December 13
T-Minus Four Minutes
Scores of Rocket Grunts filled the titanic lobby. Shoulders wedged against shoulders, and elbows jabbed others' stomachs or faces. The repugnant scent of body odor made everyone's noses wrinkle. If it weren't for the armed personnel, Jasper's insurance, standing at the doors, everyone would've bailed and gone back to work.
One grunt winced as an elbow dug into his spine. The unnerving, jolting sensation of pain made him whip around. Through the sardine pack of grunts, he picked out one with an outstretched arm, hobbling to keep his balance.
"Wanna watch wha' the hell ya doin'?" the first grunt snarled.
The second grunt spat on his chest. "Can it, lean bean!"
The butt of the first man's rifle swung into his jaw, knocking him and a half-dozen men over. A desultory dog pile of grabby hands and steadying feet clawed at others to stand themselves up. It wasn't until twenty people fell that the flying claws turned into fists.
Blood spewed from noses and mouths, stained the knuckles of those picking a fight. The sound of flesh against flesh, of man against man drowned out the exasperated gasps of pain. All that could be heard over the chaos was the gunshot that silenced it.
Jasper stood on the reception desk, his assault rifle pointed toward the ceiling. He cradled a bulbous object in his arm, staring eagerly at the congregation. Tile and glass rained down on him and matted in his hair.
"Now that we've settled down," he said, tossing his rifle away, "let's get down to business."
He pulled from his pocket a crumpled poster, unfolding it delicately and holding it up for all to see. Ash's and Laina's headshots looked small, although recognizable to the crowd.
"These little varmints are somewhere in the building," Jasper said. A collective gasp broke across the men. "I want everyone here to turn this building inside out and find these two. Find them, and bring them to me. Alive."
A murmur of discontent rippled. Jasper scoffed. "Alright, then. Since you peons don't seem enthusiastic about this little game…I'm giving a fifty percent pay raise to whoever can bring them down."
For having just dispelled the chaos, Jasper smiled at his ability to reinstate it. Hundreds of grunts dashed for the elevators and staircases, trampling over each other like bulls. Jasper laughed at his little rats scurrying about brainlessly.
He felt a tapping at his shoulder. Doctor Hinbern stood behind him, staring blankly with a grim expression.
"What is it?" Jasper snapped.
Hinbern didn't wait for permission to drag him toward an elevator. "We're evacuating you." He shouted and shoved people around to make a pathway to the nearest elevator.
"Evacuating? Are you out of your goddamn mind?"
The doctor didn't respond, instead jamming his finger against the button outside the elevator door. It opened slowly, and he nudged everyone aside to reserve it for himself and Jasper.
"Hinbern, you better tell me what the-"
The door closed, and Hinbern spoke in a low whisper barely audible to Jasper:
"Two grunts were found dead in your office, Jasper."
"If you think that's any reason to-"
"It was that Ketchum kid and Laina whatsername. They disabled the cameras, so we couldn't pick up great audio, but we think they're coming for you."
Jasper clenched his fists. "He's two people strong against the majority of the fuckin' Empire! And we're evacuating…why?!"
Because we…well, the Security Department anyways, doesn't think that they're alone. They picked up transmissions from the laboratories-"
"If you mean to tell me that some idiot created a chemical leak down there, then you're-"
"It's not just a leak, Jasper!" Hinbern said. His voice elevated a little, quieting Jasper for a change. "It's a bomb! There may have been a bomb planted somewhere that can bring down the entire building!"
Jasper closed his eyes and held his hand out on the wall to steady himself. His building, his empire, falling to pieces…he envisioned it all in his head, his blood and sweat and tears falling in a ball of fire and detritus. It wouldn't happen. No, it couldn't happen. Could it?
"It's gotta be nothing," he breathed. "A bluff, or a decoy."
"Either way, we can't take any risks. There's a helicopter on top waiting to escort you, myself, and a few others to a secure location."
"This is bullshit!" Jasper spat. "I can't even be here to try and stop these bastards!"
"Because it isn't worth getting killed over," the doctor said. "If the safety of this building truly is compromised – and I fear that it is at this point – then the Empire will need their leader."
Jasper sighed. "Where are we going, then?"
"Not sure. I think the game plan is to take us to Eterna, but if things go from bad to worse, we may have to leave the Northern Sector entirely."
