Chapter Twenty Five
As Wildcard Gamma descended below the clouds, the temperature inside began to escalate. The air conditioning whirred as it tried to keep the occupants cool, and Matrix buzzed his wings rapidly to keep his own body temperature down. The only one who had no complaints was Switch, huddled in the corner keeping his eyes on the windscreen.
"I think we're here." Macro stood and motioned for the talonflame to follow him.
"Five more minutes," said Matrix. "We're still passing over the desert, but the town is right ahead of us."
Macro nodded his acknowledgment, but went to the hatch anyway. It would take five minutes just to get set up. He reached into the cupboard inside the hatch and pulled out two masks. One for himself, one for Switch.
"What are these for?" Switch asked as he eyed the offered mask.
"Air's toxic," said Macro. "You breathe that stuff in, you'll die in days."
The talonflame didn't need telling twice. He took the mask and tugged it over his head with his talons. Macro fastened his in place, watching the large raptor struggle to get the mask on. It was certainly not designed for a bird, despite the beak-like nose piece.
Macro reached up to help Switch fasten it around his head, and he gave it a quick check over to make sure there were no gaps. It was actually a little on the small side.
"Thanks." Switch's voice came out muffled and he shook his head sharply.
"Don't dislodge it," Macro scoffed as he returned to fastening his own mask in place. "You don't want any of that air getting in."
"You said it's toxic." Switch turned the green glassy eye covers on him. "So surely you'd be immune, right?"
"Doesn't work like that. It's not toxic like say a nidoran or a salazzle. It's pollution. Even a poison type doesn't wanna breathe that stuff in."
"But surely grimer and muk would thrive?"
Macro shook his head. "They still have to breathe, Switch. That polluted air rots the lungs."
"So it's uninhabitable?" Switch asked.
"Completely." Macro leant back against the cupboard and looked out through the small window. "Pokemon cleaned up in places like Meta and Seed City. So efficiently that the local grimer and muk began to transform. With no sewage left to eat, they had to eat garbage instead, but then the civil war struck and all poison types were shunned to the toxic outskirts. Those transformed grimer and muk died out in mere days. You'd think something would adapt to be able to survive in those areas, but nope. No life can live in it."
Matrix's voice echoed out over the intercom. "Arriving in Raster Town now. Get ready to drop."
Anchor strode into the hatch and grabbed a large mask from the cupboard. It was over his face in seconds and he braced himself behind Macro.
"You're joining us, too?" Switch asked the granbull.
"Of course," said Anchor. "Wouldn't leave my Cap'n to fend for himself in the desert of all places."
Macro said nothing, but his jaw clenched tightly shut. Fire and ground types. Bane of his existence.
He grabbed the neon pink ladder and plummeted towards the barren landscape. Hot air assaulted his body and his pads began to sweat. Switch zipped past him like a red dart, but the ladder picked up speed, passing the talonflame and hitting the ground before he even had time to land. Anchor dropped down behind Macro and the pair of them looked up as Switch swooped gracefully down beside them.
The sand was red hot on Macro's pads and it wasn't even noon yet. He dreaded to think how hot Raster Town got during the middle of the day. He could already feel himself weakening.
"So this is Raster Town?" Switch hopped in a circle as he took in the scene. "The sky is yellow!"
"That's the pollution," said Anchor. "I wouldn't worry yourself over that. What you need to worry about is what's on the ground."
Switch looked down then followed Anchor's eyes towards the town.
They were right on the edge of it. Squat sandstone buildings dotted throughout the small town, many of them boarded up. It was a common sight in the outskirts of Meta City. Raster Town was one of the furthest towns away from the capital, and just like the outskirts it couldn't afford to keep shops open. Mainly because it struggled to fill them with produce in the first place.
Only a small number of pokemon were awake. Macro spotted a young larvitar scurrying about in the dusty streets with no sign of a parent. A few feet away on a rock outside the town, a salandit lay basking beside a gabite. Early risers. Neither of which he wanted a run-in with.
Macro tapped Switch on the wing and nodded past the basking reptiles.
"Follow me," he said.
Switch looked around warily and hopped after the two space pirates. Keeping one eye on the two sunbathing lizards, Macro led the talonflame around them. What he wanted to show him lay at the end of Raster Town. One of the very reasons it fell into such disrepair, if legends were to be believed.
A huge hulking mountain rose out of the ground, surrounded with small boarded-up houses and shops. Only one or two of the buildings even had pokemon living in them. The mountain, however, was barren. Dotted with ruins and the remains of blackened trees. Cacti had taken up growing over it, supported by the dry and sandy terrain.
