As Elesa had promised, we had to leave her house even before the sun rose.
"Be nice," she reminded me once again as she brought me over to what I believe is the headquarters of the city's police force. She strode into the place with a clear destination in mind, no doubt having been here many times before. She dropped a few words to whichever cops were on duty at the reception to allow me entry as well before bringing me in. Soon, she led me into a meeting room before leaving me alone, saying that she had a few people to meet before we could start on whatever we were here for. I spotted a familiar figure sitting on a chair and drinking some hot beverage in the meeting room Elesa left me in. She was the only person in the room until we arrived.
"Oh, I didn't expect Elesa to rope you in too, darling. This might prove to be fun."
"Morning," I greeted my aunt Giselle as she gestured for me to take a seat beside her. She engaged me in casual banter, a heatmor accompanying her side with visible scars littering its body, telling me that this is a pokemon that had seen its fair share of life and death battles that usually wouldn't be encountered.
"My role in the family is a more straightforward one. To put it simply, I'm the muscle that ensures certain things stay down. Excluding your father, I've been through more battles than everyone else in the family," my aunt informed me when she noticed how I was observing her heatmor. Not that I was being subtle about it, but it sure was helpful to know why she was the one that Elesa specifically requested help from.
"For now, I am Jacob Myers," I told her and my aunt nodded in understanding even if she probably had no idea why I'm choosing to work under a fictitious identity. To anyone else not in the know, they would never know that I am related to her and thus, we should also act in a way that supports this farce when everyone else involved in this operation finally arrived.
"Had Elesa informed you about what is going on?" She asked and I shook my head.
"Only that we are going to do some Plasma hunting. She informed me about this at two in the morning, just less than five hours ago."
"This might not be too bad after all, we can indulge in some family bonding while revelling in the Plasma's pain," Giselle mentioned with a sinister smile while idly flipping a butterfree knife in her free hand that I hadn't noticed when she had taken it out. Now I know where Leticia learnt her knife work from.
"Does Lexus use that knife too?"
"Him? He's too brutish for that, this knife requires a lot of precision and skill to use properly and that's something the boy doesn't have. I got him some brass knuckles instead, suits him just fine. Leticia, on the other hand, is perfectly suited for this weapon just as I am."
"Saw her in action once," I agreed, remembering just how skilled she was with that weapon when she was just "testing" me out for the fun of it when we first met. Despite how she usually described herself Leticia was usually the sanest out of the whole lot, but whenever she wasn't even I wouldn't want to be anywhere near her.
"Is it just you three, or does everyone in the family need to learn how to use a weapon?"
"We all do, it's just the practical and smart thing to do," Giselle cleared my doubts as she put her cup down. "The responsibility we shoulder as the Dandolos family requires us to constantly risk our lives for Unova, the battles we get involved in the unseen parts of the region have no rules to speak of. There will be times where even our pokemon might not be able to guarantee our safety so it's simply prudent for everyone to learn and be somewhat proficient in the art of self-defence, although not everyone takes a shine to it. The preferred weapon for most of us are knives because it is easy to use and carry around unnoticed, which suits our motif of being the "Dagger" just fine. Mikhail? That lazy boy would only be motivated to move if the sky is about to fall, but he has a good aim and he's at least decent at throwing knives. Amelia is still learning but she doesn't seem to have much talent in it unlike her father. For those two youngsters, their talents lie in the academic side of things. It's obvious that those two are never going to be proper combatants but they need to at least be strong enough to defend themselves from most threats, that's the bare minimum we expect from them."
The room opened as entire teams of people in combat suits filed into the room together with Elesa, ending our conversation as it is. We were soon briefed by the commanding officer about what is going to happen for this operation.
To put it simply, this is a joint operation conducted by the Unova Special Forces and the Nimbasa police force to raid a Team Plasma hideout which they just pinpointed the location of, and they are almost certain that there is a sizable number of them currently hiding there at all hours of the day doing who knows what. The police force will provide the bulk of the manpower. People like Elesa and Giselle are here to provide the extra firepower on the off chance that we might encounter Plasmas who are too powerful to be contained and needed skilled individuals to do so. From what Giselle had revealed to me, Elesa had worked with the commanding officer throughout the entirety of yesterday just to get this operation hammered out as soon as possible, which would explain why she was so exhausted last night.
"We will enter from three different places. Here, here, and here," Elesa took over the briefing for a short moment as she pointed at said entrances shown on the screen with a laser pointer. "I will be with Team A, Giselle with Team B, and he will be with Team C. We will provide additional firepower and act as the insurance for this operation."
I could feel the gaze of every single combatant in the room converging when Elesa pointed at me, the only unknown personnel to everyone else that will be involved in this operation. Some of them were trying not to outright stare at me, some of them were not being subtle with it.
"Not that I doubt you, Elesa, but even I don't know who he is and he was not part of the plan we discussed yesterday. How many badges does he have? At least six, I hope," the commanding officer asked and Elesa simply gave me a look, hinting at me to hurry and explain myself.
"... One?" I replied out loud after thinking long and hard about it, because the only badge that I "earned", technically, was when I "won" my battle against Giovanni (kinda) by proving that I could have killed him before he killed me. That counts as one badge, right? At least, I don't think Giovanni would disagree with my statement if he were still here.
"One?" The commanding officer asked in incredulity, the tone of his voice a little higher than usual. Elesa had facepalmed after hearing my answer, knowing that I am doing this just to mess around with everyone. I simply shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.
"If it helps, it was Giovanni's Earth Badge, before the world knew that he was, you know, the Rocket Boss."
Confused mutters and murmurs broke out across the room. They were probably confused as to how I was able to be allowed to face Giovanni in a gym challenge without first conquering the first seven gyms in Kanto's gym circuit, but that's why messing around with them was fun. They can guess for all they like and they would never arrive at the answer.
