This was it.
No matter all of the struggles I had been through, nor the accomplishments I had finally made, I was going to die in a glorified office building hundreds of miles away from home at the hands of a complete stranger protecting their own unknown interests. The best part? I had no one to help me this time.
It wasn't all bad, though. I accomplished more in this past week than I ever had in the past few years. I finally fulfilled my dream of becoming a Pokémon trainer, and I finally escaped the hellish wasteland that was Orre. Speaking of becoming a trainer, I wonder if anyone will take care of my Yanma after I'm gone. Maybe Kira will do it. She may have completely abandoned me in the final seconds of my life, but I wouldn't be too mad if she at least took over Yanma's care. Aside from their little skirmish in Arbour, Yanma and her Mightyena got along surprisingly well the last couple of days.
Kira couldn't even bear to look me in the eye, but that's not surprising. A jury never makes eye contact with the convict they've just sentenced to death. The guards restraining me, meanwhile, are shifting slightly to stand just behind me and slightly to my sides. They're likely moving to get out of my splash radius. The casualness of their movement makes me wonder if they have to deal with this a lot. I guess that's one of many things that I'll never find out for sure.
On the cusp of oblivion, a dying man thinks about the great questions, such as the possibility of an afterlife, perhaps what the sweet release will feel like. Maybe they also ponder their past regrets and deduce if they truly lived their best life. However, staring down the barrel of the gun leveled at me, I find I don't have any time at all to think. No time at all.
Eta aimed Kira's gun at me. Looking into her eyes, I saw no remorse for the actions she was going to commit. I tightly shut my own eyes, waiting for the end.
*BANG*
I expected searing pain, a piercing sensation, a blunt sensation, anything. But all I heard was the gunshot…part of it, at least. Being in such a close proximity just temporarily blew out my eardrums. In any case, the fact that I was still alive bothered me a bit. Or was I? Looks like I had to bite the bullet, so to speak, and take a look. I opened my eyes.
I was still in Eta's office, not some fancy otherworld. Eta was staggering back, presumably in shock of something, dropping Kira's gun. It hit the floor and fired again as a result of the sudden impact, but I don't think it shot anything important. I took a quick peak at my front. No noticeable signs of damage, so that means I didn't get shot. If I wasn't hit, then who was?
I looked back up, just in time to see Eta collapse backwards onto her desk. For just a split second, I saw a blossoming red spot just below her right shoulder, and then she slumped the rest of the way to the floor. Ah, so Eta was the unfortunate victim tonight. It seemed that her staggering was in pain, rather than simply surprise. That's one mystery solved, and I didn't even have to do any real investigative work. Very nice.
Now, who was my lovely hero? Did Kira finally change her mind and come to my aid yet again? No, she couldn't have. Kira had her gun taken from her by Eta, so she couldn't have been the one to fire the shot. Indeed, she was standing there, frozen in either shock or indecision. I didn't see anyone else in the room when we entered, and Eta didn't strike me as a person who would allow anyone to hide in her office. That just leaves…
I whipped my head around to look at the guards. Sure enough, Lancer had quickly pulled his sidearm out and shot his boss…just to protect me. I wouldn't have believed it either, but the smoke exiting his gun's barrel told me everything. Lancer looked over at his colleagues, and for a tense second, I thought he was going to shoot them, too. Luckily, that was not the case. Howler gave him a curt nod and pulled out his gun as well.
Meanwhile, Kira had come to her senses and dove for her gun. It seemed her specialist training was finally kicking in. Unfortunately for me, I found myself once more on the receiving end of said skills. Kira grabbed her gun and quickly assumed a prone firing position, but Lancer and Howler were already laying down covering fire. They were also dragging me back out the door of Eta's office, assumedly to safety. Y'know, I'm doing too much assuming on this journey. Eventually, I'm going to need to get myself into the swing of things that these guards are already a part of.
The crossing we made towards the exit took far too long, what with Kira landing her shots closer and closer to us with every pull of the trigger, but eventually we made it to the other side. Howler slammed the door shut, pulling me down to avoid the debris sent out by the bullets carving through the door. Lancer, at the same time, grabbed a chair and jammed its legs between the door handles. "That should grab us some time!" he shouted, and gestured for us to follow him down to the exit.
