This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose.

[4-3] Nonstop Service

"I need you to follow my instructions, Mr. Fauder."

Ciel, misplacing both his words and his footsteps, finally landed on his own luggage and tore through it with the light of his Poké GEAR. He snatched his capsules from within the bundle of clothing. He raised his voice to combat the roar of the engines. "Okay. I'm ready!"

"Report where you are," he said. The library background seemed to whirl around him, as if he was sprinting past the bookshelves.

"I'm in the cargo hold. Luggage. It's dark."

"That explains the low visibility." He didn't hesitate, and the commands coming out of his mouth sounded practiced. Legislative. "Regardless, you're where you should be. We need to locate a device to reactivate your Poké Balls."

"Okay, how?" Ciel asked.

"Make your advance towards the rear of the plane. Keep in mind that I've only seen this process once because I happen to fly private often, so I'll attempt to guide if I'm incorrect." he said.

"Uhh, which way is—" Ciel stared into the darkness, realizing he'd gotten disoriented. The direction of the craft wasn't exactly apparent to him, but he went with his gut and rotated himself until the engine roars aligned with his ears. He bounded across the luggage until his shoulder slammed into something. With his fingers extended, he probed the wall, trying desperately to use the dim backlight of his device to his advantage. "Your name's Saber, right? What am I looking for, Saber?"

"Along the back wall of the cargo hold should be a sealed chamber for crew equipment. Look for a handle." Saber's breaths sounded heavier through the call, and Ciel could see the world shift around him as he ran somewhere.

Ciel's fingers slipped into a niche in the wall. He tightened his fist. "I think I found it!"

"Pull," said Saber.

"Pull?"

"Pull!"

Ciel clenched his biceps until they ached, powered further by the commotion raging over his head. The longer he took, the more people were robbed, or poisoned, or hurt. He couldn't waste time. But whatever he was attempting to pull wasn't budging. Ciel hopped to slam both feet on the wall and give himself more leverage. Instead, his grip slipped, and he toppled over on the cargo strewn about the hold.

"Saber, it's not working! I think it's locked," said Ciel. He stared at the tall man through the screen.

"Obviously," he replied. "It requires clearance from the flight staff. But there's a zero percent chance of you getting clearance in time, so you have to pull it open anyway."

"Look, just because you and your sister can magically heal gut wounds doesn't mean that I'm a superhero!" shouted Ciel.

"Do you want to save everyone on the plane?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then, pull!" he ordered.

Ciel threw himself at the wall again and found the handle with his fingers, both hands this time. He stepped up on the panel again and tugged with everything he had. Everyone at the mercy of that crazed man was seizing with fear. As they saw the crew, the co-pilot, fall, the worst-case outcome would have raced through their heads. Laina was probably in the bathroom, hyperventilating as the screaming passengers echoed through the plane.

He had to protect them. And he needed to set an example! When he became who he wanted to be, the hero of the next crisis would ask themselves what Ciel Fauder would do. And then they'd rise up and do it.

With one final pull, the panel broke with a loud clang. Shattered parts flew past, leaving the panel door swinging loose and the contents on full display. Ciel held up the light of the Poké GEAR, revealing a tray-like device with six niches for storage-mode capsules.

"I got it!" he exclaimed. He quickly shoved his Poké Balls into the device, waiting for more instructions.

"Wait, you can't use it just yet." The world around Saber finally slowed. His arms moved deftly offscreen. He was typing on a keyboard.

"Just hurry!" said Ciel. His hands were sweating. Time was ticking.

Saber leveled at him. "Mr. Fauder, what's your trade authorization code?"

"Give it all! Give it to me!" the attacker shouted. Sauntering through the plane, he accosted each petrified passenger. Those that didn't cooperate, or took too long, or didn't have the money he wanted, or just didn't strike his fancy became examples littering the floor behind him. "Give me your fucking money! Only one pilot left!"