"I think that proves that he is more than qualified for the job, no? Does anyone disagree?" My aunt Giselle spoke up and all noise in the room immediately ceased. For the first time, I am able to see for myself the influence, fear, and respect a publicly known Dandolos commanded from the populace. She wasn't even raising her voice and just a few simple words from her were able to silence the room.
I would admit, even I was impressed at the charisma she exuded.
"That would make him at least an eight badge trainer in strength," the commanding officer closed the folder in his hands with an audible snap but it didn't seem like he trusted me all that much with the look he was giving me. "Alright, he will act as insurance for Team C. If there's nothing else, everyone is dismissed. Go get changed if you haven't done so and assemble at the gathering point in ten minutes."
"You might or might not want to use the combat gear the police use, but it's up to you. Elesa and I usually bring along and wear our own personal ones. See you later!" My aunt helpfully informed me as she stood up from her seat and started to make her way out of the room, presumably to get changed.
"You did it on purpose," Elesa accused me when it's finally just us alone in the briefing room.
"I didn't want to lie to everyone present. Wasn't that what you told me last night, to try and change for the better?" I smirked, knowing that my answer would infuriate her. Messing around with people's heads is just such a fun thing to do sometimes.
"How believable," Elesa scoffed as she started to walk out of the room and I followed, still unfamiliar about the layout of this place and needing a guide to navigate these corridors. Elesa pointed to a room at the far end once it was within our sights.
"Anyway, you head for the equipment room over there, see if there's anything you need there that you need to grab or change into before moving out. Nothing else? Good, see you later, I need to get changed too. Remember, be nice."
I rolled my eyes as Elesa walked off. I honestly felt that I'm already plenty nice today, couldn't she see the effort I'm putting in to restrain myself from outwardly provoking those mediocre police officers?
Annoying woman.
"So not all of you belong to the police? Huh, that's something new."
As it turned out, the Team C that I was assigned to is the smallest team among the three. Including me, we are only four men strong, which is a very small number for a strike team involved in an operation of this scale.
What Team C doesn't have in numbers, we make up for it in quality. At least, that was what the three other trainers that I have to work with filled me in on. They don't belong to the police force either. They are operatives from the Unova Special Forces, often known as USF in short, and members of the USF are supposedly some of the best trainers the Unova League has to offer. They are the Indigo's equivalent of the STAR forces in Unova. From what I learnt, members of the USF usually go by assigned codenames, but I accidentally eavesdropped upon Team C calling each other by their real names when approaching them before I made my appearance. Since the cat was already out of the bag, we decided that we might as well just start addressing each other by our real names among ourselves.
"There are police involved in the operation, just not in our team. Team A and B? They are largely made up of police officers. It's just that the higher ups deemed that it was necessary to make this a joint operation between the USF and the police due to the possible risks involved and if things somehow escalated to something beyond our expectations, the USF operatives like us can at least cushion the impact," a stocky muscular man that was probably very close to reaching his thirties and who goes by the name of Miguel explained to me while we were waiting for the signal to start off the operation, hidden within the shadows of a nearby dark alley just as the sun was about to peek over the horizon. He's also the leader of the three-man USF team and from what I can see, probably a Normal Specialist.
"But only sending three people into Team C? Is that wise?"
"The terrain we are in does not work in the favour of large groups," Miguel elaborated and I recalled the map layout of this area from memory and realised that yes, the entrance that we will be storming through later is really too narrow for bigger teams to function properly. A smaller but more elite team will be much more effective.
"True," I agreed, leaning with my back against a wall with some of my pokemon around me. Bisharp stood with his arms crossed beside me, eyes closed as if trying to take a short nap before the start of the operation. Umbreon is on alert, turning his head from left to right every now and then to check our surroundings. Grumpy is just being grumpy as usual from where he is perching on the top of my head while I can sense greninja about ten metres above us as he stuck himself onto a wall while remaining invisible.
"So how good are you guys within the USF? Just curious."
"We are from EDGE," a girl with her long dark brown hair tied in a ponytail who I estimate to be close to Lexus and Mikhail's age spoke up. She has a mienshao and conkeldurr flanking her sides. Her name is Zoe if I recall correctly when we did a brief round of self introductions earlier.
"EDGE?"
"How do you not know what EDGE is?" The girl asked in slight disbelief. "We are the best unit in the USF."
"No, not really. Nobody ever considers us as one of them so we don't count," a skinny boy with turquoise green hair, probably only around fifteen years old muttered under his breath and shrank away in fear when the girl glared at him for disagreeing with her. The boy's timidness really needs to go if he wants to stay in this line of work. His name is… Reed? Yes, Reed.
"He's from Kanto, Zoe," Miguel reminded the girl before giving me a quick explanation on what EDGE really is. "I know this is something that is only more prevalent in Unova, but have you ever heard of Ability Holders? I know for a fact that Ability Holders are incredibly rare outside Unova so I'm not surprised that you might not have heard about it before, but here? The chances are that you will occasionally bump into one on the streets without you knowing. You wouldn't even realise you had bumped into one because, well, people like us don't like to advertise our existence due to the overall bad rep and our region's history. Uh, the Culture Purge? Have you heard about that part of our history?"
I can feel my eyebrows rising slightly in surprise. All three of them are Ability Holders?
"Yes to all. I'm one myself."
"You are one too?" Zoe asked in surprise and quickly observed my pokemon once more. "Dark?"
"Yes. What special things can you guys do?" I asked, curious to know what kind of superpowers other Ability Holders may possess. Iris can easily befriend and talk to dragons and even instantly calm them down when they are in an uncontrollable blind rage. I can do the same for dark types and can sense their presence around me no matter how they try to hide themselves. What other abilities are there?