We took the stairs down, of course. Even I know that escaping in an elevator is a terrible idea.
Agent Mavin fired as many shots as she could at the escaping traitors, but unfortunately, she only had so many. Hearing the *click* of your own empty gun during a gunfight is one of the worst feelings anyone can get. It was alright in the long run, though. She could always get more from the armory.
…
Shit. The armory. Mavin ran over to Eta's doors as fast as she could. However, upon trying to open the doors, Mavin found that she could not. They were jammed. Those damn guards were too smart for their own good sometimes. Emphasis on the "sometimes." Generally, Nova's guards were more or less meatheads, but of course the two she had to deal with were actually somewhat intelligent.
Howler and Lancer were both some of the best guards that Nova had to offer, at least in Kanto. Eta had requested them herself when she saw their track record, much to their dismay (and that of their commanding officer), but they had never once wavered in their duties. Not even when some old, OLD Team Rocket member finally gave into their senility and tried to send a pipe bomb to the Silph Company. That normally wouldn't have been a problem for Nova, but they sent the bomb to the wrong address, that being the Saffron Site.
Express Mail sent it all the way up to Eta, and upon opening the box the bomb's countdown triggered. With only seconds to react, Howler grabbed the bomb while Lancer shielded Eta, and Howler threw the bomb right out the window. That decision destroyed most of the windows on the west side of the building for a month (also giving Howler some good cuts, scrapes, and eventually scars from the shattered glass), but it also saved Eta's life, and that's what the Triumvirate cared about most. They had never failed her…until now.
Seeing as she wouldn't be able to escape Eta's office for a while, Mavin instead rushed over to Eta's side, making sure she was still alive. She was still breathing, but barely. Mavin sighed out of relief. She ran over to Eta's desk and pulled out the intercom. It was an older design, but it still worked.
"Attention, all units," Mavin declared with as much authority and bravado as she could muster, her own voice ringing around her in the almost-empty office, "there has been an attempt on Site Manager Eta's life. The traitors are still in the building, and as such, I am issuing a kill-on-sight order in Eta's stead. All available med crews, come to Eta's office ASAP. All others, be on the lookout for the…" Mavin swallowed, unsure of what she was about to say. Jack was with the men she once called friends, but his head was still instructed to rest on a silver platter for Xi. Orders were, ultimately, orders. "…for the three traitors. The men to look for are as follows-" Mavin was about to tell the building which fools to look for, but her line was suddenly cut. The intercom would have to be manually restarted. This was nothing new, what with it being older technology, but the intercom never went out like that mid-transmission…
Oh, those bastards.
Howler finished tearing out a bundle of wires from the control box. "The eggheads up top decided that it was a good idea to tuck all of their fancy tech into one place in the basement," he commented, tossing the wires away. "They also thought it was a smart to make the entire intercom system run off of antiquated technology to avoid people hacking into it. Too bad they didn't think anyone would try a more physical version of hacking."
"How'd you know that it was hidden down here?" I asked. "It is pretty far out of the way."
"Have you never been in a basement before?" Lancer asked me. "It's generally where a building's main breaker is located, along with a great many other systems. This base draws a lot of power, so a fuse is tripped pretty much every other night. I definitively remember where the breaker is in relation to this control box after I had to come down here a couple months ago and reset the system."
"Why do you remember that night in particular?"
"Someone overextended the bandwidth trying to download some very, uh, inappropriate cartoons," Lancer replied, shivering. "That was not a fun incident report to fill out."
"We don't have any experience with the intercom, though," Howler chimed in, striding over to us. "I just panicked and started pulling all of the wires out."
"Yes, and not a moment too soon," Lancer said, pointing upwards. "Another second and our operation would've been greatly compromised. Mavin is nothing if not quick."
"Speaking of your operations," I inquired, trying to keep up with my new friends as they ran up the stairs, "what's the next step to getting out of here? I assume we're trying to escape, right?"
"We're kind of making things up as we go along here," Lancer admitted. "Howler and I had been talking about defecting for a couple of weeks, but we never really planned on it until now."
"Cut the chatter, you two," Howler said from the top of the landing. He was peeking out the door for unwanted party crashers. Confident that the way was clear, he looked back at us. "You'll get your explanations later," he assured me, "but right now we need to focus on getting to the armory. Lancer, you hunt down whatever materials you can in Resupply. I'll take the kid with me to grab some more ammunition, and maybe some better weaponry just in case." Lancer nodded and ran off.
