(9)-WHERE HAVE ALL THE POKEMON GONE?
As he and the male soldier flew in the Bell 47 helicopter, Ash looked down at the community of Pallet Town. A community he no longer recognized. The once peaceful town he had left behind was now a war zone filled with riots, looters, angry mobs, vehicle accidents, plane crashes, helicopter crashes, burning buildings, hysterical people, injured people, ambulances, and police officers and military soldiers attempting to maintain order to no avail. No doubt this was due to the fact that every Pokemon in Pallet Town had disappeared.
But the question was how? How had this happened? What could've done this? Who could've done this? Was it possible that this Pokemon population disappearance was pulled off by a weapon of some sorts designed by Team Rocket? Yeah. Yeah, that must've been it. It was the only thing that made sense. But if he was right and this disappearing act was pulled off by Team Ricket, how did they manage to do it? How had they been able to invent something that could make an entire town's Pokemon population vanish without a trace?
How?
"It's pretty awful what's happened, huh?!" The male soldier shouted over the chopper, getting Ash's attention.
"Yeah! With all the Pokemon disappearing in Pallet Town and the power going out, it's a tragedy!" Ash yelled.
"I'm not just talking about what happened here in Pallet Town!" The soldier shouted.
"What?! Did something else happen somewhere?!" Ash shouted.
"You didn't hear?!" The soldier yelled.
"Hear what?! What else do you know?!" Ash asked.
"The disappearances happened in other communities too, not just here in Pallet!" The soldier answered.
"Well, what happened?!" Ash asked.
"I don't know, but it doesn't look good, kid! I'm really afraid this might be bigger than we know!" The soldier said.
"Do you know anything about my Mom, aunt and two cousins?!" Ash asked.
"Do they live around here?!" The soldier asked.
"Yeah!" Ash answered.
"What are their names?!" The soldier asked.
"My Mom's name is Delia Ketchum, my aunt's name is Hilary, and my two cousins' names are Trey and Troy!" Ash answered.
"Were they among the suiciders?!" The soldier asked.
"No, i...i don't think so. Was there a suicide?!" Ash said.
"Lots of 'em! But i didn't hear about any Delia, Hilary, Trey or Troy among the list of suiciders!" The soldier said.
"People are killing themselves?!" Ash asked in disbelief.
"Officer Jenny said many of the suiciders called the police and alerted them of the situation of their missing Pokemon! Turns out the police station lost all of it's Pokemon, as well as the fact that every other Pokemon in Pallet Town had vanished! Tough blow!" The soldier explained. "You lose any Pokemon?!"
"Just my Pikachu! It was the only Pokemon i brought with me on the plane!" Ash answered.
"Did you lose anymore Pokemon?!" The soldier asked.
"Don't know...yet! You?!" Ash said.
"We lost every Pokemon in the military, including our own! Not not one was left!" The soldier said.
"Man! This gets worse by the minute!" Ash said.
"You're telling me! And that's not even the worst of it!" The soldier said.
"You mean there's more?!" Ash asked. He couldn't believe it. Out of all the terrible things that had happened to Pallet Town while he'd been away, he kept finding out more and worse things that had occurred.
"Unfortunately, yes!" The soldier answered. "Remember how i mentioned earlier that the disappearances and the blackout happened in other communities?!"
"Yeah!" Ash said, with knots forming in his stomach. He didn't like where this was going. And it probably wasn't going to go over well.
"Well, it wasn't just a few cities and towns that this even occurred in!" The soldier said.
"Then how many?! How many towns and cities in Kanto did this event hit?!" Ash asked, desperate for answers. Just how much of Kanto had this event struck? He wanted some answers. Truth be known, he didn't want to know the answer, but he needed to know how bad the situation was, even if it wasn't the answer he wanted to hear.
"All of them!" The soldier answered.
Ash's stomach dropped like an elevator. "What?! It's everywhere in Kanto?! The Pokemon disappearances, the blackout?!" He asked. Did he just hear correctly? Did the soldier really just say that this devastating event had occurred region-wide? Surely he misheard him.
"The whole region, kid!" The soldier said.
Ash zoned out and went into a daze, trying to process and make sense out of what the soldier had just shared with him. The whole region of Kanto? The entire region's Pokemon population was...gone? And the blackout had occurred region-wide to top it off? How was that even possible? What happened to the Pokemon? Where did they go? Who or what took them? An entire nation's Pokemon population couldn't just disappear, it had to go somewhere. But where? Where? The more the 15-year old thought about this, the more he began to doubt Team Rocket's involvement is this situation. He was starting to think that they had nothing to do with what had happened. But if Team Rocket wasn't for once causing all the trouble, then...who or what was?
