Turn 23: Shining City Blackout
Location: Nimbasa City
Time: 11:15 AM September 30th
Condition Clear
Ruri had just finished putting her hat over her head in preparation to leave hopefully unnoticed. She looked at the pink x-transceiver on her wrist wondering if she could try to call him one more time before she headed out. She scrolled through her contacts until she reached his name and paused for a minute thinking about things.
Before she could click to call him all the lights around suddenly went completely dark. She gasped as she struggled through the dressing room to find a door or a window or something that might emanate light. Ruri then had a sudden realization.
She turned on the light on her x-transceiver and used it to find her way around the room and out into the hallway. People were roaming around in the hallways aimlessly and one of them accidentally bumped right into her almost knocking her to the ground.
"Oh, I'm sorry." A familiar voice exclaimed before the lights came back on. It was her director.
"Mr. Director, I'm so sorry." She apologized with a bow. "Do you know what's going on here?"
"No, but I was outside when it happened, all the lights everywhere throughout the city have gone black. I came in here to try to see if I couldn't turn on the auxiliary for the building." The director explained.
"That means that we're the only ones in the city with power?" Ruri asked.
"Not necessarily, but we certainly are the only ones in the city with connection to the outside world." The director explained.
"What on earth is going on?" Archer demanded entering a dark room where everyone was using flashlights.
"We're sorry sir but all the lights went out. It seems like someone's used an EMP but we can still use our wireless equipment." One grunt explained pointing a light at Archer to see him.
"Get that thing out of my face." Archer whipped it out of the grunt's hand.
"We've also lost all contact with everyone else. Before we did though, someone mentioned sighting Lelouch in the City Proper in some goofy outfit." Another grunt stepped forwarded.
"Wait did you say all of our power?" Archer asked.
"Yes sir."
In the darkest and lowest levels of the Silph Co. Building, Proton was sneaking through the hallways. He had hand stitched his wounds a bit before heading here to Nimbasa. He knew there was something in the building that only a handful of people even knew was there, it was a creature they had found while excavating Twist Mountain a year or so back.
Proton kicked down the door and entered the room. He shined his light on it. "So you are still here after all."
It did not respond as giant restraining machines were all around it holding it in place. Proton placed the flashlight in one of his pockets before grabbing a hammer and starting to pound on the pressure locks. "We have a lot in common you and me. We've both been forgotten and disposed of by our respective groups. But no more."
He finally tore through the pressure lock which held it in place. Seven small lights circular light in a wide cross shape began to flash on and off. It then seemed to attempt to speak with an odd high-pitched sounding reverberation. "Urg, urg, urg… Nnnnnoooo MmMooooorrrrR."
Tearing through the streets of Nimbasa City Team Plasma met with very little resistance. All of the major grunt units had gone to reinforce Icirrus so it was mostly empty of Team Rocket grunts. Lelouch stepped forward to command his men. "All units mobilize on the Silph Co. building we'll take out Team Rocket's presence once and for all."
Kallen and Guren led a group of flying pokémon into the building via the windows. As they all dispersed through the black as night interior Kallen waved all her troops in. "Tear through their lines; don't let anything stand in your way. Remember though our goal is locating Executive Archer and taking him alive."
A couple of Plasma grunts quickly tore through the interior and happened upon a suspicious looking room. They entered in and looked through it with their flashlights. At the other end of the room they found Archer standing in the dark petting his houndoom.
"We've found Archer, moving in to apprehend him." One of the Plasma grunts spoke into his transceiver.
Archer began to laugh a little big. "Haven't you ever wondered why they called me the Vampire of Team Rocket?" He turned his head slight revealing a cruel grin on his face.
On the outside Lelouch received the transmission as he led the men on the outside laying siege to the building to make sure no one escapes. "Excellent." Lelouch said to himself as he overlooked his assured success.
Then suddenly a large explosion came up from the bottom of the tower blasting several pokémon out in giant blocks of ice. Emerging from the tower's entrance was a large crystal ice like form with diamond-shaped arms and body with pyramid legs and only seven lights in a wide cross shape to signify its face. Emerging from its back were four long diamond-shaped spikes made of the same ice crystals the body was made of. The lights all switched on and off while crying out random nonsensical words and noises before blasting away an entire group with a single icy wind that instantly froze everything in its path. The ground beneath was instantly frozen even before its feet reached it. It didn't walk or even move its feet it seemed to simply skid across the ice forming at its feet as it pointed its arms at anything in its way sending a freezing ice blast at it.
