A Threat turret spun lazily around in the far corner of a room. Henry tossed a nail-bomb inside, then took cover behind the wall.
The blast still knocked the air out of his lungs, and the ringing headache afterwards was like an iron spike being driven into his skull. Still, he clutched his pistol. It was his only lifeline after all. Well, except for his Shinx.
Taking an electricity-shooting kitten into a complex filled with dangerous robots wasn't really a good idea. Still, disabling robots with an electrified bite was good enough. It didn't seem to hurt in any noticeable way.
If it did… well, he'd have some explaining to do.
The loud clacking of a pistol slide was enough to get his Pokemon's attention. "Listen up, kiddo," he said. "Follow me, and stay out of sight. These machines will tear you apart." He scratched the Pokemon's chin gently. "You can trust me. You can trust the Receivers."
His squad – Andrew, Charlene, Dawn, Nigel and Luis – all looked at him. "We'll be getting closer to the heart soon. Keep your eyes peeled."
Nigel peeked into the next room. There were a few turrets there, nothing he couldn't handle. A few bullets and they were down for the count.
Soon, the group came to a T-junction leading in different directions. Luis and Andrew took the right, while Dawn and Nigel took the left.
"Right. We'll cover you," was all Nigel and Henry said.
Luis shoved the door open, bursting through. No turrets on this side. Good. He crept along the far wall.
They seemed to be in some mismatched building complex. Outside was a ruined construction site with tools and safety gear scattered around. A glint caught his attention. He squinted. There were no stars, clouds, or even a moon and sun ever since the Mindkill and subsequent reality failures.
The light moved closer glowing an angry yellow. Angry buzzing emanated from it.
"BACK! BACK UP!" he screamed, reaching for his pistol. Shoving Andrew, he continued. "RUN! Follow me! We gotta lose that thing!"
Andrew numbly chased after him, unable to discern what exactly had made his companion freak out.
They passed through the room they were currently in. back at the entrance, Luis took stock again. It seemed to be a ruined hospital, judging from all the flipped gurneys and ransacked cabinets. He shuddered. Being out of this area ASAP would be good.
Moving back to where the buzzing had originated, they found a small flying drone. Luis blasted it and showed it to Andrew.
"Threat shock drone," he said. "Here, I'll show you what it does."
The next 15 minutes of an explanation were spent holing up in a place that was clearly once a hunting supply shop. Luis moved over to a rack of air-guns and crossbows, motioning for Andrew to follow.
"You'd better take one," he said. "You've used an actual gun before, so these should be easy."
It took a few minutes for Andrew to work out the loading and priming, and some more to find the matching ammo and magazines, but before long he was off with a .30 cal spring-loaded air-rifle with a capacity of 5 pellets.
Luis picked out a .357 air rifle for himself, which held ten pellets and two extra cans of compressed air, Still, Andrew caught him looking at the extremely expensive 20mm caliber air guns.
"Wow, these are massive," Andrew stated.
"Yeah. Hey, give me a few spare Pokeballs. I'll need one of these 20mm caliber air guns. As for, you, get some extra containers of ammo off the shelf. Look for the .357 and .30 ones. Five of each should be a good start." Luis grabbed three compatible pellet mags for his rifle. It was far easier to load than Andrew's, which carried an internal tube mag.
A crossbow would be nice… but they were bulky things, in Luis' opinion. Besides, they were far too slow to load.
Luis fired on a security camera that had noticed them. The pellet's effect was immediate, causing the plastic shell to crack apart. Andrew noticed the camera, hanging limply by a strand of wire.
"Powerful, huh?" Luis said. Andrew nodded. If Luis' new rifle had the power to do that.. then what could his one do?
"There's a door. You think it leads deeper into this place?" Truthfully, deeper in would be the last place Andrew wanted to go. The kill-drone infested building was getting on his nerves.
"Be ready for anything," Luis said, as they took up positions either side of the door. He gave it a strong kick. The flimsy door flung outwards but did not rebound.
Fireballs rained down like bowling balls smashing into the Earth. As the duo ran, dodging as best they could, Luis had a millisecond to notice the roof was completely unmarred by the carnage around it.
Bursting out into a corridor, the Trainer and Receiver allowed themselves a sigh of relief. They had to find the Threat Core, but getting there would be a daunting task.
Charlene stumbled after Dawn as they both made their way through the complex. Her leg still hurt like hell, and she dearly wished she could have stayed behind instead of venturing into this mess with a bad leg.
Limping, she brought her pistol to bear. Each step set off an explosion inside her muscles, causing her to grit her teeth all the way. She had fallen down on a set of metal stairs at one point, causing her bad leg to smash on each step as she went.
A shotgun turret spun lazily around a corner. It was blown apart by a psychic blast from Dawn's Kadabra.
Beside the duo, a cassette tape lay on a shelf. Charlene gingerly picked it up and placed it into her tape player. That tape player had been her constant companion after the Mindkill event, one of many ways in which Receivers left intel about the Threat and their recorded experiences.
The voice came. It didn't seem right.
"We have been called the Threat, but like a child playing with a loaded gun, the true Threat is humanity."
Charlene's hands balled into fists. This was the entity that had destroyed her world. What gave it the right to give a lecture?
"Now, Receiver, for the last few centuries we have existed closely with humanity. We have developed a love for your weaknesses, and thus we have come to be the same thing."
Before she could remove the tape, it continued,
"The violence of Reality B's history, and the ease with which its inhabitants are manipulated shows that they are not prepared to wield the immense amount of power that traveling between worlds entails. Now, they have stumbled upon that by accident."
That was the last straw. She ripped out the tape and stomped on it with such force that it shattered.
"What was that about?" Dawn asked.
"Fuck the Threat. That's all I'm going to say… that self-righteous entity doesn't know what it's unleashed." Charlene spat on the remains of the tape for good measure, prompting a shriek of disgust. "Wait, something's watching us. Look out the window."
"What is that?" Dawn marveled at the giant craft out the window. It had a cross-shaped body and four giant rotors on each arm of the cross. She couldn't look away.
"Hey! Hey, stop gawking!" Charlene waved her hand in front of Dawn's face to no avail. "I said, we've got a job to-" Dawn snapped out at that moment. "Dawn, we gotta go. I don't think that thing was friendly. Oh, and we gotta find Nigel. He'll have to check my leg for me. Must've pulled a muscle, and my med kit only has blood loss and trauma supplies. You don't have an ice pack or Ice-type on you by any chance?"
Dawn shook her head.
"Right. Let's get back to our friends."
The duo had walked a fair distance before they spotted a strange glow in the distance.
"The hell is that?" Andrew asked.
"Possibly another killdrone." Luis removed the .357 rifle from his back. "Yeah, doesn't look like it's noticed us."
Andrew crept around the room, hiding as best he could. Luise hung back and kept on aiming.
"See what it is," Luis said.
"Huh, looks like another camera."
A shot put another camera out of commission. Unfortunately, the camera's destruction was detected by a shock drone, about to converge on their position. Luis rolled out of the way as its stun-gun sparked menacingly, drawing his pistol.
The shot was incredibly loud in the confined room. Neither of them dared breathe.
They managed to find their way to a strange room with a large, glowing ball of energy in the center. A switch connected to a great machine stood in the center of the room. being near the ball made the duo's hair stand on end.
Luis pressed the button, and an alarm began to sound.
This is the set-up to the final battle against the Threat gunship and the defense of the deactivated Threat Core. Stay tuned!