The executive said nothing, clawing at his pant legs. "Don't freak out," he whispered to freak out. "Don't freak out."
Hinbern didn't respond. Jasper wondered if he thought the same thing.
Probably not, he decided.
T Minus Six Minutes
Dawn slowly raised her gun and inched down the corridor. Anything that moved now was good as dead.
The dim, blinking lights above guided her along the empty hallway. Each moment of eerie silence sent lethal doses of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She wanted nothing but to drop dead right there, before anyone could do it for her. But the wildfire of energy pulsing through her veins, the echoing footsteps, painfully reminded her that she still lived.
Shrill breaths escaped her lowly lips with each step she took. The will to kill, to obliterate anything in her path, never felt as potent as it did now. Her finger trembled millimeters over the trigger, straining to keep from firing blindly.
Footsteps, not hers, sounded from behind. Half a dozen grunts stood a hundred feet away, guns in hand. Dawn whimpered and raised her gun before one of the grunts spoke:
"Private! The boss said to-"
The bullet that caught him in the chest silenced him. Bullets flew in both directions, and the grunts fell down like bowling pins. Dawn dove to the side, her finger clutching to the trigger for dear life. She screamed and waved her rifle madly, mowing each grunt down like a blade of grass.
Dawn's ammo clip clicked empty without warning. She curled into a ball, waiting for the gunfire to wreck, no, to decimate her body until it became a bloody log of meat and bones.
But it never did. She lay there, breathing, shaken but alive. Not exactly the way she wanted it.
She groaned and pushed herself onto her feet. No pain, no blood. Nothing hurt for once – she felt serendipitously peaceful.
"I died," she breathed. A nervous giggle shook from her and echoed across the hallway before a weak, ailing voice from across the room proved otherwise.
"You're not dead," it said.
Dawn's knees collapsed with her spirit. She knew that voice.
Lips trembling, she slowly turned toward the mass of dead grunts. She choked when she saw six bodies, one on top of the others, jumpsuits stained redder than their "R"s.
Six more kills to add to her list, she thought.
Six more Lances.
The center-most body stared straight at Dawn, eyes wide with shock. The small tuft of orange hair drooping over her eye made Dawn gasp.
"Zoey?"
She ran up to her as Zoey nodded lightly. "I g-got caught up with them and…" Zoey trailed off, staring at the crimson bullet wounds in her upper leg.
"I-I shot them for you, too… I couldn't s-see you die…" Zoey gulped down her concentration, and her face hardened.
Dawn's face shrunk in fear and anger, but Zoey grabbed her wrist to calm her. "No, Dawn. Not now. You have to get out of here, do you hear me?"
"B-b-b-but t-t" Dawn blubbered.
"No one else matters at this point," said Zoey. "I can't walk on this leg, and I'm only slowing you down. Freeing the other pokémon won't mean a damn thing if Brock and the others get killed, or if that bomb goes off. Maybe Sanus did something already, but either way you need to find them and get out, do you hear me?"
Dawn wanted to scream, shout, throw a tantrum, anything that would fix Zoey's leg. "All of those pokémon that are trapped here will die!"
"This can't be happening," Dawn thought. "This isn't Zoey. She wouldn't dare have me-"
Zoey shrugged and stared at the ceiling. Her breathing quickened, and she clasped her chest to try to calm it down. "We're all gonna die anyways, right? So what's the point of doing anything about stopping it?" She gulped. "Can you do me one last favor?" she asked, nudging toward the rifle at her hip.
Dawn's eyes grew wide at the realization. "You're crazy! I can't do that!"
She laughed faintly. "Death is a beautiful thing, you know that? Life's ultimate undo button. Any mistake you ever made can be erased with death. But you know what? These Rocket bastards…they're not pushing my button for me."
Dawn shook her head. "You're not gonna die," she trembled. "I'm not gonna kill you! We can get you out of here, they can fix your leg! We still have to fight!"
Zoey clapped her hand over Dawn's lips, staining them with blood. "That's not an option, don't you see? Death is my only open door now. Even if we live to see the day the Rocket Empire falls, no one can pretend like the past month, the past year for some people, never happened. What's fighting gonna do to change that?"
Closing her eyes and clenching her teeth, Dawn shook with every melancholic emotion she knew. "Can't you be strong, like you always have? Who do you think I learned that from?!" she pleaded.
