Pokemon: Radiant Ruby and Shining Sapphire/Separation
Chapter 2
The Soot Covered Plains
Ruby's eyes opened to an unfamiliar environment. In front of him he saw a barren land covered in magma. The ground itself appeared untouchable, but to the boy's surprise, he was not being burned. All of the sudden a familiar black figure with yellow markings arose from the magma in front of him. Ruby briefly recalled the dream he had had when his adventure was just beginning and recognized the Omega symbol on both this creature's hands. The monster then brought its claw out towards the boy and stop within armshot. Ruby stared at it for a while before looking to the face of the creature. It's expression seemed almost inviting, as if the claw was there for Ruby to touch. But as the boy reached out towards the claw, everything disappeared. There the boy stood, now in an empty black void. Frantically, the boy looked around for anything and eventually saw a red triangle in the distance. He started to walk towards the object, but as he did, the triangle kept moving further away. Ruby then started to sprint towards it to no avail as well. But when he stopped to catch his breath, the boy noticed a small red tentacle appearing from within the triangle. Before he could even react, the tentacle shot it's way into the boy's skull.
Gasping for air, Ruby awoke in his quarters at the Team Magma Headquarters. He was in a hot sweat, clearly due to the nightmare he had just woken from. He looked over to his partner, who was also breathing heavily. They figured out in the last year that their shared thoughts allow them to see each other's dreams as well. Combusken thought, "What the HELL was that!?"
Ruby panted for air and didn't think before saying aloud, "Shit… wasn't that… Groudon?"
Combusken responded, "You mean the Legendary Beast of the Earth? I have to admit, after seeing the carvings in Granite Cave, the two looked similar. But the lizard wasn't my concern. What the hell was that second creature that appeared from the triangle?"
Ruby shook his head before saying, "Not a clue. But it was absolutely... terrifying…" He caught his breath for a bit before saying, "Well, it was just a dream. It shouldn't mean too much. Let's just get ready to head out to Meteor Falls."
For the next two hours, Ruby washed his uniform, showered, got dressed, loaded his Adventure Pack, and finally attached his belt with three pokeballs, one empty because it belonged to Combusken and the other two containing Linoone and Lombre. Combusken sat still for most of the time, occasionally making idle mental chatter. Now, finally being ready, Ruby and Combusken exited their room and started walking towards the main entryway of the base. Once there Ruby was greeted by four grunts, three men and a woman. He asked, "So, you're all my tag alongs? Cool, just don't get in the way." Ruby honestly hated acting so smug all the time but it was the only way for the grunts to understand that he is their boss, not their friend.
From one of the chairs in the main room with all the computers stood a rather large black haired man. He laughed and asked, "Where's the little Ruby off to? Running out on your own again?"
Ruby shot back quickly, "Shut it Tabitha! Clearly I have a team, so no. Maxie thought It best that I do some recon on Team Skystorm, so I'm heading to Meteor Falls."
Tabitha stomped and said, "You can't talk to me like that! I'm an Admin, just like you damn it!"
Ruby, no longer caring about coming off poorly, retorted, "Yeah but I'm still Maxie's right hand man. If you ever want to call anything more important than the shots of your little squad, I propose you don't get on my bad side. I may not be Maxie, but I could sure still fuck you over if I wanted."
Tabitha looked as though he were going to respond to this, but clearly decided that it wouldn't be worth it and sat back down in his chair.
From another spot in the room came a small giggle. A soft female voice stated, "Well he sure showed you, huh Tabitha?" A few chairs away sat the final Team Magma Admin, the 'purple haired demon', Courtney. The 17 year old leaned her chair back and gave a menacing smile. "You can talk to him all you want in that tone Ruby, but I warn you that if you take that tone with me, I'll tear you apart. I still firmly believe that Team Magma doesn't need you."
Ruby gave a snicker at the comment and said, "I'll let you know when I'm scared of you as well Courtney, but it sure as hell isn't now. Keep your hollow threats to yourself." He then turned to his assembled team and said, "We should get going before a fight breaks out and I'll be the only remaining Admin. Let's go."
He started down the hall with Combusken and his squad followed. They left the base and headed through Firey Path without incident and reached the north exit of Mount Chimney. They were created with an early morning breeze and a slight down hill trek to get to the soot covered plains of Route 113. As they passed by, people stepped aside from fear, which Ruby really appreciated, because he really didn't want to have to make an example of them because of the team that was following him. One kid though yelled, "You're just a bunch of bullies! How stupid can you get! I bet you're not so tough!"
