Chapter 02 – Team Annihilation Reborn

Skyarrow Bridge / Castelia City

I didn't sleep much that night. For five years I had spent searching the region for my friends and family, searching for the one who had taken them from me, and I had found her after all this time; Shiny Latias, I had seen her on TV last night sighted by a reporter within Castelia City with her Team Annihilation Reborn soldiers last night. One I was nervous about facing her after all this time, and two I didn't want to fail at this opportunity to end this for good.

When I wasn't asleep last night I was planning out my attack, how to navigate through the city without getting caught, how I should fight Shiny Latias without looking at her in her eyes. I wanted to avoid that, avoid being trapped by her ability to do with me as she pleased. Luckily, I had trained for this in those five years, and I had hoped it would pay off. I learnt how to fight without using my eye and instead focused on my other senses. I had practiced this a lot, but a riskier thing was to fight against real opponents to test if this would work or not. I did try using my other senses to fight, it was a risk but in the end it did pay off and got by evading most attacks and coming out with barely but a scratch on me. But depending on how many soldiers are within the city and how many are near Shiny Latias when I show up, this might be difficult.

Early in the morning I checked out of the hotel and immediately headed out of the city to get to Castelia City as fast as possible before Shiny Latias and her soldiers left. I wasn't able to catch a bus to the city so I had to sneak onto a truck heading towards Castelia. It was the fastest way to get there and perhaps the safest since the only bus stop the bus would stop at from here was in the middle of the city. Being on the back of the truck I was able to come up with a plan on how to do this; arrive at the city just a little away from the bridge, scan the area for any soldiers and move in to search for Shiny Latias if she was still there.

"This could be it." I thought to myself as I looked out of the moving truck at the water below the bridge nearing Castelia City. I would arrive in a few minutes. "Soon if it all goes well, Shiny Latias will be defeated, and I might find the locations of all of my friends and family with the soldiers in the city. They might have something on them to help me find them faster… if not I guess it's back to searching for me. But if I do defeat her today, maybe I could contact Aqua and the children soon. It has been a long time since I last spoke to them." Aqua and our children along with Espeon and all of the Pokemon had been living in a safe area where they would be safe from Team Annihilation Reborn and Shiny Latias. Five years ago I had promised Aqua I would be back within a year with the matter resolved and everything back to normal, and hopefully before our children could utter their first words. I wasn't sure which one hatched first, but with the two eggs we had a male and female Oshawott hatched from the eggs. The male Oshawott we named Light, one of my name suggestions I thought up when me and Aqua lived in that cave on the beach near Accumula, and the female Oshawott was named Kairi after Aqua's mother. Both children were born as normal Pokemon with no change in abilities like Aqua's ability to see into the future, move sets, types, or unusual eye color like mine. They were just as normal as another Oshawott.

I had only seen them talked to them via the phone calls I had made every month, asking if they were taking care of their mother, if they were eating well, all to which they nodded their heads each time asking me when I was coming home… all I could reply was 'I'm not sure, but I will.' I had never held them in my arms, or ever been in the same room as them, only watching and speaking to them all behind a screen.

I pressed my paw against my chest as the truck came to a complete stop at a traffic light just before the bridge reached the city. This was my stop, and yet my nervousness was still there, heart beating fast still. "This is it… with her defeated, this region will be safer. My search may be over soon if I find some information on the soldiers within the city… here we go." With that, I carefully hopped out of the back of the truck and hid behind a pillar besides the city gate, making sure no one saw me first. The truck I was on slowly left and drove off at the green light down the street.

The city like I had seen on the TV last night was filled with soldiers patrolling the streets, setting up barricades here and there, stopping people and searching their cars and the truck I was once inside. Some soldiers were on buildings looking down on the streets armed with rifles, drones flying through the alleys a blue light at the front scanning all Pokemon it located. The main street would have to be a no go for me, so I would have to stick to the alley and the shadows if I wanted to navigate through this city. If Shiny Latias was still here she would most likely be in the main camp set up somewhere within the city.

