This story is co-developed and edited by Titan127.
Disclaimer: Pokémon is a registered property of Nintendo, the Pokémon Company, and GameFreak. This work respectfully uses the world and characters of the Pokémon series, with no intent of harm on the original creators. Please support the official releases of the Pokémon franchise.
Chapter 29: The Final Heist (5,587 words)
The night was wrong, and Kris woke up to it.
She knew it was wrong because her eyes didn't lag to attention. She needed no time to adjust and she didn't feel like stretching. The blanket of night meant nothing. She was utterly awake, and in the moment, it was terrifying. Shifting slowly on her feet, she approached her room's main window, pushed the curtain aside, and peeked through the blinds. Her soundless view of the approach to the League was normal—no activity anywhere, barring a streetlight struggling to keep itself alive and blinking like the shifting lights of the city past the forest.
Still, Kris was unsatisfied. She slipped on some rubber-padded socks, threw a jacket over her pajamas for good measure, and felt her way to the door to let herself out into the Champion's Suite. In the hallway, a small bar of light traced the wall's perimeter and let her see where she placed her feet. The subtle glow barely fought back the blanket of night.
She crawled through the halls, where she was the only sign of life. As she passed Saber's door, Kris considered waking him to make sure she was just being a paranoid loser and had nothing to worry about. Wait, what was she thinking? She was an adult; she could deal with her own problems. She had to.
Nothing was out of the ordinary. Yet. Despite that, she couldn't shake the feeling. Her destination was the League's daycare center. All her Pokémon were holed up there, either asleep or bored out of their minds, and she had the overwhelming urge that she'd need them.
When she arrived at the elevator, she slammed the button with her fist. It didn't arrive as quickly as she liked, and she found herself rapidly tapping the button knowing full well it wouldn't make a difference. A sound chimed, the doors cracked, and her vision was flooded with light from inside the box. She similarly agitated the interior panel button until she was swept downstairs to the dedicated nursery floor.
She had class tomorrow, no, today, and exams were upon her in the next couple of months. More than once had Saber found her sleeping in her textbooks. It was cutting back the time she had to train, but she couldn't fall behind. She couldn't fall behind. She couldn't fall behind. Kris held her head, realizing that she'd developed one hell of a migraine. That slightly tense, high-pressure air inside the elevator deepened the throbbing.
When the doors swung open to the daycare, an Indigo League guard stared her down. He was positioned in front of an unoccupied reception desk, halls on his left and right leading to each indoor grotto. A Poké Ball gripped defensively in his hand caught her eye. He asked, "What are you doing here, Miss?"
"Can't sleep! I want to take my Pokémon for a stroll out on the plateau," she said.
"I've been ordered not to check out any Pokémon for the night. Upping security protocols, and all that," he replied.
"Right. Thanks anyway." She kept her straight face as much as possible, but inside her head, alarm bells screeched over that migraine.
His hand was shaking around that Poké Ball for some reason and he didn't drop the posture even as she pushed the elevator button to leave. She didn't recognize his face, and judging by his response, he didn't recognize hers.
She stepped back inside and waited for the elevator doors to close. They sealed shut and she let out a massive sigh of fear, of bewilderment, of surprise. Her face contorted every which way as she couldn't settle on one emotion, but she forced a blank expression when she realized there was only a few seconds to act. When the guard realized the elevator wasn't moving, he'd undoubtedly check. Which means she'd have to make the first move.
Krist slammed her fist on the door button. She quickly fell to her bullet start in the moments before the door peeked. Fingers gently brushing the ground, one leg bent. The doorbell chimed. She kicked.
"Hey, what are you—" The man was cut off as she cleared the opening doors and slammed the force of her whole body into him. Relatively small as she was, she packed a punch, and the man was sent flying across the room into the opposite wall. He screamed, punctuated by a splitting crack. His left leg twisted at an odd angle and his arm didn't fare much better. The Poké Ball he held bounced softly across the floor until it came to rest. Kris stood over the broken man.
