This isn't the longest chapter of the story, but I still think it's a fairly respectable length. We've also hit 2,000 views now, which is what I like to see. I'm glad that people are enjoying this story enough to keep reading.
As you can tell, I'm introducing a new character in this chapter. I hope you guys enjoy reading his segments.
There's also an announcement at the bottom, which I suggest you read. It's pretty important.
NOAH MERRILL
It was early evening, and yet you wouldn't know it from the lighting inside of Team Rocket's Sinnoh branch headquarters. It was always kept relatively dim, just enough to read by, but not overly bright.
I had always figured that it must have been difficult to find that happy medium of just bright enough that someone could perform basic tasks required of a Team Rocket grunt, while not being too bright so that electricity was wasted.
The fact was, only a certain amount of the electricity could be taken from the outside power grid. Otherwise, people would notice, and it would only be a matter of time before it was traced to a small mountain in the central part of the Sinnoh region.
By the way, I should probably introduce myself first. My name's Noah, and I was a Team Rocket grunt who lived and worked at the base. I was a computer hardware technician, so if something needed to be done to fix a computer at the base, I was your guy. Or one of your guys, because there were a few others with the exact same job title as me. I wasn't unique in that respect.
In any case, on the evening of Saturday, July 29, 201X, I was eating dinner with some of my colleagues at the base. The food was bland, but, then again, it always was.
"I wonder what this mystery meat is" said Freddie, one of the other grunts. "It sure smells bad".
"Well, I just hope it doesn't taste as bad as it smells" I replied. "Really, we should feel lucky that we have food at all. It's not as though it's easy to get food here".
Freddie nodded; he knew that what I was saying was true, but I didn't blame him for not liking the mystery meat that much. Truth be told, as I put some of it in my mouth, I didn't like its taste either.
This was, however, the fare that I'd grown used to during the time I'd spent at the base. Four years, if my memory served me correctly. Point being, when you're accustomed to it, it's really not that bad.
Most of the rest of the dinner passed in silence, with either Freddie or myself dropping in a line to complain about the food. That was the one thing about my existence here that never got old.
The dining room looked almost like a church sanctuary, except that all sorts of pipes were running through it, and it appeared to be made out of brown rock; which, of course, it was.
I shuddered, fearful of the whole place caving in and crushing all of us. Even though I'd been living here ever since soon after I'd graduated high school, the feeling of claustrophobia never fully went away. It would never go away, for there's something about human beings that means we just don't like being underground.
As terrifying as that prospect was, there was another one that was, if anything, far worse.
The mountain had been carefully inspected before the base was set up, just to make sure that rock slides were guarded against. There were gates in place to make sure that they didn't get too out of hand, but, if the gates failed, then the nightmare scenario would come to pass.
I imagined the trigger being anything, like a bomb going off somewhere, or something exploding in general, or even just inclement weather outside of the mountain. Sirens would go off, and every way in or out of the HQ would be sealed; the mountain would reclaim the headquarters.
It would take roughly three weeks to run out of air, but the sense of utter hopelessness would pervade the area for the entire time. And, if I were still in here when that happened, I'd be a part of it too.
I hope that I get a capture mission, I thought as I was envisioning this scenario. Then I can be away if and when that happens.
I didn't care about the others in the HQ. As far as I was concerned, they were criminals.
You might be asking why I associated myself with them. The truth was, I didn't have a choice. Plus, if you want to rebel, rebel from inside the system. That's a lot more effective than rebelling from outside of the system.
Ah, but enough about that.
Freddie must have noticed that I had a worried expression on my face, because he asked me what was wrong.
"Nothing, Freddie" I replied. "I was just...thinking about things".
He nodded, but I could tell that he was still very much curious as to what exactly those things were. I paid him no mind, however, and finished eating my portion of mystery meat.
The food might not have tasted the best, but I still felt slightly hungry, and I wished I could have had seconds. Unfortunately, there were no seconds here. You got exactly enough calories to make it to the next meal, no more, no less. The nutritionists here were very precise indeed, and had made all the calculations as to who would get the most to eat and who would get the least.
Eventually, it was time to head into the auditorium for evening meeting. This was the nightly event at which we were given updates on Team Rocket's missions, and any other news that was deemed important enough for us to know.
If you were a very important member of Team Rocket, then you'd also get more classified intelligence briefings, but that was all. Information was given out on a strictly need-to-know basis, meaning that, if you didn't need to know it, they wouldn't let you know it.
That's almost like a slogan, isn't it?, I thought, internally laughing but being careful enough not to laugh on the outside.
We made our way down the hallway in an unorganized line towards the auditorium. It was practically a river of people, and, for an organization that was so formal, you wouldn't have thought that it would have been this crazy, but it was.
