Ron the True Fan: Sadly, I have decided something must happen. That being subbing for Jorn. I can keep this up until I burn out: everyone LOVES SOT. No offense, Jorn, but apparently, the sharks smell blood and unfortunately for us, they are not Gibles. And given the seeming squirrelly-ness of his muses and my ability to keep mine in line until they drop dead, I seem to be on my own. Sometimes I bring this shit down on myself…

Takeshi Yamato: Yeah, given that the whole idea of SoT in the first place came from your brain. Yeah, you were inspired by AotP and PRB, but still. (Also, to be fair, I love the idea of PRB, myself - it's like Pokemon meets X-Men)

Ron the True Fan: And I have a school of sharks to chum. (Jaws theme plays as fins surface) ...I think I'm going to need a bigger boat.

People's Republic of Ferrum, 0623 hours local time, Day 122 of Ash Ketchum's Pokemon Journey

"Kyoji." came the voice of an angel as he awoke...only to discover it was Neesha. Only mildly disappointed, he yawned as he awoke. "Damn it." he muttered.

"It's fine. No one found us." she said before looking at a familiar fin. "I think Gible would've warned us."

The land shark's eyes snapped open, revealing he was, in fact, awake, attempting to look intimidating...and utterly failing because it just made him look cuter.

Sabrina walked in, a trenchcoat covering her form as she was still wearing the armor, minus the backpack. "They never even got close." she said, answering an unasked question. "Even the police in Kanto weren't this bad when bribed by Team Rocket."

Kyoji dusted himself off as he got up. "Is that because you can sense thoughts, even when asleep?" he asked, suddenly worried.

Sabrina gave him a look. "Kyoji, I'm not going to snap your neck because of your subconscious," she said dryly. "If you don't have a healthy sexual imagination, then there is something VERY wrong with you."

Kyoji decided to broach the subject. "Case in point?" he asked. "Just wondering-"

"Cyrus." Sabrina cut off, as if that was all that needed to be said. It was. "I realize Freud wasn't ENTIRELY correct, but even being partially correct helps. His issues clearly go further than just sexual repression, but they're a factor. Even modern shrinks realize this."

Not untrue.

And Kyoji took comfort in that. "Oh." he said simply. "Wait, when did you-"

"Common thing for psychics to do." Hitomi said as she approached, also wearing a trench coat. "After all, we have to deal with the mind, so we need to understand it. That way we don't kill everyone who thinks 'hey, that chick is hot' or something."

Oh, the burdens of telepathy.

Kyoji got up, seeing Natu staring out into the rising sun from a window. "You're lucky you got sun-proof eyes." he said to the parrot.

"Natu." 'Perks of being a Natu.' he said before looking down at the street. "Natu." 'And we have a problem.'

Kyoji got to his knees, looking down at the street to see two Ferrum police officers approaching a man on the street. "First sign of life." he said, getting the attention of the religious nut, who was out of the armor. For once.

"A dissident." she said after a moment. "The enforcers of this region's backward laws wouldn't be bothering him if he wasn't."

Part of Kyoji was going to argue that not worshipping Arceus wasn't a legal requirement...then realized she was right: the totalitarian crap was backward. Though he got the feeling it was more the former then the latter.

Rather than debate this, he watched as the cops ran towards the man, riot batons raised. Yup, he was no friend of the local assholes. Kyoji knew a friend of his: total asshole himself, but he helped get him into the military and was one of the few that didn't want to murder him outright.

But even that guy was not one to beat up someone raising a voice against the government so long as it was peacefully raised. He had standards.

"Well, someone's getting beaten and I'm not standing for it." Kyoji said before Natu hopped on his head.

"Natu." 'Grab a weapon and down we go.' squawked the parrot. Kyoji picked out the weapon of choice: a revolver. Archaic? Admittedly. But better for special operations: you don't have to worry about lost shell casings.

The brief sensation of weightlessness as Natu teleported him down, cocking the hammer of the revolver. Contrary to popular belief, they weren't as loud as the movies would make you think: as he pulled it back, they didn't hear it, screaming at the man that was running from the corrupt cops, who had fallen and the two were approaching.

"You continue to subvert the will of the glorious party, despite many warnings!" one of the men spat. "You will get no further warnings!"