"I'm not easily affected by whatever ghosts want to do to me. Took a cofagrigus trying and failing to curse me to find out that I have an ability. I think that confused the poor ghost so badly that it was having an existential crisis," Miguel laughed while pointing at himself before pointing to his subordinates. "Zoe there can use a little bit of Aura, Reed can stick himself on almost any surface like most bug types can do. Nothing impressive individually, really, but these abilities are really useful in any operation and when you assemble a team of Ability Holders in such a way that their abilities can synergise with one another…"
"You get an elite task force that can handle anything," I nodded in understanding. "So everyone in EDGE is an Ability Holder? I supposed that due to the rarity of Ability Holders, EDGE isn't a very big unit either."
"Yes to both. While the public has knowledge of our existence, we usually stay out of the public eye because of the public's general opinions about us. The xenophobia is real in Unova. People like us, we never let anyone else know about our status unless we couldn't help it or unless we are around people like ourselves."
"I don't know how good you are and I don't know why you could challenge an eighth gym right away and still earn a badge, but you couldn't be too bad if Elesa and a Dandolos vouched for you. So hey, why not consider joining us? Fellow Ability Holders have to look out for each other after all. Who knows, maybe Miguel will write you a recommendation letter if you perform well later," Zoe offered and Reed nodded in agreement.
"It will be nice to have more people like us around," Reed said in a soft voice, "it's better than being… ostracised."
"How bad is the ostracisation here?"
"I hated school because of all the bullying when they found out that I could climb walls faster than a joltik. It was so bad that I dropped out when I was nine and self-studied until I decided to become a trainer. I didn't even want to be a trainer, but I needed to so that I could protect myself. The haters can be very, uh, crazy sometimes. Wasn't expecting to be recruited by EDGE either."
"Reed plays more of a supportive role in the team, you should see his skills with a computer. Whoo, legendary," Miguel showed the shy boy some encouragement as he patted the boy on the back, causing him to blush at the praise. "Zoe is the main muscle here while I'm the jack of all trades. What about you? What wonky powers does your ability give you?"
I closed my eyes and concentrated on stretching my senses outwards. Once I confirmed the presence of what I wanted to confirm, I reopened my eyes once more.
"Three to our ten o'clock about 100 metres away, judging from their sizes and what I know about the wildlife distribution in this area, they are probably purrloins. If you guys look up, squint your eyes and look very closely, you might see that those black dots flying above the skies are vullabies and mandibuzzs. Three vullabies and one mandibuzzs, if I want to be more exact from what I can tell from their sizes."
"You are a living dark type detector. Woah, cool," Zoe let out a low whistle of appreciation at the understanding of what I can do with my ability.
"Psychic types tend to have a slightly harder time detecting my presence, but I don't usually count on it to hide myself. I'm still susceptible to psychic influence like everybody is," I added before deciding to probe further. "Is sensing pokemon a rare ability among people like us?"
"Not too sure. At the very least, I have never seen or heard about such a thing before," Miguel said while humming in thought. "Usually, abilities allow us to do a little of what pokemon might be able to do, but these abilities never allowed anyone to have any direct influence on pokemon themselves as far as I know with the exception of Champion Harlow. Champion Harlow was said to be able to easily command any wild dragon but that was over 500 years ago. As trainers with abilities, we tend to specialise in pokemon typings that our abilities have the greatest resemblance to, because it is easier to endear ourselves to them when the pokemon you are training sees that there are similarities between you and them. How do I put it... It gives them the impression that you are one of them and that really helps in befriending them. You probably already figured this out on your own seeing that your ability has a dark type inclination and you are a Dark Specialist. As for what we Ability Holders as a whole can do, usually the abilities we come across are slight physical or mental augmentations like Reed and Zoe, or maybe some increased immunity to certain pokemon move types like mine towards ghosts and yours towards psychics, but sensing pokemon? None that I heard of but I could also be wrong. I'm not an expert in this matter."
"I don't think anybody is, not when our kind keeps trying to blend in to appear "normal". How is anyone going to conduct a proper study on Ability Holders if we don't want to be discovered?" Zoe remarked wryly.
"Do you apply to be in EDGE, or does EDGE scout out Ability Holders and recruit them?" I questioned, getting more and more curious about this minority group that I am a part of. It's not everyday that I get to bump into people like me. In fact, I only ever met a very small handful during my time at Indigo, even if I didn't know people like us were called Ability Holders at that time.
"A mixture of both, but not just anyone will get accepted into EDGE even if they have an ability. You need to have a certain level of skill with your gift to be accepted and you need to be a skilled enough trainer in the first place. Reed was scouted, Zoe and I got in through applications and passed a mandatory test we were put through."
"Join us?" Reed asked hopefully. "We have… uh, cookies? The cookies in the pantry are really nice, I'm not kidding. Whenever I'm feeling low I steal some cookies from the pantry and it always makes me feel better."
"Join Black Sight, that's the name of the team that we are a part of in EDGE. If you want to join, you might as well join the best team there is. Remember, Black Sight," Zoe quickly added.
"There was a best team?" Reed asked in confusion and was once more greeted with Zoe's glare of warning, causing him to shrink into himself again.
"The stuff we get involved in can be really dangerous at times, but we are a fun bunch and very closely knitted. Parties are a lot more fun when you can play around with your ability," Miguel said jovially. "It might be a problem to get you to join EDGE since you are a Kantonian and not an Unova citizen, national safety concerns and security clearance level and all that but… Well, anything can happen, and there are only a few dark inclined Ability Holders in EDGE so people like you are quite invaluable."
"I'm Unovan, it's just that I was born in Kanto and had been living there for all my life until I moved back recently."
"Then there shouldn't be much of a problem," Zoe said with a snap of her fingers. "Come on, join us! It's far better than trying to conceal yourself all the damn time and trying not to be different. It's so liberating- Shucks, shouldn't have said that L word. Now I sound like a Plasma bastard."
"Liberate all Ability Holders. Yay," I made a mockery of Team Plasma's motto of Liberate all pokemon and succeeded in getting them to chuckle at the joke. I took a glance at the time on my watch. We were waiting here because the police needed some time to sweep and clear the streets of any innocent bystanders that might be nearby. After all, the Plasma hideout that we are about to raid is located at a crossroad in between a residential area and a business district. This was also why this operation was planned to be conducted in the early morning before the rush hour, because not only there will be fewer people up and about so that we could minimise the chances of an unwanted accident occurring, the chances of Team Plasma being alerted to our presence are also lower at this hour.
