A/N: I actually did it. A second chapter. You are so welcome.
"Shit, is that a shiny Donphan?" I shouted, pointing out of the single large window behind the traitor, who I was beginning to suspect was more of a grunt than a Grant.
"Do you think I'm-?" The genius chuckled, looking quickly over his shoulder.
I took the opportunity and swung, the aluminium bat colliding with a dull crack on the side of his skull. I winced despite having zero sympathy as he dropped to the floor instantly, gun hitting the floor with a loud clatter. Ignoring the distressed cries of my other two roommates I wiped the small amount of blood from the batt on the dude's pillow.
"Wh-What are you doing?" Jeremy, less of an idiot, managed to stutter out.
"Stay here and don't make a noise you dolts." I finished with a slight hiss.
"No. No, I-I'm coming with you!" Zac, managed to sputter out. I turned to face him, looking him up and down. I could see the same kind of anxiety in his own eyes that I was feeling curled up in my belly.
I sighed and pointed to the gun, "Can you use this thing?"
"N- I mean yes! No... Look, I want to help you. You're the one with the sister right, so you're planning to go get her aren't you? I have a brother, Harry, in the same year." He stared at me with intense brown eyes.
"I don't care, you can't stop me." He said, cutting off any reply.
"Okay." I said happily, leaning down to scoop up the pistol that had dropped from the limp hand of the downed boy. I kind of needed some help anyway.
"Let's go then." I pressed the bat to his chest.
I then slipped on my shoes that were by the door, grabbed a few things from my rucksack, stuffing them in my pockets. I opened the door slowly; my head peeked slowly into the corridor like a horizontal diglett.
The coast was clear.
"Urrr, Mal? Aren't you gonna get dressed? Can I have a weapon too? Where are we goi-"
"Shush!" I hissed.
A pained silence filled the void our voices left behind as I waited, breath baited.
I broke the silence with a small sigh. Jerking my pointed hand in the direction of the exit sign.
Zac nodded with a huff.
At the moment, we were in the old section of the building; the older years dormitories, and in order to have a chance of succeeding I needed access to the newer part, which, unless we left the building and reentered another door, was only linked to our dorms by a maze of ventilation shafts. If I could access those, then we might just be able to make it unseen.
"Urm, can I help you?' A voice rang from down the hallway.
My eyes widened and my left arm rose quickly to a right angle, pointing directly to the right of the mysterious invader's side. "Wow look, a shiny Donphan!" Well, nobody has ever accused me of originality.
However, despite my infallible skill, he simply narrowed his eyes and said evenly, "The fuck, kid?"
Ah crap.
So instead I raised my gun and pulled the trigger.
Naturally, I missed, resulting in a rather terrifying moment where the invader also fired and missed; thank Arceus for awful aim.
I didn't miss the second time, or the third.
He fell to the ground, dead.
…
…
…
…
I stood there for a while, feeling a little numb, as the sound of gunfire echoed around my brain like a ricochet. I had actually killed someone. Not someone who was holding a gun to me, but someone who was caught unawares. Were they actually part of this invasion because of choice or were they forced into it like I nearly was, and might well still be? There was a ringing in my ears that reminded me of the school bell, the one that rang at the end of lessons. The time I had to pick my sister up. Josie!
I shook my head and blinked as if it would erase the images in my head.
"Fucking hell Mal, let's get out of here."
I followed without a word, probably in shock, as we walked quickly towards the end of the corridor. I really hope nobody is coming. I paid no attention to the slumped body of the unknown adult; his turquoise hair spread out from his head, soaking up the blood that had seeped from the central wound. I probably should have grabbed his Pokeball, but I was feeling sick at this point and wasn't in the mood for logic, so instead my quick pace turned into a run, leading me quickly down the corridor, past the many dormitory rooms.
As we ran past I could hear some muffled shouts from within, but most remained silent. With no time to wonder about the scale of this attack we continued almost to the end of the corridor where it would sequence into the newer part of the building. My luck didn't hold, however, as the second last door on the corridor opened inwards, leaving me no time to maneuver my gun, so instead I barrelled into the unknown assailant, punching and kicking with abandon, omitting screams from the victim of my wrath.