Ruby grimaced as he turned to see the kid was no more than 11. He was wearing a ninja outfit and he was flipping off him and his squad. He tried to bring the attention of his team back to the mission, "We're on a schedule, just ignore him. He's meaningless anyway."
Somehow, he knew this wasn't sufficient for the team and one of the males said, "With all do respect, I think we have time to put a little brat in his place."
Ruby fired, "Are you saying that this kid is more important than the mission?"
The man laughed and said, "Oh come on! You think I can't put him in his place in under a minute? Well I'll show…"
Before the grunt could finish, Combusken darted up to the child and punched him square in the gut, causing him to keel over in pain. Ruby's partner then retreated back to Ruby's side. The boy asked, "There, I did it faster than you ever could. Now can we get going?"
The four squad members all looked at each other and nodded before deciding to follow the boy and his partner.
While walking through a patch of tall, soot-covered grass, Ruby thought to his partner, "How hard did you actually hit him?"
Combusken responded, "Hard enough to take him down, but not anything that should hurt for more than about a half hour or so. Sorry I did it without command. I just figured the grunts would've actually injured him, so I just reacted."
Ruby shook his head and thought, "Yeah, I'm actually glad that you reacted as fast as you did. Clearly I wasn't taking enough action, but you did and you prevented a greater problem, so thanks."
They continued down the route. In the soot covered grass they saw red spotted bear like pokemon dashing away from them. Ruby took out his Pokedex, while hiding it from his team just to register the new species. With it on mute, all he managed to read before showing it back into his jacket pocket was that its name was Spinda.
When they finally came to a hill, they surmounted it to see beyond them Fallarbor Town. Ruby saw some malicious intent of his squad arising, but then shot it down by saying, "Don't even think about if. If we didn't have time to properly treat that kid a lesson, what the hell makes you think we have any time at all to terrorize a town?"
As they walked through they could see people cower away into their homes. The Pokemon Center even closed their iron door that's only to be used in emergencies.
The female grunt laughed and said, "What a bunch of pussies. They're just asking to be messed with."
Ruby stated, contrary to his own belief, "They are human's just as us. They will reap the benefits of our plan just as much as us. Expansion won't stop just because people are afraid."
Even saying this aloud made Ruby's stomach churn. What kind of cruel and messed up world did he have to live in to put him in a situation like this? The boy shook his head and continued down the main road. Much to his delight, absolutely no one made contact with them as they walked. Once at the edge of town they came to an open farmland. In the distance, they could see the entrance to Meteor Falls. It was guarded by two men in green suits, clearly members of Team Skystorm. There were a few stones that were scattered around the area that were big enough to hide. Once he choose one he motioned his team to follow him.
He asked, "What Pokemon do you have? I want to know what we are working with."
Two of the men said simultaneously, "I have a Mightyena." They looked at each other in confusion, thinking they all had different pokemon. The last male said, "I have a Golbat."
Ruby sighed and looked at the girl, who was frantically patting herself down. She then slowly looked up and said, "I… I think I forgot mine…"
Ruby's palm acquainted with his forehead almost immediately. He said aloud, "How in the hell did I wind up with a group of idiots?"
The girl retorted, "Hey! I'll have you know I'm the three hundred ninety-third ranked grunt in Team Magma."
Ruby just stared back in awe because when It comes to just grunts, there were only about four hundred of them. He shook his head and then said, "And as for the Pokemon we do have, this is a stealth mission! Why the fuck would you bring Mightyenas along? Golbat guy is the only one remotely prepared and I have no doubt he'll find someway of changing my positive opinion about him soon enough!"
The man with the Golbat started, "Hey, I have a name. It's…"
Ruby cut him off saying, "No one cares. Do you think you can send out your Golbat and have it use Glare on the two guards? Once they are temporarily Paralyzed Combusken here can take them both out without any noise."
The grunt, sighing about how little anyone cares about him, threw his pokeball, which released a blue bat with purple wings. It's mouth was huge and took up most of its body. The man said, "Use Glare." He said it in a tone like he was only talking to a tool, commanding it to do something.
The Golbat flew into the air and attracted the attention of the two guards. It's eyes began to glow a menacing yellow and the the guards appeared to be frozen in place. Ruby looked at Combusken and thought, "Alright, go!"