"Look, buddy, I'm the Champion's daughter, and not a single guard here would keep me from my Pokémon." Towards a friend she might have felt bad abusing her privileged position. But here, she needed answers. "Who the hell are you?"
"Fuck you, girlie," he said.
She slammed her foot into his good arm. Another crack. Another scream "I asked you a question."
Aside from groans of pain, he kept his mouth shut. Smart, all things considered. She took in a breath to cool down, stepped back, and looked around the floor. Everything was suspiciously quiet, as only the residential parts of the building were completely dead at night. Hairs on the back of her neck still stood on end, but that thrashing gave her a little more control of the situation.
Returning her gaze to the man she said, "I don't know what exactly is going on here, but you've got me a bit fired up. I'm pretty familiar with the politics my parents get up to, and I'm sure I could argue for your immunity if you let me know who you work for."
He spat at her.
"Your loss." She shrugged. Gently, she brought down her fist and bonked him on the head. It put him out cold. Gently.
Kris rummaged around his clothes to find the keys to the lockers behind the desks, but also came across a suspicious little device pinned over his left peck. She rolled it around in her hands, realizing it was a communication device of some sort. Knowing the guards usually used walkie-talkies, that only added fuel to her fire. It crumpled in her closed fist.
She hopped over the desk and used the key to find her locker key and then used that key to open her locker. Six capsules—one Poké Ball, four Ultra Balls, and a Luxury Ball—and her nursery key stared her back. Hopping back over, she took off down the cream-gold hallway, turning once left, then right, then left, then left, disorienting herself among the endlessly featureless walls. When she arrived at her door, she unlocked the panel and pushed inside to the lush, artificial jungle in which she stored her team.
It was dark, of course, dimmed to let her diurnal Pokémon snooze the night away. She reached to the wall, feeling for a miniscule slider until she got her fingers around it, and pushed it up all the way to bring daylight to the abode.
Leo, her Heliolisk, was the first up, summoned to consciousness by the sun. The creature expanded his neck frill to bask in the light. Zara and Axe rumbled awake soon after. Rei, her Zweilous, was already eyes-open and arguing amongst herself, the two heads snapping at each other, and Eve, her Seviper, slithered out of a burrow in search of warmth.
She straightened her back and brushed hair from her eyes. She had work to do.
Proton adjusted his headset and leaned into his laptop. From where he was sitting, not a single thing could go wrong. He was holed up in the condemned building with his various security tools laid out and plugged into power lines from outside, something another grunt had help him set up. A few spare monitors played feeds from security cameras inside. The few he managed to grab, anyway. He tapped the mic.
"You're go for the operation," he said in a deep, professional voice.
"Don't try to act tough, kid. That's not your brand," retorted Petrel through his wire.
How else was he supposed to control the shaking? They still didn't have tabs on the Champion's suite, even if they had a few of the adjacent cameras. No matter how much they prepared for this, no matter how much security he cracked and safeguards he put in place, any amount of bad luck would wake the entire Indigo League up and make all of them undoubtedly, inarguably, comprehensively fucked.
Except him. Technically, he could put a boot through is tech and disappear off the grid. He didn't trust a single grunt not to rat him out if they were caught, so it was the only way he'd never be found.
"F-fine, fine, just keep on. I've cleared the back stairwell and I'll scramble the door security when you get there," he said. He found himself constantly refreshing the central database program, where he'd temporarily given himself max-level privileges. They were doomed if any of the security staff figured out a worm was wiggling around. He'd pull down his cap, but he needed to see.
Proton glanced at the cameras. One was starting to fizz out, probably fifteen years old or so. Those League assholes really need to update their tech. Just as with the database, he was habitually glancing and checking and double-checking. Years of doing this had conditioned him to not overlook any details, but his anxieties were factoring more into his obsession here.
A voice perked up in his ear. "Yoohoo, we're here, bossman! Crack this door, would you?"