"Hey stop – oww tha' really hurt you maniac!"
I stopped briefly to take a look at the unknown person and was shocked to see not a blue haired invader but a shockingly pink head of hair on the frowning face of a girl.
"Oh sorry Joy." I whispered, standing up quickly as I recognised her as the young medical prodigy at our school, a distant but eerily identical relation of the nurse Joy in my hometown of Sangem.
This was kind of awkward, as somehow the collision and resulting fight led to my dressing gown coming untied, showing my torso it's full, pale glory, along with my blue pajama bottoms, covered in magikarp patterns. I hastily tied it back up and ran my hand through my hair, wincing at the trickle of blood that she was dabbing off her bottom lip.
She obviously noticed, shrugging it off. She ushered us into the room and closed the door quietly, saying, "Don't worry about it, I got worse from some tosser that just barged in and tried to blackmail us. Oh and call me Sarah. Joy is my clone name."
"Your clone na-"
"A joke you idiot."
"Uh, sure." Was my elegant reply, a bit surprised at her rather overbearing personality. "Wait a second, how did you dispose of the tosser?" I asked, a bit surprised.
"Oh well I gave her a bit of a kick in the, uh, weak point and Jackie here finished her off with the bunk bed ladder." She replied cheerfully, pointing vaguely at one of the girls, who waved hesitantly.
She then proceeded to squeal, pointing excitedly at something. It took me a moment to figure out she was pointing at the baseball bat in Zac's hands, by which point she had removed it, leaving an puzzled looking boy in her wake. "Hey!" he whined, I assume rather annoyed at being treated like a mannequin.
She remained silent, a look of contentment on her face as she twirled it in her right hand.
"You look disturbingly comfortable with that thing, Sarah." Said one of the girls.
Sarah gave her a quick wink.
"My dad's got a massive ranch of bonsly."
"That explains nothing." I said, honestly confused.
"Oh, bonsly are a bit… insensitive. You need to smack them around in order to keep them in order and stuff."
I think we all took a mental step back from the smiling girl.
"Right, well, that's insane." Zac muttered.
You know, I always had a feeling about Joys. The bubblegum pink hair and cute little dress is just too cliche to be anything but a front.
"Okay, we need to keep moving Zac. Now." I said, my mind back on track.
"Where are you going?" Sarah half laughed. "Are you going to take on an entire terrorist group all by yourself?"
"My little sis, his little brother, probably at gunpoint over in the baby shack. Don't really have a choice."
"Oh. Fuck, I forgot about the little people." She hummed for a second. "Okay, I'm coming with."
Just as we started piling out the door, from around the corner came another man in an odd suit, with the now annoyingly frequent turquoise hair. He came to a stop. At the same time a small purple bat-thing that I quickly identified as a Zubat followed, just above his left shoulder. Before he had a chance to say whatever command or question that would have undoubtedly led to our sticky demise, Sarah swung around, right arm extended and pink hair twirling, bringing the sending the aluminium bat across the 5 meter distance between her palm and
his face. A pull of the trigger and a loud crack sent a screaming Zubat into the wall, at which point it promptly dropped to the ground; left wing smoking. I finished it off with a shot in the body that sent a disturbing spray of purple gunk across the wall. Zac stood there; jaw unhinged like a baby expecting a spoonful of food, whilst Sarah Joy turned back around and grinned at us.
"Nice shot."
"Thanks." I said.
"I was talking about me."
"Mal?" said Zac from behind me, his voice slightly higher than usual.
"Yeah?"
"I think I should let her keep the bat."
"Good idea, buddy."
We were cut off by the loud groan of the downed grunt back inside the room.
Without hesitation the girl Jackie bashed the ladder down onto the temple of the slowly awakening man, drawing yet another unhealthy sounding crack from his now truly battered skull, effectively silencing him once more.
"Okay, we really need to move." I said.
Sarah turned, "Rose, Jackie please stay here and tie up that freak."
The two girls didn't seem like they were planning to argue, so we helped them drag the body of the fallen assailant into their room, at which point a brief argument arose as to where to hide the body. We finally decided that under the bed was the best idea. Nothing much we could do about the zubat blood on the walls, so we dumped the body in a bin and picked up the gun, at least for the ammo, we decided.