"Are you going to be fine with just a helmet?" Zoe asked me a totally unrelated question, gesturing to my attire which was just a casual winter outfit and the helmet which I borrowed from the police headquarters. Everyone else was wearing specialised combat suits and each of them have slight unique modifications on it, which I'm guessing serves to augment their individual abilities. Meanwhile, without the helmet I could totally pass myself off as just another civilian that was passing by.
"Those fancy suits won't help me in a fight," I gave a random excuse that I spontaneously thought of, but the real reason behind my choices was because I'm too used to fighting in the kind of attire that I'm wearing now and I'm not a fan of wearing skin tight suits. The only reason why I even brought along a helmet was because it can hide my face from view and also because there was a built in radio in it for easier communication with the rest of the team.
"About damn time too," Miguel said when we finally heard our radios crackling to life, pumping down instructions that the operation will be starting soon. We quickly put on our helmets and slapped the tinted visors shut, obscuring our faces from view. In this operation we will be going by assigned codenames. Miguel is C-0, Zoe C-1, Reed C-2, and I will be C-3. This procedure is nothing unfamiliar to me, but it does bring back memories of my days working undercover in Team Rocket.
"This is C-0, Team C is in position," Miguel informed the overall supervising commander of this operation through the comms after we silently approached and hid ourselves near the point of entry we were supposed to storm into. This particular Team Plasma hideout that was discovered operates behind the front of a pokemart that is three stories high. The entrance Team C is supposed to enter from is the backdoor of the building that leads into the alleys, a perfect route for villains to make an escape.
"All teams standby. Commencing operation in ten seconds. Squad leaders, control is now yours. Give them hell."
"Hear that? Give them hell. Your turn to shine, little murder incarnate," I raised my hand to pat Grumpy on the head, who was still not moving from his position where he was resting on the top of the helmet I'm wearing. Grumpy gave me a dismissive grunt in return. Disagreeable little fellow.
The backdoors of the pokemart were blown open by an explosive punch from Zoe's conkeldurr the moment the countdown reaches its end. Zoe and her fighting types took point as our team stormed into the place, the sole female on our four men team easily clearing the way and sweeping all obstacles aside as her fighting types went wild. I even saw for myself how Zoe was able to utilise Aura and punched a hole into the wall when her fist didn't manage to connect with a nearby Plasma who had tried snucking up to her from behind, but she got him with the next punch anyway.
"Remind me to not get on her bad side," I joked as I casually strolled behind the team, covering their backs since I'm here mainly as an insurance as one of the rare eight badge trainers in our profession. Contrary to what the pokemon games from my previous life might suggest, in this world it is very difficult for anyone to complete a full gym circuit and earn all eight badges. The majority fell out halfway to seek jobs elsewhere when they realised they could not go any further, with most of them dropping out by the time they reached the fourth or fifth gym in the circuit. People who earned all eight badges and also competed at least once in a Pokemon League are all the cream of the crop among the trainer community and this is why they are called Elite trainers. People who managed to get into the top sixteen in a League Tournament are somewhere within the top five percentile or so of their cohort, already the elites of the elites. People who hone their skills even further and eventually become Pillars are the true elites, making up less than one percent of the trainer population in their region.
Of course, how long a trainer takes to complete a gym circuit also depends on their hard work and innate talent. Anomalies like Steven Stone and the young Vera girl (she is only physically young in the case of my fellow reincarnator, but my point still stands) who obviously completed their circuit in a year or two are far from the norm. Most trainers who are talented enough to reach Elite level usually take about three years to reach there assuming that being a trainer is their full-time job, but there are some late bloomers who take five years or even more. From what I can observe, Reed's strength is akin to a six badge trainer. Zoe would be a seven or eight and probably is the typical late bloomer type, not too sure if she had competed in a League before and what her placements might be but she wouldn't do too badly either way. Miguel is definitely a veteran and an Elite trainer.
"You should be safe. I am usually the one on her bad side," Reed visibly shuddered a little as his bug types flipped the place upside down and tied the Plasmas we knocked out with expert use of String Shot. So far, there's no need for me to do anything yet.
"C-2, there's a terminal here," Miguel called out over the comms and Reed immediately ran towards where Miguel is, taking out a military grade laptop and immediately connecting it to the terminal to see if there is any information they can retrieve from there. For now, we are done with clearing the Plasmas in our team's assigned section in this building, so I silently signalled for my pokemon to fan out and keep a lookout as I heard Miguel and Zoe commanding their pokemon to do the same as well.
"Calling Command, this is C-0. We cleared our area and we are now trying to hack into their terminals, over," Miguel spoke into the comms as I observed the pokemart a little more closely. Our team is to breach the backdoor and clear the ground floor together with Team A who will be storming from the front. Team B will enter from the rooftops and they will clear floor two and three since they have the most members among the three teams.
Still, this was a little too easy for such a big hideout. The few Plasmas that we cleared couldn't be all there was even if I factor in the fact that the time now is in the early morning where the sun had only just risen. I know better than most the approximate numbers which a hideout can theoretically hold based on its approximate size. The number of Plasmas I estimated that we had run into had not even hit half that size I had mentally calculated.
Something's definitely not right. Oh well, time to get to work.
"Weavile, comb the place," I released weavile out of his pokeball as the troublemaker immediately got to work like I had trained him to, knocking his claws on the walls or the tiles on the floors to check if there might be any secret rooms whatsoever. Team Rocket did love to use those, something which was probably an initiative Alice implemented since she was a huge fan of such features, and some of the Plasma hideouts that I had raided on my lonesome prior to this also had this same feature as well.