His mind then went to Misty, her sisters, Brock, his family, Tracy and all of the other people he had met and befriended on his two journeys through the Kanto region.
Were they alright?
"Okay, we're here!" The soldier said.
"Huh?" Ash said, zoning back into the new reality he was now in, then he looked down and saw that the helicopter was descending down towards what appeared to be a military base. The Bell 47 soon landed on the ground of the area and the soldier turned it off, making the chopper slow down before it ceased it's spinning.
"Okay, get out." The soldier said before he unbuckled his seat-belt. But Ash, on the other hand, didn't move a muscle and the soldier noticed this. "Something wrong?"
"This is my home neighborhood. This looks like a military base." Ash said.
"It is a military base." The soldier answered. "This is where you'll be staying until the government can resolve this catastrophe."
"Then why did you tell me you were taking me home if you were gonna bring me here?" Ash asked.
"I'm just following instructions from the government. Our orders are to bring in all minors who are not accompanied by parents or other adults." The soldier explained.
"And why didn't you just tell me that?" Ash asked.
"Because i knew that you-being the minor you are-would've refuse to come with me if i did." The soldier answered.
"I'm 15." Ash said.
"Like i said, you're a minor. Now get out." The soldier said.
"But what about my family? Shouldn't they know where i am?" Ash asked.
"Not to worry, we made a News broadcast an our ago about picking up un-supervised kids in this chaos and bringing them here and parents of those kids know we'll be releasing them back into their custody after the government corrals this situation." The soldier said.
"If it can be corralled." Ash thought. Every Pokemon in the Kanto region was gone. How was the government going to resolve something like this? Even if they did manage to somehow find out what caused the disappearances-which he seriously doubted-how were they going to find all the Pokemon? How were they going to bring them back? The 15-year old boy got out of the helicopter along with the soldier, then the boy turned around and saw the chaotic community of Pallet Town. Apparently he and the soldier were on the outskirts of town.
"Come on." The soldier said, getting Ash's attention.
Ash followed the soldier to the military base and they stopped at the front door where the man opened it, and they both went inside the building, with the soldier closing the door afterwards.
The soldier led Ash through the base that was crawling with soldiers, male and female, who were all dressed in green camo uniforms and black hiking-boots.
"Colonel!" Said another male soldier as he ran up to the soldier known as the Colonel, stopping him and Ash in his tracks.
"Soldier Dale, i don't have time to chat with you." Said the Colonel.
"Come see what's going on on the News right now." Said the soldier known as Dale.
"Why?" The Colonel asked.
"Why?! All of the Pokemon in Kanto have disappeared!" Soldier Dale reminded. "My Venusaur disappeared right in front of me! Not to mention the damage caused by the brief regional blackout!"
"Okay, i'm coming." Said the Colonel before he and Ash followed soldier Dale into a room where several male and female soldiers were gathered in front of a flat screen TV on the wall that was broadcasting the News, with an anchor-woman on screen, sitting at her desk, with the words BREAKING NEWS on a screen behind her, and her name, CARLY WILSON, on a banner at the bottom of the screen.
"Reports continue to pour in from all over the world. Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova and many other regions. So far, no one has been able to give us any logical explanation as to what's happened. We simply don't know. Many professors, scientists and world leaders around the globe are speculating that this could be the result of a secret government experiment gone wrong, having ill affects on all Pokemon. What we do know is that it's confirmed that all Pokemon have gone missing around the planet, as well as the fact that there was a brief global power outage that caused unspeakable chaos." The anchor-woman known as Carly touched her ear-piece on her right ear. "Um, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, i'm being told that the president of the Kanto region has an important emergency announcement."
This should be good." Soldier Dale said.
The scene on the TV changed to the president of Kanto sitting at his desk, with a banner at the bottom that read PRESIDENT OF KANTO SPEAKS.
"These Earth-shaking events that are taking place where you are are not localized." The president began. "From every corner of the globe, reports are exactly the same. The disappearance of all Pokemon around the world, and the brief global blackout, just cannot be explained. No one knows what's happened. No one know where the Pokemon went. No one knows what the outcome will be. In every major city and town in the world, criminal acts that defy belief are taking place and appear to increase as moments go by. Planes and helicopters have crashed all over the world. Some are known to have crashed into buildings or on the ground. Movements of troops and the police forced to employ martial law is a virtual impossibility. All we can say is that whatever has happened, we have experienced, what in the light of our knowledge, must be terminated...supernatural."
"My gosh, Colonel. They said all the Pokemon in the world have gone missing." Soldier Dale said.
"What did the News lady and the president mean by all Pokemon? What are they talking about?" The Colonel asked.
"That's what i'd like to know." Ash added.
