CHAPTER 28
Alex crouched atop the roof of the low office building, keeping himself in the shadow of the building's HVAC unit. Hierro knelt beside him, the Hawlucha's feathers puffed up in anticipation of the fight to come. Isabelle checked the flash grenades on her belt and nodded once when Alex caught her eye. Hidden from sight on other rooftops and in the alleys below, the other heroes of Clarus City were performing their own pre-battle checks. Alex felt a breathless anticipation as he waited for Jiro to begin the assault on the Sins' compound.
Waiting for a fight went against his usual M.O. for hero work. In most altercations he had been involved in, he had dropped out of the sky to surprise his foes in the middle of their criminal activity. Setting himself in a predetermined place and waiting for signals from his allies had become more common as he had teamed up with the other heroes in the intervening months, but even so, every fiber of Alex's being quivered as he waited for the shot of adrenaline that would herald the start of the fight.
Streetlights flickered on as the last light of the sun sank below the rolling hills west of the city. Isabelle cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck. "Any minute now."
A sudden eruption of fire near the barbed wire fence of the compound sent the two heroes scrambling. Alex and Hierro hurled themselves into the air as Isabelle summoned Aethon. The Volcarona surged to join the Alex and Hierro, using his broad wings to create gusts of wind that propelled them along and helped maintain their altitude. Alex heard the clatter of hooves on pavement below and the roar of a motorcycle engine. The Cavalier and the Ronin burst from two alleys astride their respective mounts. The Ronin held his broadsword perpendicular to his body, while the Cavalier's lance and armor gleamed in the light of her Rapidash's flames. A blue and gray blur whipped through the air beside her, and Alex only caught the briefest glance of the Honedge as it paused to let its trainer catch up.
Gunshots echoed in the evening air, and the first few shots were echoed by a deep basso roar that rattled the nearby windows in their frames. "That would be Forte," Alex muttered as he angled his body to catch one of Aethon's gusts. Dark shapes were taking to the air above the Sins' territory, congealing into a thick cloud of ghost and flying types. But just as quickly as it formed, the cloud dissipated as a dart descended from the heavens, cloaked in a brilliant white light. George pulled out of his dive and whipped in a tight turn, coming in for another pass as Captain Unova unclipped from his back. Explosions blossomed against the darkening sky as the Gunslinger and Geronimo laid down covering fire for the Braviary.
"Let's bring the party, birdbrain!" Isabelle shouted. Another strong wind current from Aethon sent Alex and Hierro shooting out over the mangled section of the compound fence, where Blaziken Man and the Dryad had breached the Sins perimeter and had called the attention of the sentries. The Dryad's myriad grass types pushed back against the hastily mustered Sin forces, splitting the pavement as they summoned lashing vines from beneath the ground. The Rose and Iron legions slammed into the guards' pokemon, and the Roserade and Scizor pressed against their far less organized foes. A corona of fire erupted from a knot of enforcers as Masakado lashed out with a series of lightning-fast strikes, each hit punctuated by an explosion.
Alex pulled his wings in close, plummeting down and contorting at the last moment to land with a spinning kick that drove a Sin enforcer to his knees. He struck the man's stunned Electabuzz with an uppercut that snapped the electric type's head back as Hierro dropped down behind him. His partner's claws were already surrounded by dancing nimbuses of flame, and the Hawlucha jumped at the thickest knot of Sin fighters with a scream. Alex drew his batons and cracked a Machoke across the face, knocking the fighting type off-balance long enough for Captain Unova to grab its arm and hurl the Machoke over his shoulder and into the pavement.
"Excadrill Bursts Upward?" Alex said.
"Simple but effective," Captain Unova replied as he settled into a kickboxing stance. "I'll break out the fancy stuff later."
Blaziken Man's armor blazed as he launched bursts of flame from specially designed panels on his palms and the bottoms of his feet. One of the Dryad's Torterra bellowed as it butted heads with a Bastiodon, and Alex danced backwards to avoid the advancing Rose legion. A whistling of air heralded the arrival of Forte and Mezzo, and the two sonic pokemon took aim at the cloud of avian and spectral pokemon that George and the Gunslinger had been keeping away from the melee. Captain Unova whistled to his partner, and George dove out of range as Mezzo and Forte launched two sonic blasts up into the cloud.
The rush of air and sound disoriented the milling pokemon, sending several crashing to the ground. Those that remained were assaulted by another sonic attack from above as Crescita and Echo descended, and those that had weathered the initial attack were scattered as the Noivern punched through them. Echo leapt from the dragon's back to land between Mezzo and Forte, and the dragon shot back up into the air to join George in taking out the last of the Sins' aerial cover.
By now, the alarm had been raised, and more of the Sins' elite fighters had joined the battle. Alex saw several combatants dressed in the combat blacks of the Kuromori, and took that the mean that the rumors of the ninja clan coming under Dominion's control were true. The Sin capos were joining the fray, elite cutters and their pokemon who had fought their way up through the Clarus underworld to stand just below the Sins themselves. Alex and Hierro fought back to back in the center of a mob of snarling humans and pokemon, doing everything they could to beat their foes back. The Sin fighters had pressed in so close that their firearms were ineffective, but Alex knew their knives and whips would be just as deadly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sin operatives and pokemon hurled through the air by the percussive force of Echo's attacks, and the brilliant flashes of light as Volcarona Mask, Blaziken Man and Masakado cleaved through the crowd to fight beside each other. Aethon wheeled through the sky above them, the fiery scales of his wings blazing like a second sun.
The Ronin had abandoned his motorcycle and summoned Muramasa, and the two of them cut down anyone who was unfortunate to get within striking range of their blades. The Ronin's face was already spattered with the blood of his victims, and his mouth was pulled back into a rictus of a grin as he drove further into the crowd. The Cavalier galloped past, her lance as bloody as the Ronin's blade. Bullets were useless against the thick armor she and her Rapidash wore, and she and her Honedge cut down those who fled before her with ruthless efficiency. "THE TIME FOR MERCY IS LONG PAST!" her modified voice boomed from within her helmet. "EXPECT NO QUARTER!" Explosions from the Gunslinger's trick bullets exploded around the Cavalier, driving opponents into her path.
In the center of the fighting, a large black mass rose up and began emitting an unearthly hum. The black shape twisted and contorted, resolving itself into a towering Dusknoir. Gregor opened the gaping mouth on his chest wide, and then reached in with both of his hands to pull the yawning cavity still wider. A figure dressed in a pristine tuxedo stepped out of the darkness within, and the second the Phantom set foot on the pavement, his entire army of ghosts surged out of Gregor's black void behind him, howling and shrieking as they took the skies to harry the Sins' forces.
A whip wrapped around Alex's wrist and dragged him off-balance, nearly sending him toppling to the ground. Hierro reached out and seized Alex's arm to steady him, but in the Hawlucha's moment of inattention, a Mightyena pounced. Alex dragged his body around, pulling the capo with the whip with him, and clubbed the dark type across the muzzle with his free hand. Hierro reached up and slashed through the braided cables of the whip and drove a kick into the capo's abdomen. Alex was pretty sure he heard one or two of her ribs crack.
A faint hissing noise behind them was the only warning the Sins got as the Hammer crashed into the fight, his hydraulic-powered fists lashing out at the heavier pokemon and driving them back from his allies. Siegfried and Albrecht charged behind their trainer, clearing a path through the chaos with quick but powerful strikes. "Well done, Hawlucha Man!" the Hammer roared. "But we'll handle things from here!" The valves in the Hammer's armor hissed as he brought his fist up and slammed it down into the pavement, splintering the concrete and knocking combatants from their feet. As he brought back his other fist, a Machamp jumped in front of it and pushed back against it with all four of its arms. The fighting type strained against the mechanized armor, the veins in its muscles bulging as it tried to hold the Hammer in place. Johannes jerked a lever at the controls, swinging the arm around and hurling the Machamp away, where it was set upon by the Phantom's ghosts.
