"So, that's Alpha's central base," Jack muttered as the trio looked down at the base from a nearby mountain.

"That is correct," Damocles replied as he glared at the concrete wall that was imbedded in the side of the snow covered ridge.

"Are you sure about this plan?" Nova asked Jack.

"I certainly am," Jack replied, doing his best to radiate a confidence he didn't feel. "The way I see it, this is the only way for us to pull it off."

Nova still seemed skeptical, and for good reason since Damocles' role pretty much consisted of being a distraction for them. Jack wasn't sure how Damocles would react, but the hybrid didn't even give it a second thought when Jack proposed it as a way for them to sneak in undetected.

"If you say so," Nova said, though Jack's facade of confidence certainly seemed to help her regain her own.

"What about you Damocles?" Jack asked, fixing his gaze on the turncoat hybrid.

"Well, I can say that it is less than ideal, but it is as you have said the only way that this plan will work," Damocles responded.

Jack nodded, his face a mask of determination. "Alright then, let's get started."

"Very well…" Damocles started as he took a few steps towards the Alpha base before stopping and turning towards Nova. "In case we never meet again… I hope that you can find it in yourself to forgive me for my horrendous actions."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned back towards his objective. His steps were dedicated and full of purpose. He took in one deep breath before disappearing in a flash. Jack drew a deep breath as he tried to steel his nerves. To be perfectly honest he wasn't at all sure how this attack would play out, or even if any of them would survive.

"Shut up," he told himself harshly. "Start thinking like that and it'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy. We will rescue everyone, we will free Lucario, and we'll all make it out in one piece. If I'm going to make that happen, I have to believe it!"

He didn't believe it though, not quite. To be perfectly honest, he was scared. He knew the power of one Hybrid was at the very least comparable to his own, and that's not even to mention the hundreds of heavily armed soldiers inside the base. He had no delusions about being bulletproof. There was only one problem; he didn't care. Alpha had made a mistake by stealing his friends, and they would pay for it. One way or another.

Jack unconsciously fingered a pouch on his belt inside which, practically radiating an aura of foreboding, was the Mind Plate. If all else failed, and he couldn't protect his friends any other way, it was his ace in the hole. If the mission wasn't going to be an unqualified success, then Jack would make sure that he was the only casualty.

Jack watched as Damocles reappeared in front of the large steel-reinforced concrete doors and proceeded to unleash a series of lightning-fast attacks into them. The first two blows glowed the sky blue of Damocles' Sacred Sword, and the third was an attack Jack recognised as Psycho Cut. It was this third attack that dealt the death blow to the already weakened doors, dicing it up into four chunks that were blasted into the base. With the doors down, Damocles entered the base as alarms began to sound as a result of his attack.

"I'd say that's our cue," Jack commented. "Let's go."

"Alright," Nova said as the two of them started down the slope of the mountain towards the base.

Now came the dicey part. The whole base now knew about Damocles, and he had to hold their attention long enough for Jack and Nova to complete their two primary objectives. Once that was done they'd have Lucario on their side, and from what Nova had told him the battle would be pretty easy from there on out.

It didn't take long for the them to close the distance. Nova was running on all fours with her blue mane flowing in the wind, and Jack easily kept pace with her on her right. Once they were almost at the entrance Nova created an illusion around the two of them. In the blink of an eye, they disappeared from view.

Jack took the lead as they entered the base. He'd already memorized the directions Damocles had given him to the R&D lab, and from there he led Nova down a maze of winding corridors toward their target. Nova followed closely behind him, the narrow corridors forcing them to run single file. Finding a nearby stairwell, they made their way down two levels to the third sublevel. Glancing at a sign, Jack saw that they were still in the first section of the massive underground base.

The pair slowed down as they saw several guard coming their way, each of them wearing black body armor and carrying an assault rifle. Jack and Nova squeezed against the side of the corridor as the squad ran past them towards the commotion that Damocles was causing on the upper levels. Every once in awhile, the walls and floor would reverberate from a massive explosion. Whatever the hybrid had chosen as his target, it was certainly proving to be a good distraction.