Squeak. Go figure. He heard her humming constantly over the radio frequency. He figured that Petrel would shut her up so as not to jeopardize the mission, but no. No, he couldn't just have some peace to himself.
"Hey Tomo, open the door, why don't you?" Squeak squeaked.
He slammed his finger on the hotkey and let them figure it out. They'd only have ten seconds to get everyone through the door. That's as long as he was willing to cut the signal. If anyone touched the door after ten, the alarms would fire. He closed his eyes, took in a breath, and waited.
Squeak smiled to herself, balled her fists at her chest, and shook with glee. Oh, this was so exciting! Just the thought of going behind the Pokémon League's back gave her enough energy to power the Region. But what would happen if they got caught? Nah, they couldn't get caught. Petrel was a deceitful badass, Proton could hack his way out of an iron box, Ariana could probably buy the entire police force if they got arrested, and she might just be able to talk so much that even jail wouldn't want her. And all they had to game was the undeniable top spot as the greatest criminal organization the world had ever known. Riches beyond compare! Cool new Pokémon ripe for the taking! Her heart couldn't take it.
She stared back at their entourage of grunts. In the shadowed basements of the Indigo League, their black uniforms let them disappear into the walls. For the sake of stealth, they weren't wearing their stylish duds with the "Big R", though if you asked her, that would make this job all the cooler. Hadn't the bosses ever seen a heist movie? At least they had balaclava to balance out their coolness factor.
On Proton's signal, they burst through the door into the archive room, one after another, quickly as possible. Squeak felt like she was under the northern lights—in total darkness, a beautiful blue glow permeated from seemingly endless rows of servers. She couldn't see any of the outer walls. Directly in front of her, a walkway forward eventually faded into a nonexistent horizon. The panel lights on the floor were the only indicating that the Rockets weren't in a bottomless abyss.
And boy, it was cold. Hella cold. It must have been below zero in the room to keep all the electronics from overheating. Couldn't the League spare some thought for normal people coming through? The door resounded behind them when it slammed shut. No alarms sounded.
"Spread out," whispered Petrel, harshly. He was hunched over even more than usual. "Our guy's got the cameras on loop and the motion sensors jammed for now. Take what you can and don't waste time."
She flopped down some goggles and let her eyes be filled with green. All these cool gadgets the Boss "acquired" made her feel like a super spy! Her teammates all spread out among the archive room, filling the space between servers like insects in a colony. Like a colony of Bug-types, they filled in every crack of their adopted nest and picked it dry of all its resources. She herself stepped down to the Dragon-type row and walked another twenty paces down until a label of "unknown coloration Dratini" caught her eye. She inspected the digital keypad. The screen was the same fluorescent blue.
"Five, five, five," she whispered to herself as she punched it in, muffled in her mask. She had the code list for each server block stored away somewhere, but she didn't need it after glancing it over a few times. The keypad waited a few moments, displaying "STANDING BY" and then "COMPLETE".
The panel slid open. Inside, storage-state Poké Balls sat on individual pedestals connected to the PC server. Squeak disconnected each one and threw them in a sack she carried. Pleased with herself, she skipped—spring, boing, bounce—to the next block of interest. Haughty thoughts swirled in her head about all the cool stuff she'd be able to show off to her friends when they got back. She swiped some more powerful Dragon-type Pokémon, all hers, nobody's but hers, and proceeded to the next row. Here were regional variants of Nihon-native Pokémon. You know, cool stuff. A few other grunts mingled between her, taking their own preferred pickings. All around her, hundreds of thousands of capsules were pilfered from the League's endless library of creatures.
As she busied herself looting, a voice crackled into her ear. "Hey, uhh, we've got a problem."
"Are you just being a woobie again?" she teased.
"No! Somebody just took the elevator out of the Champion's suite." Squeak could almost hear his dampening armpits. For such a cool guy he advertised himself as, he really needed to work on the whole keeping cool thing.
"Well, just keep an eye on them. We still have time to bail if the League goes on alert."