The clatter of metal on pavement made Alex's head snap up. "Grenades!" he shouted.
"Be not afraid!" A rush of air heralded Archangel's arrival, and he descended from above with his hands outstretched. The air around him rippled as he manipulated the air into a solid wall to repel bullets. The grenades were wrapped in bubbles of psychic force and hurled skyward, where they denoted harmlessly, with their shrapnel turned in on themselves. Newton teleported to his partner's side, throwing up a smaller psychic barrier so that Archangel could prepare another attack.
Archangel raised his right hand in the air and snapped his fingers. Sin enforcers and their pokemon were driven to their knees all around the esper as the force of gravity increased on them tenfold. "You think your boss is strong?" Archangel shouted. "Her party tricks are nothing! This is the power of a real esper!" He swept his hand down, and his irises glowed with an inner light as his blonde curls blew back from his forehead. A wave of force swept out from him, sweeping away his foes like leaves before a gale.
Archangel and Newton jumped straight up, soaring ten feet in the air. With another roar, he summoned a much larger psychic wave that tore through the Sin forces, buying the heroes much-needed time to breathe. The enforcers outside of Archangel's range turned their guns on him, but the bullets were stopped by Newton's psychic walls, which rippled with each impact.
The Hammer seized his opportunity, charging into the stunned ranks of the enemy, his fists flying. Albrecht and Siegfried were just paces behind their trainer, and the three of them rammed through the massed Sin forces and came out swinging on the other side before wheeling around for a second pass. The Cavalier held her Honedge high, and the ghost type's blade glowed like a beacon. "PHANTOM! RONIN! CAP! ON ME!" When the three other heroes fell in alongside her Rapidash, she swept the blade down. "CHARGE!"
"Archangel!" Alex shouted. "How about a boost?" The esper snapped his fingers, and Alex and Hierro were thrown straight up into the air, clear through the cloud of the Phantom's ghosts. At the peak of their arc, Alex spread his wings and made a looping pass to strike out at a shrieking Fletchinder and Pidgeotto. The battlefield below was covered in smoke, punctuated by bursts of light from pokemon attacks. Alex whistled to Hierro and angled downwards, swooping towards a knot where the fighting was thickest. Just before he landed, Alex pulled up and swung around with a spinning roundhouse kick that laid a bat-wielding enforcer flat. His Darmanitan and Krokorok were dispatched by Hierro, and Alex took up position next to Blaziken Man and Volcarona Mask.
"We've got company incoming," Alex said as he swung his batons around. "When I was in the air, I saw Pride, Wrath, Greed and Envy closing in, and they're bringing their entourages."
Blaziken Man slammed his armored fist into a pouncing Druddigon and whirled towards where Alex had gestured. "More incoming? Then we need to wrap up this batch fast." He shot a pulse of fire into the air. "Echo! Time to let loose!"
He was answered by a wailing guitar. "Bring the lightning! FACE THE THUNDER!" Electricity crackled as Forte built up a static charge and lashed out at the mob of pokemon struggling against Echo's wall of sound, and those that retreated out of range from the Exploud's fists were blasted even further back by bursts of pressurized air from the pipes on his body. While his partner bought him some space, Mezzo crouched down and slammed the palms of his hands into the ground and braced himself before unleashing a series of ultrasonic pulses that culminated in a long roar that made Alex's bones vibrate. The concrete beneath their feet trembled as fissures burst open, throwing the melee into further chaos as combatants rushed to escape the earthquake.
"Keep going!" Volcarona Mask screamed, though it was doubtful Mezzo could hear her over the din.
With the earth bucking beneath their feet, the Sins' forces were thrown into disarray as any kind of command structure broke down. The Gunslinger and Geronimo capitalized on the confusion, herding some fighters into clumps to be picked off by his trick bullets, while isolating other targets to be picked off by the Phantom's ghosts, the Dryad's grass types, or the Cavalier.
When Mezzo finally ran out of breath and the quakes stopped, the Sins had been routed, with those still standing driven back into their compound. The Cavalier and the Phantom started to pursue them, but Jiro held up his hand. "Heroes, fall back! Round two is about to get started."
The Cavalier whirled her Rapidash around. "ROUND TWO?"
A mass of black-clothed figures appeared from the smoke, with four of the Sins at the mob's head. Alex and Hierro settled into a ready stance as the other heroes readied their weapons. The Phantom rolled his shoulders and threw off his opera cape. "Leave Wrath to me." He whistled to his ghosts and swept his rapier down. The spectral legion surged forward into the second wave of Sin fighters.
The Dryad sprinted past Alex, leaving a faint aura of cardamom in her wake. An honor guard of three Tsareena raced around her in a loose triangle, and the Iron Legion fell in around them. The Dryad unlooped a corded whip from her waist and flicked it out, wrapping it around Pride's wrist and dragging her into the press. With a quick bit of footwork, the Dryad swept Pride's feet out from beneath her. Pride's Pyroar and Seviper tried to reach their trainer, but the Dryad's pokemon stood in their way.
Pride pushed herself to her feet and drew a curved knife. The Dryad closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, her hands striking pressure points in Pride's arm and forcing the Sin to drop her weapon. The two of them exchanged a serious of lightning-fast blows, parrying and blocking each other's' strikes so that neither could score a decisive blow. "Finally getting your hands dirty?" Pride hissed.
"I'm just doing what I should have done years ago," the Dryad replied, driving her fist into Pride's solar plexus. Pride crumpled into the blow and hacked out a cough.
"I wanted to give you the whole world, Lakshmi. We could have had everything. I could have kept you safe."
"Not like that, Julia. Not for the price I would have had to pay."
Pride shoved herself away from the Dryad. "Fine. If we're settling this, I won't hold back either!"
Alex tried to go to the Dryad's aid, but the tide of combat pushed him away. Crescita and George looped over his head, darting through the seething mass of the Phantom's ghosts while Mezzo and Archangel tore up the ground around him. Hierro vaulted over Alex's shoulders and swung out with a kick at a Mightyena before making the fires around his fists explode. The Hawlucha rocketed up into the air and spun, crashing into a Staraptor and sending the larger bird crashing to the ground.
Volcarona Mask screamed a wordless battle cry as she rushed headlong into Greed, swinging her quarterstaff around and cracking it over the brawny woman's right arm before dancing out of range. Wrath's Incineroar leapt at Volcarona Mask while her back was turned, and Aethon was too preoccupied with keeping Greed's entourage at bay to go to her defense. Alex sprinted forward, tackling the fire type in mid-leap and rolling with it across the ground. The Incineroar snarled and grappled with Alex, pinning him with his claws. Fire burst to life around the Incineroar's jaws, but before it could bite down, Hierro careened out of the sky and slammed into the larger pokemon.
The force of the Hawlucha's attack stunned the Incineroar, giving Alex time to roll to his feet. Hierro chopped the air with one talon, a clear signal to his partner that he could handle this fight alone. The Hawlucha's feathers puffed up as he sprang at the Incineroar again, landing a solid uppercut to the fire type's jaw. Alex ran to Volcarona Mask's aid, swinging down with his stun batons on Greed's back. The woman roared more from indignation than pain, and whirled on Alex, giving Volcarona Mask an opening to kick out her knees.
The two young heroes danced back, and Volcarona Mask grinned. "Gotta be careful. She hits like a truck."
"But that doesn't mean a thing—"
"If she can't hit us in the first place! It's like you're reading my mind, birdbrain!"
"You go left and high, I'll go right and low."
They closed in on Greed again, one feinting in to draw her attention while the other struck from the opposite side. Greed was reputed to be uncannily strong, and her reach was much longer than that of the heroes, but she was most comfortable with a machine gun, and in the chaos she was forced to rely on hand-to-hand combat. Her raw physical power forced Alex and Volcarona Mask to fight cautiously, but for all her strength, she was sorely lacking in speed, and the two heroes capitalized on this weakness.