"There comes a time to stop being strong, to give up. Now's that time for me," she whispered, gesturing toward the gun. Her eyes, a crestfallen hazel, fell to the ground. "Not for you, though."
A few isolated tears streamed down Dawn's cheek. She hesitantly held the gun in her feeble hands and closed her eyes, pointing the gun in Zoey's direction. "I'm sorry, Zoey," she stifled. "I'm so, so sorry."
Zoey hesitated before cracking a feeble, bloody grin. "Don't ever be sorry."
Dawn's willingness to keep her alive vanished into smoke. The reminder of her cruelty to Lance prompted her to pull the trigger, not out of mercy but out of desperation to forget.
Warm, dark blood poured from Zoey's forehead and trickled onto the ground, seeping into Dawn's pant leg. Her hands shook violently, flinging the rifle to the side as she collapsed. She trembled, bathing herself in tears and blood. The one person that ever stared the Empire in the face and laughed, dead. The one person who Dawn admired through all of this, dead.
Her best friend, dead.
Blood clung to Dawn's face, painting it like a warrior would for war. Dawn gasped for air and picked herself up, Zoey's words echoing in her head: "There comes a time to stop being strong, to give up. Now's that time for me. Not for you, though."
She slowly shook her head. Now is the time to give up, Dawn realized. She dove into the dog pile of bodies, digging into the pockets of a grunt. She laughed maniacally when she found a blunt dagger, clean of blood. She held the blade against her stomach and, swallowing in one last breath of air, clenched the handle and closed her eyes.
Her body crumpled to the ground, but her body didn't become weightless, like she thought it would. A strong, bulky force pinned her down, restraining her from floating to the heavens. Something – or someone – slapped the knife from her hand.
"Are you mental?" a voice shouted. Dawn flinched and tried to push the weight off of her. She wiped the sweat from her eyes and saw Sanus on top of her, his face shaded a deep red. Michael stood several feet behind him.
"Sanus?" Dawn moaned. "Where'd you-?
Sanus grabbed the scruff of her neck and dragged her down the hallway, taking special care to avoid trampling over Zoey's body. "You're damn lucky I found you before you offed yourself!" he growled. "There isn't enough time to save anyone else. We have to meet up with the others and get the hell outta here. I can only hope that they planted that bomb."
"How heroic," Dawn mumbled, wiping away her tears.
"Look, if we die in this building, then every other region is fucked, do you hear me?"
Dawn nodded and knocked his hand away from her neck. Sanus sighed as the three of them jogged down the deserted hallway toward the stairs.
"I'm sorry for snapping," he said. "And I'm sorry about Zoey. She… I'm sorry they got her." he fell silent.
Michael reached the doors first and swung them open, ushering Sanus and Dawn through. They jogged down the staircase at breakneck speed, flying past each numbered door without more than a glance of acknowledgement.
"Sanus," Dawn finally panted, "where the hell are we going? Where are the others?"
He and Michael paused and sat down. "They were supposed to plant the bomb in the basement. The best we can figure is that we've got about three or four minutes before it goes off, assuming they've done it. After that, the building won't stay standing for long. A bunch of the major support beams down there are gonna fall to shit once the timer on that bomb runs out." Sanus huffed for breath.
Dawn raised her eyebrows when Michael broke his silence. "The only problem is that we have no idea where Leon and the others are at. They could still be down there, or above us, or dead for all I know. We need to find them before shit hits the fan."
"But if they needed more time, couldn't they just deactivate the bomb?"
"Doesn't work like that," Sanus said, standing up and slowly trekking the stairs once more. "Once that timer's on, you can't turn it off. When it hits zero, it releases the platonic plutonium into a hardened form of the same element, which catalyzes the detonation."
She nodded, pretending to understand his jargon. "And what do we do after that, assuming we don't get blown up?"
Michael grinned. "There's a helipad on the very top of the building. I think with a bit of luck we can-"
A door clicked open two below them, and they all froze. Footsteps pounded below them with increasing intensity, too fast for any of them to count.
"Arms up," Sanus whispered, raising his rifle toward the sound. Everyone else did the same and followed Sanus as he slowly tiptoed down the stairs.
He turned back to face the others. "Hold your fire in case-"
"Dawn!"
Dawn looked past Sanus' shoulder to see Brock just behind him, relief flooding against the concentration in his brow. He pushed past Sanus to hug Dawn, embracing her tightly.