His Pokémon enjoyed the massacre. Each person it injected with poison earned another macabre smile.

With every flight attendant incapacitated, and the functioning co-pilot no doubt focusing on keeping the plane afloat, he was free to do whatever he pleased with the passengers. The man stepped past the first section of the plane, only for an arm to swing out and reshape his nose.

Ciel leapt from his hiding place and wrapped his arm around his neck. He thrashed in surprise, hilting an elbow deep into Ciel's gut, bit Ciel grit his teeth and squeezed tighter.

His voice choked in the struggle, the attacker called, "Toxicroak!"

The venomous Pokémon lunged at him, a blur in his peripheral vision. Rather than attempt to dodge, he tightened his hold and put his faith in his notes.

Whatever afflicted her only appeared upon their arrival to Sinnoh. Whether it was the shock of the Champions' deaths that seemed to have infected the entire Region's population or something else, the Region itself was his only lead on what's been happening. Fortunately, he was a bit far from the Sinnoh Region right now. About twelve-thousand meters.

He forced a guttural shout. "Raven!"

A flash. A clang. The furred, white body of his Absol rushed past him and swung her sickle, clashing against the Toxicroak's claw. She followed through with a powerful Night Slash, tearing into the leather of a seat and almost a terrified passenger when the opponent bounded out of range.

His partner's muscles rippled beneath her fur as she stood her ground. A twitch in her left hind leg threatened her balance, but she was present enough to snarl at the trial ahead.

"Raven, keep it occupied!" he shouted. "Everyone else, get to the back of the plane! Now!"

His partner dueled the Toxicroak, pushing it ever closer to the flight deck with each stroke of her sickle, though he noted that even successful hits appeared not to slow it down. Was it naturally resistant? Ciel wrestled with the attacker himself.

Panicked passengers scrambled down the aisles. Another elbow to his gut, and the motion of people forcing their way past the encounter, forced a cough up his gullet and his grip to slip. The man threw him against a seat and his back cracked on the jutting plastic armrest.

A fist was already flying by the time he recovered. The spark of recognition spurred the dynamo in his mind, recalling the months of grueling, one-on-one practice against a Wado-ryu master. Like lactic acid, the memories set his muscles ablaze.

Ciel threw up an arm to parry and drove a high-level strike to his chest, knocking the man off his balance and giving him a chance to regain his footing. He fell into as proper a stance as possible in the limited aisle space. Both arms up, right forward and high, left backward and low. Right leg strong forward, and light on both his feet.

The man threw another punch with power, but no technique. Ciel swatted it away and lunged, paying him back for the pain in his stomach with a powerful strike of his boot. The attacker crumpled, left curled on the floor and temporarily incapacitated.

Ciel quickly turned to the battle, where the exchange between Raven and the Toxicroak had dislodged seats from their bolted positions on the floor. As an attack flew forward—charged with energy, what he could assume was Poison Jab—he took command.

"Raven, Detect!" he ordered with an outstretched fist.

His partner vanished, only to reappear atop one of the seats. She leapt and bared down with her sickle.

Dark-type attacks weren't enough to put this thing down. However, it was likely Poison, meaning they could put to use what they'd practiced with his father's Inkay. "Use Psycho Cut!"

Rather than dark sparks, a rose-colored energy engulfed her sickle and refracted visible light around it. With a whip of her neck, the force slipped from the weapon and found its target. It pierced through. Ciel watched, horrified, as crimson fluid splattered on the floor below.

He backed away. "No! No, I didn't mean—"

He wasn't given any time to process. Two flashes matched the blood's color, and Ciel turned, wide-eyed, at two more Pokémon that entered the fray. One he recognized from his childhood venture to Hoenn, Seviper. An inflated sac circled the head of its similarly serpentine companion, who coiled its body into a tight spring.

The man coughed some orders in Sinnohan and both Pokémon slithered forward, bearing daggered jaws. Disoriented, the order Ciel attempted to give slipped at the top of his esophagus and plummeted back down his throat.