Alex cranked up his batons to their maximum stun setting, but despite repeated strikes, Greed stubbornly refused to go down. The electric shocks seemed only to enrage her, and though her fighting became clumsier, the force of her strikes grew proportionally. When Alex misjudged and found himself too close to Greed, he was forced to block instead of parrying and evading, and the force of her punch nearly threw him backwards.
Though Greed's breathing was growing labored, she didn't relent in her attacks, and paused only when a sharp whistle cut through the din of battle. Greed's mouth stretched into a chilling grin. "Finally." Envy and a group of his thieves fought their way through a knot of ghosts that had been holding back Sin reinforcements from Alex's fight. Behind them, a pokemon roared and barreled through the ghost types and slid to a stop beside Greed, nuzzling her with a brown-furred snout. The Sin ran a hand through her Ursaring's fur. "I am well, Stepa. I was waiting for you so that we could crush these little bugs together." The Ursaring growled and rose up to it full height, baring its impressive fangs.
Alex cursed under his breath as Greed and Envy advanced. The towering woman glanced down at the slight thief. "How is the new girl?"
Envy glanced aside at one member of his group, a woman in a vulpine wooden mask. "She's earning her keep. Want to step back while we handle the heroes?"
"After I have just done the warming up? It is like you do not know me, Yousef."
Envy smirked and gestured to his Luxray. "Together, then." He palmed his knife and raced forward.
"Now, Aethon!" Volcarona Mask shouted. Her pokemon partner swept down on a blisteringly hot gale, forcing the Sin fighters to stop dead in their tracks. "You think you're the only ones with backup?" she jeered. "Clearly, you don't know the first thing about how we roll!"
With a series of crashes, the Hammer hurtled through the press behind them, breaking through the battle lines. "No matter the odds!" the Hammer roared. "You can always bet on the heroes of Clarus City to turn the fight around!" He slammed one of his fists into the ground in front of Alex, knocking their foes off balance.
Alex saw his opportunity and jumped up onto the Hammer's metal arm and braced himself. "Boost me!" The Hammer barked out a laugh and drew his arm back before launching it forward, propelling Alex through the air. He spread his wingsuit wide and caught an updraft that sent him spiraling up over the chaos. He turned in the air and plummeted, crashing down behind Greed and Envy and dispatching two thieves and a Bisharp. The Hammer and Greed were locked in combat; Greed and seized one of the Hammer's iron fists and was straining against the force of the armor to hold it back, effectively stalling the Hammer in place.
Volcarona Mask sprinted towards Greed's Ursaring and swatted the bear twice across its snout with her quarterstaff. The Ursaring swiped at her with his heavy claws, but the heroine was too swift, jumping back and out of range. "You think you can handle me?" she screamed. "You haven't even seen me start to get serious!" As the Ursaring swung down at her again, she darted around his descending paw and jammed her staff into a crack on the ground, using the leverage to vault into the air. She wrapped her legs around the Ursaring's neck, and the hulking pokemon snarled and snapped at her, but Volcarona Mask hooked her staff under her arms and the Ursaring's neck, freeing her hands to box out the pokemon's ears. The Ursaring bellowed, and Volcarona Mask jumped off him, delivering a snapping kick to the Ursaring's back as she descended.
The pokemon whirled on her again, anger blazing in his eyes. The heroine scoffed. "You'll never take me down!" She dodged around the Ursaring again and hurled two flash grenades into its face, stunning it long enough for her to turn her attention on the Sin fighters trying to flank her. "You can't even touch me!" As a trio of enforcers closed in, she spun her staff around, knocking all three of them down. "I'm Clarus City's strongest hero!" She sprinted at the recovering Ursaring and jumped up, delivering a punishing uppercut to the bear's jaw, snapping the pokemon's jaws closed and knocking it onto its back. "I'm Volcarona Mask, bitch! Don't you forget it!"
She snapped her fingers. "Let 'em have it, Aethon!" Her Volcarona descended, whipping up a searing whirlwind that scattered the Sins' reinforcements and surrounded the heroine in a nimbus of flames.
Greed cried out as her pokemon partner pokemon collapsed, and the lapse in concentration was all the Hammer needed to force her down and pin her beneath one of his metallic hands. His laughter boomed over the chaos of the melee. "Way to go, sparkplug!" he roared as he used his free hand to fend off a Krookodile. Behind him, Siegfried spun heavy concrete clubs with ease, battering away any pokemon that drew close.
Alex found himself locked in an engagement with Envy and three of his thieves. As he ducked and dodged around a hissing Ariados, he locked one of his batons against the hilt of Envy's curved dagger. "I'm surprised they sent you in," Alex grunted as he pushed back against the Sin. "Your technique still sucks." Envy screamed something at him, but Alex paid him no mind. He slipped his wrist behind Envy's guard and dragged the thief off-balance, using Envy's own momentum to throw him into one of his minions. When his Luxray whirled on Alex, the young hero was thrust behind Albrecht's protective bulk, and the Hariyama shoved one massive hand into the electric type's face, thrusting it backwards with contemptuous ease.
The crowd of Sin fighters rippled as the Cavalier charged through, her Honedge's tassel wrapped around her arm and buzzing with pleasure as she cut down any who stood in the way of her armored Rapidash. The attacks and weapons of the Sins' fighters and their pokemon were deflected harmlessly off her suit of soot-stained armor, and it seemed like nothing was capable of stopping her momentum. Captain Unova ran alongside her, a brilliant white light pouring off his body.
George swooped down and shrieked, making the light around Captain Unova flare. His next punch was followed by a powerful shockwave that tore through the Sins' ranks. The Cavalier raised her glowing blade high, and her Rapidash reared up on its hind legs, kicking at the air. "VIXEN!" she boomed. "YOUR RECKONING HAS COME!"
The Kuromori woman in the wooden mask snarled and leapt at the Cavalier, and her Ninetales snapped at the Rapidash's legs. The equine fire type kicked out at the Ninetales, its solid-carbon hooves flashing in the light of its flames. The Vixen's knives clanged against the Cavalier's Honedge, but the Cavalier had the better leverage, and forced the ninja back. When Captain Unova made to run to her aid, the Cavalier waved him off. "STAY BACK! HER KNIVES ARE POISONED!" she shouted. "THE MEREST SCRATCH IS FATAL! BUT SHE CAN DO NOTHING AGAINST ME!"
The star-spangled hero instead fell in beside Alex, using his supercharged attacks to give the other hero a little room to breathe. "The fancy stuff, huh?" Alex panted as Captain Unova bounced on the balls of his feet.
"Brycen's moves have nothing on my grandfather's techniques," Captain Unova replied. "I'll pay the price later, if we survive. But the time for holding back is over."
A gigantic Muk bubbled up from the pavement in front of the two heroes, its sludgy fists crashing down where they had been standing just seconds before. George shrieked and prepared to dive out of the sky, but before he could, a spray of incendiary seeds struck the side of the poison type's face. "Stay back, partner!" the Gunslinger shouted from atop a pile of rubble. "Y'all are strong, but that's not going to do much against a varmint like that." He spun out the cylinder of his revolver and slotted three bullets into the chamber. "You just leave it to me." He fired off three shots, and the bullets buried themselves in the Muk's slime. The poison type grunted in surprise, but kept advancing until crystals of ice started to spread along its body, freezing the sludge that made up its form.
The Gunslinger had already reloaded, and fired five bullets into the ice before cycling to the sixth chamber of his gun. The final bullet impacted in the center of the other five, and an electric current coursed through the Muk, which then collapsed with a pained groan. The Gunslinger tipped his hat to the two other heroes before reloading and knocking out three Sin enforcers with his sleeping bullets. "Don't just stand there, partners! This showdown ain't over yet!"
