Chapter 37: Getting closer
00:51 AM (Japan Time), Monday July the 23rd…
"… Hmpf. At least going to one of the clubs I sponsor and using their "merchandise" I've been able to shake off some mood… Heh. That's the fate waiting for you, you damned brat."
"Ah. Then it is as I had thought."
"Damn it. You have to be overhearing me the whole time?"
"So? What will you do?"
"Che. You're trying to set up a fool's trap but I don't fall for it! I know that even my full power would have it hard resisting you, whose power has climbed to 48% ever since Thursday!"
"Hmpf… Correct…"
Yoru Yami stepped into the server room while looking just slightly satisfied but his mood got spoiled by Slur, who was standing next to the servers and folding her arms while having that smug look to her.
"And you think I'm an idiot, right?"
"Oh?"
"I know you're conspiring with the leech!"
"You mean "K. S."." She corrected.
"THE FUCKING DAMNED LEECH! THE FENCING WANNABE! THE ORWEL 1984 BIG BROTHER WANNABE! THE DRAGONFLY MAN!" He exploded from what seemingly was accumulated annoyance and exasperation and lifted his arms.
"W-whoa! Boss! What's the matter?" Yuriko ran in holding a broom as if it was an improvised weapon.
"… My frustration got the best of me. That thing's not needed: there isn't any intruder." He quickly pulled up a "slightly-annoyed" face and looked unimpressed.
"Huh… Alright. My bad…"
"No, no. It was a logical thing to do."
"By the way, Needle Man managed to sell some "Dark Chips" to a Panama guy who's begun to spread them get cash…"
"Good. Once the cash goes over the 10 million mark then Yamato Man will handle its retrieval while Cosmo Man posts up the data on them so that they go down as a hated pitiful human." He shrugged.
"Roger, Boss… Eh… I'll go back to the room."
"My bad."
"Huh! R-roger…"
Yuriko came out and closed the door: Yoru Yami fumed and then glanced at Slur again whose smile seemed to have grown.
"Now what? You'll spoil my "party"?"
"No. But I do not believe in overwhelming victory for you."
"Che. Whatever. As long as they realize I can evolve beyond their grasp I'll be satisfied enough. Now go invent Dragonfly Pokémon!"
"There is one: Yanyanma and its evolution Megayanma, introduced in the Generation IV… It shall evolve when leveling up and knowing the technique "Primaveral Power"…" She grinned.
"Grah! Whatever! Bust those 200-something things!"
"Wrong. The total number of species insofar is 491." Slur corrected with a shrug of the shoulders.
"WHAT? 491?"
"You have not been up-to-date. They began as 151 in Generation I, Generation II added 100 and summed up to 251 and Generation III added 135: they brought the total to 386… And now we have 105 new species thus summing up to 491… All in the space of over 11 years… Ever since that fated February the 27th, 1996…"
"This walking encyclopedia…!"
"So?"
"Che. It'd be insult IQ – sama by attacking an intelligent woman like you who could easily rule over others…! Consider yourself lucky!"
"Hmpf…"
She dematerialized and Yoru Yami snarled something: he came out of the room and headed out into a corridor while dragging a wooden chair: he violently threw it against the metallic wall and began to stomp on it and break it up: Needle Man looked on from the living room's entrance without being sure if to do something at all.
"Nya~h! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU! KS! LET RA'S AL GHUL COME KILL YOU WITH HIS COUNTLESS KILLING ARTS! LET THE JOKER KILL YOU AND LAUGH AT IT! LET HARLEY QUINN THROW YOU INTO A POOL OF ACID! LET BANE CRUSH YOU TO DEATH! LET MISTRESS POISON IVY SLOWLY POISON YOU TO DEATH! LET "HOLIDAY" KILL YOU AND LEAVE A POT OF ASH 'CAUSE HE'LL KILL YOU ON ASH WEDNESDAY~!"
Needle Man gulped and stepped back: he headed into Yuriko's room, the door of which was open, and looked at Yuriko, who'd taken out the sunglasses as she'd seemingly been reading a novel.