Along the way, we went down a couple of steep staircases. These were steep enough that you had to be careful not to trip and fall, but fortunately they weren't slippery. The water pipes rarely leaked, meaning that everything in here was as dry as a desert, or so it seemed to me.
The auditorium was just like your typical high school auditorium, only it was much larger. The ceiling of the room was at a height of at least seven or eight stories, and the room seated as many as five thousand people, in fifty rows of a hundred apiece.
I caught Freddie's eye as I was making my way towards the front row. I knew that Freddie didn't like being the center of attention, so he chose a seat closer to the back.
Normally, I would sit near him; it was fair to call him my best friend at the Team Rocket base. However, today I didn't quite feel like it, so instead I sat in the front row, right in front of the stage.
The head of Team Rocket's Sinnoh branch, a man named Henry Evansville, walked up to the podium on the stage. He was a tall bald man with glasses, and he looked like a high school principal to me. If I didn't know better, and had simply been seeing the scene in a movie, I would have thought that he was giving a commencement address at a graduation ceremony.
Of course, I did know better. This was nothing of the sort.
"Good evening, my fellow Rocket Men" said Mr. Evansville in his cold, cruel voice. And yes, Rocket Men was the demonym for members of Team Rocket. As silly as it might have sounded, that was what we were supposed to call ourselves.
I personally didn't like that name. It felt rather demeaning, but who was I to complain? After all, I was just a simple grunt.
Mr. Evansville cleared his throat and gripped the podium tightly, as though he might fall down without it. But the look on his face was one of pure desire; he wanted nothing more than to carry out his organization's goals; namely, to capture, experiment on, and sometimes even kill exotic Pokemon.
"Only those of you who have had classified intelligence briefings will know this by now. For those of you who have had those briefings, this will not be news to you, but, to everyone else, I will explain what has happened".
I sat on the edge of my seat. Clearly, judging by the tone of Mr. Evansville's voice, something major had transpired.
"In the town of Gardenia, Sinnoh, a suburb of Pastoria City located just to the west of said city, a young man by the name of Lucas Enfield has transformed into a Lucario".
Never heard of that happening before, I thought to myself.
There were plenty of gasps within the audience, but, unlike mine, most of them were excited gasps. They couldn't wait for the opportunity to capture this Lucas Enfield guy.
Mr. Evansville continued. "He is eighteen years old and has white fur. Earlier today, it was reported that he was driven to the Greater Pastoria Laboratory. He hasn't been seen in the Pastoria City area since".
The head of Team Rocket's Sinnoh branch pressed a button on a device resembling a TV remote, and a picture of a Lucario popped up onto the screen.
He looked pretty much like any standard Lucario, if a bit on the taller side. That is, except for the fact that his fur color was as white as snow.
"A search party will eventually be sent out to retrieve him. The goal will be to capture him in a Pokeball and send him back here to headquarters unharmed. We'll need to find out exactly how he transformed; that is our goal as Rocket Men".
Almost immediately after Mr. Evansville said the words search party, I got an idea.
Even though I was a member of Team Rocket, I was morally opposed to capturing Pokemon like that, especially because I knew what they intended to do to Lucas Enfield if and when they got a hold of him.
I could and should sign up for the capture mission! That way, if I could find Lucas Enfield, I could warn him that Team Rocket was looking for him!
I was rarely so confident in any of my plans, but that one sounded pretty good if I did say so myself.
"There is more" said Mr. Evansville. "Along with Lucas Enfield was another Lucario. Except this Lucario is also a former human".
Oh?
"Her name is Angelina Hawley, and plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that she is this young man's girlfriend. She has mint green fur and was seen departing Greater Pastoria Laboratory along with Lucas Enfield early this afternoon. They are believed to be together at the moment, and not just in a romantic way. They are in the same location".
I gulped, but I was careful to do so in a way that wasn't too noticeable. There were now two people in danger thanks to this organization that I was a member of.
Okay, I have to put that plan into place. If I don't get selected, Lucas Enfield and Angelina Hawley are going to be captured, and I'll know that it could have been prevented. And I'll have to watch whatever experiments they do on them.
I shuddered to imagine it. The first chance I got, I would write my name on that list. Basic human decency demanded it.
LUCAS ENFIELD
Like Angelina had said, dinner was pretty good, even if it wasn't as spectacular as one might have hoped given that it was at the home of an extremely rich man.
The whole time we were eating, however, I was pondering the rules that Mr. Kemp had set for us. More specifically, I was thinking about rules number one and three.
The second rule, the one about treading carefully around the house, was one I completely understood. I wouldn't have been happy if a guest at my house had broken one of my family's heirlooms, even if it was only on accident. I got where Mr. Kemp was coming from.
The third rule, the one about not entering a specific room on the third floor, mystified me a little more. I wasn't sure why Mr. Kemp wanted us to avoid it, but, after only a few minutes of thinking about it, I came to a conclusion. It wasn't a particularly satisfying conclusion, but I found it to be the most reasonable out of all the possibilities.