The rattle of machine gun fire made Alex's head snap up. Some of Pride's capos had broken free of the engagement with the Dryad's army of grass types, and were now targeting the Gunslinger and Geronimo. They ducked for cover behind the rubble, firing off potshots when the Sin fighters stopped to reload. The Cavalier growled in disgust and kicked the Vixen away from her. "CAP, CATCH!" She hurled her shield like a discus, and Captain Unova caught it with a grunt. "USE THAT, AND TAKE THEM DOWN!"
Captain Unova slid the shield onto his arm and took off at a sprint towards the gunners, ducking and weaving to present a more difficult target. The bullets rang against the reinforced metal, and soon Captain Unova was on them. He swung out with the shield, using the metal slab to slam into opponents, human and pokemon alike. Shockwaves radiated out from every blow, destabilizing the Sin fighters and leaving them open to the kickboxing hero's attacks. In the disruption, the Gunslinger and Geronimo managed to re-enter the fray, covering Captain Unova as he fought.
"Hawlucha Man!" Captain Unova called. "We've got this under control, but Blaziken Man and Echo are getting overwhelmed." He braced the Cavalier's shield at an angle. "So how about a boost?"
Alex nodded and sprinted towards him. He jumped up onto the shield, and Captain Unova pushed it skyward, boosting it with his extraordinary strength. The energy he expelled manifested in the form of a surge in his brilliant aura, and created a crater in the concrete. Alex shot straight into the sky and saw the chaos laid out below him once again. The Gunslinger, Captain Unova and the Cavalier were surrounded by one knot in the fighting, while the Hammer and Volcarona Mask had carved out a second. Between them, the Dryad's grass types battled against Pride's massed forces, and Alex assumed that the place where the Phantom's ghosts were thickest was where he dueled with Wrath. A cluster of mangled and broken forms, both human and pokemon alike, showed where the Ronin had been. But despite his vantage, Alex couldn't see Hierro in the fighting.
Echo and Blaziken Man were on the crowd's right flank, holding back a second batch of reinforcements with the strength of Echo's sonic booms and Blaziken Man's strafing flames. Alex dove down to meet them, kicking away a Liepard that was creeping towards Mezzo. Echo's Loudred and Exploud looked ragged, but they were holding the line still. Echo sucked in a deep breath and signaled to her pokemon before launching into a screaming chorus.
"We're out of control!
Without any fear of facing the madmen!
Out of control!
Defying the gods of hell!
We are… OUT OF CONTROL!"
The sonic wave kept the reinforcements at bay, and Jiro launched a fiery pulse from his gauntlet, creating an explosion in front of the mob as a further deterrent. Masakado used the temporary reprieve to catch his breath before reigniting the feathers around his talons, showing far more fire mastery than Hierro was capable of. Blaziken Man's suit hummed and whirred as the armored hero prepared another explosive blast. His helmet clicked as he cycled through the various lenses. "Scanners say that there's at least another thirty of them inbound," he grunted. "No matter how many we take down, more just keep coming."
The pipes along Forte's body whistled seconds before he unleashed resounding basso roar. Crescita soared overhead and added her own ultrasonic blast to the attack, and the two rippling shockwaves collided some ways distant from the heroes, tearing up the ground between them and the Sins' reinforcements.
A pack of Mightyena bounded over the rubble behind them, and Alex and Mezzo whirled to deal with the dark types. Alex drew his batons and braced himself for combat, but Mezzo called out to him with a bark. He interlaced the fingers of his hands and nodded to Alex to jump in. When the winged hero complied, Mezzo hurled him skyward with a grunt before slamming his palms against the ground and bellowing. The pavement bucked and cracked from the force of Mezzo's shockwaves, sending the pack tumbling into a shallow fissure.
Alex glided down and held out his fist to Mezzo. "Nice trick." The Loudred tapped his fist against Alex and nodded before whirling around and using a burst of sound and air to knock a skittering Ariados away from Echo.
When Alex's ears stopped ringing, he became aware of low buzzing hum that seemed to come from all around. Clusters of Magneton drifted into the air over their heads, and electricity crackled between them as they spiraled in a circle over the heads of the three heroes. Blaziken Man and Masako fired several bursts of flames and red-hot plasma at the steel types, but the Magneton had conjured psychic barriers of hardened light in front of them, and the explosions detonated harmlessly against the shields. Crescita tried to attack the Magneton from behind, but they fired off electric attacks to keep her at bay, driving her back over the main battle. Mezzo and Forte attempted to blast them away, but the Magneton had locked themselves together with electromagnetism, and hardly budged an inch.
A crackling electric orb appeared in the air over their heads, bathing the ground with eerie blue-white light. "N-No way we'll be able t-to get away from th-that," Echo said.
"It was a trap the whole time," Blaziken Man growled, tapping his helmet. Sparks flew from his gauntlet, and Alex could see that the electricity in the air was interfering with his suit's circuitry. Blaziken Man turned on the two young heroes. "This was obviously intended for me. Leave me here. The Magneton may let you slip through." When Alex started to protest, Jiro held up a hand. "Bad enough one hero has to go down here. Don't deprive Clarus City of three."
"A noble sentiment!" someone called. "But hardly necessary!" An invisible force slammed down on three of the Magneton, stunning the steel types and making the circle wobble precariously. There was a crack as an indistinct shape appeared in the air, followed by an ear-piercing shriek. A multi-hued blur plunged down from above and slammed into one of the Magneton, grabbing onto the cluster of steel balls that made up its core and dragging it out of alignment.
Hierro wrenched the Magneton around and jerked on its magnetic protrusions, causing it to fire a blast of electricity into the Magneton to its immediate left. The second Magneton shrieked as it was overloaded with stimuli, and Hierro swung his captured Magneton around again, jumping off it and kicking it into the Magneton to his right, and both steel types careened out of alignment, destabilizing the rest of the array. Newton and Archangel seized the remaining Magneton in a telekinetic hold and swung them around, aiming the supercharged electric attack into the center of the fighting.
Echo signaled to Forte and played a single note on her guitar. "HEROES!" she screamed. "FALL BACK!"
There was a crack, a crash like thunder, and then a heavy reek of ozone as the Magneton released their attack. The lightning exploded out from the center of the broken Magneton circuit, gouging a deep crater in the ground. Humans and pokemon screamed as they were caught up in the blast, their clothing smoldering with the latent heat. The air crackled with static as the burst of electrical power consumed itself in an instant, and the Magneton swarm fell to the ground.
Hierro crashed down next Alex and grinned up at him. Alex stuck out his fist. "Thanks for the save, partner." Hierro tapped his claw against Alex's hand and nodded. The Magneton attack had thrown the center of the melee into chaos, giving the heroes of Clarus City time to pull back to Blaziken Man's position. The Hammer swept aside a crowd of stunned enforcers with the back of one metal hand as Volcarona Mask leapt over his back. The Gunslinger and Geronimo covered the retreat as Captain Unova and the Dryad fought through the crowd. The Cavalier barreled around them, her Rapidash tossing its head and snorting small plumes of fire. Crescita, George, and the Phantom's ghostly legion looped over their heads, while the Dryad's army of grass types fell in around them.
The Ronin appeared at Alex's side, his sword and clothes covered in blood. "Don't worry, kid," the older man grunted. "Not much of it's mine." The shadows wavered, and the Phantom burst from the ground, Gregor just behind him. The Dusknoir's fists were surrounded by dancing purple flames, and his usual spectral buzzing had taken on a sharp pitch.
"I nearly had the bastard," the Phantom growled. "And he slipped away again!"
Archangel drifted down, and the air in front of the heroes rippled as he conjured a psychic barrier. "We won't hold them for long, Jiro. What's our plan?"
Blaziken Man squared his shoulders. "These bastards are just going to keep coming, and we aren't going to be able to hold them forever. We have to cut off the Arbok's head."
"Take out D-Dominion, huh?" Echo said.
"Exactly. Masakado and I are going to bring her down, once and for all. I need the rest of you to keep the Sins' attention here and make her overextend her reinforcements. You only have to hold out a little while longer." When Volcarona Mask and Alex started to object, Jiro shook his head. "I should be able to resist her mind control, at least for a little while. If we bring too many people in, she could turn us against each other. I can't risk any of you falling into her hands."