"Lo and behold, down the rabbit hole we go. Good job, weavile," I praised the little troublemaker when he proudly showed me the hidden stairs leading down to what is definitely a secret basement. I turned around and called for Miguel because he needs to know what we have found.
"Urgh, secret basements," Miguel didn't even bother to hide his contempt when he finally came over to my position and saw what we had found. "C-0 to Command, we found a secret passage to the underground. I repeat, we found a secret passage to the underground. Requesting permission to proceed. Please advise, over."
There was a brief period of silence until a response was received.
"This is A-12," ah, now that is definitely Elesa's voice. "What is the progress of hacking into their terminals? Over."
"C-0 to A-12, C-2 still needs more time, he won't be done anytime soon, over," Miguel replied after he saw how Reed shook his head at him.
"A-12 to C-0, understood. C-2 is to stay at his position and continue with the hacking, Team A will watch over him. Rest of Team C, leave the ground floor to Team A and proceed down the passage. Please proceed with caution and retreat immediately if things go FUBAR. C-3, I'm counting on you to ensure their safety, I will join you after we tidied things on our end here and secured the area. C-3, please acknowledge, over."
"Yes yes, don't need you to tell me what to do," I yawned from the lack of sleep I am suffering from, only to receive a good scolding from her over the comms.
"Use proper radio lingo!"
"Well I don't hear you using it either, woman," I shot back over the comms and I could see Zoe trying her best to stifle her laughter. I tuned out whatever Elesa was shouting at me next as I motioned for Zoe and Miguel to gather around me.
"Is it wise to piss off a gym leader like that?"
"It's fun, I recommend trying it out sometimes. Anyway, I request that you let me take point and assume control from here onwards. Trust me when I say that this is more of my domain."
"I knew I was right, this is not your first time, you are far too relaxed. Alright, I trust you. Control is now yours, show us what you can do," Miguel agreed to my demands and soon, we were quickly making our way down the long flight of stairs.
"Good grief, just how deep did they burrow?" Zoe muttered as she ran behind me.
"How else do you think Team Plasma managed to hide so many of their goons from the authorities until now? If you cannot find anything in the buildings, then always look downwards. Chances are, you can find the lowest of the low there where they rightfully belong," I replied as we finally reached the bottom of the stairs and found ourselves at a crossroad that leads in three different directions.
"Speaking from experience?"
"You can say that. Exeggutor, scan," I replied as I finally let out everyone on my team except for the bigger heavy hitters like hydreigon and drapion after confirming that this area was spacious enough to let them out. Exeggutor immediately did a quick psychic scan of our surroundings upon my instruction.
"Bad news, the walls are coated with Darktycin. Psychic scans are going to be next to useless, it's going to be a hassle to pinpoint their exact location," I relayed to Zoe and Miguel what exeggutor had found out while I lightly knocked against a nearby wall with my knuckle. The walls are solid, good.
"Darktycin? There are so many walls here that doing that must have cost a bomb, we must have stumbled into something important."
"Definitely," I agreed with Miguel's judgement.
"So what are we going to do?" Zoe asked as she too, released more of her pokemon out now that we have the space to do so, which Miguel was also doing the same.
"Ninetales?" I asked my starter as she pointed to our right with her snout, already having a good guess as to which direction the bulk of the Plasmas that were hiding here had fled to using her sense of smell. I looked at spiritomb, who is also supporting ninetales' findings with a low howl. Ghosts are sensitive to negative emotions and the animosity the fleeing Plasmas have for us are going to be as clear as day to him, especially if they are fleeing together as a big group.
'Master Jayce, spiritomb says that they are all fleeing together in a single direction. The other routes are simply decoys to throw us off. We should go right,' Exeggutor helpfully informed me.
Good.
"They fled this way, probably had a very good head start and this place is built like a damn maze," I gestured to the walls and more specifically, how the entire underground basement was obviously constructed to be a literal confusing maze to discourage any would be pursuers. "If we want to catch them before they disappear, I propose we do something a little… crazy."
"How crazy?" Miguel asked cautiously. I simply turned to look at Zoe.
"C-3 to C-1, how confident are you in your pokemon's ability to punch through every single wall in our way so that we can reach the Plasmas in the straightest line possible, over?"
"C-1 to C-3, this is no problem at all. I will happily comply, over," Zoe cracked her knuckles and rotated her shoulders to warm up. Her helmet is in the way but I can imagine the grin that I'm sure is on her face right now.
"The basement won't collapse if we do that, right?" Miguel asked.
"Nope, I checked. Walls are solid here, they will hold as long as we don't destroy anything too important and compromise the structural integrity of this place. Still, Zoe, do take note of that when you are doing the punching," I confirmed as I gestured for Zoe and her fighting types to step up and pointed in the direction spiritomb said he sensed the Plasmas fled to.
"All yours."
"With pleasure."
"I can't believe this freaking worked."
"As a wise man once said, the difference between insanity and genius is separated by a very fine line," I assured Miguel as I leaned my body to a side to dodge the flying rock that might have hit me if I didn't do so.
"Who's that wise man? You?" I heard Zoe through the comms, spotting her team easily dispatching a few Plasmas and their pokemon on their lonesome. She shouted commands to her pokemon every few seconds and I cannot help but frown at the sight. At this rate, the hyperactive girl is going to die an early and worthless death.
I signalled for greninja to help cut me a way forward, allowing us to easily reach her.
"My dear girl," I gently shook her out of her fighting trance and the tunnelvision that I'm certain that even she herself didn't realise she was falling into, placing a hand on her shoulder and lightly pulled her back to me as my dark types easily took over the battles her pokemon was engaged in, allowing her and her team to take a brief respite while Miguel covered our backs. "Having the strength to down a dozen enemies with a single punch is good and all, but if you want to live over the ripe old age of thirty in this line of work there is something you need to learn how to do as soon as possible."