Howler and I ran off in search of this armory. Well, technically, it was more like Howler ran off to find the armory. I had been in this building for maybe 20 minutes total, so I didn't know where anything was. Hey, at least I was getting to go on the grand tour I had joked about earlier. Things went relatively smoothly until Howler suddenly stopped me. "Lone guard up ahead, coming this way," he whispered. "We'll have to go around."
"Why?" I asked, whispering as well. "The armory is just up ahead. I can see it from here."
"We can't get involved here," Howler replied. "If I have to take care of him, there will be shots fired and there will be other guards on our asses in minutes. We'll have to take a longer way around."
"What if there's even more guards that way? We'll be in an even worse situation." I pointed out. "I've bluffed my way through an entire train full of guards, remember? Just do what I say."
"That train was full of cheap hires who didn't really care all that much," Howler objected. "But, fine. I don't have any much better ideas."
Howler shoved me out in the guard's path right as he was about to turn the corner, causing me to bump right into him. Surprised, the guard stepped back and pulled his sidearm on me. "Whoa, whoa," Howler said, aggressively grabbing hold of me. "Easy there, Factic. I've got him."
"Who is this kid, Howler?" Factic demanded. I was getting tired of everyone calling me "kid," no matter how accurate the description was.
"This is one of the traitors that was described in that announcement earlier. I caught him sneaking around near the barracks. Said he was abandoned by the other traitors and got lost, probably to get me to pity him," Howler lied. He had criticized my choice of using the barracks as a burner location, seeing as they were all the way up on the sixth floor and we were on the main level, but I figured it would force the guards to split up their search.
"Well, if you heard the announcement, you would also know that it's a kill-on-sight order," the other guard replied, snootily. "Why'd you take him all the way down here?"
"Oh, come on, you know me, Factic," Howler said in a friendly tone. "And I know you. Do YOU want to clean up the mess he'd make if we spilled his brains on the floor? 'Cause I don't."
The other guard considered this for a couple seconds, then nodded his head. "That's a fair assessment. Just make sure not to execute him too close to our property, or he'll still be your responsibility." He continued on his way, muttering "scum" to me under his breath. Real charmer, that one.
"I'm surprised your little gambit worked," Howler said to me after the meanie guard was well out of sight and earshot. "I guess if there was ever a good time to exploit the trust of others, it would be now." We got to the armory, and Howler tried to open the door via the keypad. It didn't budge. "Damn. I guess Mavin remotely locked down the armory after we dealt with the intercom. That explains the lack of a dedicated guard presence. I don't suppose you have any hotwiring skills or anything?" he asked me.
"As a matter of fact, I do," I proudly proclaimed. Remember when I mentioned that I had experience exploring old military bases in the sandy wastes of Orre? I had to get a little creative to open some of the doors, especially without a dedicated power supply left to work the electronic locks I occasionally came across. I tore off the keypad and fiddled with the internals.
…
Yeah, no.
I looked up at Howler and shook my head. "It's a bit more sophisticated than I'm used to working with. I deactivated the lock, but now the door has no power." I held up a fistful of wires, similar to what Howler did with the intercom.
"Alright then," he said. "Let's open this door the old-fashioned way." With that, he grabbed hold of the door and slowly slid it to the side. Being a slide door, this technique worked. I grabbed hold of what little door I could get to around Howler and pulled too. Eventually, we had it open far enough to clamber in.
The armory wasn't all that impressive, in all honesty. There were plenty of old rifles and handguns, along with the respective ammunition to go with them, but little else. Howler wasted no time, grabbing two rifles from the rack and slinging them over his shoulders by their straps. He noticed my disappointment. "To be fair, this is the last-minute armory. The better one's all the way up on the eighth floor," he told me.
Just then, a new figure burst through the door. Howler instinctively drew his sidearm, but relaxed when he saw who it was. "What took you so long?" he asked as Lancer clambered into the room. "Resupply isn't all that far from here. You should've been here a couple minutes ago, and that's even with a heavy guard patrol in the way."
"They had a coffee maker in there," Lancer replied simply. Howler groaned.