"We heard the gunshots just after we started coming to find you," he mumbled, "and I didn't know if-"
"It was Zoey," Dawn said. She broke the embrace and stared at Brock, shaking her head. "I'm sorry."
Brock's face hardened before he sighed. "Better dead than here, anyways."
"Not to rush any of you," Leon piped, "but now that we've had our little reunion, there's only about a minute left before this bomb goes off." He rolled up his cuff and glanced at his watch. "Fifty seven seconds, to be exact."
A panicked frenzy pumped everyone's legs up the stairs faster than before. Dawn lost track of how many she traversed before stopping for breath. Fifty? A hundred? More?
They all stopped with her. "It's only been one flight!" Barkson spat. "And you're tired already?!"
"Can't help it," Dawn breathed. Leon covered her mouth with his hand to silence her.
"Eight seconds," he hissed. "Don't move. The tremors won't be felt as much if you aren't moving."
Dawn gulped and clung to the linoleum handrail, exchanging tense, uneasy stares with Brock.
"Five," Leon said. He didn't finish counting down.
"Three," Dawn thought.
She clung to the handrail tighter, squeezing it with an Arbok's grip.
"Two."
She closed her eyes.
"One."
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She opened one eye hesitantly to see Leon frowning.
"Did it go off?" she asked.
He shook his head, his frown intensifying with each shake. "Something's not right. It didn't spark anything."
"You messed something up!" Sanus shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at his chest. "You were the one in charge of making sure that nothing happened to the bomb!"
Brock swatted Sanus' hand away from Leon's chest. "Lay off! He couldn't have known that something was wrong with it!"
Sanus glared at Brock before turning toward Dawn. "It was you, wasn't it?"
Dawn gaped. "Me? What the hell could I have done to the-"
"You're the one that killed off Lance, you bitch! Who's to say you didn't sabotage the-"
"Sanus!" Leon shouted. Sanus stared at him with hatred before finally sighing.
"I'm going back down," Leon said, pointing at Sanus. "Take everyone up to the helipad and get them out of Sinnoh. I'm making sure that this bomb detonates no matter what."
"Under what authority?" Sanus snapped.
Leon growled and pushed Sanus into the wall, holding him by his collar. Dawn screamed at the hostilities - Adrian knelt and held her to keep her calm. Brock tried to pry Sanus and Leon apart, but Barkson held him back.
"As your fellow Executive, I suggest you follow my orders to ensure the G-Men's survival," Leon snarled. Brock saw the fiery passion in his growl, one fueled with love rather than hatred.
Sanus gulped and nodded. "Fine. You win." He nodded to Barkson. "We're moving out."
Leon released Sanus' cuff and brushed past Brock, who tried to grab his shoulder. "You're crazy!" Brock said. "It's suicide!"
He smiled and turned back to Brock. "I know. But I'm okay with that." He rolled up his sleeve and unclasped his red leather wristband. With one last stroke of the word "EVERYTHING," Leon shoved it into Brock's palm.
"Make sure that nothing else gets screwed up, okay?" he said, grinning. "You have everything in control now."
Brock nodded. "Thank you, Leon."
He smirked and jogged back down the stairs, disappearing from sight one floor down. Brock looked down at the wristband in his hand and grinned at its meaning.
Sanus nudged his shoulder. "We gotta get moving," he said. The others already began ascending the staircase.
Brock wordlessly pocketed the wristband and did the same.
T Minus Two Minutes
Leon didn't stop running until he burst through the doors that led to the laboratory. He didn't know if he should expect anyone else to be down there. Surely, not everyone would've heard the orders to leave, or go after Ash, he thought. But he found otherwise when he discovered that the room was as lifeless as its former inhabitants.
The stillness in the air, broken only by the stray bleep of a lab machine, made the hairs on his neck stand on edge. He sighed in relief when he saw the bomb, nuzzled in the backpack, still sitting in its corner. Each footstep he took toward it echoed off the walls. His shallow breathing accompanied the eyes that darted suspiciously around every table and corner.
He knelt tenderly next to the pack and unzipped it. The bomb still looked unharmed – and certainly undetonated. The timer read "00:00" in bright red numbers, but the dull metal encasing it still looked clean.
