Chapter 10 – The Team
Mistralton City – Blue Stripes Cafe – Espeon's POV
It had been a restful sleep last night after finding ourselves a hotel to sleep in for the night and get ourselves some pizzas before hitting the hay. The pizza we had… I would give it a seven out of ten, too much onions and a little dry in terms of sauce. Would've been lower if we weren't already hungry when we got them, might've been better if we got drinks to go with the pizzas or some fries. The morning of a new day we left the hotel to a café beside the Mistralton City Airport called Blue Stripes Café where we would meet two assistants to help us with the underground base somewhere beneath the city. With their help we could save Zackary's father instead of just being the two of us to go into an underground base full of giant mechas and soldiers.
Devon last night told us to come to this café before ten in the morning, no phrase to say, or order this and that much stuff to prove who you are so our assistants will know it is us, kind of like how we had to tell the informant in Driftveil that we were here by playing poker and leaving the table at the third round telling everyone you were going to order food. Nope, just a casual wait in the café while eating some breakfast.
"Man, this food is really nice! I would've gotten something else, but the picture in the menu made the bowl of fruit irresistible." I smiled after eating a bowl of fresh fruit and Pokeblocks with a delicious Oran juice box half consumed. Zackary had porridge and toast… many, many pieces of toast while drinking from a box of orange juice. "I kind of felt like a healthier start to the day since last night was mostly pizzas, and most of the time spending inside the safe zone did make me feel a little lazy, not eating well."
"What was the food like?" He asked, after eating some more of his food. "Aqua told me the safe zone had canned and mostly dry foods. She didn't get the chance to tell me since we do have a limited time to talk on the phone before we get cut off."
"Soups, fruits and vegetables, canned meals that are… so-so." I thought about the food they served us in the safe zone. Some foods I looked forward to, others I didn't but had to eat them otherwise I would have to eat something much worse. "Humans and Pokemon rarely get different foods since rations are kind of strict. So not much food especially for Pokemon like Pokemon food and Pokeblocks, not that I am complaining about it, it just gets kind of boring at times eating the same thing almost every day. Speaking of Aqua, she does get her paws on some ice cream a few times every four months, call it the specialty item you have to line up for to get a scooping."
"How much did Aqua have? Because when I ask how much she tells me she has just the one and that's it." Zackary smiled.
"One bowl? More like three bowls of ice cream." I smiled back. "I have intervened a few times to try and get her to stop eating too much. I even accomplished on getting her to share her ice cream with your son and daughter."
"That's nice to know. When it came to ice cream it was always hard to get her away from the stuff, let alone share any, always trying to get more if she ever did share."
As much as I would like to tell more stories of how Aqua dragged me along to hunt down ice cream the first year we were living inside the safe zone, travelling from one section of the zone to another for that cold desert, I noticed entering from the café's front door were two people I hadn't seen in a long time, they were the people who would help us find the underground base and save Zackary's dad Henry, but they were also our good friends. "Ah, here they are now!"
From who had entered first was a young woman in her mid twenties, Lisa Rivers, with the same blue hair because why not, navy blue short sleeved jacket and pants while wearing black and white sneakers. Blue was her favorite color wearing mostly blue clothing during work hours and out in public not caring of the amount of stares she would get from wearing all blue. She was sometimes quiet at first when we first met, but opened up in time when the four of us were together on the mission while travelling through time and space. On rare occasions I call her LisaLisa, like with all of my friends I give each of them nicknames or add something to their name for instance Zack would be Zackary or Aqua be Aquarius, slips off the tongue better for me.
And walking in after Lisa was our good old friend Brent Jackson who I affectionately call Bent. The guys almost thirty years old, muscular and big like a body builder after being with the Savior's longer than Zackary or LisaLisa, training every day ready for combat. He had red spiky hair and had a goatee wearing a red shirt, white pants, and blue sneakers. So we have LisaLisa wearing blue, Bent wearing red, an Espeon, and Zackary whose white and black, we sure were the colorful team. I was told by Devon before meeting up with Zackary in Nimbasa City about the identity of the two who were going to be helping us for the mission, but I had decided to keep that a secret from Zackary until we get to this point rather than having Zackary from worrying too much or trying to find some way to keep them out of the fighting.
Immediately after they had entered, they looked up and noticed us sitting here and approached both with a smile from ear to ear, and Zackary looking surprised and yet happy to see our friends which was better than I had expected. "Hey guys!" I said as they approached the table.
"Hey Zack, hey Espeon. It's been a long time, huh?" Lisa said while I gestured with my paw for them to sit down on the chairs opposite us.
"Lisa, Brent, what are you guys doing here?" Zackary asked, starting to sound a little worried now.
"We're the two going to help you guys on storming the underground base and to save your dad." Bent smiled. "Didn't that guy Devon tell you we would be showing up?"
Zackary shook his head. "No one did." Then he looked at me.