"Eh… Yuriko… Danna looks like he could kill someone a thousand times over before cooling off…" He whispered.
"Lovely. I now prefer Regal to him. He wasn't so creepy!"
"Yeah, I know… But… Didn't ya have that big sis…?"
"Mariko? Well, yeah… But I told her already: the Yuriko she knew is dead and in her place is the freak I am." She sighed.
"Huh! Eh… I'll shut my trap."
"Wise idea…"
"Man. I now think we'd been better off staying in the prison, even. This guy is way TOO scary… Guess we're outta our league…"
"Yes. Unfortunately enough…"
"… What should we do, my comrades?" Yamato Man whispered to the others close by.
"Huh… Well… Maybe if we came up with an overwhelming strike at the Net Police and hit them hard and deep his mood would improve? Ya know…" Cloud Man suggested.
"Well. It's not a bad idea." Swallow Man seemed to agree.
"The problem would be the "Subspace"… Not even the "Regi" quartet would keep their hands tied for long…" Cosmo Man warned.
"I've got an idea." Freeze Man announced.
"Yeah? What's that?"
"Let's send a copy of each Pokémon somewhere. With 491 of them loose across the world ALL of the Net Police and the other groups will have to move it… Chaos! Worldwide chaos!" Freeze Man announced.
"Bravo, Danna!"
"Shah, shah, shah! That sounds cool! Let's use the 3D engine from the Pokémon Battle Revolution game so as to rip the whole of 'em along with their move-sets! Shah, shah, shah!" Needle Man suggested next.
"What's this? Worldwide chaos, you say?" Yoru Yami popped his head into the room.
"Yeah, Boss. The guys were trying to come up with something to improve your mood, see, and Freeze Man came up with this. Not even the whole of the Net Police and the "Subspace" can handle more than one at the same time if we set them at Level 100 with max stats." Yuriko smiled at him.
"Yes! Using something which those herds of fools don't give a crap about to create chaos… IQ – sama would approve of it!"
"Shah, shah, shah! And we then say the online battling system went berserk and that it released all data. We've got a scapegoat which is believable too." Needle Man added.
"You've already though this far ahead…! Splendid." He rubbed his hands in excitement.
"What are we waiting for? Let's go hack Nintendo's servers!" Freeze Man rallied the others.
"Let the campaign begin!" Yamato Man exclaimed.
"Time for a stormy night! Mwah, hah, hah!"
"Hmpf. At last! Some thrill!" Swallow Man grinned.
"Let them realize the bitterness of their powerlessness."
"Shah, shah, shah! I'm comin' long for the ride: no – one expects us to hit the servers so as to suck off the data at 35 minutes past midnight! Lead the way, Danna – sama~!"
Needle Man de-materialized and apparently left the system with the others while Yoru Yami formed a psychotic-like face which made Yuriko gulp, even: he silently walked off.
"Glory to the forever grand IQ – sama~! MWAH, HAH, HAH! HAH, HAH, HAH! HAH, HAH, HAH! HAH, HAH, HA~H!"
"… I still think he should have his head checked out." She grimly muttered while rolling her eyes.
"You lowlifes lose!"
"But we haven't begun yet… Isn't that getting over-confident?"
"I'll bury you lowlifes!"
"Classical." She muttered in English.
"Is that not it?" Slur suddenly appeared inside of her PET.
"Yikes. Slur – sama…!"
"Hmpf… Let them laugh… Those who laugh last laugh better… This is but the beginning of a desperate gamble… Heh, heh, heh… Heh, heh, heh…"
Everyone here is way TOO creepy. I still prefer Regal to them!
00:55 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Hum. There's an isolated house about 200 meters from here and the reason we've left the car 1,5 kilometers away was to get closer without making noise… We have these IR binoculars which will allow us to see if that house is the place…"
"Huff, huff… Yes, Commander Alamantz… Can't we rest a bit…? We've driven for 3 hours before climbing down: it's close to 1 AM and I barely slept last night, sir…"
"You can stay here. I'll continue. We've got the radios."
"Roger, sir."