"Now is not the time for lessons!" Zoe hissed as she urgently gestured at the enormous number of Plasmas up ahead, who had given up trying to flee after witnessing the terrifying sight of Zoe's fighting types demolishing walls after walls to reach them in relatively short time. Granted, we still actually traversed an incredibly large distance to be able to even catch up to them in the first place, to the point that we are now situated in a huge cavern that I never thought would have existed below the grounds of Nimbasa City where we are all now duking it out. Team Plasma had decided to try overwhelming us with their superior numbers when they saw that there were only three of us and so far, it is not working out for them. Yet, they also could not flee because umbreon had caught them all with Mean Look and they wouldn't be breaking out of it anytime soon. Umbreon is too good for that to happen.
Zoe let out a brief yelp and instinctively raised her arms to shield her face when a huge fireball was suddenly shot our way. I simply stood without bothering to move because I knew exeggutor would protect us with its barriers.
"Let me go, we can't just be standing here!" Zoe tried to remove my hand that was gripping onto her shoulder but failed to do so after realising that I am holding onto her with an iron grip.
"If I let you go now as it is, you will die. Maybe not today, but definitely before you hit twenty. Want to bet?"
That silenced her immediately.
"Look, I can see that you are far from a newbie in this line of work, so act like one and get rid of all those bad habits you picked up while you were still a trainer competing in the gym circuit. Shouting commands at almost every second is the indication of an inexperienced trainer," I explained as I lifted my right hand and quickly flashed through a few signs when I identified the change in tactics the Plasmas were using. My team responded to my change in commands and immediately reacted to foil the Plasma's plans while furthering our own. Meanwhile, I continued to help let the girl understand what she was doing wrong.
Be nice, that annoying model said. Try to be nice, she will always say. Fine, let's try.
"Let's be real. How long can you keep shouting like that? For how long can you maintain your top form, to fight with your fists alongside your pokemon, be fast enough to react and shout your commands at them all at the same time? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? I will be generous and give you an hour, at the maximum, if you are really that fit and your throat somehow doesn't go hoarse by then," I slowly educated her as I pulled her along, shifting ourselves to place myself in a better position in order to continue commanding my team. As long as I'm at the front, Miguel will be safe at where he is providing support at the back, so I only have to make sure that Zoe doesn't do something stupid that might result in her early demise.
"Sorry Grumpy, I need you to fly and knock out that vanilluxe over there pronto."
I bent down and easily scooped up Grumpy who was sticking himself close to me, cocked my arm back, and threw him like a baseball as far as I could towards the Plasmas. Grumpy curled himself up for better aerodynamics, his tail shining in a metallic glow as he spun in the air throughout his short flight before cracking down hard on a vanilluxe with an Iron Tail to take it out. That living ice cream cone was on the verge of releasing a Blizzard and that would be problematic for us.
"What the- some might sue you for pokemon abuse if they saw that. Who on earth throws a pikachu like that?" Zoe commented in disbelief while Grumpy easily extracted himself from the sticky situation with a burst of Agility with honchkrow covering his retreat with a Dark Pulse. I signed another signal to shiftry, who leapt past bisharp at the front and grunted the instructions I wanted shiftry to pass down to him and also helped to remove some of the heat that bisharp was facing. Bisharp immediately switched his position with umbreon and that small shift slowly allowed us to change the flow of the battle in our favour.
"You just met him. Anyway, as I was saying-" My hand quickly pressed down hard on the top of her helmet, forcing her to quickly lower herself as a Thunderbolt flew past where her head was just a second earlier. "- there is a limit for us humans when it comes to our stamina, our reaction time, and so on. We are naturally weaker than pokemon in both physical and mental constitution so if you are going to be frequently involved in a free-for-all that you love being in so much, you need to learn how to pace yourself. By that, I mean knowing when to and when not to exert so much force and attention in shouting commands because that is one surefire way to tire yourself out easily. As trainers, we are the commander of our pokemon team. What does the commander do on a battlefield? We sit high up there and observe, to do the decision making on the ground, and in order to make the best decisions we need to take a step back and be able to look at the overall bigger picture so that we don't get blindsided by our tunnelvision we tend to experience from the adrenaline rush. Yes, it's also equally important that we can fight alongside our pokemon, but you are doing that a little too much than strictly necessary."
"So what would you have me do? Why do you keep pulling me around to weird places anyway?" Zoe asked as we shifted our positions once more as I trusted her fighting types to keep Team Plasma's pokemon a healthy distance away from us while my team pulled further away from me for a short moment in order to temporarily overwhelm the Plasmas through sheer firepower.
"You still don't realise?"
"Realise what?"
"These weird places that you talked about, they were the optimal positions where I could command my team effectively at that moment until it wasn't optimal anymore, I don't just place myself there for the fun of it. This is how I fight alongside my team. Ninetales, if you would please hurry and burn down that incoming swarm of swoobats, that would be great."
A huge wall of flames immediately incinerated the swoobats before they could overwhelm us.
"Thank you," I thanked ninetales as my starter retook her position in providing ranged attacks from the relative safety at the back of the team before I turned my attention back to educating Zoe. What did Elesa call this again? Educate and guide the next generation of trainers? It's too much hand-holding in my opinion but whatever. Be nice, right? Be nice, Jayce. Remember, be nice.
"Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste; these are the five senses that most living organisms depend on to interact with their surroundings. Of course, if we include other esoteric things like telepathy that is another story, but I don't see you having a psychic type or the likes so that is not applicable to you. For most organisms, the sense of sight is the most depended upon among the five senses and is something I love to abuse with great effect. That's just my personal style, whether you choose to do the same in the future is up to you."
I raised my right hand and quickly flashed through the signs for defence when I spotted a barrage of powerful attacks coming our way. Our team huddled closer together as exeggutor's defensive powers allowed us to brave through the assault and the battle soon resumed with my team charging ahead once more.
"Wait, those weird ways your fingers were moving… That's how you commanded your team?!"
"You just realised? You need to be more aware, my dear girl. I'm honestly worried for you."