With sweat forming on his forehead, he removed the bomb from the main pocket and inspected its exterior. Nothing looked out of place, except…
Leon sighed when he saw a purplish liquid, bottled inside its cylinder. Just below it was another cylinder of a white powder, fused to the liquid's container above it. The timer should've removed a plate that released the liquid into the powder's bottle, causing the explosion. But something went wrong, Leon realized, because the metal divider glinted tauntingly in his eyes. He'd have to break it out himself, but once that happened…
Leon nodded to himself and stood slowly. About thirty feet from him, a cell phone lay partially hidden under a clipboard on a stray work table. A grunt must've left it behind, Leon thought, sulking toward it and weighing the device in his hands. After a moment, he punched a set of numbers into the keypad and held it to his ear, sighing.
Three rings passed before a voice sounded. "Yeah?"
Leon grinned and closed his eyes. "Sanus, it's me. I found the problem."
"Well, what are you waiting for, then?" Sanus shouted. "Fix it and get your ass back up here!"
"It's not that easy, I'm afraid."
Silence. Leon felt his eye moisten, but he blinked it away. He couldn't remember the last time he cried. But he wouldn't cry in the face of death. Not when it would be the only death he got.
"Thank you," Sanus said finally. "You're a godsend to the G-Men."
Admiration. That's new, he thought. He stifled a "With pleasure" before hanging up the phone. A tear escaped him, but he decided to let it flow.
He pocketed the cell phone and inched back toward the bomb. Sighing, he squinted at the two cylinders. The plate separating the chemicals looked like it could easily be knocked out, but the liquid would fall through and react with the powder instantaneously.
Yet again, he sighed. He couldn't ever imagine going out like this. Well, he sort of did. For years he thought of a lonely death, with no one mourning at his bedside. Isn't that what was happening now?
No, he decided. His death wouldn't be like that. There had to be just one person that could forgive him, and be there when it happened.
"Just grant me that," Leon thought, "and only that."
Leon reached for the cell phone once more and hesitated when the screen flashed the key pad. "One person," he thought. "Who's one person that could still be alive and willing to hear me out?"
He held his breath and pressed in the numbers: 538-7285.
One ring came and went.
Then another.
And another.
And a fourth, and fifth. After the sixth, a female voice monotonously monologued Leon to the voicemail, leaving him in silence with a low beep.
His voice shuddered as he sucked in his breath. "Hey, there…" he began. The tears poured, but he couldn't sound weak, not anymore. "It's Leon. Listen, I know we, uh, haven't talked in a while. And I know we've had our fights, but-"He paused to choke and cough.
"Paul, I'm sorry," he rasped. "I've been an asswipe of an uncle all these years, and I forced that behavior onto you. But you didn't deserve that, no one did." He opened his mouth to keep going, but words failed him. What else was there to say, when your last words had to be as meaningful as possible?
"Keep yourself out of trouble, kid," he said finally. "I love you."
Without ending the call, he lowered the phone and aimed the edge at the metal plate. His free hand grabbed for his wristband on the other before he realized that it was gone.
That's right, he remembered. Brock has it.
But that's alright, Leon thought with a smile. He said what needed to be said. He'd die the way he wanted to. He had everything under control now.
And for once, he actually believed it.
He rammed the phone into the dividing plate, dropping the corrosive liquid in with the powder, and he smiled as his lights went out.
T Minus One Minute
Ash and Laina raced down the endless staircase, huffing harder with each floor they passed. "Better down than up," he thought.
"They flooded those elevators quick," Laina breathed. "The grunts, I mean. There's hardly anyone down here!"
And she was right, too. It was…forty? Yes, they descended forty floors since leaving the Executive Office. Forty floors of huffing and aching and jogging for the past several minutes, all to the brink of collapse.
"Laina," Ash breathed. She turned around and sat down.
"Yeah?"
He closed his eyes and sighed. "What are we gonna do now? We've already killed two people, so everyone in the entire building is gonna want our heads. If Jasper isn't in his office, then he could be anywhere – in another city, for all we know!" He sat down beside Laina, resting his head against the cement wall.
Laina shook her head. "We'll have to at least grab the egg, then. I know for a fact that it's in the laboratories in the basement. If the G-Men don't already have it, we can pull off a heist before they can bring HQ down – if they bring it down."