"Is that?" Lelouch blinked. "Regice?"
"Yes, its powers aren't quiet on my level however it does feature a type advantage I recommend sending in other units to try to slow it down before we go in for the finishing blow with ancient power." CC suggested.
"Right." Lelouch concurred. Before he could give out any orders though the Regice seemed to have caught a glimpse of Lelouch and started to shoot straight for him and CC at a faster pace than it had before exhibited.
Lelouch and CC both jumped out of its way before it managed to get them. "There you are Lelouch." The familiarly proud and unyielding voice rung with an almost insane twinge. Lelouch looked up to behold his attacker.
"Proton?" Lelouch seemed shocked. "I thought that Archer had you killed?"
"Oh so you heard about that? Hmm, well now I don't work for anyone other than my own personal desires." Proton pointed at his shirt which had been had the large red R on it ripped off. He then pointed at Lelouch. "And my desires want you dead! Regice, ice beam!"
Lelouch ducked and a massive beam of freezing energy flew right past sending his cloak whipping back with the sheer force exhibited. CC quickly leapt forward slashing into it with her massive claws dealing minimal damage.
"Is that the best your stupid dragon can do?" Proton glared at him. "Regice show them real power with Absolute!"
The spikes on Regice's back began to glow with an eerie presence before CC shot a bolt of lightning its way with not much effect. Lelouch could feel the energy emitting form it's back spiking beyond recognizable proportions.
"CC, get out of there!" Lelouch ordered.
CC then leapt out-of-the-way just in time and a massive energy ball of ice energy flung past her and into a nearby building. The entire building froze to the foundation. Regice then stomped on the ground and mere shockwave from at least ten meters away had the building fall apart into snowy dust.
The display of power unleashed by a single attack was shocking to say the least. If CC had been hit with that it wouldn't have just been super effective, he wondered if anything could survive an attack like that. He needed to get Regice away from the rest of the battle otherwise it may wind up in the annihilation of his entire army.
"CC, ancient power." Lelouch commanded the only move in her arsenal that may actually do some reasonable damage.
Rocks began to rise up around her imbued with ametrine powers before she lunged one of her claws in the direction of Regice. As if following her direction they all flew right at Regice hitting him with super effective damage.
"That won't be nearly enough." Proton reassured him.
Regice returned by launching three of its fingers at CC like missiles. CC flapped her wings and started to fly as fast as she could to dodge the attacks. She stopped and dropped quickly dodging them; one of them was moving fast enough that it crashed into a building exploding with a freezing furry.
CC then flew sky-high and then directly down. Like missiles they followed her and gained as much gravitational speed as she did. Before CC landed she flapped her wings to stop the decent. One of the ice missiles landed right in the ground but the other one managed to hit her back forcing her to the ground and freezing her body to the ground.
"Dang it, CC, get out of there." Lelouch ordered.
"I'm trying." CC grumbled while struggling to get out of the ice.
"Now finish it off with another Absolute!" Proton ordered.
"No regice!" Lelouch stepped between them catching eye contact with it. "I command you to not attack!"
Regice stopped for a minute. It might have seemed that he was frozen in place but he shook as if trying to deny Lelouch's command.
"What are you waiting for?" Proton asked. "Finish them both off now!"
"Regice I command you to not attack!" Regice wasn't sure if he should attack or not. Lelouch's power of evolution was compelling it to not attack but Proton was ordering him to destroy them both. What to do what to do?
It looked as though it was going to follow Lelouch's command and not attack before suddenly from the sides a giant burst of flames struck down with massive force knocking Regice several feet away. Lelouch was shocked to see it and follow the trail of destruction right to a surprising duo.
"Don't touch either of them." Blake said. En kicked up his feet while naying as if to agree.
"Blake?" Lelouch asked with a confused look.
Blake and En stepped up next to Lelouch. "I've decided to help out Team Plasma. But don't think I'm doing this for you or for your rebellion; I want to honor Rosa's memories. I want to fight for her."
"I won't complain." Lelouch said.