The voice in her head went silent. However, the uneven breathing was loud and clear and kind of disgusting. She nabbed a few more Poké Balls before he said, "Okay. Big problem. She's got company."
Squeak tied her bag closed and tip-toed back to the central isle of the dark archive, where Petrel also had a hand to his receiver. She watched her step across the invisible floor until she stood next to him. Now that she thought about it, she had no idea why she was second for this mission. He glanced over at her.
"It's that damn Masuta kid," the scoliotic man groaned. Proton was probably giving a play-by-play in his communicator as well. "I don't think she knows exactly what we're doing, because she hasn't alerted anyone else."
Squeak eyed the LEDs that marked the main elevator through the darkness. The number was falling. Seven. A minute of wait. Six. Another minute. Five. She was checking every floor.
She reached down and touched her toes, then arched her back to stretch every muscle into action. Squeak loaded a Poké Ball in her hand in tandem with the executive. A few grunts behind, not in-the-know due to lacking receivers—to make sure the excessive radio traffic didn't get them found out—followed suit.
In the seconds before B5 changed to B6, encompassing red drowned the blue.
The deafening screech at the sixth basement floor ordered her Pokémon to action. As she held her ears in pain, Zara, Rei, and Axe burst out, blowing the half-opened elevator doors into pieces.
Kris knelt in pain inside the box, unaware of what it is that hit her. At least she knew that enemies were abound, and they were out for blood. She screamed through her broken senses, "You have to protect the servers!"
The earthquake in her head began to fade Her eyesight shook in every direction, unable to focus, and she watched the unlimited afterimages slowly overlap on figures in the dark. Through the ringing, she heard the high-pitched command, "Hyper Voice, again!"
She ordered her own Hyper Voice from Rei. The Zweilous, who had taken to the air in the server room, released her own deafening cry. Though it still pierced her eardrums, the impact of both destructive sound waves dampened each's individual impact and she was able to crawl from the elevator and drag herself to a defiant stand.
"I don't know who the hell you are, but I'm not in a good mood," she said, her own words muted through her head. "Leo, Sunny Day!"
She heard countless move orders at once. Axe placed his massive body before her and shone with reflective light, nearly every attack chiming like glass as they bounced off the reflective coating. Her Heliolisk finished charging power behind her and threw his ball of energy to the roof of the archive. It exploded with artificial sunlight. The server room was plain as day.
Before her were figures in black. They had Pokémon at the ready, including Weezing, Raticate, Golbat, Nidorino, and a lone Jigglypuff that had released the Hyper Voice. Dozens more filled her periphery between the severs, each with their own monsters. She was surrounded.
Kris couldn't risk damaging the servers at all. Pokémon were stored directly here. She spoke as fast as possible to command her team. "Crunch, Poison Jab, Dragon Claw! Anything close-quarters you have, just don't hit the machines!"
Axe lunged down the central walkway with his massive body and brought down his charged claws, tearing through a Quagsire that was too slow to dodge. Every Pokémon that successfully cleared unloaded their own counterattacks. Bite, Horn Attack, Air Cutter, every possible type struck the Haxorus's hide and he groaned in pain.
Through the enemy fire, Eve weaved into position and sunk her fangs into another Pokémon. Each individual opponent wasn't well trained or physically powerful, but there were just so many. An orange blur circled the roof and with each dive, she picked off Pokémon after Pokémon and slammed them into a far wall, but her most powerful fighter was being held back by the precarious situation.
"Rei, air support!" she shouted. Her Zweilous used Hyper Voice again, temporarily stunning most of the black-garbed people and their own fighters. But it was only a short reprieve, because that Jigglypuff wasn't in any way affected.
A beautiful song wafted through the air. Axe made to retaliate, but the Fairy-type move passed through his ears. It was too much. Combined with the constant fire the massive Pokémon was receiving, the powerful energy made him topple unconscious to the ground. An enemy Arbok closed in for the final attack, and she was milliseconds too late in reaching for his Poké Ball. Venomous fangs bared.