The orange and red chick pokemon rushed out from behind the rock and quickly struck both of the Team Skystorm members in the back of the neck, rendering them completely unconscious. He then quickly drug their bodies behind a nearby rock.
After this, Ruby and the others all entered the white cave of Meteor Falls. Immediately, they were greeted with the sound of water crashing down. The well lit cave showed a massive waterfall, and a steam flowing from where it was landing. There were many carved paths throughout the open ravine. The gang of Team Magma members stuck to the shadows because there were people in green all over the cave. Once they had made it down to the base floor level, a blaring alarm started to sound. Over a loudspeaker rang, "INTRUDER ALERT! THE GUARDS AT THE NORTH ENTRANCE HAVE BEEN FOUND UNCONSCIOUS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! FIND THE INTRUDERS IMMEDIATELY!"
Ruby whispered to his squad, "Damn it! This was way better security than I expected. We've gotta get out of here. Let's go back to the entrance."
They started to hustle back, but it didn't take long before there stood a young brown haired boy with green eyes staring them down. He was wearing a black shirt with a two red crescent arcs near his chest and a long worn-out gray cape. He was also wearing shorts that exposed the metal anklet with a rainbow stone embedded in it. Ruby recognized him immediately, after a year, Ruby was once again face to face with Emerald Draconid. Ruby wasted no time. He tackled the Leader of Team Skystorm and yelled at his squad, "Get going! I'll hold them off!" Combusken then leaped behind the crew to seemingly prepare himself for fending off their pursuers. The squad didn't waste any time. They all sprinted back up the steps towards the exit. As their footsteps diminished in the distance, Ruby laughed and got off of his friend and extended his hand downward to him, "Sorry about that! Had to come up with an excuse to ditch them."
Emerald chuckled and let Ruby lift him back to his feet before replying, "Quick witted as always, huh? Glad to see that Team Magma's stupidity hasn't corrupted you."
Three members of Team Skystorm then surrounded Combusken and the two boys. A dark-skinned woman with short black hair walked up in front of the grunts. She was probably in her twenties wearing a long green and black dress, She proclaimed, "There's nowhere to run Team Magma scum! We have you surrounded. Step away from our Leader this instant!"
Emerald laughed and said, "Woah there Ulo! It's fine. Ruby is a friend."
The woman scoffed, "What?! A filthy pile of scum like that is your friend! Preposterous! As your right hand I strongly encourage you to step away from that filth!"
Ruby laughed and responded sarcastically, "Or else what? You'll attack both me and your leader? Doesn't sound like the best plan there missy."
Ulo cursed, "Damn mongrel, the likes of you thinking you can speak to me in that tone! I'll have you killed in the name of the first admin of Team Skystorm!"
Emerald took a deep breath in, before slowly walking up to the woman. He extended his hand and swung it across her face, sending her to the wall and falling to the ground.. Ruby's eyes widened, now curious as to how this will play out. Emerald then pinned her to the wall with his foot and said, "Now you listen here. This is my friend, and you will treat him with respect! Got that!"
The woman looked at him and almost appeared to be blushing and flustered. "Yes… yes of course. Please, punish me for my uncooperative attitude how you see fit, master." The girl moaned slightly as Emerald removed his foot from her chest.
Ruby cringed as he came to the realization of the kind of person she was. He shook his head and instead of bringing up a kinkshame, he decided to ask, "So… what did you want to talk about? The message implied that you have some knowledge about a future plan of Team Aqua's, correct?"
Emerald sighed and said, "Yeah, we actually got a lot of info from our spy's report. So do you want the good news or the bad news first?"
Ruby glared at the boy for a second and slowly got out, "Bbaaaaaddddd? Sure, bad first."
Emerald nodded and said, "Well the bad news is that Team Aqua is planning to launch an attack on Mt. Chimney in two days, supposedly to activate the dormant volcano."
Ruby's expression shifted to shock in an instant, "Wait, what?! Why in the hell would they do that? That would destroy hundreds, if not thousands of pokemon! Wouldn't that go against their ideals?"
Emerald grimaced before saying, "My source has no further info on the topic, but there is a silver lining in all of this."
Ruby looked back and said slowly, "The 'good news' I presume?"
Emerald nodded and pulled up his PokeNave and handed it to Ruby. The message from his source read;
Emerald,
Before you delete this because it's an unknown ID, it's Sapphire.
