Mutiny

It had been a day since Firefly came and healed all of Shin's wounds, not much had changed since then. Wren was still nowhere to be found, and Shin still wasn't strong enough to go back into the arena. While Shin continued to regain his strength, Zan began trying to stall things whenever a grunt would stop by to order Shin into the arena. He knew eventually that things wouldn't turn out as well as they had been, but he also knew if Shin went to fight that he would most certainly be killed in his weakened state.

He also knew that Giovanni would quickly grow tired of hearing that a Zangoose was keeping Shin from fighting and that dire consequences loomed on the horizon for him…

Meanwhile, in Giovanni's box above the arena where he would watch the fights, Giovanni was berating another group of grunts that had failed him yet again…

"Why hasn't anything been done about that Zangoose in Enclosure 3?!" Giovanni yelled to a group of grunts after hearing of the Zangoose repelling another grunt from retrieving Shin for the arena.

"Well, sir. We weren't quite sure how to handle it…" one of them spoke up, realizing immediately that he should've just stayed silent like the rest of them.

"You don't know how?" Giovanni responded, seemingly begging an answer so he could have a reason to tear someone apart. "Kill the blasted pokémon would be a wondrous start, you good-for-nothings!"

"Y-yes sir!" they replied in unison and began to make their way out the door.

"Stop!" Giovanni ordered which made them all pause, mid-movement. "None of you will be doing this, you would all screw things up once more. I already have something in mind that can't be ruined by spineless worms like yourself."

All the grunts lowered their heads after he was finished and slowly left his sight.

Soon after they left, Giovanni picked up a phone that was built into his seat, dialed a number and waited for an answer.

"… Yes, bring me the Zangoose from Enclosure 3..." he told the person on the other end of the line before hanging up and smiling. "Your time protecting 03 is over…"

Back in Enclosure 3, Zan was sitting near the door that the grunts had been coming through to retrieve Shin. He had taken to sitting there around the hours that the grunts would come since he had noticed that they had a routine. Whenever it would get to be twenty or so minutes before they were to arrive, Zan would go and wait next to the door until they came.

Today, however, no grunts came in at Noon like they had been. Zan waited next to the door until half an hour had passed before giving up. Inside, he knew that something was amiss.

"They're up to something…" he thought aloud while sitting next to Ro.

"Why would you say that?"

"Well, they've been coming here three times a day for the past few days to get Shin. Almost like clockwork." he started, "And now, all of a sudden, they stop."

"Maybe they just got tired of trying to get around you to get to him."

"I doubt it… Hey, this has been eating at me for a long time…" Zan spoke up and looked to him intently which caught Ro off guard.

"Uh, what?"

"Why is your name Ro?"

"Huh? You want to know about that now?"

"What else is there to do at the moment?"

"Yeah, and I wanna know too!" Nite chimed in as he walked up on them.

"Gah.. Fine, fine…" he replied before giving a deep sigh. "The reason I'm called Ro is because I used to belong to a trainer that had a speech problem. He couldn't make the 'I' sound all that well so it just came out 'Lucaro' instead of Lucario."

"Ohhhh, so, what did you go by before then?" Nite asked.

"Well, I don't really remember since it's been so long."

"How about we just call you Rio instead?" Zan suggested, "Ro sounds feminine."

"Rio?… Well, I guess that could work… It'll take some getting used to though, I've been called Ro for as long as I can remember."

"Zan's right though, Rio sounds a lot better."

"I guess." he responded, "It does sound better, but it's just that I've been called Ro for so long."

"If you don't want us to start calling you Rio, then just say so. It won't be a big deal." Zan told him.

"No, no. It's fine, I like it" he smiled.

"Ok then, Rio." Nite added before trotting off as well, just in time enough to avoid meeting up with Shin who found his way over to Zan.

"Where is she?"

"Shin…"

"I'm done playing around, tell me where in the hell she is, Zan." Shin demanded.