Once we had that sorted, Sarah, Zac and myself gathered outside the room, gave each other a nod of silent understanding and turned right, around the corner and into the main transition hall which shared a wall with the new building.
In the hope that I wouldn't be as unprepared as last time, I had the pistol held in front of me, pointing towards the only other possible entrance the enemy could come from.
Thinking about the 'enemy' made me wonder. Who on earth were these crazy people? How did they have the resources to pull off an attack on this scale? Sarah had called them a terrorist group, and I was beginning to agree. Sinnoh hadn't seen much terrorist activity, mainly due to the champion who travelled Sinnoh widely and frequently. But perhaps this was something new.
We reached the end of the corridor.
A clean, white tiled ceiling lay watch over the flower painted walls and pastel green carpeted floors. 'The meadow suite' was supposed to make us feel better about having no time to go outside, but now it seemed like a mocking dichotomy to the claustrophobic anxiety that I felt.
I took the familiar setting in, looking past the useless facts of familiarity, past the plant pots and paintings and chairs, looking for the goal of this little expedition.
"Good." I whispered, drawing the attention of the boy and girl beside me. I pointed towards a large set of grills that stood out only slightly from the white walls of the hall. They both gave me a look of confusion, making me hit my forehead. I hadn't actually told them my plan.
They quickly gathered close to me and I whispered to them, gesturing to the grill that led to the network of vents that provided a labyrinth of tunnels above the complex.
Once I had them up to scratch with the grand plan, we quickly started to move out across the room, grabbing anything we could that would boost us up to the 10 foot height of the grill. Once our mountain of chairs were securely perched on the bench below, Sarah was tasked with the job of making the first attempt to climb Mount Armrest, (I know, funny aren't I?) and she managed to climb up safely until she was balanced on top of the gently swaying tower.
After a few attempts she managed to remove the grate with a small pop, gently lowering it down so that I could reach it and place it on the ground. She then peered into the darkness of the vents and said,"Urm, did you bring a torch or something?"
"Who do you take me for? Volkner of fucking Sunyshore?"
She sighed.
We both turned to Zac as he gave a little cough, "I-I have a small torch on the end of my pencil."
I stared at him, as did Sarah I'm sure, before asking incredulously, "You bought your pencil case with you?"
"Yes?"
Sarah mumbled something I didn't hear, before turning around and climbing into the tunnel.
I looked at the still sheepish looking Zac before gesturing for him and his 'torch' to follow Sarah into the darkness.
"After you, Pikachu."
He scoffed and started clambering up the precariously placed chairs, looking like a blonde Snorlax on a tree, until the chairs began to wobble dangerously about halfway up. He slowed his ascent, allowing the tower to settle.
Just as he reached the top I heard the muffled tones of conversation start to fill the hall, coming from the door that led outside.
I gestured manically for him to hurry, my free arm flailing in panic.
He finally made it through the gap, allowing me to start climbing, followed by the increasing volume of conversation. With one hand occupied by the grill, I was forced to climb as quickly as I could with one hand, whilst praying that the pile beneath me didn't collapse in a heap.
I reached the top of the pile just as the muffled noise became recognisable speech, and I could hear the heavy footfalls increase in volume every second.
I finally managed to shuffle around so I could crawl backwards into the ventilation shaft, but as I wasn't quick enough.
The noise turned into two figures, walking out from almost beneath me. I silently continued to slip backwards, holding the grate out in front of me, my breath held in anticipation.
As I slipped the grate into place, it made a slight screeching noise, instantly drawing the attention of the two turquoise haired figures that were about half way across the hall. I tried to move backwards, but realised my dressing gown belt was stuck in the grate, rendering me unable to move.
I waited with bated breath, slowly trying to untie the belt, in denial that the mission we had been so successful in so far was at an end. Mount Armrest was hardly inconspicuous and led straight to us.
The figures approached, looking at the pile of chairs with suspicion.
They looked at each other briefly before looking up, directly at me.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave a follow / review and let me know what you think!