"That was close…" Nova said telepathically once the soldiers had passed.

"Kinda, yeah," Jack replied, trying not to betray his growing impatience. "I don't know about you, but being shot full of holes is not high on my list of things I want to do. Let's try to avoid any more soldiers. Side passages are our friends."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Nova stated in agreement as she and Jack started forwards again. "Damocles said that these lower level hallways should be mostly empty once he starts his diversion."

Jack nodded. "Let's hope he's r..."

The two of them froze as an Alakazam round the corner in front of them along with a small patrol of four soldiers and one other Pokémon. Jack gritted his teeth as he realised their illusionary shield was now useless. He'd have to deal with the Alakazam before it could alert the soldiers to his presence.

Without so much as hesitating, Jack flung a mental spear at the unfortunate psychic-type just as it turned its head towards him. The Alakazam went stiff as it fought a brief, and hopeless, mental battle with Jack before falling limply to the ground, out cold. The soldiers soon met the same fate, crumpling to the ground like so many ragdolls. The final Pokémon however was a Bisharp, a dark-type who was unaffected by Jack's telepathic assault. Even worse, the Sword Blade Pokémon had quick reflexes and didn't hesitate to turn around and slam its fist into an alarm.

A split second too late, Jack materialized behind the Bisharp and grabbed its head in one hand. Sparks arced off his arm as he unleashed a powerful Thunderbolt point blank into the unfortunate Steel type, who then crumpled to the ground smoking slightly.

Jack turned to Nova. "I think we should run."

"Agreed," Nova said as she dropped onto all fours and started off in a sprint down the corridor. Jack was slightly ahead of her as they came to a set of security doors that had closed when the alarm had been sounded. While the doors were nowhere near the strength of the massive outer doors at the base entrance, they still looked strong enough to be a deterrence.

Jack didn't so much as hesitate before slamming his fist into the barrier with an explosive release of aura. The door was unceremoniously wrenched from the surrounding walls and thrown several meters down the corridor.

"Come on," Jack said, barely breaking stride as darted through the newly opened doorway.

Nova simply nodded her head as she passed by what remained of the door. Jack led them down the hallway for while before rounding a corner, following the mental map he'd made based on Damocles' description.

It wasn't long before they encountered another patrol of guards, and this group was more than ready for the two of them. That is, as much as anyone could be ready for Jack. The boy took one look at the group, consisting of about a dozen soldiers and a handful of Pokémon, and growled. A deep, throaty, menacing growl that would have terrified him if he were in his right mind. At this point though he was concerned with one thing and one thing only; finding his friends. These soldiers were slowing him down.

Before the soldiers could so much as fire a shot, Jack waved his hand and a blast of auric energy tore down the hallway like a hurricane and sent the patrol crashing into the walls. When the tempest subsided not one of them was left standing.

Jack continued wordlessly down the corridor, his face twisted into a fierce scowl of frustration. No, he knew it was more than mere frustration. He could feel anger bubbling up inside him, almost ready to explode after being kept bottled up for so long. Like a volcano about to erupt, the white-hot rage that had been flowing beneath the surface of his emotions was starting to leak out through the cracks. He could feel it even making his aura itself unstable and volatile, but he didn't care. All this time he'd forced himself to hide his true emotions for Nova's sake, but now he was so close! He refused to let anything stand in his way.

And so they continued on, Nova not even bothering to cloak Jack in her illusion any more. If they came to a door or other barricade, Jack destroyed it without even pausing. If they met with any guards, Jack wiped them out with a single blast of energy. All the while, anger continued to fill his aura more and more. Every obstacle they faced made Jack increasingly impatient, which led to him dealing with it that much more efficiently. Or maybe a more appropriate word would be 'viciously'.