When I found an opening, I moved towards the southern part of the city near the waters, the pier mostly abandoned due to the ever growing presence of the soldiers watching and listening to everything scaring off the shadiest of men.

I stayed beside the southern part of the city since it was less populated by both civilians and soldiers, dark alleys and abandoned buildings helped hide me from the soldiers watching from above and drones scanning the areas. Following through this area completely would lead me to a building I wanted to get to since it was one of the highest buildings within the city, maybe even help give me a view of the city to help locate the soldiers and perhaps Shiny Latias, I just hoped it wasn't already filled with soldiers and drones an I would have to look elsewhere for a good view of the city.

Ever since the appearance of Team Annihilation Reborn, things have been different all over the region. Soldier's kicking down doors of people's homes, searching them for any signs that I was there, taking them prisoner if they even thought they were lying to them saying I was never there. Cities and towns under curfew, schools, gym battles and anything to do with Pokemon carefully watched as Team Annihilation Reborn were slowly taking control over the region. The Savior's of other regions tried to fight back against Team Annihilation Reborn, but they proved too powerful. Ships being sunk, soldiers and Pokemon defeated, either killed or taken prisoner to join amongst the ranks of Team Annihilation Reborn as a controlled soldier robbed of who they once were. Despite this new group, almost everyone in this region and beyond had no idea who this ruler was. Only my friends, my allies and I knew who this mysterious ruler was, and that was Shiny Latias. Sure she had been seen once or twice on TV before, but no one expected a Pokemon let alone a Pokemon being the leader, they assumed it to be a human once a past member of the old team.

I passed through an alley, carefully watching overhead of the soldiers searching the streets and the alley below, hiding beside trashcans and underneath old bed mattresses left lying against abandoned buildings before moving further down the alley until I reached my destination.

Sometimes when I did encounter a drone, a single drone I ran in the opposite direction to escape it before it found me, not risking the blue light of the drone to pick up my body heat if it had one installed, and never once engaging in battle with it if the soldiers controlling them saw me through the drone or happened to notice one of their drones were destroyed, I would attract more soldiers in this area, less soldiers for me meant easier navigation through this side of the city. But on times I would encounter at least two of them travelling down the alley together and I would try to escape down another, but this time the two drones had trapped me down an alley with a dead end, no hiding place in sight. I thought I would have to destroy them and flee the area before any soldiers came, it was when I looked to my right at a chain linked fence I remembered I had been here once. I realized just by looking at it I was standing in front of the old fence surrounding Purrloin's old hideout. I didn't want to, but I had to take shelter until the drones made their quick sweep through the ally I was in. Last thing I wanted was to alert the soldiers and Shiny Latias to my presence, so I had to enter a place I thought I would never go inside again.

Purrloin's Abandoned Hideout

It was once an old Pokemon Center built many years before the one in the center of the city was built to replace this broken down center. Then years later, Purrloin and her gang started up here, taking in Pokemon who they deemed worthy to join. It was mine and Aqua's home for a few months before we escaped from here to return home to Nuvema Town.

I didn't see any Pokemon or people inside, not once felt the presence that someone was living in here still, hiding behind a corner, in another room; I was the only one here. If not for my Psychic abilities I would've checked the area first before I could relax a little and catch my breath before I moved on. If not for my Psychic I wouldn't have known if anyone was in here or not, forcing me to check the area completely before I could relax.

"Never expected to find myself in this place again… I suppose it'll do until it's safe for me to leave." I thought as I sat by the back door I entered through, carefully opening it up a little to watch out for the drones, waiting for them to finish up with their scans of the alley and move on hoping they didn't notice me before I entered the building. The room I was waiting in was once the storage area where Purrloin's gang stored all of the supplies collected from all of the scavenging missions from the city. It was where I worked when I lived here with Aqua for some time. My job was just lifting up boxes from one side of the room to the other for other Pokemon to collect and set up to be sold to the rest of the Pokemon living here. When Purrloin did find me and Aqua with her gang, I noticed she had a small amount with her at the time; more than a third of her gang was gone. So I think most from her gang either left or disbanded after their leader didn't return. I wonder what ever happened to those who left, especially the three Pokemon I remembered working alongside with me at the storage; Pellet a Swanna, Phoenix a Vulpix, and Bulbasaur obviously a Bulbasaur once here one day and the next gone, tired of how things were here, how they killed their friend after they believed them to be a traitor from another gang sent to infiltrate the gang searching for any weaknesses.