A swirling orange body tore dove like a meteor and smashed the Arbok into the floor. From the resounding impact, every light lining the floor shattered in sequence. Zara, in Axe's place, tore into opponents down their center line, dragging bloody marks through each Weezing and Venomoth and Fearow unfortunate enough to get in her way. Her fiery roar caught everyone off guard, even herself. Kris managed to level Axe's Poké Ball and recall the downed creature, leaving her four against the onslaught.
Eve's serpentine body swirled among the crowd of attackers, too slippery to be caught by attacks. Zara and Rei ripped through those they could pick off, the latter occasionally throwing another Hyper Voice to dampen the moves of every Pokémon present. That left Leo, who was defending her left flank down the first server row by sending Thunderbolts down the narrow path. To her unguarded right, a shadowy figure appeared, a small humanoid armed with vicious talons. A Sneasel.
She wasn't aware that it snuck up on her. It didn't announce its presence. She only realized it was there when its wicked claws tore a chunk from her side.
She was thrown to the ground and couldn't suppress the piercing shout that escaped her lips. Curled on the floor, she pressed her hands to her side in an attempt to keep the warm fluid from escaping, and her vision blurred again. Precious seconds passed while she was incapacitated. The shadowy figures stood over her.
"I gotta say, it was awfully stupid of you not to bring backup," said a high-pitched female voice.
Beyond him, Eve was overwhelmed by sheer numbers, Rei was forced to ground herself when an Air Slash clipped her wing, and a song from the Jigglypuff dropped Zara from the sky, the Charizard halfway between asleep and unconscious. Leo was backed against the elevator shaft by the same Sneasel.
"Did you really think you could take us all on your own? Just one little girl?" A male voice. The question burned her to the core, more than even the draining wound in her abdomen. She craned her head upwards, just enough to meet his eyes through the mask.
She wasn't just one little girl. She had to be able to face any obstacle without so much as a frown. That's what a Champion did. They never cracked, they never broke, and they never let themselves be overtaken. Kris slammed a stained knuckle into the floor and pushed herself up in agony. She had to. She had to. She had to. The man slammed his foot into her back, and her into the floor. She screamed in pain.
None in attendance had noticed that the elevator was moving again. The doors hung open to an empty shaft. Against the wall, the cables scraped against one another as the transport plummeted, having already stopped at a destination on a higher floors.
"Wait..." The head goon as he realized what was happening. The realization was dawning on Kris as well even as she faded from consciousness. He shouted, "Everybody, stand back!"
In the instant the elevator cleared the opening, twin waves of frigid energy sprayed forth. The beams crossed overhead and traced the floor and everything was buried under a thick layer of frost, coating the servers, people, and Pokémon alike. All were consumed by the ice. She watched it crawl up their bodies and overtake them even as they struggled and cried out. The air inside went from chilly to unnaturally frigid and it temporarily shocked Kris back to consciousness. The elevator touched ground. She whipped her head to the new arrivals. Two powerful Dragonite—draconic Pokémon with rounded yet muscular bipedal bodies—declared superiority through their onslaught. One was a common orange, but the elder and wiser of the pair proudly wore its reflective green scales. Behind them, her father and brother, in the traditional attire of the Dragon Clan, held out their arms to command.
"Get away from my daughter. Now." She had never before heard that bloodcurdling undertone in his voice, but the fear she felt under her father's presence was matched by her relief.
Both Dragonite exploded into the room, mercilessly freezing stragglers who tried to escape through the aisles of servers. The Sneasel jumped to meet them but was sent into the ground by a Dragon Claw.
Saber rushed to her side. Kris couldn't find strength to turn her head and meet his eye. However, his boisterous self-instruction while he wrapped a piece of ripped cloth tight around her eased her mind. She reached out an unsteady hand until she found his forearm. It rested there. In her periphery, she could see that the probably-leader managed to escape a freezing, only his boots encased in ice. In a frantic tone, he called his Weezing to defend him. A few other attackers that miraculously survived an arctic fate stood defensive between the statues of their comrades.