"This," Macro said, "is what is believed to be the remains of a 'drifting continent'." He raised his paws in an air quote.
Switch stared up at it, his eyes wide behind the glass protectors.
"This?" he stuttered. "Why didn't they get it flying again? Why leave it?"
"I'm not even completely convinced it was one," said Macro. "But, if what they teach us in history books has any truth behind it, there are three of these mounds. Two of them are in the ocean. This one is said to have crushed half of Raster Town. Apparently they'd crashed once before, and they got them back in the air again. But when they crashed down about one hundred years later, they were deemed too dangerous and stripped of their mechanical parts. Rumours covering up a pile of tauros poop if you ask me."
Switch ducked beside the mound, trying to peer inside a tiny cave.
"I don't believe you," he said. "What really happened to them?"
"Is this not one?" Macro asked.
Switch flapped his wings and rose up to inspect higher up.
Macro sighed and shook his head. "I really thought this would put him to rest."
"He doesn't belong in this time line," said Anchor. "I think we need to get him back and fast."
"I agree. And then he'll be out of my fur."
A deep rumble shook the ground and Macro staggered backwards into Anchor. Sand exploded beside them and he looked up with a start, right into the gaping jaws of a steelix. The metal snake roared, revealing row upon row of lumpy alien growths. Not a tooth in sight. The stench of death and decay poured from its mouth, permeating the vents on Macro's mask and causing him to gag. The large spikes along the metal snake's segmented body rotated like a windmill, filling the air with a deafening grating screech.
Macro pressed his paws over his ears and moved behind Anchor. He really needed his gun, but that screech was too much to bare.
"Look out!"
Switch darted down from the mound, his body glowing orange with intense heat and distorting the air around him. He collided with the steelix, the pair of them exploding in flames. The steelix opened its mouth wide and roared as it surged sideways. Switch arced up into the air and swooped back down for a second attack.
Macro and Anchor leapt apart in a bid to avoid the intense heat radiating from the talonflame. Macro reached for his gun, quickly loading up his ground laser.
"I'm gonna blast this thing back into the hole it came from!" Macro barked.
"Don't be too harsh, Cap'n," Anchor warned him. "He's sick."
"Sick or not, he attacked us first."
Macro aimed his laser, firing out what looked like a stream of sand and dirt. It vanished as it collided with the steelix's body, and Switch recoiled back with a squawk of surprise. The huge metal snake hit the ground, throwing up a cloud of dusty sand. Switch screeched and flew backwards, shaking his head violently.
Macro swore under his breath and fired off another stream. There was no way any sand got through the bird's mask. It was impossible.
The steelix rolled backwards with the impact, his long tail flailing like a bludgeon. It came crashing down sideways, right towards the disoriented talonflame.
"Switch!" Anchor roared. "Move it!"
The granbull leapt towards him as Macro readied another shot to fire at the steelix's immense tail. His shot missed by a hair's breadth. Anchor collided with Switch head on, ramming him into the ground. He grunted and rolled backwards, pulling Switch out of harm's way.
The steelix's bludgeon of a tail came crashing down, and Switch let out a shriek of pain.
Anchor sat bolt upright, clutching his stomach with one paw. Macro let his gun fall to his side. There was no way the talonflame had been hit? Was there?
Macro stepped warily to the side. Switch flailed, flapping on his back as he strained to pull himself away from the steelix. That heavy tail had landed on the tip of his wing, pinning him to the ground.
Anchor stood up, keeping his paw clasped to his stomach. He shoved his other paw beneath the steelix's tail and lifted. Tendons showed in his arm as he strained beneath its weight, but it wouldn't so much as budge. He moved his arm from his stomach, leaving a tiny trail of blood as it trickled from his claws, and tried to hoist the tail up with both arms to no avail.
Macro raised his laser again and aimed it about a foot from the talonflame's pinned wing.
"Stand aside, Anchor."
Anchor looked back at him, confusion reflecting behind the green glass of his goggles. He looked from the laser to the talonflame and cautiously returned to Switch's side.
"Brace yourself, Switch," said Macro. "I'm gonna have to blast you free."
The talonflame seized his frantic flapping and snapped his head around to fix on Macro's laser. His golden eyes opened wide with fear and his entire body froze.
Macro fired.
Sand and dirt exploded beneath the steelix and talonflame, blowing the latter into the air with the intensity of a geyser. The steelix rolled sideways, creating a trail of dust that blocked out the sight of the mound and run-down town.
Switch squawked, flapping his wings helplessly as he tried to right himself. He came down on his back and turned in the air, using his wings to glide the rest of the way. Regardless, he still hit the ground with some force and he grunted with the impact. He skidded forward slightly, marring his underside with a sandy yellow-brown.