Alamantz and Komero were trekking up a path on a mountain somewhere and Komero looked rather tired: Alamantz shrugged and continued while heading for the figure of a house: he climbed up a wall and found a ledge so he got face-down there and brought up the binoculars.
"Huh? A Net Navi… Looks like an Egyptian sarcophagus…"
He spotted Pharaoh Man hovering over the yard entrance of the house where a truck had been parked at: his eyes were closed and he was seemingly sleeping.
"He must be the sentry…"
"Egyptian sarcophagus, you say, sir…? No way!"
"What's wrong, Komero?"
"Pharaoh Man, sir!"
"P-Pharaoh Man! I remember the incident he caused. But I thought he'd been deleted?"
"He self-destructed. His remains changed into Forte and Dr. Wily used the "Ultimate Program" to build the "Gospel" monster, sir…"
"So he should be impossible to restore… There must be some tale to it but looks like this is the place, alright."
"Should we call for Charles and Davis to come?"
"Hmmm… I don't want to start a battle and if we Video Man, Burner Man and that Legato fellow are in league… It'd be 4 on 1. Too dangerous: we need to contact the "Subspace" instead but since Dr. Lartes told me that Vadous needed some rest… Some hours' time won't make much of a difference, I believe…" Alamantz muttered.
"Roger, sir."
"We've confirmed the location: let's just pick the coordinates and pull back for some hours."
"A-alright… Time to walk back 1.3 kilometers… Man."
"Don't complain. Walking is good for the health."
"I knew that, sir, but, even so…"
"Cheer it up!"
Alamantz silently got back to ground level and the group walked away: Alamant heard a vibration and took out his silenced cell phone to check it out.
"Huh. Lopez is calling… What's up, Lopez?"
"The "Neo Gospel" guys are hitting the Nintendo servers!" Lopez reported to him.
"What? The Nintendo servers, you say!"
"Yeah! I've got a buddy who's a maintenance clerk there. The guys attacked all at the same time and swept through the firewalls yet they seem to be aiming for some other thing because they're looking up the list of collaborator companies…"
"They must want to know in which spot of the whole system some data is at, but then again I don't see what they'd get."
"Plenty. Headlines, maybe? "Neo Gospel Strikes Back: Nintendo Servers Assaulted by "Darkloids"!"… Don't you think so?"
"Good point."
"Oh crap!"
"What's wrong, Komero?"
"The Pokémon! They must want to rip ALL Pokémon from the "Battle Revolution" game using their online battling system and set them loose: the 491 of them!"
"By all the… 491!"
"Shit. What do we do? I called Davis but he alone…"
"Call the Net Police and Vadous! NOW!"
"R-roger, sir!"
"Screw doctor's orders. If we don't stop them now then the guys can easily collapse all defenders because they'd overwhelm us! We gotta stop them NOW! Fortunately, downloading 491 3D sprites and all associated data must take a while…"
"Yeah. And they then need to set the EVs and IVs to determine their max stats… They can't do that in a breeze! The move-set is limited to 4 moves and they surely want all of them to be offensive. But they gotta pick if they want to add TM & HM moves, Move Tutor moves or breeding moves. It'll surely take them some hours even if they work all night on it there's just 8 of them to handle 491 of them… Well. 487 because they have the four "Regi" guys in the Reverse Cyber World…" Komero listed.
"I contacted Omega, who'd gotten a hold of the news. He's waking up Blood Shadow and Sigma and heading there."
"Good. What about the Net Police?"
"Detective Misaki was on duty tonight and he dispatched Prism Man: Laika and Ijuuin are sending their Navis there."
"And Davis?"
"He's going after loading up his flash memory with Program Advances."
"He mustn't trust Charles to do a good job right after being woken up all of a sudden… I still think they should have drills like in the army when they teach you how to get ready at any time of the day or night." Alamantz muttered.
"Please, sir… Let's not bring that up again."
"Wait a min… Kir Osh has contacted me and he offers some extra help: he's going to pick the "Tzar" game and spawn a lot of units with "immortal" cheat on them and hacked stats so that they overwhelm the guys and stall for time while we get there…"
"Ah! I like that. Send them plenty of Janissary units."