Mr. Kemp is hiding something there, and he doesn't want us to know what it is.
I didn't want to believe it. I was trusting this man with quite possibly my life, and if he was hiding some secret from me and Angelina...did I really trust him that much?
No matter what, I kind of have to. He's the reason we are safe here.
Eventually, once all three of us were done with our food, Mr. Kemp had David clear away all our plates. A few minutes later, the chef came back in with dessert.
It was a large apple pie fresh out of the oven, still steaming and all. It looked absolutely delicious, but there was just one problem.
Apple pie. I was almost having flashbacks back to my date with Angelina at Le Resto-Grill. That was the same dessert she'd eaten two of after I'd given mine to her.
This time, hopefully I actually get to eat mine. I loved apple pie; it was one of my favorite desserts, second only to key lime pie, but they didn't have too many key limes in Sinnoh.
David cut the pie into slices, and I was able to taste mine. It was absolutely heavenly, the cinnamon flavor mixing in well with that of the baked apples and the crust. Before long, I'd finished one slice and moved on to another one.
Once we were done with dessert, David cleared that away too.
Damn, I thought. It must be really nice having servants do everything like that for you. I wish I had that kind of money.
But I'm going to appreciate the time I'm spending here, because I'm getting a little taste of the rich life.
Yes. I was satisfied with that, but the fact was that I was still contemplating the first rule Mr. Kemp had given us, the one regarding not being allowed outside the boundaries of the fence.
I'll think about that later, I thought to myself. Can't get too worked up about it right now.
I could live with that, but it didn't mean I had to like it.
The rest of the evening was actually somewhat pleasant. Mr. Kemp started a fire in the living room, and Angelina and I played chess against each other. I'll admit that she was better at it than me.
This went on for about two and a half hours, by which time it was getting pretty dark outside. "Time for you guys to go to bed" said Mr. Kemp.
I was going to protest. After all, I usually stayed up a good bit later than this when I was at home. Then again, since I was at Mr. Kemp's manor, I had to play by Mr. Kemp's rules, just like he'd said before dinner.
"After all", our host continued, "you've had a long journey today. You should sleep, get some rest".
Somehow, almost as though he were using the power of charmspeak against us, or more likely the power of suggestion, my eyes started to feel rather heavy. It was the kind of feeling that makes you know that you have at most an hour before you fall asleep, no matter where you are.
I nodded. "Angelina, are you ready to go to bed? I'm pretty tired". I didn't want to go to bed before her and risk her waking me up.
"Yeah" she replied. "I'm ready".
After going upstairs and brushing our fangs, as well as bidding good night to Mr. Kemp, both of us got into bed.
Now, I can't speak for Angelina. Maybe she had a great night of sleep, and had good dreams as well. Me personally, I did not have good dreams.
Almost immediately after wrapping myself in the covers, I sank into a nightmare.
I was walking along an avenue, past trees that were lining the street. I realized that it was a suburban area, not too unlike Gardenia. It made me feel slightly homesick, too, but I pushed that thought out of my head. I could think about it when I woke up, but it didn't have to haunt my dreams as well.
There was no one else on the street, no one to notice or care that I was a white-furred Lucario. That was a big relief, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, this one might end up being a good dream after all.
It was then that it took a turn for the worse.
The sky turned white, the kind of color that lets you know that snow is on the horizon. Flurries started coming down, but they were just flurries. So why did they make me feel so nervous?
Seriously, Lucas, you love the snow. Why are you so scared of it now?
"Ah, ha ha ha. Lucas Enfield. Welcome to my domain".
Suddenly, the scene shifted, and I was in the middle of a grove of pine trees, and it was nighttime. I was still aware that it was only a dream, but I didn't know what would happen. And I couldn't wake up, either, no matter how much I wanted to.
I was trapped inside my own mind!
"Who are you?" I was able to ask. I hoped I didn't talk in my sleep and wake up Angelina. I didn't want to alarm her.
There was more laughing, followed by a feminine voice that seemed to be as cold as ice.
"I'm Khione, the snow spirit" said the voice. "And, like I said, you are in my domain now. I'm going to make sure you know my power".
I couldn't see the snow spirit identifying herself as Khione, but I could most definitely hear the effects of her magic.
There was a howl of wind, followed by a veritable blizzard pouring down from the heavens. It was snowing at the same speed that rain falls.
Now, normally when snow falls at that speed, it's just sleet and doesn't accumulate on the ground. If it does stick, it's usually gone pretty soon after.
This snain, as I liked to call it, stuck to the ground easily, and more of it fell down from the sky. These "snowflakes" were literally the size of ice cream scoops, not the size of regular snowflakes.