Anchor stood up slowly, his paw once again clasped to his gut.
"You all right, Switch?" he asked.
Switch winced and turned sideways, lifting his wounded wing cautiously. The effort alone caused him to whine. He rolled onto his back, using his talons to switch his form back to that of a human. Then both hands clasped around his ankle as he let out a rather loud scream.
Macro looked up with a start, checking the unconscious steelix and making sure no one in the town could see them. Switch was making a lot of noise despite the mask that must have been suffocating him. A gabite sat outside one of the bars, his neck straight as he listened to the racket. Fortunately he hadn't seen them, thanks to the angle of the mound.
"Change back!" Macro demanded.
Reluctantly, Switch released his ankle and pressed his watch, shrinking back down to a talonflame. Anchor dropped down beside him and checked his wing, much to the human's complaints.
"He's broke it," he said. "We're gonna have to get back to Wildcard and fast."
Macro rolled his eyes and tugged his computer from his pouch.
"Matrix?" he said into it.
The ribombee didn't reply with his voice. Instead, the words 'is there a problem?' appeared on the screen, followed by a smiley face.
It was no time for a smiley face.
"Yes, there's a problem!" Macro snapped. "I've got a wounded talonflame and I'm pretty sure Anchor's wounded as well. Send down the ladder."
'Just a moment' was the ribombee's response.
Macro sighed and stuffed his computer back into his pocket. He eyed the two wounded pokemon and shook his head. How on earth were they meant to get Switch back up there if Anchor only had one free arm to hoist himself up?
He pulled his computer back out again and said into it, "Maybe come down yourself, too, with some rope."
Moments later, the neon ladder flashed into place with metallic 'chinks'. It appeared long before Matrix did, and Macro had long since finished discussing his plan with Anchor.
The mawile kept a wary eye on Raster Town. So far, no one had ventured from it, and the steelix was still unconscious. Macro was beginning to worry he'd accidentally killed the huge steel snake, but due to the consistency of its body it wouldn't be easy to check without standing by its head, and there was no way he was putting himself anywhere near its deadly mouth.
Matrix landed beside them and unwound the rope from over his shoulder.
"I hope there's enough," he said. "What do you plan to do with it?"
Anchor released his abdomen, revealing two deep gashes just below his ribs. When Switch noticed them, he poured out a string of apologies interspersed with grunts at his own pain.
Anchor ignored them, instead hoisting the talonflame onto his shoulders. Macro grabbed the rope and fastened it around Switch's wings and body, tying him firmly in place over the granbull's back.
"All right," said Macro. "That should at least get him on board the ship. You go first, just in case anything disastrous happens."
He fired another glance at the town as Anchor mounted the ladder, leaving Macro to grab the bottom two rungs. Matrix zipped up ahead of them, and once he was inside the hatch the ladder began to ascend.
"I'm really sorry," Switch gasped out.
"Don't worry about it," said Anchor. "It's only a scratch."
Macro snorted at the granbull's response, his eyes going to the ground as he followed several drips of crimson blood. 'Scratch' his left foot.
...
Annie stared up at the slatted ceiling, clutching the duvet over her chest. She had no recollection of falling asleep in such a strange room. It smelled damp and a little of feces. She glanced under the cover. Nope, she was good. The smell must have been coming from the bathroom. Oddly enough, she knew where that was, but the bedroom was rather unfamiliar.
Things slowly came back to her as she perched on the edge of the bed, stretching her arms until her shoulders and back popped. This wasn't a cell. It was a house that belonged to some weird pokemon. Ones that didn't want to fill her up with tablets so she'd stop rambling about the colour of the walls.
Tablets!
Her eyes flew to the blue container perched on a dresser, right beside a glass of yellow-tinted water. The water was rather warm and had a funny earthy smell to it. Not exactly palatable, but it would do. Her plan began to come back to her. Time travel. Time archeops. Wait until the effects of the tablets wore off before taking another one, and hope she'd secure the feathered form of the exotic reptile bird thing.
She tapped her foot in irritation and looked over at the window. The pair of yellowed curtains billowed as wind whipped through the cracked windows. Daylight. It was totally daylight. So why was nothing happening?
There was a soft rap at the door, followed by it moving inward with an audible, complaining creak. A rather gentle face peered in. Purple and white, with thick fur around her jaws. She stood almost bipedal as she held the doorknob in one large paw. A skuntank. Web. That was it.
"You're awake," she said. "That's good, I was a little worried you might still be dozing. Are you free?"