"I thought you suffered from dystonia or something. I know a friend whose right arm keeps spasming for no reason from time to time because of-"
"Duck!" I quickly pushed her down when I spotted a boulder being hurled at us through the use of a powerful Rock Throw, instinctively using my body to cover the girl as the boulder sailed right over us and crashed loudly far behind. I quickly stood up and pulled her along as we scrambled to safety behind some covers. I immediately signalled for my team to close their distances towards me, realising that the attack from earlier only happened because we were too spaced out and that resulted in my pokemon being unable to react in time to intercept that Rock Throw. That flaw in our positioning needs to be corrected as soon as possible.
"Situational awareness, my dear girl, situational awareness. Jeez, how did you survive for as long as you did if you were always like this?" I lightly knocked the sides of her helmet with my fist as Miguel and his normal types provided us some breathing space when they unleashed a wave of ranged attacks at the Plasmas from behind us, buying some much needed time for my pokemon to reposition themselves accordingly. "Where was I? Ah, the lesson I want you to take away at the end of the day is to drive home into that muscle brain of yours the necessity and importance of being able to effectively command your team with non-verbal cues. You might ask, where do you start? How do you learn to do so? My answer? Observe. Just look at Miguel, he doesn't shout his commands out loud all the time like you and Reed do, he can do it without opening his mouth. Any Elite trainer who deserves their title would have consciously or subconsciously learnt how to reduce their reliance on verbal commands by the time they reached that level of skill. You are close to reaching there, so do learn how to achieve that by the time you finish competing in a Pokemon League Tournament if you haven't already. If you couldn't do that, you are just an easy target to kill. If I were a professional terrorist and you still have this bad habit of commanding your pokemon verbally at almost every second, do you know how I would kill you with one simple move by not allowing you the chance to command your team?"
Zoe shook her head. I looked up, spotting honchkrow flying above in this huge cavern and was also constantly keeping an eye on me in case there were sudden changes in instructions.
"Honchkrow, Screech."
Honchkrow released a disruptive Screech that immediately forced the Plasmas to cover their ears. Whatever they wanted to shout to their pokemon couldn't be heard, effectively forcing a breakdown in their chain of command for a brief moment and that one short moment was just enough for my team to collapse on this opening to tear further into their ranks.
"See that? So simple, yet so effective. Anyway, while I said that you need to reduce your reliance on using verbal cues, it's also not possible to not use them entirely in a battle as chaotic as this. There needs to be a healthy balance. The sense of hearing is just as heavily relied on as the sense of sight and in certain situations, allows your pokemon to react quicker to the changes in your instructions. My personal general rule of thumb is that your pokemon needs to be able to see you or hear you at all times, preferably both. That's why positioning yourself is important. Remember this, my dear girl, positioning is key. If you really want to strive to become a top tier trainer you need to master the art of positioning. See what is happening in front? Nothing's ever static, the battlefield will always be constantly changing and so will your pokemon's positions when they are out there fighting. This means that you have to move along with them in accordance with the changes, position yourself such that as many pokemon on your team could easily see or hear your instructions as realistically possible. Those who master such things down to an art form are near unbeatable in a deathmatch. Even if they could not win, they could at least survive, run, and live to tell the tale. Pokemon battling is not just about how strong you can train your pokemon to be, learning powerful moves, getting the "strongest" pokemon yada yada yada. As a trainer, training yourself to be an important piece on the chessboard is equally important too. You cannot just sit back and do nothing but shout commands all day, that's not what a qualified trainer will do, you need to be an integral part of your team in more ways than one. Sometimes we have to physically fight like you did, sometimes we even have to offer ourselves as bait to create an opening and trust that our pokemon can capitalise on that opening. Trainers like the Pillars? They are all definitely masters in positioning and commanding themselves and their pokemon. It's kind of an unspoken prerequisite for them to have mastered this skill."
Ninetales finally managed to put the final act of our grand plan into motion, trapping the Plasmas with a huge Fire Spin and grouping them together. Drapion blocked all visible exits with Rock Tomb, cutting off all forms of escape for them. Good, now we are closer to putting this to an end.
"Of course, not everybody is naturally suited to use non-verbal cues the way I do. My style is a really rare and old breed that hardly anyone uses nowadays. Its origins are traced back to some ancient ninjutsu thingy used by Indigo ninjas from the Warring States era and its usage have been mostly eliminated through the passage of time, mainly because there is no longer any use for such a lethal method thanks to the lack of wars ever since Indigo's unification, discounting the recent one-day war, of course. My style is not without its downsides, this way of battling is extremely time-consuming and troublesome for both trainers and their pokemon to learn, let alone put it into practice and even if you do, even fewer succeed in getting it to work effectively. It's purely by chance that I came across it and what I managed to salvage about that ninjutsu fighting style wasn't complete either, I had to improvise and add a lot of my own ideas over the years and constantly refine it to make this a workable fighting style. That's the hard part about learning how to command effectively in battle; you always have to learn how to improvise and constantly strive for improvement. For example, I found out that you can also abuse the sense of touch in certain situations. Though the circumstances in which you might be able to utilise it are much more limited, it can be extremely useful and under the hands of a master, you can even turn the sense of touch against ground types because they are more dependent on this particular sense as compared to pokemon of other types. I'm not quite there yet myself, but at least I know that doing so is theoretically possible. For now, I will just give you a little demonstration of how you can give commands through the sense of touch, see if you can learn something from it."
My fingers reached out and firmly tapped on ninetales' back in a very specific staccato of rhythm. Ninetales caught my command and immediately casted a Sunny Day as a new source of light shone brightly from behind us like a flashbang, blinding our enemies' eyes for a short moment and giving us another opportunity to capitalise on.