"Fuck's sake, man," he whisper-shouted, holstering his gun. "I know you need your caffeine fix, but that's no excuse for risking the whole team's safety."
"Then I suppose you won't want the one I brought you?" Lancer asked coolly, extending his hand. In it was a steaming hot cup of coffee. Howler silently, bitterly, took it and had a sip.
"Did you at least grab the materials I told you to?" he asked, taking another sip.
"You never gave me any specifics, but yes. I did," Lancer replied, indicating the traveler's pack he had on. "Unfortunately, the packs only hold so much, and I didn't have enough time to pack another. We have enough supplies to last us all roughly 2 days. After that, we're on our own."
"Could've packed another bag instead of making coffees," Howler muttered under his breath, having yet another sip of his coffee and stuffing his pockets with boxes of ammunition.
Instead of wasting more time arguing, Lancer regarded me. "If you're going to be coming with us, you're going to need some decent protection in case you get caught on your own." He strode over to the rifle rack and grabbed one, different from the others Howler had already taken. "Here's a decent hunting rifle. A Model 760 will get you pretty far in life, provided you know how to shoot one." He handed it to me, and I slung the strap over my shoulder while he grabbed some ammo for it. Howler tossed one of his rifles over to Lancer, and Lancer tried his best to fit it over his pack.
It was at this point that someone had wizened up and went down to repair the intercom, or at least rerouted it through a functional system. We learned of such a development when Kira's voice crackled to life again. "Thank you for your patience," she said, her annoyance clear even from multiple stories up. "As I was going to mention earlier before a certain act of sabotage was completed, the three traitors to look out for are the esteemed guards Lancer and Howler, and their underaged companion, who needs not be named. The kill order still stands." Damn. She was real pissed at me to not even list my name.
"SHIT!" Howler yelled. He tossed the remnants of his coffee aside and ran out of the armory, bringing his new rifle up to scan the hallway intersection.
Lancer grabbed me by the shoulder. "Run," he said, unnaturally calm. So I did.
We were all running aimlessly throughout the halls, trying to avoid guard patrols and failing to locate an exit that wasn't already locked down by Kira. This escape attempt was looking more and more hopeless by the minute, and even the ex-guards were feeling the despair.
"Things aren't looking too good for us right now," Lancer pointed out. We all took a short break by a hall corner. What else were we supposed to do?
"Don't need to tell me twice," Howler replied, gasping. "How are we going to get out now?"
"Well, the main entrance doesn't have a lockdown feature thanks to basic fire safety standards. We could try there."
"I'm positive that Mavin knows," Howler refuted. "She'll have guards ready to blow us all the way out to the Sevii Islands once we get in there."
"I have another crazy idea," I joined in.
"Another crazy idea?" Lancer asked, but Howler shushed him.
"I have a strong-ish Pokémon that knows Sonic Boom. If we can find an exterior wall, we could theoretically blast through it."
Howler looked at Lancer. "I don't know enough about Pokémon to refute that plan, so I endorse it. What's your call, Lancer? You're the knowledgeable one."
Lancer thought about it. "We don't really have any other choice. Sure," he resigned. "Follow me. I think we're close to an exterior wall already."
"You think?" I asked. "What if you're wrong?"
"Then there'll be a really surprised and confused patrol of agents on the other side," he said, letting humor creep into his voice. He led us down the hallway to a certain wall at a T-junction. "Here it is. Bring out whatever Pokémon you've got and let's leave this place far behind us."
I unclipped my Pokéball and pressed the button on the front, growing it. There was no room to throw it, so I activated it in my hand. "Help us out, Flytrap!" I yelled.
My Yanma, Flytrap, appeared before us in a shower of red light. Howler didn't really react that much, but Lancer slowly nodded in approval. Flytrap looked back at me, awaiting commands and quite possibly wondering what the hell he was doing staring at a wall. "Use Sonic boom on that wall there. We need to make a quick escape." Flytrap buzzed at me inquisitively. "Yes, we," I said, exasperated. "These are my new friends. Sorry pal, but I don't think you're gonna be seeing Kira or Mightyena again." He buzzed sadly. "Deal with it later!" I said. "Get us out of here, or we definitely won't be seeing them again!"