Annie looked from the skuntank to the pill bottle and back. With a shrug, she stood up and carried the bottle and glass of tepid 'water' with her as she followed Web down the creaking stairs.
"It was touch and go most of the night," said Web. "Up until around three AM when the little guy finally opened his eyes. Then things were much easier."
Annie inclined her head on one side as she tried to absorb the skunk pokemon's words. Her answer came in the form of a bucket beside the kitchen sink. Trojan - she recognized the scrafty - tucked into what appeared to be sandwich with some berry filling. His eyes went from the bucket to Annie and he frowned.
"You snore," he scoffed. "Really loud, n'all. Kept me up for hours."
It was then that Annie noted the dark rings under his eyes. Not exactly something she wasn't accustomed to, herself. She shrugged off the scrafty and went over to the bucket. Peering up at her from beneath the off-colour water were the wide, slightly bugged eyes of a goldeen. His lips curled up into a smile and he flicked his tail, splashing water spray over the edge of the bucket.
"Hi!" he said. "You're the one who helped me yesterday!"
"Yesterday." Annie looked up at the ceiling and raised a finger to her chin. "Yes. You're that little fish."
"Thanks to you, I'm healing! My name's Zip! What's yours?"
Annie stood up straight and stared down at him for a moment longer. The stitching on his side certainly looked like small zips.
"It's Annie," she said. "At least… I think it is."
"You think?" He chuckled.
"It's been a long time. I've probably forgotten and warped it over the years." Pause. "Or made it up entirely."
Trojan took a huge bite out of his sandwich. "You're not entirely sane, are you?"
Annie turned to Web and nodded at the bucket. "He needs to be in the river like a normal fish. Where is it?"
Web blinked a few times and eyed the bucket warily. "The river… would not be safe for him right now. In his state there's no way he could escape the nets set for water dwellers."
"Nets?"
"Yes. Pokemon catch and eat them." She looked up at Annie, her eyes wide with confusion. "Have you forgotten what we talked about last night?"
"Maybe." Annie paused and looked over the skuntank's shoulder. "So he can't go back in the river. That means you have a fish in your kitchen."
Web laughed and shook her head. "I really don't mind. And I'm sure both Waveform and Trojan are okay with it, too."
Trojan snorted. "Kinda in the way, but whatever."
A strange feeling began to surge through Annie's body, making her fingers tingle. She clenched them tightly and glanced around the room with quick movements, like she was trying to track a yanma.
"Well. I'll leave him in your hands then."
Her limbs exploded with yellow feathers and the room suddenly grew larger. She hit the floor with a yelp. Wait… no, that was Web's yelp. The skuntank fell back from her, and her face grew so pale it made her nose look white. Trojan even dropped his sandwich.
Annie looked down at her feathered body and leapt to her feet with a cheer.
"They wore off! The pills wore off!"
She scrambled up to the table and scooped up the tablet bottle. Her scaly claws fumbled with the container until she managed to prise the child-locked lid free. Two tablets were all she needed. Two to fasten her in the form of an archeops, provided she didn't change last minute and stick to the non-time-traveling human form.
She grimaced slightly at the taste of the tepid water, but once the tablets were washed down she slammed the glass back onto the table top with a satisfied sigh. Then she spread her wings and looked down at herself, waiting.
One.
Two.
Nothing.
She was still an archeops.
A grin spread across her face, flashing two rows of sharp teeth.
"Space!" she shouted. "I need space!"
She scrambled from the kitchen on all fours, her claws skittering over the wooden floor. The stairs were nothing in her archeops form. She scrambled up them like a lizard until she reached her room.
Space. There was ample enough of that in the sparse bedroom.
"Now what was I doing," she asked herself slowly, "when I time traveled?"
It was a good question. She'd been doing a lot of things. Talking to herself, answering questions that had come up in her mind. Arguing with herself when her mind told her the answers were wrong. Discussing the wall colour. White was such an abrasive colour, and it was everywhere in that cell. Eating. Yes, she'd had some berries.
Leaping.
That was what she'd been doing.
Whenever she took on that bird's form, she liked to see if she could fly. She'd been leaping, her form changing intermittently in the process. The archeops could leap higher than her human form. So it must have been that. She'd been an archeops, leaping around until she'd leapt so high she'd managed to change time lines. That must have been it!
So she leapt.
Back and forth in the bedroom, flapping her undeveloped wings and gaining some level of altitude. Her head struck the dangling light fitting, and it swayed back and forth dangerously. She didn't care. She needed to be higher.
She stopped and looked over at the window. The roof. Maybe she should try the roof.
She scurried to the window, prising it open against its stiff latch. It barely moved an inch.