"Sorry Zackary, I was going to tell you today before they showed up. I didn't call them to come here; they called Devon after The Savior's in this region have gone silent on them and other regions. Other Savior branches throughout the world for some reason are ignoring the situation here. And after years of no response Lisa and Bent wanted to know what was going on, and after a phone call with Devon here they are willing to help out."I explained, not knowing if Zackary would begin to worry again about the whole situation, but surprisingly he didn't. Instead what I did get was Bent demanding to know why Zackary didn't ask for help from him or Lisa.
"Zack my man, why didn't you ask me or Lisa to help you hunt down these sons of bitches? We would've helped!" See? I told you he'd say that. "You didn't have to fight alone-" I could see he was about o argue with him, raising his voice slightly as he went on.
"Hey Zackary? Do you mind going to the vending machines to get all of us a drink? Anything would be nice." I interrupted Bent before he could talk some more, something I know wouldn't go well with Zackary. Better to stop him know before the situation got worse. Zackary slowly nodded and got off the chair before walking to the vending machines on the other side of the room.
"Hey guys, can we talk for a sec, it's about Zackary." I said quietly as soon as Zackary had left our table to walk over to the vending machines. LisaLisa and Bent both leaned in close, and so I whispered. "Zackary is worried that the same thing that'll happen to Sakura and Isaac will happen to those he works with. It is why he has been out here alone for five years now."
"It's a shame what happened to the little guy, but I still feel as though he should've said something to us." Bent said as he cautiously glanced over at Zackary just in case he was close enough to listen in on our conversation.
"He was worried you would show up unannounced and join him on his search. Because of what Shiny Latias has done, the bitch, he's afraid of getting people and Pokemon killed because he got them involved."
"How long has he been out here for?" Lisa asked before watching as Zackary got one of the four drinks from the vending machines already.
"Five years now. But it would've been done faster if he had some help from the people would worked with him. Most of The Savior's in this region are inactive, most in hiding apart from those like Devon and his men who are willing to help us to save the region from the control of the shiny bitch. Outside regions"
"I noticed that about year ago." Lisa said. "The Sinnoh Unova Savior's branch told us the Unova region for some reason was unavailable to go to for missions. No reason was given only that it was forbidden for any of us to come here. If asked, we would only receive the same 'it is forbidden' speech by one of our peers. I did some digging and discovered that Team Annihilation had started up again. I asked again about this, the suspended me for a month."
"The bastards, jeez!" Bent scoffed, shaking his head. "I thought Savior's from all over the world were supposed to help each other out during dire and dangers situations, not leaving their allies to die out like this… But it didn't stop us from looking at any news outlet or internet about this region. If I had known sooner, I'd be here already doing all I could rather than doing nothing."
"They were probably thinking about their own safety rather than be a part of what was going down in this region." Lisa sighed, noticing Zackary had already finished getting our drinks and was slowly on his way back to the table trying to be careful not to drop the cans. "Yeah, it was terrible for them leaving Zack to fight alone. If Team Annihilation Reborn fully takes over this region under Shiny Latias' control then the lives of all who live in this region are at risk. I can't believe they'd just choose to ignore what is going on here…"
"They didn't have regulars only diets of every kind in the vending machine, hope that's alright." Zackary set the drinks on the table.
"That's alright, thanks Zack." Lisa smiled as she took one of the four cans of drink. "So how about we discuss the mission? We do know where the location is, and how many soldiers there are within, the weapons they have, the mechanical bots they have just waiting to be active, and what type of Pokemon they have."
"Devon informed us of your ability whenever you defeat a Pokemon in battle rendering them unconscious, that'll kill 'em so me, Lisa and Espeon will handle the Pokemon part of battling while you focus on the enemies who won't die from your ability." Brent said as he picked up his can and began reading from the label on the side. "Inside the underground base there have been reports of prisoners being shipped inside these things, but the report is kind of empty when it comes to describing how many there are inside except for whom is in there and that person is Henry Amano, aka your old man Zack."
"What also makes this underground base interesting is what kind of files located within." Lisa continued. "Files such as the locations of other underground bases and nearby Annihilation Reborn camps in various routes and towns. The report mentions how tight the security was when the informant who gave us this information. He mentioned he saw maps of these underground bases and where they were within Unova but couldn't bring them back with him. Once we're in the base we could search for these documents and take them back with us."
"Sounds good. Anything we find in there that'll help us save all who the shiny bitch has captured, especially our friends all the while getting one step closer on finally ending the evil bitches reign of evil upon this region is fine with me." I sighed, happy on knowing with the plan we had, how saving everyone Shiny Latias had kidnapped and defeating her slowly in the process sounding great. Sure it would be slow and take a while to do so, but hey, at least the shiny bitch will get what's coming to her sooner or later.
"Hey Zack," Brent said, "during the five years we have been away, not only did I train to survive on the battle field but my Pokemon have also trained, maybe even more than me. So I can tell ya this, we won't let you down. We're gonna save them."