"…No."

"Zan… I consider you the closest thing to family I've had in years, is protecting that Vulpix worth this?"

"Shin, I told you that I had no intention of getting in the middle of this. I'm sorry, but I won't help you find her." Zan explained to him, hoping that he'd understand.

Shin simply just began to stare at him, no real emotion showing on his face until he sighed and looked away. "Fine, I'm alright with that… I guess…" Shin told him.

After hearing that, a weight seemed to lift off of Zan's shoulders.

"I'm really glad that you understand… But just know, I won't help, but I won't stand in your way. I promise you that."

"It would be in your best interest not to." he replied with a smirk.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that-"

"Attention, all pokémon in Enclosure 3!" A voice boomed from the second doorway that lead to the different areas the pokémon were allowed to go to.

"Who the hell?" Shin wondered as he turned around and came face to face with five pokémon standing in front of the doorway.

"We've come to take this enclosure off of your hands." one of them spoke up, smugly.

"What the hell is going on?" Zan yelled out as he came to meet the pokémon that seemed to be the leader of the group, a black Espeon.

"As I said, we're taking this Enclosure off of your hands."

"You realize that there are two things wrong with that?" Zan asked him, "The Rockets assign us to the Enclosure, so you're basically undermining Giovanni himself. And we really don't feel like moving out, so just turn on back around and go home." Zan told him.

Soon after Zan spoke up, Nite, Glint and the newly renamed Rio came to his side.

"I knew you'd all do this, all of you. Nite, Glint, Ro and even you, Zan." the Espeon revealed.

"H-how do you know our names?!" Nite asked.

"That would be because of me" another voice spoke up behind the Espeon before coming to the front.

"Wren…" Rio muttered under his breath, "How dare you…"

"So this is where you've been all this time, you were going behind our backs and selling us out." Zan observed and nodded his head.

"Why, Wren?" Nite asked, a look of sadness overtaking his features. "Why did you turn on us, weren't we your friends?"

"Just one more reason why I view you as a pile of shit." Shin spoke up from behind as he made his way over. "I mean, aside from you being brown, Gliscor."

"My name's Wren, Shin." he replied, a little annoyed that he didn't call him by his name.

"I don't really care what you say your name is, you're just a pile of shit to me." Shin told him.

"You'll regret that…"

"I highly doubt that…"

"Enough!" the Espeon declared which made Shin shift his glance.

"Or what?" Shin asked him.

"We all know that you're in no condition to fight, Shin." the Espeon told him with a smile. "So I can do what I want to you and not worry about getting hurt in the pro-" he started to say but was cut off when Shin's tail swiped across his jaw, leaving a small cut to the left of his mouth.

"…You were saying?" Shin smugly responded.

"You… you bastard!"

"There's five of you, and five of us… You won't win." Zan declared before showing his fangs.

Out of the five pokémon, none of them looked abnormal except for the Espeon and Wren, but they all looked eager to test their mettle against the pokémon of Enclosure 3. The Espeon made a motion with his head and Wren made a lunge towards Shin.

"Graah!" he yelled out, arms extended and reaching for Shin's throat. Before he got too close, Glint came in from the right side and struck him with X-Scissor. The hit sent him sliding across the floor.

"Glint?! What the hell?!" he yelled out.

"You and me."

"I'll kill you!" he screamed before charging the Scizor wildly.

As soon as he started charging, the other four pokémon broke into a run towards the other four. Shin matched up with a Golduck and the other three each had one as well.

"Do you really think that you'll live through this?" Shin asked the pokémon as he continued to take swipes at his face and miss.

"Shutup!" the Golduck fighting him yelled back.

He continued to strike at Shin without noticing that each strike came up a few inches away from hitting. Truthfully, Shin really hadn't recovered completely and that was the main reason the Golduck was still striking at him instead of laying, face down on the ground. He honestly wasn't sure on whether or not he had enough energy to down him without completely draining himself.