"The ice is thick enough to protect the servers," her father announced. "Let's go wild."
"Right!" said Saber as he finished tying her bandage. The warmth of his arm escaped her when he stood to fight and was replaced by that splitting cold that now permeated the room. He told her, firmly, to stay low. She didn't listen.
The two Dragon masters started down their unknown enemies. A standoff gave her space to push. She sent fire through her muscles, willing them to act despite all their insistence not to. Her body was heavy, but she didn't care. She rose. She slammed her foot into the ice to declare that she could, and would, stand.
"I said down!" Saber ordered. "You're too hurt. Let Dad and I deliver the almighty hammer of justice!"
"No." She tightened the bandage around her even harder and pulled herself between the two. The chill of ice awakened Zara as well, and when the Pokémon realized her Trainer was ready, she fell into a battle stance in parallel between both Dragonite, baring her claws. Her father cast her a furious glance, as did Saber, but a few moments of exchange brought them to understanding.
The criminals backed away, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. With their back to the elevator, and the stairwell in their vicinity, no more exits existed to allow them to slip out. The one with the high-pitched voice asked, "What do, boss?"
"We fight," he said.
"Won't we lose?"
"We lost a long time ago."
Kris didn't care about that hint of sadness in his voice. All she cared about was standing up and fighting like the Champion she was meant to be. The black-garbed intruders called their own attacks. Sludge Bomb, Hyper Fang, Crunch, it didn't matter. The three Masutas gave their orders.
"Hyper Beam!" Her father and Saber.
"Flamethrower!" Herself.
From the gaping maws of three Pokémon, beams of energy erupted that consumed all in their path as they rocketed across the main hallway. The white energy twirled and mingled with the flames until it was an unstoppable twister. What remained of the unknown enemies disappeared into pure, destructive light.
"What the hell were you thinking?"
Kris shrunk in the shadow of her father. On the hospital bed, she shuffled around inside the layers of cloth and medical equipment covering the wound in her side. She thought it was unnecessary. She'd slept off worse injuries before, but the League insisted she be taken to the infirmary. The man stood over her with his arms crossed, tapping his foot loud enough for the sound to ricochet inside the hospital room. His cape rippled with his every movement. He was the only blot of color against the stark white medical everything.
"I just wanted—"
He cut her off immediately with a resounding shout. The tone in his voice raised without an upper bound. "What you wanted was completely, utterly irresponsible! You didn't tell security. You didn't tell your brother. You didn't tell me."
"There wasn't any time! They would have been long gone if I roused everyone and scared them off," she said.
"I don't care, Kris. It's not worth risking your own safety."
"It's what a Champion would do!"
This seemed to stun her father. His features softened, he ran a hand through his disheveled hair, and he unfastened his cloak to sit on the edge of the hospital bed. A twinge of pain ran through her as he disturbed the flat bedding, but she wouldn't show it.
"A Champion is supposed to be a symbol for everyone in the Region. The whole reason we exist is because the League wants to give people someone to look up to" he began. Kris dropped her head. She hated the softness behind his words. "We drive crime down just by existing, we break political deadlocks by staring hard enough, and you know why? It's because people look at us and realize that others are worth believing in. It's not just you versus the world."
He turned his head to her. His vibrant red locks were a beacon amongst the white, though from certain angles, there were nigh-imperceptible grays hidden within. "You're doing something both your Mom and I did when we started out. I'm hoping you can dump the stupid kid inside you long before we did."
Her father reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder. Gentle, yet firm. Friendly, yet strict. She looked down at the bed and said, "Thanks, Dad."
Pushing himself from the bed, he refastened his cape. Whatever guard he'd dropped for a few moments raised anew with his full regalia. His cloak flowed in his wake as he exited the door of the hospital room, leaving her in a contemplative silence.
After a few seconds, he leaned his head back in the door. "Oh, and by the way, you're grounded."