I don't know why, but I felt the urge to stand up and walk away from the door and walk further inside the hideout, walking back to the room where Aqua and I stayed in or wherever I felt like. Was it nostalgia? Or was I just curious to see what the interior of the hideout was like now that all gang members were all gone? If I did, I would probably be hit with a lot of memories being brought back up, bad memories of our times spent while here, memories I would rather forget. So I stayed where I was and waited for the drones to finish their scan of the area.

Luckily they didn't take too much of my time to finish with their scan and fluttered back down the alley, allowing me a chance to get out of the old hideout and leave and get back to my own search.

Exiting out of the door and finding myself in the courtyard, I quickly ran towards the fence and looked down the alley the drones flew down. They were gone, so I climbed underneath the gap and continued down the alley cautiously carefully peeking my head around the corner to see if the drones decided to come back or were scanning that alley I wanted to go down. It was empty, but it didn't mean I could just walk down that alley carefree, I had to be careful. The drones had a weapon built into them; they would shoot blue ball-like pellets at the enemy which if hit multiple times could cause them to sleep so the soldiers could capture the enemy rather than kill them. It wasn't difficult to take them down; the pellets they shot at me were easily washable so the effects wouldn't stay, and yet despite how easily they are to defeat, they are the most annoying enemies to deal with, since after one look at me or if one were destroyed, malfunctioned, hundreds of soldiers would come directly towards it within a short time.

After some time of carefully sneaking silently and swiftly without alerting the soldiers above, the drones scanning the alleys, I had finally made it to the building I wanted to get to. Standing right outside the back entrance looking up at the tall still intact, I was finally back to where it all started for me; The Savior's building, one of the tallest structures within the city.

The Savior's Building

The lobby and the reception desk beyond the front double doors remained the same as it did when I first entered through those doors to start off my career as a member of the Savior's when I was fourteen years old. I walked up to the front desk and looked up remembering when I handed in the letter they had sent to me before I joined asking me to come to the building so I could get started.

I walked away from the desk to a door beside the elevators, opening it up with my Psychic and walking up the stairs.

The thing with Team Annihilation Reborn soldiers is that none of them ever speak unless given orders or ordering civilians to either move along after answering their questions on this and that or giving commands to do this and that, search that building, detain a target of interest, or in battle. It was mostly due to the ability Shiny Latias has a hold on all of her soldiers to do her bidding, making them mindless husks of who they once were. If they weren't controlled, they probably would've talked a lot more, the old team did a lot more than the new silent team, idle chit-chat, banter, talking around a campfire about their family and life.

But they do get really noisy after they notice me yelling out 'Target sighted; Zack Raines!' alerting all soldiers with their Pokemon and battle drones to the area trying to catch me. Being caught in a Pokeball wasn't the most pleasant of experiences at first, a bubble-like room somewhat dark, feeling as though a giant rubber band was wrapped around the body slowly making you weaker until you couldn't resist. Luckily I managed to break free of the Pokeballs they tried to catch me with, fighting them off with all the strength I had left.

I was happy that there weren't any soldiers inside this building. I could just walk up to the top or at least high enough so I could see the layout of the city and where the soldiers were stationed and the main camp.

But walking through the building did spark up a few memories of a time when I wasn't out here alone being the target of a shiny Pokemon and her team of mind controlled soldiers once civilians and wild Pokemon.