In its place, his wrist gave its own order. "Command: Vice Grip!"

A pinkish blur dashed from within the row of seats and clamped its pincers around the necks of both attackers. The small, lithe Pokémon had membranous wings hanging from its arms, and the stinger on its tail poised to strike. Though Seviper cried out in the vice grip, the restraint bounced off the inflated sack of the other, merely surprising it.

"Seviper got caught. The other is too big!" he said.

"What are we fighting?" demanded Saber at his wrist.

"Something tan-colored! It's coiled up!"

"Command: Poison Tail! Target: Lower body!"

The stinger flashed forward and impaled the creature's coiled, muscular tail. Ciel winced at the depth of injection, but finally managed his own order. This time, he'd use the one that couldn't bleed.

"Night Slash!" His voice cracked through the desperate order.

Raven's sickle appeared to double in size with the amount of Dark-type energy funneling through it. Normally a sickle, it became a full-sized scythe. She leapt from atop the seat and drove the attack clean through the Seviper's body. It left no trace and caused no injury, but it sapped the Seviper's strength to the point that its head hung limp within the pincer.

A hurricane of breaths blew through Ciel's body, erupting in short, panicked bursts. He angled a furious gaze at the man. All his Pokémon were disabled, and Ciel made it abundantly clear with his curled fist that there was only a single path forward. His path.

"Nothing matters now!" shouted the man. His mumbles burst out into unstable, manic laughter. "The Champion is dead!"

Ciel stomped his forward boot and bared his teeth. The attacker cowered. Raven threatened with fangs of her own by his side.

The man broke. He bolted down the aisle, only to immediately bash his skull on the armored Pokémon that stepped out from his hiding place in the service area. He fell to the floor one last time, and Hector loomed over his unconscious body.

Ciel joined him, unable to support himself further, and his head rang when it impacted the floor of the plane. He looked to the bleeding Toxicroak. The pool forming beneath it seeped its way towards him, filling his eyes with red.

Saber shouted at his wrist, asking what happened. People crowded above him, and he felt himself lifted up by countless arms. He was raised almost to a stand, his legs weak beneath him, and he raised his head.

It was Laina, standing in the aisle. Like the other passengers, her face was pale, but she took the initiative to step forward and grasp her arms around him. Her fingers dug painfully into him. She wouldn't let go.

"Passengers, prepare for an emergency landing at Fantina Utføre International Airport in Hearthome City."

"I'm here with Mr. Ciel Fauder, the man who stopped the attacker aboard League Airlines Flight SC009 and allowed the plane to make a safe emergency landing in Hearthome," said a journalist into a microphone.

He was standing between Ciel and the cameras, which flashed in an arc around him. Ciel pushed his back up against the window of the airport terminal, realizing he was trapped in this situation. To keep his mind occupied, and to calm his nerves, just a little, he fiddled with his Poké GEAR. He scrolled through his contacts, focusing on the newest one recorded. Saber.

Multiple other reporters spoke into their own cameras, each trying to capture what was no doubt the most exciting—from their perspective—story of the day. Ciel didn't personally think it was anything but terrifying. He hated this tasteless sensationalism, especially for how many people were up in his face.

A microphone was placed to his chin. A reporter said, "Mr. Fauder, are you willing to give a few words about what happened here today?"

Laina planted herself between interviewer and interviewee and crossed her arms. "Leave him alone."

Ciel's hand found her shoulder, and he gently pulled her down on the bench beside him. He shook his head. "What happened to the Tox— Toxicreak? What happened to the injured Pokémon?"

"Umm, I'm not sure we have an update on that."

"I'll answer your questions if you tell me what happened to it," said Ciel. He offered no negotiation.

The reporter turned to his colleagues, and the onlookers who gathered to witness the media inquiry at the airport, and shouted for someone to find that Pokémon. As he barked orders, more and more people raced to where they, apparently, needed to be.