Ruby stopped reading and yelled, "What! Sapphire!" It felt like a huge weight just lifted from his shoulders and he started to laugh as he paced around with excitement. He thought, "She's alright! Thank Arceus, she's alright."
Emerald smiled but stated, "Read the rest of the message real quick before you decide to get too happy."
In his joy, the boy continued;
Listen Emerald, I've been inducted into Team Aqua and have risen up the ranks to admin. However, I'm in a bit of a predicament. I can't act insubordinate otherwise Archie will try to set off a bomb in my neck. However, due to your other spy, the bomb was never placed, meaning that I have one free act of rebellion in me before Archie figures out that I'm not working for him. This is a secure messaging line, however please don't respond, it's a civilians that I will be wiping immediately after sending. That being said, the reason I'm sending this is because Team Aqua is planning to launch an attack on Mount Chimney in three days. I don't know why, but Archie wants to reactivate the volcano for some reason. I need you to warn and evacuate the people in the towns around the area. Also, contact Ruby. I sent the same message to him but it says that his Nave ID has been suspended. I'm worried about him, but more importantly, I know that he'll be able to help. Please, you have to save the people and stop Team Aqua.
Shining Sapphire
Once finished, Combusken thought to Ruby, "Well, that's some interesting news. At least we know she's safe."
Ruby took a deep breath in and said aloud to Emerald, "Ok, so what's the plan?"
Emerald shook his head and explained, "Before we move on to that, I want to tell you something Ruby. In the message, Sapphire said that there was another spy that I had sent to infiltrate Team Aqua's ranks, but I haven't. No one else except her is behind enemy lines currently."
Ruby slowly looked to meet Emerald's eyes and started to panic slightly, "What are you saying?"
The leader of Team Skystorm responded in an incredibly serious tone, "I'm saying that this supposed other spy that 'didn't plant the bomb in her' doesn't exist. From here, we need to proceed cautiously around her until we have more information. We don't want her getting killed because we were trying to save her. For now, we should just focus on evacuating the people of Falabor, Lavaridge, and Verdanturf. After that we should prepare to combat Team Aqua at Mt. Chimney. Moving forward after that, we can finally assess Sapphire's situation. Is that alright with you?"
Ruby looked at Combusken and thought, "What do you think?"
His partner responded, "I think that a lot of people are going to die if we don't help out with this. At the very least, we know she's safe at the moment."
Ruby nodded and thought, "Yeah, but right afterwards, I'm moving on this new development. I'm going to save her."
Combusken chirped before thinking back, "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Ruby turned to Emerald and said, "I'm In, how can I…"
But before the boy could finish, his radio flared up in a static mess. A few seconds in, Maxie's voice cut through, "Ruby! Ruby! Please respond!" It sounded like chaos in the background.
Ruby picked up and said, "This is he! What the hell is going on back there?!"
More static, but there were three things he could clearly make out, "Team Aqua…...Chimney…...Help….."
Ruby looked up at Emerald and asked, "Can you give me a lift to Mt. Chimney?"
Emerald nodded and the two started to rush towards the entrance. Behind them Ulo yelled, "What are we supposed to do!?"
Emerald yelled back, "Evacuate the towns near the volcano, I'll see what's happening at Mt. Chimney and try to stop it!" The two boys reached the opening of the cave and Emerald threw out a Pokeball to reveal a Salamence. He, as well as Ruby and Combusken climbed aboard and took off immediately. Emerald said to Ruby, "What do you want me to do when I drop you off?"
Ruby thought for a brief moment before saying, "I need you to help evacuate. If I'm right, Team Aqua and Team Magma must be in an all out battle right now. If you joined, you'd be targeted and killed by everyone there. Do your job and protect people. I'll do mine and kill as many Team Aqua members as I can."
The team then passed through a cloud while gliding up the mountain. Upon breaking through it, they were presented with a battlefield. Both teams were fighting atop the mountain. It appeared that Team Aqua had already broken through Team Magma's line and was heading towards the center of the volcano. Ruby then stood up and thought to Combusken, "This is our stop." His partner grabbed him and the two leapt off the dragon with Ruby's parting, "Thanks for the ride. Now go save some lives."
As the two reached the ground Ruby unsheathed his knife from his back belt strap and threw out his remaining two Pokemon, Linoone and Lombre. He then yelled to his team, "Alright guys, let's go!"