"But what if you can't resist her?" the Ronin said.
"Dryad and the Hammer know what to do if that happens," Blaziken Man said.
"Better hurry, Jiro," the Hammer said. "Looks like these bastards are going to try their luck!"
Blaziken Man sank into a crouch beside his pokemon partner, and small jets slid out from the legs of his suit. The internal mechanics hummed as he built power, and fire erupted around Masakado's ankles. With a roar, the two of them shot into the air on twin columns of flame, arcing high over the fight and coming down some ways distant, only to bound away again on another fiery contrail.
Echo strummed her guitar and nodded to Forte. "HEROES OF CLARUS CIY!" she screamed. "LET'S ROCK OUT FOR ROUND THREE!"
The heroes roared in response and charged forward to meet the Sin lines. The Hammer led the charge, the hydraulic pistons in his suit whistling as he pushed the armor to its limit. He crashed into their lines and scattered enforcers and capos before him. The Cavalier plunged into combat, her Honedge buzzing gleefully as she cut down any who stood in her way.
Archangel launched Alex and Hierro with a flick of his fingers, and the pair of them soared out over the fighting before angling down towards a pack of Bisharp. Aethon rocketed by overhead, and Volcarona Mask dropped down beside Alex. The young woman screamed as she whipped her quarterstaff around, hurling flashbangs with abandon. Her voice rose and fell in a ululating battle cry, and rage was etched into every line on her face as she plunged into the enemy ranks with no thought of safety.
Alex started to follow her, but the Phantom and Gregor swept past him. "We got this," the other man said as he kicked away a Bisharp. "I've been keeping Izzy safe since we were kids."
The Ronin, Captain Unova, and the Dryad all raced past Alex with their pokemon partners just behind, falling on the Sins in a tide of claws, blades and battering strikes. Echo fought a one-woman rearguard action, using her pokemon to blow sonic bursts into the enemy's flanks while Archangel hurled stragglers into the concussive waves.
"Conceived by the god of thunder
Walking on the earth
Born and raised with northern brethren
Soon he'll rule the world!"
The pavement bucked and seized as Mezzo summoned another earthquake, making several half-finished buildings collapse into rubble. Forte slammed an electrically-charged fist into the ground and created a burst of static energy, paralyzing the flock of Murkrow that tried to dive bomb Echo.
"Master of the sword and axe
Training 'til the day turns dark
Powerful and beautiful
He's gonna face the demon hordes!"
Alex found himself locked in combat with four of Pride's elite cutters. Blood pounded in his ears and adrenaline was firing in his veins. He spared Hierro a quick glance, and his partner's eyes sparkled. The Hawlucha puffed up his feathers and fell on the first cutter with a scream, clawing at their face and kicking in two of their ribs. The cutter's Vigoroth screamed as it charged in towards Alex, but he sidestepped and cracked the normal type upside the head with his baton as it barreled past, running straight into the second cutter and his pair of Krokorok. A Scyther swept down with its twin scythes, and Alex caught them on his batons, straining against the insect's bulk for just a moment as Hierro dispatched his opponent and fell on the Scyther with a fiery punch that knocked it off its feet.
The fourth cutter wrapped a length of chain around her arm and signaled her Nidoking. The hulking poison type tried to grab Hierro, but the nimble flying type ducked under the Nidoking's bulky frame and swept its legs out from underneath it, sending the beast tumbling to the ground. Alex jumped over the Nidoking, taking care to avoid its poisoned spines, and slammed his baton against the metal on the cutter's arm. An electric current passed through the steel, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she took the full force of the charge.
"Bastard son of lightning
Born to kick your ass!
Bastard son of thunder
Living hard and driving fast!"
Alex saw Newton blink into existence in the middle of a cloud of flying type pokemon and snap his fingers. The Kadabra's eyes flashed as gravity intensified, and the entire mob of avian pokemon crashed to the ground. Alex whistled to the psychic type. "Get Archangel for me!" Newton nodded and vanished as quickly as he appeared.
"Bastard son of lightning
Sworn to fight and die!
Bastard son of thunder
To the Cold Halls we will ride! YEAAAAAAAH!"
There was a pop as Archangel appeared at Alex's side. The esper's hair danced around his face at incongruous angles, and with a roll of his shoulders, the psychic hero hurled back all enemies in a fifteen foot radius. "What do you need, Hawlucha Man?"
"The other heroes are handling things here. I need you to get me to Jiro."
"You heard what he said! You can't defend against Dominion—"
"She'll be too focused on Jiro to see me coming. He shouldn't have gone without backup." When Archangel looked torn, Alex persisted. "You know we're strongest when we stand together. We all teamed up because we knew we couldn't face her alone."
The esper nodded. "I don't like going against orders but… you're right. Hang on." He grabbed Alex's hand and signaled to Newton. The Kadabra put one hand on Archangel's wrist and the other on Hierro's back. There was a pop, and Alex felt a rush of wind, and then suddenly he was standing just beyond Echo, clear of the fighting. Archangel took a few paces back and raised his hands. "You two set yourselves. This is going to get you where you need to be, but it probably won't be terribly pleasant." He thrust his left hand out in front of him and drew his right hand back to his ear, like he was pulling on a bow. Alex felt an invisible force seize him around his midsection and pull backwards. "Ready… go!" Archangel shouted, and Alex was flung airborne and forward.
The howling wind stung his eyes and forced his hands to his sides as he and Hierro shot out across the Sins' compound. When the drag lessened, they both spread their wings and caught an updraft, spiraling higher as they approached the far edge of the compound.
Jiro proved easy to locate. Fiery blasts shot out from the empty windows of a half-finished tower. The bottom was a concrete structure that probably made for a passable bunker, but the upper levels were just open scaffolding. Alex signaled to Hierro by waggling his wings, and the pair swooped around the tower, catching another updraft and spiraling up around the structure. They reached the apex of their flight and tucked their wings in, diving through the scaffolding and straight down to the half-completed floor below. At the last second, Alex and Hierro spread their wings, turned in the air, and kicked straight down, breaking through the drywall and insulation of the ceiling below and dropping straight into a brawl.
Alex dodged around a Machoke and delivered three quick punches to pressure points on the fighting type's back, making it stumble forward. Hierro back flipped and kicked the Machoke in the center of its muscular chest, and it crumpled with a groan. The Hawlucha landed and struck his talons together before delivering two fiery punches to a Bisharp. Alex wove around a pair of Gurdurr and struck each of them with his batons before turning on their trainer, shocking the man and kicking him into his comrades.
"What are you doing here?" Jiro barked as he blasted a Machamp with a bolt of fiery plasma.
"Backing you up!" Alex shouted back.
A Weavile darted through the press and lunged at Hierro, Masakado grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and tossed it into a machete-wielding anarchist. The Blaziken glared at the Hawlucha, but Hierro was too preoccupied grappling with a Gabite that had tried to ambush Masakado to notice
Alex fought his way towards Jiro, taking up a position at the armored hero's back. "You brought us all here because you didn't think you could fight Dominion on your own. I get you're trying to do the noble sacrifice thing, but Hierro and I owe you one for helping us. I'm just paying you back, and the others are going to be right behind me." Alex kneed one of Pride's capos in the groin, and when he bent double, the winged hero smashed his forearm into his temple.
"You'd deliver yourselves to Dominion on a silver platter?"
"You did it first. But if you're worried, why don't we just wrap this up before they get here?"
Alex could tell Jiro was grinding his teeth behind his helmet. His armor whirred as he locked hands with an enemy Pangoro and tried to push the hulking pokemon back. Tiny jets of fire burst from the bottom of Jiro's boots and the elbows of his suit, and with a growl he threw the Pangoro through the half-finished wall. "I've trained for months to resist Dominion's mind control. How are you going to protect yourself?"