She shouted after him as he slammed the door shut.
Lance used all his power to urge his simple walk forward. Hanging back to his left, a League reporter struggled to keep pace and nearly stumbled to the floor. To his right, the Viceroy's right hand clicked her heels at a breakneck speed. Pure fury was etched over her face. A few more stragglers of importance followed his stampede through the building. Lance called back to the reporter, "Get your microphone ready."
He fumbled with a massive camera bag and began to falter behind them. Saber, who shadowed at his side, quickly addressed him. "If you need my testimony, call. Meanwhile, I'll be giving her a piece of my mind and an extended lecture!"
Lance said nothing but pulled his son into a hug. Though he was surprised for a few moments, he returned the gesture. Lance gave him a few firm pats on the back for good measure. They separated, and without another word, Saber disappeared down to hall. He and his entourage resumed their advance.
His footsteps picked up as he turned the corner, door to the main lobby in sight. Fortunately, the infirmary was attached to the first floor with along with the in-house Pokémon Center for ease of access. He threw open the doors and made his presence clear. Law enforcement officers peppered every surface of the Indigo Plateau's main lobby, handcuffing criminals, turning on lights, dusting for prints, barring doors, and all of them stopped immediately to come to attention.
He scanned his eyes across the men and woman. Their navy-blue uniforms were a nearly identical color to the one he himself favored. Kneeling on the ground of the first floor were dozens garbed in black, restrained and unmasked. Almost all of them were burned, some completely unconscious, and the smell of fire filled his nostrils. Part of it might have been the multiple Arcanine on standby, the magnificent canine Pokémon growling to keep the more functional detainees in line.
"At ease!" Lance shouted. He approached the captain of the unit who stood in front of a bound, hunched man. Despite his command, the captain remained at attention until he spoke to her directly. "Captain, what do you know about them?"
"This one here was surprisingly talkative," she said, motioning to the purple-haired main on the ground. He was still alive, but barely. "They're Rockets."
He felt his blood boil in his heart as it pumped faster and faster. Lance knelt before the criminal, who raised his head and met the Champion's gaze.
"Why did you do this?" It wasn't a question. It was an interrogation.
He was surrounded by medical personnel who were treating his burns. Slurring his words, the purple-haired man said, "No reason. Just chasing a ghost."
Lance wasn't certain he wasn't delirious. He leveled another intense look at the captain. The woman seemed to back away for a few moments. She said, ""T-there might have been a team outside. They managed to sabotage some of the League's best digital security, but we haven't found any evidence of tampering within the premises."
"Anything else?" he asked.
"We, erm, confiscated their communication devices. They're using radio, but the leader's here is receiving shortwave across the whole Region. My team is working to track down the origin."
"Search the city to round up any stragglers. They couldn't have gone far." He knew the captain wasn't an idiot and already gave the command, but she still complied verbally. She barked a few more orders at her companions as they led Rockets outdoors to waiting transports.
"What will you do, sir?" the captain asked.
He would have to wait until their research on the radio system came up conclusive, plus getting correct approval from the council and Viceroy, plus more bureaucratic nonsense. He wanted to throw it all away and storm out of the building. The reporter, who had been waiting in anticipation with a microphone, jumped into position when he motioned. He didn't care that, by telegraphing himself, they'd have time to escape. He wanted them to know what was coming.
"They hurt my daughter," he said into the waiting mic. "When I find them, I'm going to destroy the Rocket Syndicate."
Hey, I'm on schedule this time!
I've been loving Pokémon Shield so far. For reasons that escape me, I'm attempting a blind nuzlocke (which is hopefully the first Nuzlocke I'll ever manage to complete, as I've dropped the other two I tried). Seven of my Pokémon have died, but I continue onward, if not for me, than for those I haven't lost yet. The unfortunate part of taking my team with a new Pokémon game is that I've been avoiding regular fanfiction archives for the series like the plague for fear of spoilers.
Six chapters remain. Chapter 30: Progeny premiers January 3rd. See you around.