Meanwhile, Glint and Wren were squaring off. Due to both of them having been experimented on and their skin garnering steel-like qualities, they could take a few more hits than normal pokémon of their species could. They each had landed a few shots in as made evident by the scrapes and cuts across the bodies. Wren had been able to avoid the majority of Glint's attacks due to his superior flying speed. It's true that Glint could fly, but he chose not to take to the skies unless he had no other choice and therefore, he wasn't as adept at aerial combat as Wren.

"You don't understand why I'm doing this, do you?" Wren asked in mid-flight while dodging a few X-Scissor attempts.

"I don't care."

"What? Why not?" Wren questioned, bothered by the lack of Glint wanting to hear what drove him to this.

"You're my enemy, that's all I need to know." Glint told him as he leaped into the air and cut into one of Wren's wings with Metal Claw, tearing a hole in it.

"Ahh!" Wren screamed out before spiraling to the ground and landing on a patch of dirt, throwing a cloud of dust into the air in the process.

"Unlike you, I don't look or need ulterior motives to do something…"

"It's because of that damned Raichu!" Wren yelled out as Glint made his way over to him. "He came in here and took the place over, and I didn't want to involve you guys but once he got here everybody started catering and flocking to him like we were some pathetic, lost sheep…"

"Are you done?" Glint asked, his mood unchanging.

"… Never!" he yelled before lunging towards him.

As they continued to fight, Zan, Rio and Nite stood together to face their three foes. Zan took the point, Nite was to the left and Rio was on the right. In front of them stood a Floatzel, a Vigoroth and a Beedrill.

"Rio, take the bug." Zan instructed.

"Right"

"I got the Vigoroth!" Nite chimed in enthusiastically.

"Right then, that leaves the leftovers to me."

"I'll show you leftovers…" the Floatzel told him with a snarl.

And with that being said, the six of them jumped into battle with each other. They all fought at close range except for Rio and the Beedrill who, every now and then sprinkled in some ranged fighting as well. The Beedrill seemed uneasy about going hand-to-hand with a Lucario, so whenever the opportunity would show itself, it would back off and fire off a volley of Pin Missiles. As each needle swarmed towards him, Rio put his hands in front of him and used Force Palm to send them spiraling back at the ceiling, away from everyone.

"Clever," the Beedrill acknowledged.

"Glad you thought so." Rio replied before bringing his hands in front of him again but turning to the side this time and lining up for Aura Sphere.

"No you don't!" The Beedrill yelled out before dive bombing him and catching Rio off-balance with a body slam which only sends him stumbling back a bit. "You little runt, that barely hurt!"

"Wasn't supposed to." the Beedrill responded before stabbing Rio in his left shoulder with it's stinger.

"Dammit!" Rio yelled out while clutching his shoulder. "You bug-eyed bastard, you'll pay for that." he told him.

Meanwhile, Nite was having a little difficulty with his opponent. It seemed like every move he made, the Vigoroth would cut him off and the skull on his head showed it. It had become covered in scrapes from the long claws of the Vigoroth.

"Man, I can't even get a shot in on this guy…" he thought to himself as he continued to narrowly avoid a few more damaging blows.

"Stand… still!" the Vigoroth yelled at him while swinging wildly.

Suddenly, the Vigoroth stopped and smiled at him. "Fine, dodge this!" it yelled before opening it's mouth.

"H-Hyper Beam?!" Nite yelled out, not believing what he saw.

"I gotta think of something!" he told himself. As he thought, he looked at the Vigoroth once more and noticed that a light was beginning to show itself from inside it's mouth.

"Damn!" Nite panicked and hurled his bone as hard as he could as a last ditch effort. Suddenly, the low humming noise of the attack readying left and Nite looked over, worriedly to see what had happened.

"Huh?"

"Guh… No… Way…" the Vigoroth grunted before collapsing onto the floor.

"I… did it?"