"I heard from a friend of a friend that you can fight her off if you're enough of a stubborn asshole." Alex ducked and weaved around a trio of Scrafty, toppling one with a low sweeping kick and grabbing a second and tossing it at a snarling Liepard. When the third closed in, he kicked it in the chest. "Hierro, you're up!" The Hawlucha whirled and caught the Scrafty, grabbing it in a lock and kicking it into one of Gluttony's thugs, and the pair went down in a tumble of limbs. Alex grinned at Jiro. "And I'm nothing if not a stubborn asshole."
Jiro shook his head. "All right, Hawlucha Man. We'll do it your way." He flexed the fingers on his right gauntlet, and the reactor on the palm started to hum. "Good thing I do my best work under pressure. Stand back!" He slammed the palm of his hand against the floor and detonated three explosive pulses. The floor collapsed beneath Jiro's feet, and he fell through, descending on a plume of fire from his boots. Masakado and Hierro jumped through the hole, and Alex followed an instant later.
Once he had passed through, Masakado hurled discs of fire up through the gap, deterring any pursuers from following them to the lower floor. Jiro's helmet clicked as he cycled through the various lenses and imagers he had installed. "Thermal scans showed that Dominion and her inner circle were on this level. I was trying to clear out any backup she might have ready to hand." He turned and shot a fire pulse at the top of the door to the access stairs, bringing down a pile of rubble. "That should buy us some time." He nodded to Masakado and Alex. "Let's take Dominion down."
They blasted through the reinforced door of the bunker Dominion had sealed herself in, and were met by a second, smaller crowd of Sin cutters. Lust and Gluttony stood behind the armed fighters, their expressions grim. "Don't let them through!" Gluttony shouted, slapping the flank of her Hippowdon. The ground type charged forward, and Hierro raced to meet it. Jiro launched a series of pulses at a Ferrothorn, and the steel type's spiked tendrils lashed through the air. Masakado stepped in front of Alex and waved his claw in a circular motion, conjuring a wall of light in the air in front of them as the Sin cutters opened fire. The Blaziken held up the protective screen until the Sins had emptied their guns and nodded to Alex before racing into the fray. Alex wove around one of the cutters, knocking the gun from her hands and stunning her with his batons. He kicked away a Mightyena, and when he whirled again, Lust was sweeping down on him with a long, gilded dagger. He paused just long enough for Alex to throw up a baton and block the strike, and pressed his weight against the blade, leaning close to the hero.
"Make it look good," Stocks hissed. "Dominion can't suspe—"
Alex decked him.
Stocks fell to the ground stunned, one hand covering his broken nose. Sure, Stocks had always fed Alex solid information and his help had probably saved many Clarus City civilians from harm. But he was still a member of the Sins, and Alex had wanted to sock the puffed-up bastard since the night they met.
"Just keeping it believable," Alex said with a shrug. Lust groaned and dragged himself away. He wrapped a hand around his Xatu's leg, and the psychic type teleported away.
"Stocks!" Gluttony shrieked. "You coward! You filthy coward!"
"You got your own problems, Mueller!" Alex shouted.
Hierro had taken to the air, looping up around Gluttony's Hippowdon and crashing down on top of its maw, slamming its jaws shut with a kick. The ground type groaned as Hierro's weight forced its head to slam against the ground, and it collapsed with a heavy thud. Gluttony's Honchkrow screamed and sped towards the Hawlucha, but Masakado interceded, slamming an uppercut into the flying type's chest as it dove. The Blaziken pivoted on his heel, fire erupting around his wrists, and he put down four Bisharp with as many punches, then swung out with a roundhouse kick that caught the last two Sin cutters and hurled them out of the bunker.
Jiro stalked forward, the reactor on his palm glowing. "Go, Eva. I'll deal with you later."
Gluttony slumped against the wall of the bunker, ducking her head and accentuating her double chin. "She'll destroy you," Gluttony hissed. "She'll make you burn everything you love, and then she'll destroy you."
"She'll certainly try," Jiro replied evenly. "Now stand aside."
Gluttony staggered out of the bunker's antechamber, chuckling to herself. Jiro glanced at Alex and nodded as they approached the reinforced door to the bunker's inner chamber. "Light it up," Alex said.
Jiro placed his palm against the bunker door and blasted it off its hinges. The warped, smoldering door fell inwards with a shriek of rending metal. Dominion sat within, guarded by four expressionless men in identical suits. Her Gothorita hummed to itself in the corner. The esper herself sat on a lavishly upholstered arm chair, one resting on her temple, the other wrapped around the stem of a martini glass. She placed her drink down on a small table next to her and pursed her lips in an elegant pout. "So you're here. Finally." She swept to her feet and sighed. "It's not polite to make a woman wait so long, you know. I was beginning to think you would stand me up."
Jiro kept his shining gauntlet level. "Come quietly, Marinette."
"Oh, I don't think so," Dominion giggled. Her guards had raised their guns, but Dominion lowered her index finger, and all four men holstered their weapons in unison. "I think it's time the two of us had a talk, Jiro Sasaki." Jiro went rigid as Dominion turned her gaze on him, and his gauntlet slowly lowered. The esper laughed again. "Oh, Jiro, you know you're not strong enough to resist me. It's pointless to try." Masakado tried to jump to his trainer's defense, but Dominion flicked her fingers, and the Blaziken's arms snapped to his sides.
"Jiro!" Alex cried, and started towards him.
"Stop," Dominion commanded. Alex's limbs locked in place, and no matter how much he strained, he couldn't get his body to budge. Hierro's eyes went wide, and Alex could only assume he was in the esper's power too. Dominion tutted as she walked towards him. "So you're the Avenbrooke boy? I've heard quite a lot about you from the capos you've embarrassed. But to see you in the flesh…" A shiver ran down Alex's spine, and he felt a strange pressure in the back of his head, a rippling that was almost like fingers running through his brain, sifting through his thoughts and memories. Dominion's eyes took on a faint glow as she rifled through his mind, and she finally gave a derisive sniff. "Why, you're not much after all." She flicked her index and middle fingers, and Alex dropped to his knees with a gasp. "You're hardly even worth my attention."
"You… arrogant… bitch," Alex rasped.
"Oh, don't try to talk tough, Hawlucha Man. What can the weakest hero in Clarus City do against someone like me?"
"It's not true," Jiro hissed. "Don't listen to her, she's just trying to get into your head!"
"I'm already there," Dominion replied. "And I must admit, I'm not terribly impressed. You have to push yourself to your absolute limit just to keep up, Hawlucha Man. You're all but falling apart at the seams. It's not even worth my time to keep you around as a pawn." She snapped her fingers. "Jiro, let's put him out of his misery."
Jiro raised his gauntlet again and pointed it towards Alex. The reactor in the palm began to glow as it gathered a charge. "No!" Jiro cried. "I won't do this! I won't let you strike down the most promising hero we have!" His fingers twitched as he tried to close his fist over the reactor and shut down the charge. Alex strained against Dominion's psychic hold, trying to move just an inch, to twitch a finger, but the esper's will pressed down on him like a tremendous weight.
Dominion's brow furrowed as she turned her attention on Jiro. "I told you already, it's pointless to resist. Now do as I say!"
The force of her will pressed down hard enough on Jiro that it left him incapable of speech. A wordless scream of defiance tore from Jiro's throat as he slowly twisted his wrist to point away from Alex. There was a flash as Jiro discharged the pulse into the ground a few feet to Alex's left, and his ragged breathing came out strangely distorted from the speakers in his helmet. "Don't tell me what to do," Jiro hissed.
Dominion turned to face Blaziken Man and lifted her chin to glare into his eyes. "I will destroy you, Jiro. I will make you experience a thousand years of torture in an instant. I will—"
"Shut up."
Dominion whirled on Alex. "What?!"
Blaziken Man clamped down on Dominion's arm. "I think you've said enough."