Panicked, Flytrap quickly turned around and charged up a Sonic Boom. I stepped back to put some space between me and the destruction that was coming. Flytrap unleashed his energy, and he struck true. The wall exploded outwards like it was struck with a wrecking ball, sending dust flying everywhere. Unfortunately, this action set off probably every alarm in the building. The rest of the agents would be here very soon. Coughing, we gingerly stepped over the rubble and out into the cool night air while Flytrap hovered by my side. "There's no asbestos in these walls, right? I'd like to live past 40, thank you."
"We might be old-fashioned with our equipment, but we're not savages." Howler said, wiping the dust from his eyes.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" someone yelled. We all turned around to see a wave of agents sprinting down the hallway towards us.
"Flytrap?" I asked, terrified, "Can you slow them down?"
Without even seeming to acknowledge my request, Flytrap buzzed in front of me and fired off a Supersonic attack. It gave me a headache to listen to, but it did much more damage to the poor men and women caught in its direct line of fire. They sank to their knees, some screaming in pain, some praying to Arceus or another similarly divine Legendary Pokémon. Eventually, they all passed out, blood trailing from their ears. Gross.
Whistling appreciatively, Lancer walked up to me. "Remind me not to get on your Pokémon's bad side."
After what felt like an eternity of running, we finally settled down for a break in a dilapidated parking lot that looked like it was last used at the beginning of the Software Wars. "We should be safe here," Howler said. "At least, for now. I'm gonna bet your girlfriend will come tearing after us again sooner or later."
"Alright," I said, annoyed, "I was okay with that as a ruse when we were still travelling together, but there was absolutely nothing between us outside of that, romantically or otherwise."
"Sheesh, alright," Howler said, putting his hands up in mock surrender, "I was just giving you shit. I didn't even know about the 'travelling ruse' thing."
"In any case," Lancer said, interrupting us, "I think it's time that we got to know each other better, now that we have some time before Nova is back on our asses."
"My name's Jack," I said. What're your names? Your real names? I can't keep referring to you by your fake code names forever."
"My true name is Reese," Lancer said. "Though, we use our real names so little that I have to remind myself every now and then that it's not 'Lancer.'"
"My name is Zach," Howler said. "I certainly don't use it too often. 'Howler' suits me just fine."
"Well, I'm not calling you 'Howler,' Zach. You'll just have to deal," I told him. "Zach" simply harumphed at me and turned away.
"So, anyway," I said, looking at Reese, "Zach claimed you know about Pokémon training, back at the base. Is that true?"
Reese looked at me silently for a couple seconds, then he shrugged. "It's more of a learned knowledge than a practical one. I know Pokémon names, movesets, type matchups, all that good stuff. I'm just not very good at actually making use of that information. My battling skills are subpar at best."
"Battling?" I asked, my curiosity piqued. "You had a Pokémon, too?"
"I have one," he corrected, much to my excitement. "Only one, though. I was too busy with guard duty to ever handle more than that." Reese reached around behind him and pulled out a Pokéball. It was scuffed and faded, stark in contrast to Kira's, but intact. Scanning the area, or perhaps watching Flytrap orbit the lot, Reese threw his ball upwards.
In the blinding flash of the Pokéball's signature red beam, a new figure appeared directly in front of me. Short and squat but bristling with blades, this Pokémon regarded me with its beady orange eyes. Reese stood up and walked over to his partner. "Jack, I present to you my Pokémon…Pawniard!" His Pawniard screeched at me for dramatic effect.
I felt mildly underwhelmed by his choice in Pokémon. I had never heard of Pawniard before (to the surprise of no one), and it certainly didn't look very impressive. Less than 2 feet tall, it looked like it could be punted by any person or other reasonably sized Pokémon it would happen to come across, even despite all of the blades it had jutting from its chest like an inverted ribcage.
As if sensing my negative sentiments, Reese continued his presentation. "Yes, Pawniard isn't quite the strongest Pokémon out there, but she's got determination unmatched by any other Pokémon we've met thus far. Too bad that doesn't quite equate to physical strength."
"Hold on," I interrupted, holding my hand up. "Your Pawniard's a girl?"
"…yeah?" Reese replied, mildly confused at my surprise. "Despite what you may have seen previously, not every Pokémon is a male. In fact, Pawniards, much like many other species of Pokémon, have a similar male/female ratio to humans." He reached down and patted Pawniard's helmet.