"Colonel...our base received word from the pentagons of Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, Alola and Galar and they said that their Pokemon staff disappeared. And they also said that all of the Pokemon in those regions have disappeared as well, followed by a brief power outage that resulted in chaos, just like here in Kanto." Soldier Dale explained.
"Wait a minute. Are you telling me that this event really was world-wide?" The Colonel said.
"That's what i'm saying." Soldier Dale said.
"Do you think this Pokemon vanishing act could be Team Rocket related? 'Cause this sure seems like the kind of stunt they'd pull." Ash said.
"No, this is not Team Rocket related!" Soldier Dale said.
"I'll bet they used some kind of weapon they invented to-"
"Kid, this is not Team Rocket! You heard the News lady and the president on the TV just now! They said all the Pokemon have gone MISSING! It came across my poke-gear! All the Pokemon have gone missing!" Soldier Dale said. "Oh, my gosh."
"All Pokemon around the world?!" Ash gasped in disbelief.
The Colonel, meanwhile, zoned out.
Soldier Dale snapped his right fingers twice. "Colonel!" He said, getting the Colonel's attention before snapping his fingers again. "Colonel!" He said before clapping his hands. "I need you to be here with us. I don't need you to zone out. 'Cause i'm already scared. I need you to stay focused, 'cause this isn't helping any of us at all."
"Alright, alright. Maybe what the kid here said is true. Maybe Team Rocket is behind all of this." The Colonel said.
"No, this is not something Team Rocket pulled off, Colonel! You heard the News lady and the president of Kanto! They said all the Pokemon have gone missing! All around the world! The WHOLE world! This was not something that was done by a shady organization!" Soldier Dale said. "This is crazy, i've seen my own Pokemon disappear in front of me!"
It was in that moment that Ash zoned out and retreated into his own mind, thinking about everything he had just learned. All of the Pokemon around the world were gone? He couldn't process something like that, much less make sense of it. He couldn't make that a reality in his mind. It was like a scary sci-fi apocalypse movie. The kind he hadn't been allowed to watch until he turned 9 and which still scared him if he was honest with himself. But he couldn't deny what had happened. It was all over the News and had happened all over the world apparently, so it had to be true. And to make matters worse, the brief power outage had happened world-wide, making all technology cease to function, resulting in chaos. Vehicles on the road had stopped working, causing multiple accidents, and planes and helicopters in the sky had randomly shut down and crashed.
Now Ash really was scared. What if his mother or aunt Hilary and two cousins had been on the road when the vehicles had shut off? This had happened less than an hour ago while he was on the plane to the Hisui region to begin yet another journey as a Pokemon trainer. On his way here to the military base in the Bell 47 helicopter, the 15-year old had seen many fires in Pallet Town due to the blackout. That meant there were fires all over the world, since the power outage was global. People had been driving around in their vehicles, flying planes and helicopters, the blackout happened, they all shut down and...never came back on until after the wrecks and crashes occurred. But why hadn't the plane he was on shut down? Why hadn't it stopped working? Why hadn't it gone down like all the others?
Ash wished his family was here, but he didn't want them here just so he could speak to them. Although he doubted he could speak even if they were here to listen. This morning he was a strong-willed teenager. Now he was emotionally a scared little kid who was worried about his family and the world.
This couldn't be real.
His mind then went to Misty, Brock, Tracy and all of his other friends he had traveled with over the last four years, as well as all the friends he had met while on his journeys. He wondered if any of them had been among those who had been injured or killed in a vehicle wreck or a plane crash or a helicopter crash. Or if any of them were among those who had killed themselves.
He didn't want to think about it.
"If there is an Ash Ketchum here in the base, please report outside immediately on the double. Thank you." Said a male voice on the intercom.
"Wonder what that's about?" Ash asked. "Excuse me." He said to the Colonel and soldier Dale before exiting the room. As he walked through the base, the raven-haired boy wondered why the man on the intercom wanted him to go outside. What could be out there other than the outskirts view of the chaotic community of Pallet Town? There was only one way for him to find out. He soon arrived in the room where the front door was, walked up to it, opened it and exited the base, closing the door behind him.
He froze in his tracks. For standing before him was his mother, Delia Ketchum...his aunt, her sister, Hilary...his two cousins, 11-year old Trey and 10-year old Troy...and Professor Oak.
Hilary had light brown neck-length hair, hazel brown eyes, she wore pink glasses, a pink un-buttoned short sleeve shirt, a pink shirt, a purple beaded necklace, a purple-pink skirt that went down to the calf of her legs, and pink high heel shoes.
Trey had brown hair and brown eyes and wore a gray cap that was on backwards, and orange short sleeve t-shirt, white pants and brown sneakers.