At this rate, it took them just short of ten minutes to reach the research and development section of the underground facility. Rounding the final corner, they came to a long corridor that ended in a set of massive, metal doors. At the opposite end of the hallway from them were at least thirty soldiers and about eight Pokémon of various types.

Once again Jack didn't waste any time in responding to the threat. In the blink of an eye he had disappeared, and a split second later the enemy ranks were lit up like a fireworks display by powerful tendrils of crackling energy which leapt ferociously from one target to the next. The entire ordeal took less than two seconds, and it left the entire squad of soldiers and Pokémon on the ground smoking slightly.

Jack walked out from amidst the unconscious Alpha troops as if he'd just stopped to crush an ant under his foot.

"This is the place," he said, almost shaking with anticipation as he walked up to the military grade steel doors. He could feel many minds inside, but not soldiers; scientists. No Pokémon. It would be almost too easy.

With a grunt of exertion, Jack dug his fingers into the solid steel doors and pulled. The doors groaned in protest as they deformed underneath Jack's heavy-handed assault. After a few seconds he'd forced the doors apart just far enough for him to reach inside the doors and pry them open from within. It didn't take long before the locking mechanism gave way and the doors flew open. Inside, Jack and Nova could see the surprised faces of the research staff inside the laboratory.

Jack glanced around the room at the scientists, all of whom were frozen in a mix of shock and abject terror. Jack's eyes quickly settled on one man with a red collar on his lab coat, who stood out from the rest of the staff who had mostly plain white or a few others with green collars.

In the blink of an eye, Jack crossed the room and grabbed the red-collared scientist by his aforementioned attire. Jack's sudden movement broke the stunned silence that had fallen on the room. As if released from a spell, the other scientists all scrambled for the back exit as Jack hoisted the one he'd captured a few feet into the air and none too gently slammed him against the wall.

The researcher glared down at Jack as he held him pinned against the wall. Apparently the man was either a complete fool, or had nerves of steel. Now that he was finally so close to finding his friends, Jack finally took a few deep breaths and forced himself to calm down a little. The last thing he wanted was for everybody to see him like this.

"If Jason finds out I let my emotions get the better of me again," he thought to himself, "He'll give me a proper earful that's for sure. Lucy would be disappointed in me too; she wouldn't say so, but still. And I don't want Wendy getting any ideas…"

Thinking about his friends helped Jack get his anger under control again, at least a little. Jason, Cap, Katana, Lucy, Wendy, Aura, Solomon, Ivy, Thomas, they'd all be so overjoyed to see him after so long. Words couldn't even describe how happy he'd be to finally set eyes on all of them again. All that stood between them now was this scientist. As Nova walked up behind him, Jack pondered whether or not he should just rip the information he needed right out of the man's mind.

"Well?" The alpha scientist said, staring down at his two attackers. "I assume you didn't come here to just pin me against a wall."

"No," Jack replied, allowing a bit of a growl to seep into his tone. "We came here for answers, and you're going to give them to us. I'm looking for a device that should have been brought here about a month ago from the Sinnoh region. A portable Pokémon storage system. Know anything about it?"

"Everything in this base is the sole property of Alpha," the scientist replied indignantly.

"If I cared about that, do you think I'd be here?" Jack almost snarled. "What I want to know is what happened to the Pokémon who were inside that device."

The researcher looked down at Jack with a genuine look of confusion on his face. He was silent for a few moments as he tried to think of a proper response.

"I would answer him sooner than later," Nova said, "He is not in a very good mood right now."

For the sole purpose of emphasizing her words, Jack tightened his grip and raised the researcher a few inches higher. His expression was full of barely restrained anger that threatened to break loose at any moment. This was only mostly for show.

"I know what you're talking about," he managed to croak out. "But there weren't any Pokémon in it when it arrived here."

Jack's expression hardened and his mouth twisted into a snarl, his anger starting to spiral out of control again. It was obviously a lie, it had to be a lie. He'd just admitted the Pack was here, and if the Pack was here than so was its contents. He refused to let this scientist keep him from his friends.