"Sure. Crusaders, Janissaries, Stone Golems, Genies, Dragons, Ninja, Mounted Samurai, War Chariots… And some Mages with the "Thunder", "Freeze", "Fire Rain", "Fire Beam" and "Confusion" spells… Some cannon fodder in the form of Ghosts, Dwarves, Skeletons and Orcs will do too as he'll set Magical Gateways to spawn them…"
"Hmpf… They're in for a Hell! By Shiva!"
"Yikes. Shiva the Destroyer…!"
"Good. Kir Osh is fast: it'd seem he had all of those ready in case something like this was to happen. Being the gamer type he is then he's got some unexpected ideas too." Lopez chuckled.
During the conversation, the two of them had continued walking and they soon spotted the white Citroën BX parked there: they climbed in and quickly headed south.
"By the way! What about…?"
"We located the place but there's 4 Navis. Let's put in on hold: those guys are Priority One!"
"Roger. I'll keep my trap shut."
"Good. We mustn't falter: "Neo Gospel" is the main trouble."
"So it would seem, gentlemen."
"Who…? YIKES!"
"By all the…!"
Both gasped as Slur suddenly appeared on the middle rear seat, sitting there and folding her arms.
"Good luck."
She de-materialized all of a sudden while directing a smug smile at them and both sighed in relief.
"Alright. We know she's the "rebel" but she seems to be fond of testing us out too… What a fright!" Komero uttered.
"Truly."
"Oho. The cannon fodder has started to get the attention of Freeze Man and Cloud Man… It'd seem they've altogether downloaded 277 sprites insofar, from "Fushigidane" to "Oshubame" in Gen III." Lopez reported with obvious amusement.
"Good."
"The military units and magic units are battling Needle Man and Swallow Man… Those two have downloaded from number 278, "Camome", to number 333, "Tyltto"…"
"What's next?"
"Well… Yamato Man alone had picked from number 334, "Tyltalis", to number 399, "Bippa", Gen IV… He's running into trouble with the ninja guys and the wizards."
"And Cosmo Man?"
"Heh. Cosmo Man? He's being overwhelmed by Catapults, Heavy Catapults and Crossbows. He's picked from number 400, "Beadaru", to number 450, "Kabaldon"…"
"So they're still 41 species short, eh?" Komero grinned.
"And the real fighters are but 69 seconds away: they've gathered up."
"Heh, heh, heh. Let's see how they handle it."
"Huh. The earlier cannon fodder got done in by Cloud Man and Freeze Man downloaded from number 451, "Scorpi", to number 473, "Mammoo"… 18 left… The fighters will reach them in 31 seconds."
"As long as we give them some blows…"
"Then it doesn't matter if they run off…"
"Yamato Man's gotten from number 474, "Porygon-Z", to number 485, "Heatran"… 13 seconds before contact…"
"They're close." Komero gasped.
"New report… Needle Man picked from number 486, "Regigigas", to number 489, "Phione"… 5 seconds left before contact!"
"5 seconds and 3 species left…!"
"Cloud Man's picked up number 490, "Manaphy", and up to number 491, "Dakrai"… Contact! The fighting's begun! Davis is going for Cosmo Man, Search Man for Needle Man, Blues for Freeze Man… Omega's picked Cloud Man, Blood Shadow tackled Swallow Man and Sigma is handling Yamato Man… And they're done with the downloading… Now let's see what they do next… Huh?"
"What now?"
"They're pulling out but at least their overall HP did get to fall below the 25% mark! The strategy was a success! PHEW!"
"Hmpf. Let them come. We'll be ready." Alamantz grinned.
"Sure. Now let's organize the retrieval strategy for later this morning: maybe by 9 AM would be good."
"Go rest, Lopez. You've earned it."
"T-thanks, sir… Fua~h… Last time I stay awake with hot chocolate…! But at least we're gonna wrap up this "abduction interlude" thing…"
Gentlemen! This interlude is about to end!