"Unhand me!" Dominion screamed, and Jiro recoiled with a jerky motion. "I'm tired of playing around. I'm ending this n—"
A rumble shook the building. Gunshots and the sound of a commotion filtered through from outside, and crashes could be heard outside the bunker. Dominion snapped her fingers at her guards. "Find out what that is, and take care of it." The men rushed out of the room, and Dominion tried to compose herself. In the brief lapse in her concentration, Alex regained a tiny measure of control, and he slowly wrapped his hand around one of his batons.
Outside of the bunker, he heard the sound of thuds, metal striking metal, a few gunshots, and grunts of pain. One of Dominion's guards was kicked back into the bunker, a deep cut across his chest. Alex managed to turn his head enough to see three figures silhouetted against the doorway of the bunker. A golden halo danced around the head of the figure in front, and he raised one hand in the air.
"Be afraid, Dominion."
He snapped his fingers, and the ceiling groaned as a massive crack split the masonry. Metal screamed and crashed as Archangel tore a massive fissure in the building, letting in the light of the moon from outside, and widening the door to the bunker enough that the Ronin and the Hammer could walk in unimpeded. The Ronin reached down and hauled Alex to his feet.
"You came?" Alex asked.
"I can't take care of Avenbrooke on my own, kid." He held his sword in front of him.
The air around them popped and cracked as Dominion and Archangel engaged in a psychic battle. The Hammer's suit hissed as he guarded Archangel's back, bullets pinging off his armor. "We've got company!" the Hammer called. "And I don't know how long we can hold! What's the play, Jiro?"
"Fall back," Jiro said. "We need to retreat."
"No!" Dominion snapped. "I won't allow it!" She thrust out her hand toward Jiro, and the armored hero tensed up again.
Alex hurled his baton at Dominion, striking her forehead just above her eye. The blow stunned the esper, and she staggered backwards. Jiro whipped around and fired three pulses at Dominion's feet, conjuring a curtain of flames to bisect the bunker. The Ronin tossed a pokeball at the ground to summon his Samurott and threw Alex and Hierro across the water type's back. He slapped Muramasa's flank, and the Samurott charged past the Hammer and Archangel. The Ronin raced at his pokemon's side, his silver hair streaming back from his face as he held his sword in a high guard with both hands.
Jiro engaged the rockets in his boots and shot through the mangled doorway, driving back the Sin reinforcements with a barrage of fire. Masakado ran alongside Muramasa, and the Blaziken had managed to recover Alex's thrown baton. He lashed out at enemy pokemon with fiery kicks and battered them away with the crackling stun baton. The Hammer surged forward and barreled clear through the debris that blocked the building's entrance, and Archangel hurled the rubble into the massed Sin ranks. As they left, they heard Dominion screaming orders to her underlings to stop the heroes by any means necessary.
Echo's wailing guitar shocked Alex back to his senses, and the bellows of the Dryad's grass type heavyweights punctuated the supersonic bursts. The heroes of Clarus had indeed followed Alex, and now maintained a defensive line in front of Dominion's command center, cutting off the main body of the Sin cutters. "Took you long enough," Volcarona Mask quipped to Archangel as the five heroes burst out into the night air. "Eddie and I were about to go in after you."
"Did you get her?" Captain Unova asked.
Jiro shook his head. "Too strong. We need to pull back."
"Damn it," the Gunslinger spat.
"We'll have to take the west exit," the Dryad said. "We'll try to lose them in the Hives."
The Combee Hives were a local name for the complex of luxury high-rise apartment buildings that had sprung up along the waterfront in Ridgewood, not far from the Sins' compound. The recent turmoil in the city had stalled construction, so most of the superstructures had remained as just towering edifices of abandoned cranes, naked steel beams, and scaffolding jutting up against the city's southern skyline. It would be easy enough to get lost in the sprawling construction site and fall back to a safe distance where the heroes could resume their civilian identities and slip back into the shadows.
Jiro nodded. "And we need to go fast. Dominion will get out of there before long, and we need to be gone before that happens."
The Phantom snapped his fingers, and two Haunter drifted down to hover next to him. "Cornelius, Erasmus, gather the swarm and cover our retreat. Have Titus and the reserves ready to fall back to our position in case things get bad, and tell Echo we're about to retreat." When the Haunter shot off, he turned to the Dryad. "Should we use the Rose and Iron Legions to keep them off our flanks?" The Dryad nodded, and set about commanding her grass types.
The heroes prepared themselves for their desperate flight, and the Ronin put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "You all right, kid? Muramasa can carry you if you need to."
Alex shook his head. "I'm fine. I'm not hurt. Just a little rattled."
"Understandable."
"Fall in!" Jiro barked. "We stay together, and only fight if we have to. Go, go, go!"
They took off over the ravaged ground of the Sin compound, Jiro and the Hammer in the lead to clear a path. The Sin reserve force charged after them with a collective roar, only to be set upon by the Phantom's ghosts. Forte, bringing up the rear of the column, slid and turned around, blasting their pursuers with a powerful sonic boom, scattering the front ranks. Hierro sprinted up to the top of a rubble pile and launched himself into the air, looping over Alex's head to protect his human partner. Aethon, Crescita and George flitted in the sky above the heroes, torn between fleeing with their human partners and falling back to guard the retreat.
The rattle of gunfire echoed behind them, and Archangel shot up and turned in midair, throwing up a rippling psychic barrier. "That won't hold for long!" he shouted. Whenever he could, the Gunslinger and Geronimo spun to launch potshots into the Sin ranks, but the Nuzleaf was growing tired, and the Gunslinger was nearly out of bullets. The Cavalier galloped in loops around the column of ragged heroes, jeering at the Sins over her shoulder and charging off to stop any who managed to break through the rearguard.
After several minutes of hard sprinting, they reached the barbed wire fence that surrounded the Sins' compound, and the Hammer wrenched it down with one yank of his suit's hydraulic arm. He waved the rest of the heroes through before tossing the length of torn barbed wire behind them as a further impediment to their pursuers.
When they reached the first of the Hives, Volcarona Mask whistled to Jiro. "Do we stay close or split?"
"Stay," Jiro replied. "If we have to make a stand, we're better off doing it together."
They slowed their pace as they crossed the site, and the Dryad dispersed her grass types into a wider perimeter. They crept from shadow to shadow, and heard the Sin force closing in behind them. After their earlier exertions, Alex doubted they would be able to get away quickly enough if they were ambushed.
The cool breeze off the ocean lifted Hierro higher, and the Hawlucha abruptly dove down and signaled to Alex. "We've got company," Alex groaned.
The Ronin and the Cavalier stepped forward, their blades raised. Jiro strode up behind them and raised his gauntlet, firing a warning shot into the darkness. A crazed laugh rose up from the resulting cloud of smoke, and shadowy figures resolved themselves from the murk. Wrath, Envy and Greed limped at the head of the Sin column, and Pride supported Dominion's weight just behind them. All of them looked just as ragged as the heroes, but they seemed determined to keep up their dogged pursuit.
Dominion pulled her lips back in a sneer. "No more games! Destroy them!"
Wrath pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and hurled it towards the heroes, but the Hammer moved just as quickly, seizing an abandoned backhoe in one metal fist and tossing it towards the grenade. The machine exploded, temporarily cutting off the Sins from the heroes. "Run!" the Hammer barked.
A rumble shook the ground as the heroes ran, and the water in the harbor began to seethe as something stirred beneath the surface. With a roar, two towering Gyarados burst from the inky black water and dragged their coils up onto the embankment. They opened their fanged maws wide, and a brilliant light appeared in their mouths. When they launched the beams of concentrated energy, Archangel sprang forward on a telekinetic pulse and threw his hands out before him, hardening the air over the heroes with his will.
A scream tore from his throat as he pushed back against the hyper beams, and cracks began to appear in the psychic barrier. "Get out of the way!" he screamed to his companions. "I can't hold it!" Just before the barrier broke, he swung his hands to the side, warping the air and redirecting the beam back towards the Sins, scorching a long black line across the ground. The esper sagged and plummeted from the sky, and Captain Unova raced to catch him before he hit the ground.