"Don't lie to me," he snapped, his voice rising in volume. "I'll rip the truth right out of your mind if I have to! Where. Are. They?"

"Jack, calm down…" Nova interrupted him in a concerned tone, taking a few steps forward and putting a paw on his shoulder. "This is not like you… I know you can sense that he is telling the truth."

Jack's scowl grew more pronounced. "We'll soon find out."

Without any further hesitation, Jack plunged into the scientist's mind. If the man put up any resistance at all, Jack didn't notice and couldn't have cared less. He made a beeline for the man's short term memories and, failing to find anything useful there, then moved on to long term. A million images flashed by him, fragments of memories accumulated over several decades. Jack meticulously sifted through them until, finally, he found something. The head scientist, for that's who this man was, had stored the Pack in a hidden high-security storage closet inside the room just off to the left of this one.

Jack could've jumped with unbridled joy, or torn the man's mind to shreds for trying to keep his friends from him, but he never got the chance to do either. Nestled among the other memories concerning the Pack was the first examination the scientist had done on it. The man had told him the truth, Jack's team wasn't inside the Pack when it arrived at this lab.

Jack was shaken. It had to be some sort of trick. But it couldn't be, the man's memories were crystal clear; they also showed no signs of tampering. Jack felt a sharp stab of panic as he desperately looked for something, anything that could tell him where his team was. His first thought was a truly terrifying one, that they'd been removed from the Pack by force and were now in Alpha's hands.

Then Jack found something that froze the blood in his veins, and turned his face white as a sheet. The field report of the commando team that had brought the Pack to Alpha, the same soldiers who had assisted in ambushing him in the first place. The truth of his team's whereabouts was far more horrifying than anything his imagination could've cooked up. It was the bargain they'd struck when they agreed to join forces to take Jack down. The commandos had claimed their objective, the Pack, and Pokémon Hunter J had taken his friends.

The scientist fell to the floor as Jack suddenly found himself unable to hold him up. In fact, Jack couldn't even find the strength to stand any more. His arms fell limply to his sides as he sank to his knees, staring blankly at the floor.

"He was telling the truth…" he muttered to himself, not wanting to believe it. "They're… they're not here."

He felt like his entire world had been swept out from underneath him, leaving him desperately trying to find something to fill the hole. His friends were thousands of miles away and at the mercy of an insane, and possibly vengeful, monster. Jack was absolutely, unequivocally powerless to save them. Even if he managed to find Hunter J, it might very well be too late...

Jack felt tears working their way down his cheeks. He felt helpless, useless. It was all his fault, everything that had happened was because he got cocky wasn't careful enough. What good was all his power if he couldn't even protect his friends with it? A voice in the back of his mind kept telling him to pray about it, but he didn't want to listen. He couldn't bear to talk to God with the thoughts that were currently running through his mind.

"Jack," he heard Nova say softly as she placed a paw on his shoulder, but before she could continue the scientist regained consciousness. The man made a break for the hold Jack had made in the door, but Nova pounced on him and pinned him to the ground.

"We did not say you could leave," she growled.

"Let him go," Jack said, rising to his feet. "We don't need him any more."

Nova glanced back at Jack and looked at him for a moment. Finally she nodded and stood up, pulling the scientist up with her and roughly shoving him towards the exit.

"Get lost," she said sharply before walking over to Jack

Jack didn't want to stand up, he didn't want to keep moving, and he didn't want to let the scientist get away. He wanted to sit and cry in a corner, wallowing in self-pity and despair. He wanted to just shut down and let the cruel world go on without him, but he couldn't. Nova's touch had shocked some sense back into him, and now that he was finally thinking clearly again Jack remembered the other reason they were here. As much as he hated to admit it, their mission wasn't over yet. They'd failed at one objective, but the other was still well within their grasp. Jack set his jaw. Even if they couldn't save his friends, they could still save Nova's.