Ash unslung his sack from his shoulders and opened the flap. Pikachu stretched his limbs and gave Ash a small, effortless lick on the cheek. He grinned before stroking the back of his neck.
A voracious, yet distant shout from below sent Pikachu barreling back into the bag. Ash zipped it closed as Laina leaned over the handrail.
"Grunts," she murmured. "There's six or seven of them. We have to hide." She picked Ash up by the arm and led him up the stairs, dragging him through a door labelled "18".
She slammed the door shut and crouched behind it, keeping her and Ash out of the line of sight of the small window. "As long as there's no one up here, we should be safe."
"But what if those damned Grunts come in here?" Ash hissed. "Then what bright ideas are you gonna have?"
"Do you have to worry about every single detail of every moment?" she sighed. "You're too persnickety with this kind of thing, even if our lives are in danger. Just go with it."
Ash said nothing and sat against the metal door. The silence vibrated against his ear drums, drowned out not even by the shouts from several floors below. His ears began to buzz - quietly at first, then louder and louder until he covered his ears.
Laina gently grasped his wrists and pulled them from his ears. "You alright?"
He gulped and nodded. "Yeah. The silence just got to me, was all."
He said something else, but not even he could hear it. The deafening explosion muffled him out, muffled everything out. Every sensation of hearing, or pain, or awareness all went away as Ash and Laina were sent flying into the door behind them. It tore from its hinges and slammed into the back wall.
Ash's body made hard contact with the metal door and cement wall, and when he finally lay still on the decimated staircase, every muscle and bone in his body ached. He groaned and forced himself onto his knees.
Through the smoke and clouds of debris, he couldn't make out Laina anywhere. He could only see dark silhouettes of the staircase, cracked or broken in several spots.
"Laina!" he coughed. A low moan ruptured just at his feet. He knelt down, grimacing as the hot embers and jagged cement dug into his knees.
"The door…" he heard Laina gasp. "I got caught under it, and-"
He frantically felt around for the metal door until his hands blistered on its surface. Straining to find a suitable handhold, he lifted it a few inches off of the ground. "Laina? You alright? I can't see you through the smoke."
A few weak moans sounded. "I think so. Let me try and wiggle out from under here, and-"
"Don't bother," Ash said. "I can get you out myself. He pushed harder against the door, but he couldn't lift it any higher. He shouted in exertion as the muscles in his arms turned to jelly. The door collapsed on top of Laina, and he could only listen to her cries of pain.
"I can't get this off, Laina," he rasped. "The explosion, it blew it off its hinges."
"Gas line…" she breathed. "It had to have been a gas line, from an explosion or something."
Ash's face tensed as he made another go for the door. He lodged his foot into one of the few sturdy handrails, helping him to raise the door almost a foot. He sighed in relief when Laina slowly crawled out onto the staircase, kicking the door once she fully emerged.
"A bomb…" she said. "Of all the things the G-Men could've used to try and destroy the Empire, they choose a bomb."
"You rang?"
Ash and Laina both turned around, but only saw more smoke in their way. A few shady shadows stood before them, but they weren't discernable.
"Who's there?" Ash trembled. He could feel Pikachu shifting around nervously in his pack.
"Ash!" a voice cried out. Relief flooded through Ash.
"Brock!" he shouted. "What happened?"
"The bomb worked, Ash!" a different voice said. He recognized it as Sanus'.
"Are you insane?!" Laina shouted. "You nearly killed us! It sent a gas line all the way up here into flames!"
"Sorry, I don't work for the gas companies! But can you get this bloody door out of the way?"
"Yeah," Ash called back. "I can try, anyways." He groaned under his breath and knelt beside the door once more. "Can I get some help with this?"
Two more pairs of hands struggled silently to lift the mammoth door off of the staircase. He could hear Laina's grunts of effort to his right, but he couldn't tell who helped him on the right. Was it Brock? Sanus?"
They managed to lift the door almost a yard into the air, but they couldn't push hard enough to lean it against the wall. Their arms quavered violently under the sheer weight of the thing. Ash had to close his eyes to concentrate on keeping it in the air.
"Everyone, go!" he heard Sanus shout. "Get past the door, while you can!"
Ash could only feel the G-Men crawl under him and the door. He felt Dawn's frail body go through first, then Brock's. Three more men crawled past, but Laina and Sanus still held the door fast.