Before long, I was up to my ankles in snow. And it was then that I knew something with absolute certainty.
"You're the one who caused the blizzard in the Coronet Range" I announced, directing it right at Khione despite the fact that I couldn't see her.
"I'm sorry, Lucas. I can't hear you over how awesome this blizzard is".
I shook my fist at the air. "You created that blizzard, didn't you?"
I heard more laughing. "Indeed I did. But who cares? No one was hurt too badly by it".
Before I could argue with her, I woke up.
Sitting bolt upright in bed, I found that I was covered in a cold sweat. And, after learning that Khione had caused the blizzard, I knew something else.
We have to stop her at all costs. Before it gets worse. Before it gets way, way worse. Before people die.
I scanned my room to make sure that I wasn't caught up in an insane blizzard. To make sure that I'd really woken up from my nightmare.
Fortunately, I was back in my bedroom at Mr. Kemp's estate. I had to admit, it was a pretty nice one, albeit a little dusty.
No sooner did I realize just how dusty it was than I felt the strongest urge to sneeze I'd ever felt. I had a lot of seasonal allergies as a human, and I had been hoping that they wouldn't carry over to my Lucario form.
Unfortunately, that was apparently too much to ask for.
I tried to sneeze as quietly as I could, quickly grabbing a tissue and holding it in front of my snout. In spite of that, I feared that I might have woken up Angelina, and I almost immediately thought of how she must feel to be woken up by that.
And then I looked around the room and saw that Angelina was gone.
Where the hell did she go?, I wondered. I wasn't necessarily mad at her, but I was quite curious indeed. Looking outside the window, I could tell that it was still nighttime, and, per the digital clock next to the bed, it was 1:57 AM. Clearly not a time anyone should be up.
And yet, my curiousity got the better of me. After throwing the tissue in the trash can, I made my way downstairs in order to look for Angelina.
It was then that I realized just how thirsty I was, so I headed to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water from the tap. According to Mr. Kemp, the drinking water had come directly from the mountain springs, and had been filtered out to make sure that there were no nasty chemicals in it, so it was one hundred percent safe.
I raised the glass to my lips and was about to tip it down my throat when I heard the sound of footsteps down the hallway floor, getting closer to the door.
After gulping down the water as quickly as I could and placing the empty glass in the sink, I decided, probably against my own better judgment, to open the door to the hallway that the footfalls were coming from.
There were no lights on in the house. In spite of that, I could clearly see that it was a being with mint green fur and closed eyes. It was Angelina Hawley, there was no mistaking it, and she was sleepwalking!
I tried to remember what you were supposed to do in order to help a sleepwalker find their way back to their bed, but my mind went blank. The number one priority, of course, was for Angelina to make it back to bed without getting hurt.
"Angelina, wake up" I whispered. I didn't want to rouse Mr. Kemp, which is why I said it so quietly. Of course, the louder I spoke, the more likely it would have been that Angelina woke up.
But she didn't. Her eyes remained practically glued shut, and that was when I felt a great degree of fear.
Is Angelina possessed or what?
Whatever the case, I had to get her back to the bedroom.
I knew that she would never approve of this were she awake and alert, but, fortunately, she wasn't. I grabbed her by the wrist and began leading her back towards the stairwell.
It wasn't easy to lead a sleepwalking person up the stairs and down the hallway back to the bedroom, but, somehow, I managed it. Angelina's eyes remained closed, and she gave no other indications of consciousness. I hoped that she would not remember me forcibly grabbing her wrist; something told me that it would have been rather embarrassing for her if it had happened when she was aware of it.
Eventually, we made it back to my room, and I led Angelina back to her bed. "Do you think you can get in on your own?" I asked her.
There was no response, not like I'd expected any. She remained totally dead to the world, and I began to think that nothing would arouse her.
"Guess not" I replied, lifting her up and tucking her under her covers. "Angelina, you're pretty light" I realized, stating it out loud.
It was true. I'd never picked her up, but it seemed that Angelina weighed less right now than she probably did when she wasn't sleepwalking. That made no sense whatsoever, but I wasn't going to complain. Anything that made her easier to carry was fine by me.
That was crazy, I thought. First the nightmare about Khione, and then Angelina sleepwalking. What's going to happen next?
I didn't want to find out.
I've got two things I have to say before I go, two reasons that updates for this story may (read: will) get slower.
First off, in two weeks, I'm going on a ten-day trip, during which I won't have access to my laptop (which is what I use to type all of these stories). It'll be hard without my computer, because I've had it since Christmas of 2016 and it's practically a third limb at this point, but I'll have to manage. There will be no updates to either of my stories during that time.
The other news is, notice how I said "either" of the stories? I'll just say this: Be on the lookout for "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Fallen Angel".
Please leave a review, because that's the only way I know if you guys like the story or not. And I'll see you guys next time.