"What I did are the more advanced aspects of issuing non-verbal commands, which you will not be able to achieve anytime soon. But if you really don't know where to start to learn how to kick your bad habits, try adding a psychic type into your team. For your case, there are psychic-fighting dual types like medicham and gallade, or you can just add some other psychic type that you feel might be a good fit into your team. Thinking is always faster than speaking, so once you establish a telepathic link with a psychic and get used to mentally sending instructions to them, your psychic can assist to pump down your instructions to the rest of your team mentally in just a fraction of a second. It's useful if you need to convey long and overly complicated instructions in the heat of the moment. Alright, lesson's over my dear girl. The stage has been set and it's finally time to wrap this up, get your pokemon to retreat. Miguel, pull back! We are ending this!"
After some sneaky subtle manipulation on our end, my team had finally managed to herd and separate most of the Plasma's pokemon from their trainers and divided them into two distinct groups. While lethal force was authorised for this operation, our main objective was to gather information from whoever we managed to round up and apprehend. We can only achieve that if we can capture the Plasma grunts alive to force the information out of their mouths. However, we also need to put down their pokemon as quickly as possible because dragging things out will only lead us into a more disadvantageous position over time simply because they vastly outnumbered us. Thus, the need to segregate the pokemon from their trainers so that we can end this quickly in one devastating blow by defeating all the hostile pokemon in one fell swoop without accidentally killing the Plasma grunts.
I finally released hydreigon out for battle the moment the two EDGE operatives heeded my instructions. I can see how Zoe had tensed immediately in obvious fright. Unovans really do fear the hydreigon species a lot more than people from the other regions, which is potentially something that I can make use of since I have one on my team.
"Y-Y-You have a-a hydreigon?!"
"Hey, watch your tone, you might hurt hydreigon's feelings. He's sensitive," I joked before issuing hydreigon orders. "Hydreigon, take out the pokemon, leave the trainers alive. Control your power, do not cause a cave-in… Hey, no joking around, I'm serious about that, I don't want us to get buried alive. I'm not accepting any objections."
Hydreigon acknowledged my orders with a low growl, a little annoyed that he couldn't go at full strength since that might cause the cavern to collapse on us. Still, he wasted no time in putting up an impressive display of destruction that took out the majority of the Plasma's pokemon in an instant. The rest of my team made quick work of whatever pokemon that was left out.
"Hypnosis," I commanded as exeggutor, ninetales, and spiritomb did a wide area-of-effect Hypnosis that forced the Plasmas to collapse onto the ground and fall into a long slumber. There, mission complete.
"Impressive," Miguel praised me as he gave me a pat on the back with a hand after he rejoined us. "I've never seen a pokemon being able to let Hypnosis take effect so quickly before, much less three. Impressive."
"They are, I'm proud of them," I agreed as I lightly scratched ninetales at her favourite spot just right behind her left ear when she returned to my side. "Is the radio still silent?"
"Unfortunately," Miguel huffed as he stretched his arms, easing the tension in his muscles. "We are too far down below for our radios to reach the surface. Even my GPS is down, there's no signal at all and I can't tell just where we are right now."
"Same for me too," I confirmed after I took a quick look at my smartwatch. Zoe shook her head, telling us that it is the same on her end as well.
"I suppose the only thing we can do now is stay at our positions and wait for reinforcements to arrive. There's no way they couldn't tell which way we went," I suggested as I made myself comfortable, sitting down on the ground and leaning backwards, resting my body against ninetales' as the fox pokemon gave a large yawn from where she was already lying down on the ground to laze around with me.
"Punching those walls was the most satisfying thing I have ever done in my life. I'm going to boast about it all day after I get back to EDGE," Zoe declared as she stretched herself too, but quickly shifted herself far away when she spotted hydreigon making his way back to me. "How far did we punch our way through though? I didn't keep track."
"Very far. Honestly, I think we left the boundaries of Nimbasa City a long time ago. I'm surprised your fighting types were not tired from all that wall punching," Miguel scratched the back of his neck with a hand as he said that. "And isn't it scary? This is not even the end of whatever tunnels the Plasmas had dug and who knows where else this might lead to. Just how long have these underground passages been here anyway? No wonder the Plasmas were always able to give us the slip if their network of underground passages were so deep and extensive."
"It's honestly worrying. To build such a network they had to have started this many years back, it's a long plan in the making," I agreed. "But that is the problem for the higher-ups for now."
I don't know for what reasons Team Plasma needed to dig such a large and complicated network of underground passages, and I have no idea how they had done it without anyone catching them in the act, but I do know that this is a huge cause for concern.
Team Plasma's ambitions are definitely a lot bigger than it appears to be, that I am sure.
Name: Jayce Dandolos
Age: 22
Pokemon Team:
1. Ninetales, female
2. Exeggutor, male
3. Weavile, male
4. Honchkrow, female
5. Umbreon, male
6. Hydreigon, male
7. Drapion, female
8. Zoroark, male
9. Bisharp, male
10. Shiftry, male
11. Porygon-Z, (Nosy), genderless
12. Greninja, male
13. Spiritomb, male
14. Pikachu, (Grumpy), male
Name: Elesa Euclid
Age: 23
Pokemon Team:
1. Zebstrika (Dazzle)
2. Emolga (Mimi)
3. Emolga (Nana)
4. Ampharos
5. Galvantula
6. Eelektross
7. Stunfisk
8. Luxray
9. Dedenne
10. Alolan Raichu
11. Jolteon
Name: Giselle Dandolos
Pokemon Team:
1. Heatmor
2. Emboar
3. Arcanine
4. Chandelure
5. Simisear
6. Watchog
Name: Zoe Vinson
Age: 18
Pokemon Team:
1. Emboar
2. Conkeldurr
3. Mienshao
4. Throh
5. Sawk
6. Toxicroak
Name:Reed Brady
Age: 15
Pokemon Team:
1. Leavanny
2. Galvantula
3. Durant
4. Yanmega
5. Pinsir
6. Vespiqueen
Name: Miguel Page
Age: 28
Pokemon Team:
1. Audino
2. Cinccino
3. Braviary
4. Castform
5. Lopunny
6. Zangoose