Archangel had bought them a precious moment, and the Gyarados moved sluggishly as they dropped back into the harbor to pursue the heroes from the water. The Hammer sprinted to the head of their ragged formation and pointed to a nearby crane. "Jiro! Upper right support beam!"
Blaziken Man nodded and shot a superheated pulse at the scaffolding's base, melting through the metal and causing the towering crane to groan. The Hammer broke off from the group and slammed both of his fists into a second bit of scaffolding, and the crane began to tip ponderously over. The Sins hung back as all twelve stories of it came crashing down.
The heroes put as much distance between themselves and their pursuers as they could, but they didn't get far until fatigue forced them to stop in the shadow of one of the Hives. Most of them were worn out from fighting, and their breaths came in ragged gasps. Air whistled through Forte's pipes as the Exploud struggled for breath, and the Gunslinger leaned over to vomit from exertion.
"We can't fight them all," the Dryad said, admitting what they all were thinking.
"WE LOST OUR SHOT AT DOMINION," the Cavalier added. "WE DEALT THEM A HEAVY BLOW, BUT NOT A MORTAL ONE."
"If a few of us stay here and hold them off, the rest can get away," Captain Unova said. "It would cost our lives, but enough of us could live to fight another day."
"I'll stay." Jiro squared his shoulders. "It was my hubris that got us here in the first place, and it's my job to bear the costs."
"YOU HAVE MY SWORD, JIRO," the Cavalier said. "I CAN TAKE A FEW OF THEM WITH ME WHEN I GO TO MEET MY MAKER."
"Me too." The Ronin turned his head to the side and spat. "This isn't a bad way to go."
"No."
They all turned to the Hammer. The older man's suit hissed as he clenched his fists. "All of you will go. If it's come to this, then it's for the best that Clarus City only loses one of its heroes. One who doesn't have much longer anyway." His eyes hardened as he dared any of them to defy him. "This city needs all of you, and I'm the only one strong enough to stop them in their tracks long enough for you to get away." His beard quirked up as he tried to force a smile. "I mean it, Jiro. For once, you can respect your elders enough to grant me my last request without arguing about it."
The Ronin and the Cavalier nodded to Johannes, respecting the old hero's choice to die on his own terms. The Cavalier pounded one fist over her heart and turned her Rapidash away, and the Ronin snapped off a salute as he melted into the shadows. After a moment's hesitation, the Gunslinger and Captain Unova followed them and disappeared further into the Hives. When Jiro stepped forward to say something, the Dryad wiped her tears from her eyes, took him by the arm, and dragged him away.
Volcarona Mask shook her head. "Don't make me lose you too." Alex could hear her voice breaking. "You can't, Johannes."
The Hammer inclined his head to the five young heroes of Clarus City. "It's going to be all right."
"N-No!" Echo cried. "How is th-this all r-right? We c-can't just l-leave you! How c-can w-we c-call ourselves heroes if we do?"
"By making me proud. By defending this city when I can't anymore." His suit hissed as he started to turn.
"But you were going to train us," Alex said. "Without you, how can we do that?"
Johannes managed to smile for real. "Alex, you were already a great hero. There's nothing more for me to teach you. I've been proud of you since the first day we met." Alex raised a hand to his mouth to choke off a sob, and Hierro took his hand. Johannes turned to Echo. "You too, Ingrid. You were already my star pupil, so now it's time for you to be a star."
Volcarona Mask was weeping openly now. "I wouldn't be who I am without you. After my parents… I can't do it again!"
"Isabelle, I'm sorry. I wanted to see this through to the end, but… I'm sorry. Your parents would have been so proud of the woman you've become. And Edgar," Johannes inclined his head. "You're ten times the man your father ever was. He might never have approved of you, but know that I did."
He turned at last to Archangel. "Joshua, I'm counting on you to keep all of them safe, and keep them united. Dominion is strong, but she's nothing compared to you. If you stand together, I know she'll never be able to win." Archangel nodded and place his hand over his heart. The Hammer smiled and turned away. "Now go, all of you. I can hold them, but not for long."
"No!" Volcarona Mask cried, and tried to run forward. Gregor's hand shot out and grabbed her arm, and though the young woman strained against the Dusknoir's grip, she couldn't break free. The ghost type loomed up behind the Phantom and pulled Volcarona Mask and Echo into his spectral embrace, opening up a yawning black void that consumed Mezzo, Forte and Aethon.
Tears stained the Phantom's mask as he and the two female heroes disappeared into the darkness. "I'll look after them," he said, just before he vanished.
"Good lad," the Hammer rumbled.
Alex felt Joshua take his hand. "Goodbye, Johannes."
"Auf wiedersehen," he replied.
The wind suddenly howled in Alex's ears as Newton placed his hand on Joshua's shoulder, whisking them away.
Johannes watched them disappear and wiped away his own tears. They were all so young. He wished he could have had just a bit more time.
He squared his shoulders and gestured to Siegfried and Albrecht, crouching nearby. "You two don't have to stay, you know." The Conkledurr and Hariyama shook their heads and shuffled over to stand with their trainer, one last time. "That's my boys."
He pointed to the concrete support pylons that made up the Hive's foundation. "We're going to weaken those, and then we're going to wait until Dominion brings the party to us."
They didn't have long to wait. They heard the Sin mob well before it came into view. The tramp of their feet, the baying howls of their pokemon, and the rasp of the Gyarados' scales along the ground almost drowned out the sound of the Hammer's heart beating in his ears. Dominion limped to the front of the procession and folded her arms. "So they abandoned you here?" she jeered.
"If you want them, you'll have to go through me."
"Just one old man? I'm quaking in my boots."
"You should be," the Hammer said, mostly to himself. Then, louder, "I don't have all night, you psychic bitch! If you're coming, then bring it on!"
Dominion laughed and snapped her fingers. Her ragged army raced forward, and some of Wrath's anarchists howled along with their pokemon. They had been bloodied and bruised, same as the heroes, and now they would get to exact their price in blood.
Or so they thought.
"Let them come," Johannes muttered. He slowly stepped back into the darkness of the half-completed Hive, to the center support beam. When most of the Sins were in the building's shadow, the Hammer raised his voice again. "Dominion! If you have your sights set on this city, then it's time I taught you a very important lesson!" He slammed both of his massive steel fists into the central pylon of the Hive, reducing it to a pile of dust and rubble. The Hive groaned and began listing forward, hundreds of tons of steel and concrete caught in gravity's hold. The building screamed and roared as it collapsed around him, but the Hammer bellowed as loud as he could to make sure Dominion heard.
"ALWAYS BET ON THE HEROES OF CLARUS CITY!"
Some distance away, just beyond the Hives, the five young heroes of Clarus saw the building come down. Isabelle fought against Edgar, trying to run back the way they came. "JOHANNES!"
"No," Ingrid whispered, sinking to her knees. "No, no, no."
Alex slumped against the wall of a warehouse and watched as the collapse triggered a chain reaction, bringing down two of the nearby buildings as well. He felt something inside him, a sharp pain in his chest. Another sob forced its way out, and Hierro buried his face in Alex's chest. Alex held the shaking Hawlucha close, and realized that he was trembling too.
"She's not dead," Joshua whispered. "After all that, and she's still not dead?"
"You can tell?" Edgar asked. The esper just nodded, incapable of saying anything more. Edgar took a deep breath. "Then the real war starts now. Dominion may be alive, and for all we know, the rest of the top brass could be too. We might have weakened them, but they'll come back spitting mad."
Alex managed to nod, but couldn't say anything more. As he watched the cloud of dust from the Hives' collapse rise up to obscure the moon, he knew what all of them were thinking. Clarus City's strongest hero, the greatest of all of them, was dead.
Without him, what chance did the rest of them have?