Jack took his grief, his guilt, his pain, and his self-pity, and buried them. To numb himself, he dredged up a wave of anger and allowed it to freeze solid over his other emotions; encasing them like an icy shell. He would save thinking about what came next for later, but for now he had a mission to complete; that was all that mattered. Then again...

"We need to get moving," Jack commented. "But first…"

He walked over to a heavily reinforced door at the other end of the lab, and effortlessly tore it from its hinges and placed it on the ground behind him. Looking around inside, at what seemed to be nothing more than a storage closet, he quickly spotted the hidden door to the high-security vault he'd seen in the head scientist's mind. Casting out his mind, he searched for something he knew would be there; something that was easy to find, because faint traces of his aura still clung to it like cobwebs.

Jack latched onto the Pack with his mind and drew it to him, telekinetically blasting through any obstacles in its path. He could feel the Mind Plate passively fortifying his psychic abilities, even from inside the pouch on his belt, but he wasn't ready to dive into it just yet. Just like he couldn't leave the Pack behind. That same stubborn part of him still clug desperately to the hope of somehow, some day, rescuing his friends. Until then he refused to die, he refused to give up.

With a sense of finality, Jack grabbed the Pack out of the air and turned to Nova.

"Alright, now all we have to do is find your Lucario friend," he said calmly, slinging the box over his shoulder by one of the two cloth straps that were still attached to it.

Without so much as another word, Jack walked out of the lab and started down the hallway. Not even waiting to see if Nova was following him. Nova nodded her head as she fell in line behind Jack.

"So," Jack asked, forcibly keeping his voice from cracking, "I assume you can sense your friend, right? Because that'd be really helpful right about now."

Nova closed her eyes and concentrated, obviously searching for her mate.

"Yes, he is with the other hybrids one the main level in some kind of massive storage room," Nova said as she walked. "I… I think they managed to defeat Damocles… his aura is very weak."

Jack nodded. "In that case, we should probably go back him up. Come on, I think I know where they are."

Jack took off down the hallway in the direction from which they'd originally come, and from there he took the most direct route he could find to Lucario's location. Or at least, what Jack hoped was his location seeing as how his auric senses were being dulled by all the activity in the base. He could sense Lucario's aura, and that of the other hybrids, but he couldn't pinpoint them. Even so, as supposed he must be taking the right path because Nova told him they were getting closer.

The few patrols of Alpha soldiers they encountered, Jack dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible. Usually by simply knocking them out telepathically.

It didn't take them long to ascend the two levels and close in on the storage room. The two of them slowed down as they approached the doors.

"I can sense all three hybrids and Lucario in there," Jack remarked, "But I can't tell what they're doing. I doubt they're just standing around waiting for us though."

"Why wouldn't they though… they already know we are here," Nova replied.

Jack shrugged. "I guess. Still, I can't help but suspect some sort of trap. I almost hope I'm right…"

"You most certainly are," Nova said, "Though it might be as simple as them waiting for us. I don't sense many Alpha soldiers around. As a matter of a fact I only sense one… human…" Nova trailed off. "Hamilton…" she growled a second later, baring her teeth.

Jack recognised her expression, it was the same grim mask he found his face twisted into whenever he let his anger get the best of him.

Jack held out a hand in front of her. "If you have any ideas about rushing in there in a rage, forget it. I don't want to see you get hurt. Besides, I promised to get both you and your mate out of here in one piece."

Nova continued to growl for a moment, but she seemed to listen to Jack and didn't try to get past him. After a few seconds, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

"Thanks…" Nova muttered. "Any idea how to go about this?"

"Easy," Jack replied with a straight face. "I'm going to rush in there in a rage. You can do whatever."

Nova glared at Jack, an unimpressed look on her muzzle. "Seriously…"

Jack narrowed his eyes, a humourless grin splitting his face. "What can I say, I need to let off some steam."

With that, Jack drew back his fist and threw an aura-charged punch into the heavy steel double-doors. The unfortunate pieces of metal groaned in protest, and a second blow blasted them from their setting and sent them flying several meters into the room. Jack took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and walked inside.