"Stupid window!" she snapped. "Let me out!"
"Annie!"
She froze and turned her head to look over her shoulder. Web stood in the doorway, her face twisted with concern. Trojan stood behind her, chewing on his sandwich with a look of amusement.
"What are you doing?" Web asked softly.
"Trying to time travel," Annie said, as though it was the most obvious thing ever. "It's how I got here, right? I jumped around and here I am."
"I don't think it's that simple," said the skuntank. "Come down from the window before you hurt yourself."
"No! I need to get higher! I leapt super high before I got here!"
"Leave her." Waveform appeared behind Web, and Trojan stood aside wearing a disgruntled expression on his face. "If she wants to leap higher, then let her. It might be rather enlightening for her."
Web looked up at the decidueye, and her eyes widened as realization fell on her. With a nod, she looked back at the archeops.
"Fine. You take her to the roof the safe way," said Web. "I don't want her falling out of the window or cutting herself on glass. We've had enough casualties under this roof to last a lifetime."
"I'd hardly say one fish is gonna last you a lifetime." Annie hopped from the bed and turned to Waveform. "So you're taking me to the roof?"
The decidueye appeared rather nervous, but he nodded regardless.
"How are your wings?" he asked. "Can you fly?"
"Kinda. I more hop and flap around."
"Like a hatchling." He reached down and placed his wing feathers over her shoulders. "Come on. I'll carry you if I have to."
"This I've got to see," said Trojan.
Annie trotted after Waveform, following him down the stairs. He went straight out of the door, grabbing his quiver on the way. She thought she heard Web tut.
The decidueye stopped just outside the house and looked up at the roof.
"Follow me," he said.
In one graceful bound, he spread his wings and lifted himself towards the roof. Not a single sound came from his wings. Deadly silent. It almost gave Annie chills.
She shook out her own feathers and leapt after him, flapping her wings constantly to try and stay airborne. She didn't even make it to the second story window before she crashed back down to the ground, knocking the wind out of herself with the impact.
"Try again!" Waveform called.
She shook her head sharply and tried once more, this time reaching the window before crashing back down like a sack of spuds.
Before she could stand back up, a set of talons dug into her back and she let out a surprised yelp as she was lifted from the ground. Waveform carried her effortlessly up to the roof and let her go on the slippery tiles. She had to dig her claws into them to stop herself from sliding off.
He towered over her, locking her in a vermilion stare. It wasn't aggressive, impatient or threatening yet somehow she found it oddly intimidating.
"Try here," he said. "There's no ceiling blocking your reach of the sky."
Annie pushed herself up and looked up at the clouds. Her entire body was trembling with the effort of holding herself in place. There was no saying she wouldn't slip to her death. But if she didn't try, she'd never get back.
And if she could do this, she could go anywhere.
She relaxed her claws and, with her back legs, sprang straight up. Her wings were nowhere near as developed as Waveform's, but she beat them as hard as she could, sending herself over his head and landing in a sprawl behind him. Her claws slipped over the tiles and she clawed at them until she managed to scramble back onto the peak. Then, another leap, sending her back over his head to the other side.
All the while, he watched her, turning his head almost one-eighty as she leapt back and forth. Every time she slipped, he tensed up and raised his wings ever so slightly.
After her seventh attempt, she landed behind him, gasping for breath.
"What am I doing wrong?" she asked herself. "I'm a Time Archeops!"
"You're not a 'Time Archeops'." He reached down and tugged her to her feet, turning her with both wings to face him. "I think we've proved that, don't you?"
She blinked at him, meeting his somewhat intimidating vermilion eyes.
"Then explain how I got here," she said.
"You said you were leaping," he said. "What else happened?"
"I got sucked through a smoky mist," she said. "Then someone took me to the mayor."
"Who?"
She shrugged. "I don't really remember. Some creepy guy and something that looked like an onion."
He stared at her, unblinking, for an uncomfortably long time.
"Did you ever stop to think," he said slowly, "that this 'creepy guy' and 'onion' might have had something to do with it?"
Huh.
She glanced away at the vast array of rooftops.
"Because," he said, "as much as I struggle to believe it, there's drawings of a pokemon that looks like an onion that is said to be able to travel through time."
She looked down at herself then met his eyes again. "I do not look like an onion!"
"Not you!" He took a deep breath and shook his head. "It's some pokemon called Celebi."
"Huh." She raised a claw to her chin and looked up at the yellow sky. "Then if I want to get back, I need to get my claws on this onion."
"I'd say so."
"Waveform, right?" She met his eyes again and set her jaw. "You gonna help me?"
...
Please R&R! =D