"Alright, alright," I waved him off. "I don't need your whole oral report. Pawniards just don't look very feminine is all."
"Well, I can't wait to see your reaction to a male Lopunny." Reese said, mischievously. Unfortunately, I had no idea what a Lopunny was, so that just further added to my confusion.
Howler-sorry, Zach, seemed to pick up on my lack of knowledge. Instead of helping me, he just laughed. "You're better off not knowing, honestly." Reese started laughing, too. Pawniard, like me, just gazed at them in confusion.
"Alright, chuckleheads," I said exasperatedly after a good full minute of them laughing with each other, "what's our next move?" After I finished asking, they sobered up quick. Talk about a mood killer.
"Like we said earlier," Zach reminded me, "we had only been talking about defecting for a couple of weeks. We never had time to fully decide if defection was worth it or not, let alone plan anything after our already unlikely escape."
"You forced our hand when you showed up," Reese chimed in, recalling his Pawniard and sitting down next to Zach. "Though, we can't really blame you for that," he conceded. "No one could have guessed that Eta would try to murder an actual child."
"Why would you want to defect in the first place?" I asked. "Aside from acting on the whims of, uh, debatably unstable bosses, your jobs seemed pretty cushy."
"Well, that's a bit of a long story," Zach claimed. "It all started when we joined Nova 4 years ago. We met after orientation in the Vermilion Outpost, when-"
Reese elbowed him in the ribs. "You went too far back. Those 4 years were pretty alright, all things considered." Reese looked at me. "Our discontent is a little more recent. A little over a month ago, one of our other mutual friends, codenamed Thunderbeam, was called away to work on a secret project in Unova. We were excited for him at the time, and so was he. We don't know exactly what he was working on, since it was a secret project, but we still corresponded with each other daily." Reese paused, trying to restrain himself from doing something, then continued. "Two weeks ago, we completely lost contact with him."
"Well, that doesn't necessarily mean anything bad happened," I said cautiously. "Maybe the project went completely dark, or however you say that they limited talking with any prying outsiders."
"That's what we had thought at first," Reese said. "However, after a couple of days, we still didn't hear anything. The good thing about Nova was that it was very transparent. No project goes dark for any longer than 36 hours, and even then, the Heads don't really care if Nova members message other Nova members. Zach got sent off to work on a top-secret program for Project Head Epsilon 3 years ago and we were still able to talk about anything we wanted, as long as it wasn't about the project itself."
"Don't bother asking me what the program was," Zach grumbled. "I was only there on guard duty after another guard there defected. All I know was that they were working on some new heat resistant material. I don't think it really got anywhere, 'cause I was only there for a month, and our armor never changed."
"Anyway," Reese butted in, "we soon tried to inquire about Thunderbeam's whereabouts, but we couldn't find any information about the project. We weren't really serious about our thoughts until last week when Eta herself shut us down. She told us to stop looking into it or we'd be court martialed. She loved using a court martialing as a threat, now that I think about it," he mused.
"Alright, I can understand why you would decide to defect," I said, "but why would you actually do it? If Kira's skills as a specialist were anything to go off of, we'll be on the chopping block by day's end."
"Better to die standing than live kneeling," Zach boasted, his chin up.
"But if you were on a chopping block, wouldn't you die kneeling anyway?" Reese asked, turning to look at Zach.
I clapped my hands together to regain their attention. "Guys. Focus. What are we going to do now?"
Reese rubbed his chin. "Go to Unova, I guess. The entire point of our defection was to find answers about Thunderbeam's fate."
"Oh, great," I said, throwing up my arms in exasperation. "It's absolutely wonderful that Unova is just over ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE FUCKING PLANET!"
"Well, I never said it was a great plan," Reese replied, quietly.
"Cool it, kid," Zach said, gruffly. "It's not much, but it's a better plan than just lying down on our backs and waiting for Nova to come put a bullet between our eyes. Right now, let's just get out of the city. We need to put some ground between us and the rabid agents on our trail."
"You're right. I'm sorry," I admitted. "Let's go, Flytrap," I said, holding up my Pokéball and turned the Yanma into a beam of pure energy. I placed his ball back in my pocket and looked up to the ex-agents. "Well? What are we waiting for?"
