? That's harsh, Wes," and Barry sent out his Torterra.

Wes said. "Cyrus definitely wasn't meant to be poisoned in the process."

"Good point," Barry looked at the mirror and focused. "Keep my Torterra from Lucian, alright?"

So Barry took out his other Poké Ball holding his Ditto and he sent it out. "Let's do this like we practiced, right Ditto?"

Ditto nodded and began the transformation. Barry attempted to mimic his Pokémon.

Wes blinked. At one blink, he was looking at Barry. The next blink, Barry was in the mirror and now was looking at Wallace, the Hoenn Champion.

"Let's go," Wes escorted Wallace into the black room.


Lucian waited patiently for who might be coming in. The door creaked open and two more people walked in. One of them was being held by what looked like a Pokémon Trainer, but he couldn't tell. Then the Pokémon Trainer guided the flashlight holder outside and shut the door closed.

"You have half an hour," said the Pokémon Trainer and he left.

Lucian tried to visualise who might be held captive with him. But the room was so dark he couldn't. So he asked.

"Who's there?"

"Lucian… is that you?"

Lucian stopped. That voice only belonged to someone he knew very well… but it was none other than –

"Wallace! What are you doing here?" he exclaimed.

Wallace smirked. "I've been held here for a week now, and I've just got enough time to listen in on these guys. They want you to break up the contract between you and the Plasma Company and they want the papers for your handover of the bank. They reckoned I kept the contract papers being your advisor but of course they had no clue that the papers were really with you, the CEO."

"Yeah, but oh well. I never kept any papers in my office –" Lucian started.

"What?! But – but you were supposed to have kept the papers there! What happened to them?"

Lucian pondered a moment. "I have no idea, I suppose the Plasma Company must have held onto them but I certainly know they're in good hands."

Wallace took a few seconds for that to sink in. "I recall giving you those papers myself. Don't you remember what I told you? Those papers are critical for our bank's success when we turn over HSBC to the Plasma Company. But what I'm trying to tell you is everyone chooses to use HSBC because of your works. Why should you give it to them and for what reason? You never told me."

"It happened one day…" Lucian said slowly. "I found out that my efforts to serve all of the Pokémon regions were ineffective. Although there are many people who like HSBC a lot, I figure that many more will take HSBC into account when the Plasma Company comes into power. They told me their control will allow Pokémon and humans to bond more closely, and that's just the thing this world needs, right?"

"Yeah, but…" Wallace began. "I've been getting comments from many HSBC users lately, they told me that they'd love to have you remain as the CEO of the bank. In fact, one of them told me they'd be absolutely pleased to see you stay. Another told me it was because of you that they chose to use this bank. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Indeed, but I think the Plasma Company's right about one thing; my efforts are no good for the majority of the world, don't you think?"

Wallace shook his head. "My point is, Lucian, the people are happy just the way you're controlling the bank now. That's all I'm saying. I'm telling you, if we don't tell them where those transition papers are they are going to kill us. Do you have any idea what may depend on it?"

It occurred to Lucian that he never heard too much about the papers, and asked. "So what are those papers about?"

Wallace took a breath. "Those transition papers developed by HSBC… should you give them to the Plasma Company, will turn over the bank to them. But that's only on one half of the papers."

"One half?! How much further can you get?" Lucian said in confusion.

"The other half of the papers gives you the option to decline the Plasma Company's proposal. From what I've read about them, they can assist your way to helping the people. That would be a good reason to take them, right?" Wallace shrugged.

Lucian shook his head. "Whatever. The Plasma Company drew up a good plan for me of how their ideas surpass mine. An example? I've told you already about Pokémon bonds, didn't I?"

"So what else did they tell you?" Wallace leaned.

"That's classified information," Lucian said. "But I tell you Wallace that if you actually met them you would get the picture."

The conversation was clearly over; Wallace got up quietly and secretly knocked on the wall.