"Neither will you." Kyoji quipped before firing the weapon into the officer's head, followed quickly by another into the other guy. Not that he exactly cared if he did kill them, though, seeing as this was police brutality. And not even the worst cops in Ransei did this.

He'd know. While he had been beaten, it was more because no one trusted someone with his family name and not political bullshit. His family was basically the yakuza in Ransei, after all. Cops were not fond of them.

"You ok?" he asked the man, putting the revolver in the back of his pants, knowing at least he wouldn't be accidentally shooting himself in the ass, given it was a double-action revolver and those had hefty trigger pulls.

"Yeah, I'm… gonna be ok." he said after rubbing his head. "But we're going to need to run soon…"

Sirens went off nearby as the radios on the now-dead men came to live, demanding status reports in Ferran.

"Oh, crap." Kyoji muttered before the man got to his feet and ran.

"Follow me!" he cried, Kyoji chasing after him.

Neos, Capital of the People's Republic of Ferrum - 0658 hours local time

The Forbidden Palace was once seat to the old Ferran Emperor, when feudal lords fought for the throne and the right to rule. It still served as seat of power, but only because it was a fortress. A fortress with ten-foot thick walls and enough guns to lay waste to a small armored division.

It was also home to the President of the PRoF. Who was not pleased. "There was an incident near the outskirts, where one of our ships… sank." President Sun Xuefeng said, looking at a screen, where the image of Nascour, leader of Cipher and effectively or the region or Orre. "We suspect sabotage from Selan."

"And we know Ash Ketchum is on his way." the psychic replied. "Our spies in Kanto have confirmed this. He seeks our heads. And soon, yours."

"And you failed to kill the brat?" Sun demanded. "You had two of our airships, enough Shadow Pokemon to level a small army-"

"There was a Moltres there and Ketchum was clearly prepared for our arrival!" Nascour snapped, the Cipher leader glaring at him through the vid-comm. "It won't matter. Yveltal will soon awaken."

"Your reliance on your 'god' is your failing, Nascour." Xuefeng spat. "We have ascended beyond their power. We are not their puppets. Try to keep your region from imploding when Ketchum gets there: he seems to have a tendency to end things." With that, he ended the call. "Idiot."

"Sir, what if he is correct?" asked High Marshal Zhong Zhen, commander of the armed forces of the PRoF.

"Are you questioning the might of our ideology?" the president asked sharply.

The overdressed and decorated man snapped to attention, medals tinking as they hit one another. "No, sir! Merely expressing concern for the safety of the party and the people it has sworn to serve!" he answered. "We have seen the might of Legendaries during the Great War of Orrean Conquest, after all."

The president waved it off. "Overworrying for nothing. We are the gods now." he said. "We march to a glorious future, where WE control our future, not something claiming to be God."

An explosion in the city got their attention as one of the highrises… started tipping.

"Marshal." Sun said slowly as his face turned red. "Would you mind finding those insurgents and PUBLICLY KILLING THEM AS A WARNING TO ALL?!"

The general ran out of the office, the president glaring out the window.

Cars were a rarity in any post-Shadow War region. Except Ferrum.

They pumped them out of factories at a rate where a certain musical track would be playing constantly and because everyone else was in no shape to buy a lot of them, they were stuck in their home region.

But they made handy getaway vehicles for the insurgency.

"GIBLE!" 'WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!' cried the land shark as the jeep they were in sped into the collapsing building, Travis holding onto him as Kyoji drove the jeep.

"Giving you the wheel was a mistake!" their rescuee, Kieth, exclaimed as the Ranseian gunned the engine to the limit.

"I was trained for this crap, you weren't!" Kyoji retorted as Mei contented herself firing that oversized pistol of hers at their pursuers, as all of them had to run at that point, Natu and Sabrina warping them all to the escape car.

"DUCK AND COVER!" Neesha screamed as they came up to a wall of glass, smashing through it, the airbags failing to deploy thanks to a few… misplaced wires.

Ferrum's standards of production needed ratification, it seemed.

The jeep slammed into the rough pavement, the two cars chasing them getting crushed under thousands of tons of steel, glass and concrete. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone living in that building.

"Suffer the fate of the heretic." Mei spat at their now dead pursuers.