The Pokémon must have had an additional weakness to Psychic. He didn't mean to hurt it, even if it was an enemy, and now it was in critical condition because of him. It was his duty as a Pokémon Trainer to keep not just his own Pokémon but all Pokémon safe from lasting injury, and to provide them a constructive environment to train their bodies and grow.

Laina squeezed his arm. "Come on. You don't gotta stay and put up with this."

"No," said Ciel. He motioned to the encirclement of cameras, standing on tripods, looking like a miniature city that sprung up from the solid tile. "Look at it."

"It's uncomfortable."

"It's an opportunity." He crossed his fingers in his lap, trying to work himself up after all that had happened. There wasn't much energy left for him to call upon. His knees were weak, and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open despite it being the middle of the day. "I should have taken it last time this happened at my first Showdown. I have to get my name out there somehow."

The message came in impressive time. A disheveled looking kid with a bag of camera supplies, an intern maybe, shoved his way back into the crowd after having vanished before. He pushed his way up to Ciel and kneeled to meet the sitting Trainer.

"I found the ambulance outside. They said the Toxicroak's gonna… survive, but it's gonna be in care for a while." His eyes shifted side to side, then his head, then his entire body. "Is that, uhh, that what you were looking for?"

Ciel stood to meet the cameras. Blinking with each flash, he acted as stalwart as possible.

The reporter adjusted his tie, cleared his throat, and tried his luck a second time. "Mr. Fauder, how did you manage to activate your Poké Balls to stop the attacker?"

"I found the machine they use to do it in the cargo hold. The flight staff, I mean. I sort of broke something. Uhh, sorry," he said.

The reporter continued his questioning without a moment of pause. "After demanding the passengers move away from the attacker, I'm told that you managed to correct the flight balance of the plane with a heavy Pokémon. Is this true?"

"I… didn't even know, actually." He allowed himself a laugh before falling back to a tired frown. He'd only placed Hector as a backup, not for some grand plan.

"Mr. Fauder, what inspired you to act?"

This was his chance. Whatever questions they had didn't matter, the details didn't matter, none of it made any difference. It was this one single question that he wanted the chance to debate.

"So I could," he paused, "so I could stand here."

"What do you mean, Mr. Fauder?" he asked.

"Some people think it's egotistical to share good deeds, but I don't care. I want people to see who I am."

This almost seemed to catch the reporter off guard. He asked, "Do you think you're a hero, Mr. Fauder?"

"No." Ciel shook his head, smiling at the ground in a way no one else could see. "I have a friend out there who's a hero. I'm just here to be famous." He pushed the reporter aside and planted himself in front of the lens, seeing the rounded warp in his face. It was as if he looked at a planet, and it reflected at him. "So, to everyone watching, make me the most famous person who ever lived."

The reporter, basking in his answer and furiously whispering to his cameraman colleague to adjust focus on Ciel's face, was silent. In fact, none of them could muster up further inquiry, or at least nothing substantial. It was all he needed to say. It was all he wanted to say.

One person managed a trivial question. "Where will you go next?"

Ciel looked to his sister, and when she gave him a confident glare, he took her hand.

"Where I wanted to go," he said. "To the Sinnoh League."

I was really excited for this volume because I thought it'd be the most self-contained narrative across the entire story, and I do occasionally have a soft-spot for episodic adventures despite my seemingly innate avoidance of oneshots. It gave me an opportunity to expand some worldbuilding, add some banter, and give the first major action setpiece of the entire story. Good fun, I would say, especially since Ciel faces some monkey-fighting snakes on a Monday-to-Friday plane.

We finally put the protagonists together! This will continue into the next volume, with Ciel arriving at the Pokémon League and putting the three leads together in one place. I love messing with how characters move individually and then work together for short periods, so expect more of that, but with more digital communication.

Next is Volume 5, Part 1: Stand. See you someday!