CC broke free of the ice case that she was stuck in. She then lunged forward and bit into Regice with a devastating thunder fang. Following closely behind En slammed into the Regice forcing the battle even closer to Proton until it was pretty much at his feet. Proton's face began to twitch. "No. I won't accept this, Regice, explode!"
"Urg, urg, urg, explode." The regice repeated in its high-pitched reverberation. It then began to glow brightly before unleashing a massive flurry of energy in all directions. The blast engulfed both CC and En. As the blast radius grew larger Blake grabbed Lelouch and shoved him out of it before jumping forward out of it himself.
Regice and En both flopped onto the ground defeated but CC still had plenty of damage to take before being defeated. Proton was nowhere to be seen. Lelouch had little time to worry about that.
"Kallen." Lelouch called into his transceiver. "Have you managed to apprehend Archer?"
"No, he somehow managed to escape into the city somewhere. We're not sure where he went but we're guessing a few of those Rocket Grunts escaped with him." Kallen explained.
"Xingke, have any of your parties discovered him?" Lelouch asked.
"One of them reported seeing a suspicious group heading for the Nimbasa Theme Park. They haven't reported in since and I was about to investigate." Xingke explained.
"How is it in the Silph Co. Building?" Lelouch asked Kallen.
"Things are pretty much settled in here, only minimal resistance remains." Kallen said.
"Then you and Xingke will join in the search for Archer. Blake I want you to temporarily take command here." Lelouch told him.
"Blake?" Kallen asked.
"Yes, I'm here for Rosa." Blake explained.
Ignoring Blake, Lelouch grabbed hold of CC. She then took to the sky and flew towards the eastern section of the city.
"I said I want answers N!" Suzaku continued to question N.
"Like I said I'm just a spare, I don't actually know anything." N insisted with a truthful smile.
Kyouhei sighed sitting on top of a defeated graveler. Lelouch sure was a military genius. He used fifty-three men to lure his enemies into fighting each other. He overlooked the masses of defeated Rocket grunts. Lelouch's fifty couldn't have pulled this off maybe with CC but that would have been a lot of work for her. But now a large chunk of Team Rocket had been defeated by them and it was all according to Lelouch's plans.
"You okay Kyouhei?" Hilda walked up asking.
"Huh?" Kyouhei looked up to face her. "Oh yeah I'm fine."
"You sure? You look like you're worried about something?" Hilda asked.
"Well…" Kyouhei scratched his cheek. "You see there's this girl who's been calling me none-stop the past few days and I didn't realize until recently and I'm not sure what I should say when I finally accept her call."
"Oh." Hilda blinked at him for a second. "I didn't realize you had a girlfriend."
"She's not a girlfriend." Kyouhei protested.
"Well, I think you should just be honest with her." Hilda explained.
"Like, tell her that I'm a member of the Knights and that I've been at the epicenter of all the troubling news. You mean tell her that?" The idea sounded rather foreign to him. "Besides should I really be calling someone in a time like this?"
"If you really care about someone then you should be calling them no matter what and especially if you're in the middle of something big." Hilda explained. "Go ahead and give her a call, I'm sure that Suzaku wouldn't understand."
"I'm not sure." Kyouhei looked off to the side. Suddenly his x-transceiver started to ring.
"Is that her?" Hilda asked.
"No, it says it's coming from the Nimbasa Radio Tower." Kyouhei pointed out suspiciously before answering it. "Kyouhei speaking."
"Kyou chan!" Ruri sounded more excited to hear from him than ever before.
"Ruri san? Did you lose your x-transceiver again?" Kyouhei asked obviously confused.
"No," Ruri shook her head. "Something terrible has happened. I don't know how but Team Plasma got in the city and blacked everything out. Now Team Rocket is in the building. My director is trying to call the authorities I just wanted to try speak with you."
She started to tear up. "Kyou-chan, I'm so scared right now and I want you to know… I want you to know..."
Before she could finish her statement the screen went black. The screen read, "number unavailable".
"Ruri san?" Kyouhei shouted in shock.
"Suzaku!" Hilda called his attention.
"What?" Suzaku asked walking up.
"Team Plasma, they're in NImbasa City, and Team Rocket's taken over the Radio Tower." Hilda explained.
"Dang it Lelouch." Suzaku grumbled.
"Come on." Kyouhei released Riley. "We need to get over there now!"