"You know, they might've been believers!" Kyoji shouted back. "Just… couldn't say anything because communist assholes?"

Mei turned to look back at him, red eyes all but screaming 'as if I care', making him look forward. "Uh, we're gonna need to lay low for a while." he suggested. "VERY low."

Kieth poked his head up. "We got a hideout outside the city." he said slowly. "We'll have to hide the car, though."

Kyoji nodded. "Directions?" he asked.

"To where we're ditching the car? Certainly." Travis snarked. "Fuck no. We're ditching it, then we're walking! And then we're going to wait out the crackdown that's coming!"

Kyoji sighed. "Spoilsport." he groused. This was going to be a long while…

Three hours later

The hidey-hole, as Natu deemed it, was covered in spider webs.

"I'm surprised it wasn't burned out and buried." Neesha mused openly.

Mei scoffed at the idea. "You expect competence from these godless idiots?" she spat as she . "There is no spark of brilliance, no initiative. Only the barest obedience to a strong man with no brain."

Kyoji couldn't exactly argue. "So, we hole up here for a few days, wait for them to leave?" he said as Travis carried in a box filled with MRE pouches. Not exactly the most appetizing things in the world, but at least they wouldn't starve.

"A few weeks, maybe a month." the dark-skinned Ferran insurgent said. "We did collapse a building in the capital. At least they won't find us here: they tend to think we abandon these bases forever. It's a cyclic thing: they know where this one is, but they think we'll never use it again because of that. It'll take them a long time, if ever, to figure out we're here."

Hitomi shook her head. "How the hell has this government survived if they're so seemingly incompetent?" she asked.

"A huge fucking army and weaponized psychics." Kyoji said, the former being a fact, the latter a suggestion. "This IS Ferrum we're talking about."

It made sense. Ransei had a psionic program, the crazy communists might have one, too, geared toward psionically controlling anyone in the major population centers.

Also explained why the insurgency normally operated outside the city centers. Avoiding brainwashing was a top concern.

"They're making it harder to stay out of the cities." Kieth explained. "They're starting to offer 'incentives'. We're going to have to get a move on after this crackdown is over, otherwise there won't be a people of Ferrum that isn't brainwashed."

Kyoji sat down on a rocky makeshift stool. "Shouldn't that mean we should take risks?" he asked.

Travis shook his head. "They might be cracking down, but it'll only last a month at most. They're meticulous like that." he explained. "We got that much time to come up with a plan of attack to get the other regions to rush in and start kicking these bastards in the teeth."

Kyoji wasn't comfortable with waiting in a bunker for a month. But clearly, it needed to happen.

"Anyone got cards?" he asked, hoping they wouldn't go mad with boredom.

Orre/Ferrum border, 1036 hours local time - Day 143

It was hard.

Very. Very hard.

But that girl was dead now. Dead and buried with the irradiated ruins of Pyrite Town.

Her altaria, a non-Shadow one she… unwittingly rescued from the factory during her escape, cooed at her in concern as they flew towards the Forbidden Region.

The idiots wouldn't bother pointing any AA guns at her. Only one person crossed the border between Orre and Ferrum by Altaria, Shadow or otherwise.

The woman formerly known as Lovrina put her head onto the dragon-type's neck, regretting everything.

Ketchum did something to her.

And for once, she wasn't arguing with the effects. She had to undo the damage Cipher had caused.

She could start with screwing over the People's Republic of Ferrum.

Ron the True Fan: You know, again, this was supposed to be LONGER. A lot more material, some more scenes, long-ass car chase. But guess what? I'm bowing to your demands. You'll get your chapter, but don't think I'm happy with it. When Jorn's back in the game, we'll do it properly.

Takeshi Yamato: And here we see some of the ramifications of what happened in the main story Orre arc - this is where Lovrina/Lacus heads to Ferrum, to eventually join Kyoji's group.

Ron the True Fan: As for the timeskip, it was necessary. Any resistance fighter/terrorist (I'm not going to bother with being nice about it, so please, DON'T BOTHER PMing me about it) with half a brain will tell you laying low is part of the process. Ash struck the first blow. Kyoji's got to follow up on it.

Takeshi Yamato: Just hang tight, folks. Things'll be heating up in due course.

Ja ne!