As the paramedic team hauled Eta out of the office, Mavin was left completely alone. That wasn't new by any means. Mavin's line of work forced her to be left to her own devices for weeks at a time. However, she had never had to deal with anything like this.
Jack. The one that got away.
It wouldn't be a stain on her record, of course. He had only escaped because of a couple of traitorous guards, and there was no way for her to anticipate THAT. In any case, that made three enemies of Nova waiting to be hunted like the animals they were, but Mavin could do little else but watch as they escaped. As a retrieval specialist, she was not permitted to chase targets until properly sanctioned by one of the Named. This prevented overzealous agents from apprehending anyone they saw fit, but the process was very slow when capturing a defector was truly needed.
It was especially annoying how they managed to bust up the side of the building. Mavin had been happy for Jack when he captured that Yanma, but the power it possessed would likely become a great obstacle. If memory served right, the guard formerly known as Lancer would have a Pokémon, too. It wouldn't likely be very powerful, but any Pokémon could be a grave threat under the right circumstances.
The communicator on Eta's desk rang. Mavin whirled around to look at it. The communicator each Named individual held in their office was quite an advanced piece of technology by the new modern standards, but it was crammed into the body of an old rotary phone. That part was simply for cosmetic purposes, as the real communicator device was very unsightly. However, these particular models could only be contacted by other Named individuals. Mavin picked up the earpiece and held it up to her ear.
"My apologies, but Site Manager Eta is not available right now," she said into the mouthpiece. "Please call back at a later date."
Mavin was about to hang up, but then she heard a new voice. "I know," said a male voice in an eerily smooth tone, "and as an added bonus, you're just the gal I wanted to speak to." Mavin was stunned into silence by the man's attitude, and just listened as he continued. "The two guards that defected, Howler and Lancer. I've been keeping tabs on them for the past couple of weeks. It saddens me to see them leave our Nova family, but it's not fully surprising. I saw the security footage of their escape as well, and the kid that they escaped with is impressive as well. It really is a shame."
"If you'll excuse my interrupting," Mavin finally said, "why are you calling to tell ME this?"
"Of course. My apologies," the man replied, brushing off Mavin's interjection. "I got ahead of myself. These two traitors and the kid they harbor could very quickly ruin my operation. I'm almost positive that they'll be heading to Unova, and that just will not do at all. I need someone to track them down and eliminate them long before they get here. And that is why I'm calling you."
"Me, sir?" Mavin asked, surprised. While specialists always had to be hired through the Named, they were rarely commissioned by the Named, and never contacted directly like this.
"Yes, Mavin. Your track record is spotless, even when compared to other specialists above your caliber," the man assured. "I fully understand that you've never attempted to capture any more than one target at one time, but you have an advantage that you've never had before: you've already caught one of them before."
"Not to deny your request," Mavin said, unprofessionally flustered thanks to this man's compliments, "but I don't see how I'll be able to do this. I want to, but I don't know if I can hunt three men at once."
"Luckily, you won't need to bring any of them back alive," the man explained. "Just personal items that they would have on them as proof of elimination. You understand. Dog tags, Pokémon and their respective Pokéballs, foreskin, it matters little to me. Look, Mavin," he said, suddenly serious, "I know I'm asking a lot from you, but I can promise that your reward will be substantial."
"Reward?" Mavin asked. Specialists were paid for every job they did, but it was a flat rate across the board. There were no true "rewards" to speak of.
"Indeed. A historic commission needs a historic prize," the man claimed. "It will all be taken care of upon your mission's completion. So, what do you say?"
Mavin took a deep breath before answering. "I'll make the traitors pay, each and every one. For you, and for Eta, and for their fellow men and women that they betrayed."
She could almost hear the man smile through the earpiece. "Splendid," he said. "I eagerly await to hear of your success. Oh, but you had better get started right away. They have quite the head start." And with that, he hung up, leaving Mavin staring at the Saffron sunrise in silence. She had meant every word of her declaration. Those traitors would pay.
All three of them.
PokéDex Entry #624: Pawniard, the Sharp Blade Pokémon
Type: Dual Dark/Steel
Ability: Defiant (Raises Attack in response to the dropping of another stat)
Height: 1ft 8in / 0.5m
Weight: 22.5lbs / 10.2kg
Known Moves: Metal Claw, Metal Sound, Night Slash, [NO DATA]