"Alright, everyone's through! On three, we-"
"Wait, there were eight of you back in the alley!" Ash shouted. "Who's missing?"
Sanus fell silent for an agonizing moment. The smoke in Ash's lungs threatened to end him at any moment. He coughed and collapsed onto all fours, sending the door crashing into his back. Sanus and Laina backed up just in time, their toes missing being crushed by the door by an inch.
"Ash!" everyone cried. Sanus frantically dug at the inside of the door, only lifting it an inch or so. Ash's eyes only opened halfway – he could barely make out Sanus, kneeling beside him.
"Just hang on, Ash! We can-"
"No, Sanus. You need to go. You're only wasting time!"
"Don't say that, damnit!" he shouted, pounding on the door in frustration. Another figure, probably Brock, clawed at the door with Sanus. "We're getting you out of here! I'm not letting you die!"
Silence fell between the two as the flames around them grew hotter and hotter.
"I'm staying here," Laina announced.
"You're crazy!" one of the men said. Sanus still toyed with the door, positioning himself strenuously to try and get the door off.
"No, I'm not. I'm not leaving Ash here to die on his own." Laina knelt by the door and felt around for Ash's hand, clutching it delicately.
"If any are you leaving," Ash shouted, "do it now! Either Laina and I die, or everyone will!"
Sanus nodded. "Thank you, Ash." With that, he darted up the staircase amidst a thundering of footsteps. Ash watched everyone disappear from sight through the slit the door provided. Dawn's silhouette dashed up the stairs without a second glance at him. He couldn't help but laugh.
"The hell is so funny?" Laina cried.
"The fact that we're dying, actually. I never thought that I'd get to die under a half-ton door."
Laina moaned and laid down painstakingly, meeting Ash's eyes with hers. "Who says we're gonna d-"
"Don't kid yourself, Laina. Either this door suffocates me, some goons come across us and kill us, or the building's gonna fall with us in it."
He paused. "No, not us. Just me. Laina, you have to go."
"Ash, I'm not leaving you." Her voice thickened, and Ash could tell she was crying. A teardrop fell just beyond the door and sizzled on the burning concrete. "I'm staying right here."
Her hand gripped onto his tighter. Ash tried to wiggle his arm around to his pack, but it wouldn't budge. "Piakchu?" he moaned.
A low "Chuu…" escaped from behind him.
Ash grinned. "You need to get out of here, buddy. I can't have you sticking around anymore."
His pokémon said nothing, didn't even move.
"Pikachu, I said go. I'm not letting you die, too!"
Pikachu grunted defiantly. Ash groaned in frustration before knocking his head on the ground. "Why won't you leave?"
"Because neither of us want you to die alone," Laina said. "We'd rather die with you than leave you for dead."
Ash smiled. "I-I…" he stammered. But words couldn't convey his gratitude.
And so they lay there amidst the smoke and wreckage, waiting for something, anything, to break the silence. Ash stroked the knuckle of Laina's thumb, admiring its softness despite the coarse smoke. His eyes began to water, and he coughed himself until he nearly choked.
New footsteps pounded all around him. Quietly at first, but then they grew louder by the second.
"Are they coming back for us? The G-Men, I mean?" Ash asked feebly. "Is that them?"
"No…" Laina trailed.
Ash didn't have to ask to know what she meant.
Jasper didn't react when the explosion shook his chopper. The grunts aboard, Hinbern included, all clung to their seats and panicked as smoke rose above the rooftops, but Jasper only smiled out the window.
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…" he sang to himself.
Hinbern looked in his direction as the copter blades above them whirred to life. "Did you say something?" he asked. The chopper, the largest one Jasper could say he'd ever been in, began to rise off the ground.
"What the fuck are we doing?" Jasper stood and shouted, making everyone flinch. Hinbern pushed him back into his seat and grabbed the egg from him, placing it on the seat next to Jasper.
"We're just evacuating, remember?" Hinbern said insouciantly. "Now that a bomb has apparently gone off, we need to get you as far away from here as possible."
"No!" Jasper forced himself out of Hinbern's grip and leapt out of the helicopter's open door, landing roughly on the headquarter's roof. The smoke began to attack his nostrils, but Jasper only laughed it aside.
"Get your ass back in here!" Hinbern shouted as the chopper began to descend back to the roof. The two grunts inside only stared pejoratively.