Troy had brown hair and brown eyes, he wore a blue short sleeve t-shirt, tan calf-length shorts, white socks and black sneakers with white trims.
"Mom! Aunt Hilary! Trey, Troy!" Ash said excitedly before running up to them, embracing his mother with a hug, who embraced him back, with Hilary, Trey and Troy joining in on the embrace, forming a group-hug. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mom. I should've been here with you. I should've been here with al of you." He said cryingly while he and his family group-hugged, followed by them ending it.
"We're just glad that you're okay." Delia said.
Ash wiped the tears from his face. "I'm glad you're all okay too." He said. "Hey...how'd you guys know i was here?"
"We went to the airport with Professor Oak in his van and asked about your plane to Hisui and one of the male employees told us that it turned around and came back. After hearing that, i asked one of the soldiers if they knew where you were and they said that you left with their Colonel. When we heard on the News at Professor Oak's laboratory earlier that the military was picking up unsupervised kids and taking them to a military base in the outskirts of town, i put two and two together at the airport and we came straight here." Delia explained.
"Well, that explains it." Ash said.
"Ash...where's Pikachu?" Troy asked.
"Pikachu...Pikachu is gone." Ash answered.
"I was afraid of that." Troy said.
"My Jynx is gone too." Hilary revealed.
"So is Mr. Mime." Delia added.
"So is Dragonite and all of you Pokemon at my laboratory." Professor Oak confessed TO aSH.
"I figured that, since every other Pokemon in the world is gone too." Ash said.
"What?!" Ash's family and Professor Oak gasped.
"I was watching the News in the base just now. It's not just here...it's everywhere. It's all over the world. The blackout was also world-wide too." Ash said.
"No way." Trey said.
"Are you serious?" Hilary asked.
"Say it isn't so." Troy said.
"I know. I didn't believe it either when i first heard it. But that's what the News said." Ash said.
"This...can't be real." Professor Oak said, stunned. "I've gotta call Gary and make sure he's alright."
"Where is Gary, by the way?" Ash asked.
"Somewhere in the Hisui region." Professor Oak answered. "When we get back to the lab, i'm calling him, first thing."
"I don't think that'll be happening any time soon." Ash said.
"What do you mean?" Professor Oak asked.
"The Colonel said that none of the unsupervised kids the military picked up will be released back into the custody of their parents until the government corrals this situation. I think that applies to you and the other too, even though you came here on your own." Ash said.
"Well, that's understandable. I mean, the world's become an instant dangerous place. According to the News, people aren't safe anywhere, even in their own homes. So it's logical that the army would want us and other rescued parties to stay here until they sort this whole thing out." Hilary said.
"I'll ask someone here if i can contact Gary here at the base. They're bound to say yes, i mean, i'm sure they're likely worried about their families and friends as well." Professor Oak said.
"I'm sure they won't say no." Delia said.
Waling tornado sirens could be heard throughout the chaotic Pallet Town, making Delia, Hilary, Trey, Troy and Professor Oak turn to look at the outskirts of the chaotic community, with Ash looking with them.
"It looks like the end of the world." Professor Oak said.
"Yeah. Yeah, it does." Ash said.
Ash, his family and Professor Oak gazed upon the chaotic town, wondering if the end of the world was what was ahead for them and the rest of humanity.
Little did they know that it wasn't the end of the world.
Not yet.
It was just the beginning...of
THE END.
...
"We just confirmed from millions of leaders around the world that all Pokemon, including all Pokemon eggs, have vanished in what some people are claiming to be the end of life as we know it." Said a male radio voice. "No one knows as to what might have caused the disappearances, but the military and the pentagon are on full scale alert."
(Song: It's The End Of The World As We Know it)
That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane,
Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself
churn world serves it's own needs,
dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it offan aux speak, grunt, no, strength,
the Ladder
start to clatter with fear fight down
height. Wire
in a fire, respresenting seven games, and a
government
for hire at a combat site. Left of west and
coming in
a hurry with a fury's breathing down
your neck.
Team by reporters baffled, trumped,
tethered, cropped.
Look at that low playing. Fine then.
Uh-oh, overflow, population, common food, but
it'll do to save
yourself, serve yourself. World serves it's
own needs, listen to your heart bleed
dummy with the rapture and
the revered and the right, right.
You vitriolic,
patriotic, slam, fight, bright light,
feeling pretty
psyched.
It's the end of the world as we
know it.
It's the end of the world as we
know it.
It's the end of the world as we
know it.
and i feel fine.
Coming Soon...THE WORLD WITHOUT POKEMON.
(c) 2002
Okay, Pokemon fans, this has been PokemonGONE. Hope you enjoyed it. See you in the second addition.
Please review.