Walking up the stairs all the way to the rooftop did remind me of one time when I was doing some exercises with other members of the Savior's, the coach made us run all the way up to the top of the stairs to help keep us fit and in shape for missions in the future. We did this a few times back in the day, a little wake up call for the exercise to begin I think. Anyone who ever came last to reach the top had to go back down the stairs while everyone else used the elevator. I remembered the first ten floors being the easiest to climb. But then after reaching ten floors for me I was starting to feel the burn, then getting tired with each floor I had reached, then each step I took. I don't remember much about that exercise I did climbing up the stairs, or what place I had gotten when climbing up. I passed a section by the stairs, a window with an amazing view of the ocean. Next to the window was a board on the wall. Sometimes climbers would leave notes for others to read, kind of like inspirational quotes or jokes to raise spirits for the remaining climb; 'Don't give up' 'You can do it!' 'Getting' those muscles big to win big!' but the board had already been destroyed and pages once stuck on the board now torn and shredded beyond readable.

I reached the dormitory floor, almost missing it if it weren't for the collapsed sign I found on one of the stairs leading up to the next floor. On that floor was where I spent my days sleeping here while training and waiting for another mission out in the region. I had gotten to know a lot of other members within The Savior's while I was here, their dreams, why they joined. I was told by Lee of the things he saw happen to The Savior members who were still in the building when Team Annihilation Reborn came, how they dragged them out by their legs trying to carry them into the backs of the trucks to be taken to their hideouts to be mind controlled as a soldier working for Shiny Latias or worse. They were good people… I continued to walk up the stairs; I needed to find Shiny Latias and the main camp somewhere within the city.

I had hoped that one day this building the Savior's could be brought back once more to this region after Shiny Latias was defeated along with Team Annihilation Reborn to help the people like it did before they showed up.

Luckily the stairs leading up to the roof were still intact. The higher floors were most top executive members of the Savior's worked, had meetings on, Team Annihilation Reborn destroyed the higher floors before taking a lot of confidential documents out first. Clark Stone's office was the worst damaged room of the building. One of the larger offices in the building right next to Professor Guard's in office sizes, it had a huge window behind Clark's oak desk showing all who entered an excellent view of the city. The leader of Unova's Savior branch Clark Stone was killed during the assault on Team Doom by his own son Cornelius. Now his office is completely destroyed, paintings all burnt down, carpets charred, desk all now a black pile of charred wood, and the glass window with an 'S' emblem now shattered on the floor.

I think the reason why this room was the most damaged out of the other rooms was Shiny Latias' hate for him, how her 'father' Juro despised the man after The Savior's had been targeting him and his team for years. After the battle with Team Doom, Shiny Latias made her move and destroyed The Savior's building, making sure nothing was left of Clark Stone's office. If Cornelius hadn't killed him, if he was still alive I'm pretty sure Shiny Latias would have tortured him, personally I think.

I stood at the edge of the roof looking down at the empty streets below, then at the soldier's I could see from all the way up here on the rooftops looking down on the streets. The view all the way up there did help give me a good layout of the city, at least the southern parts of the city and a little way up towards the center. I pulled out my binoculars from my bag and searched the streets, through the windows of abandoned buildings to check whether or not there were any camps, the main base of operations, maybe a sign that Shiny Latias was there with them. But after an hour of crouching beside the edge of the rooftop looking down at the southern parts of the city searching, I found nothing but small teams on rooftops, drones up and down alleys, and barricades at the city exits.

I stood up and began to turn around to walk back towards the stairs to head back down and search further in the city for Shiny Latias. It was then after standing up and turning when I felt a sudden sense that I wasn't alone up on this rooftop. After turning around to face the stairs, I was met with a pair of amber eyes staring back at me. I had wanted to find her myself gaining the upper hand without her or her soldiers knowing I was already here, yet here she was in front of me, staring right into my eyes.

I tried to look away, close my eye, shielding it by lifting up my arms. But it was too late. Shiny Latias' ability had already taken hold of me, freezing me right there; my eye stared into her eyes noticing her smile broaden into a grin. "Hello Zack Raines. Long time no see!"

To be continued…

Trivia:

There was a cut scene in which Zack would find old documents within the Savior's building about other members of the Savior's Zack knew reawakening old memories of them. This was cut so I could put them in a later chapter.

AN: Chapter 3 will be up next week. In the meantime I will try to fix up the previous chapter and this one at some point. So feel free to leave a review, it really helps. Take it easy guys. Until next time.