"I'm not leaving here until we have Ketchum!" Jasper shouted. Hinbern sighed and sat down. No way he'd be able to do anything without getting himself killed, he reasoned.
A band of grunts burst from the penthouse door and bounded for the other helicopter on the opposite end of the helipad. The grunts inside Hinbern's chopper all aimed their rifles at them, but Jasper held up his hand to hold their fire. As he watched them hijack the helicopter and fly off, "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…" still rang through his mind.
"Jasper!" a grunt shouted after the chopper flew off. "Are you insane? Those were the G-Men! They were the fuckers that blew the goddamn building up!"
The executive only laughed. "Does it matter if they escape or not anymore?" he called back. He stared at the penthouse door, willing for Ash to come stumbling through.
The smoke grew thicker with each passing minute, and soon even Jasper couldn't stifle his coughs and hacks. Another two minutes passed before he threw up his hands and turned back to his cargo chopper.
"This bastard isn't getting me killed! He can go rot in hell for all I-"
"Jasper!" Hinbern shouted, pointing toward the penthouse door. He turned back in anticipation and nearly burst with excitement when he saw four grunts, leading a bruised and beaten Ash toward him. They held Ash's arms behind his back with handcuffs.
Jasper smiled in glee when another four grunts pushed Laina, also bound in handcuffs, along the terrace. Neither of them put up any kind of a fight, staring Jasper dead in the eye as they approached him. The executive wafted the smoke aside and stood up to Ash, his nose a mere inch away from his. Their breaths butted heads, their eyes stared each other down, waiting for the other to say, "Draw!"
"You know, Ash," Jasper chuckled, gesturing toward Laina, "when you had her at gunpoint, back in my office several weeks ago, I must admit that I was rather…impressed. I even thought of you, if only for an ephemeral moment, as a legitimate threat."
"Hurry up, damnit!" Hinbern shouted. Jasper waved him aside and nodded to one of the grunts standing beside Ash. A syringe of sea-blue liquid jabbed into the rear of Ash's neck, making him gasp slightly in shock. Laina did the same when an identical syringe struck her. The chemical seeped into their bodies, making them crumple at his feet.
Jasper leaned down into Ash's face and grinned maniacally. "But it looks like we don't have to worry about that anymore, do we?"
Ash said nothing, defiantly staring Jasper down with his last ounce of consciousness. A slight rustling in his parcel invited a third Sleeping Syringe into it.
Jasper stood up and outstretched his arms toward Hinbern as he climbed back onto the chopper. "Didn't I tell you?" he bragged.
Hinbern only nodded and watched the grunts drag Ash and Laina's limp bodies aboard the aircraft. The door closed once everyone boarded, and soon it rose steadily into the air, flying in the same direction that the G-Men went. Not that it mattered where they went at this point.
Jasper covered his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. Finally, he thought, finally this son of a bitch was all his! Finally, he could-
"Oh shit," a grunt breathed. A frown replaced Jasper's smile, and he found out why when he looked out the window. The mighty Rocket Headquarters, one of the tallest buildings in all of the Northern Sector, plunged to the earth in a column of fire and smoke. He could faintly hear the cries of the bystanders on the ground below him. As the chopper flew away, the smoke and debris seemed to beckon Jasper to his lost Empire. The air that filled the void where the building once stood mocked Jasper with its emptiness, with its lack of substitute for his sanity.
He closed his eyes and lay against his head rest, smiling faintly, clutching the egg tighter to his chest. "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall..."
Hey guys! I'm really sorry that the hiatus was extended longer than it should have – this was a really tough chapter to write!
But on another note, I need some help from you guys! Once I'm done with Vengeance, I'll begin one of my next fics, called "The Syndicate Games". It's gonna be a crossover between Pokemon and The Hunger Games, where four grunts from each of the six villainous syndicates (Rocket, Magma, Aqua, Galactic, Plasma, and Flare) are forced into the Hunger Games. But I'm gonna need a lot of characters to pull this off – and that's where you come in! If you want your OC featured in this upcoming fic, shoot me a PM for details!
Credit to Motherflipping Oak and PhoenixLyric for beta reading! PhoenixLyric has an awesome story going called 'Primary', and it's definitely worth a read if you haven't checked it out. Motherflipping Oak also has some amazing oneshots!
Reviews are always appreciated, and thanks for reading!
-Chinsky