"Yeah." Zack nodded, looking at the both of them. "We can do this. If we are careful we can get out of this alive. I don't want any heroics from anyone, if we are going to defeat Shiny Latias and Team Annihilation Reborn I'm going to need all the help I can get." I sensed Zack was being honest with himself while he said all of that, but I could also sense as though he was still worried, that the past could come back to haunt him if things turned for the worst.
The warm sun hit our faces through the cold air of a chilling winter that was soon upon us after leaving the café so all of us could head to where the underground base was.
"Man, it's so good that the old team is back again!" I cheered as I hopped down the street a little.
"Yeah, only this time we don't have to worry about messing up with the timeline and the whole world on our shoulders." Lisa said walking closer to me as we walked.
"Eh, but we do have to worry 'bout a shiny Pokemon from taking control over the region with her army. I'd hate to see her army right in my home territory." Brent said as he placed his hands in his pockets while he walked. "Once this is over and done with, I'm not sure how my bosses back at home base will react to me going awol."
"I'm not sure they'll just simply forget about that part me and Brent left our home regions despite orders from all Savior members on leaving to go to the Unova region." Lisa said.
"Fuck 'em. After this is over with I'm sure they'll look past that and see us as heroes for saving the region from a crazy shiny bitch. If we rehearse a speech all about are actions, how even despite going against orders we couldn't ignore our friend any longer. His battle was our battle; Savior's are supposed to help people not ignore them. And I suppose mention the leader of the Unova Savior's branch Clark Stone and how he believed in Zackary, how he had saved the region and its people for many years with the help of his friends." I chuckled. "It may not be an award winning speech, but with a little rehearsal it just might win them over and forgive all that has been done."
"You know if it might be the last day on the job for me or it does win us over with our bosses at least let me say something at least, something we could add to the script, some powerful message I could tell them." Lisa suggested. "Perhaps something like; 'We had faced destructive foes, we were in bloody combat and came out alive.' Yeah, I'll have to work on that."
"No, no, I thought it was fine, we just need to add a little more to it. If we do this right we could all end up in a movie or something. Probably a five part series if we can pull in an audience."
"Uh, hey you two, I don't wanna ruin the fun but right about now we should all be getting ready for the rescue mission." Bent shook his head, but then quickly added. "But if there is a movie about us I want a good looking but too good looking actor to play as me, that way the ladies when they see the real me will be taken aback by how stunning I will look in comparison to the actor they get to play as me."
It was fun with the gang all together again like this, if just felt like how it was before we went our separate ways after the time anomalies had been solved. I guess it was pretty immature for us to be doing all of that, the whole speech thing and talking about the possibilities of someone making a movie about us, especially all which is happening. But at the time I thought we should lighten the mood instead of all being depressed and moody throughout the duration of our quest, but at the same time focused on the task at hand.
While we walked, I noticed Zackary was slowing down until he walked behind us and never walking beside us or in front, constantly watching us and the surrounding area. I thought nothing of this at first, assuming he was still waking up or something, and so I continued walking, happy for us all to be together again.
"So uh, do you two still have your Pokemon?" Zackary asked while we walked through the empty streets.
"I still have Umbreon and Pidgeot evolved last year." Lisa was the one who spoke first as she looked back at Zack. "As for Blitzle, she unfortunately had to stay behind in the lab back in Sinnoh since she was too sick to travel."
"So Pidgey evolved huh? That's nice. I'm looking forward on seeing what new moves your Pokemon have. Although it is a shame Blitzle can't be here to help."
"Ah, evolved your Pokemon huh?" Bent pointed at himself. "As for me, I didn't evolve any of my team cause you wanna know why? Cause I believe that strength lies within a Pokemon upon reaching their peak strength in their current form, not by evolving. Sure evolving them makes 'em stronger, larger, you see that's the problem."
"You have a problem with Pokemon evolving?" I asked, not sure where he was going with this one.
"Damn straight! Cause think about it; a first form Pokemon is small, the next stage is either a little larger or ten times as big in comparison to the previous form. So the smaller the target the harder it is to strike. All of my Pokemon not only train to get stronger, but my Pokemon train to be unhittable, they are too fast for the naked eye and the slow strikes of the gigantic Pokemon preparing to squash 'em like a bug type."
"So you still have you're Pokemon with you? The same four or did you catch a new one to add to your team?"
"No new ones just yet, just the same old classic still with us to this day, Murkrow yeah, Koffing a double yeah, Muk and Seviper both triple and quadruple yeah."
We stopped at a forked road, not because we were lost or anything, we knew where to go, but looking up at the monitors we saw on screen somewhere within the Unova region was our Latias attacking people and Pokemon who dared try and fight back against Team Annihilation Reborn. Sometimes the news showed a little bit too much what should be allowed to air on live TV with scenes depicting a woman's leg being broken by two soldiers, and showing other soldiers butting their weapons into the nose of an old man showing blood soon after impact. Either the news didn't care about what they showed or they just simply wanted to get a message across saying 'This is what they are doing. Now hate them!' even zooming in on Latias' face showing her laughing at what the soldiers were doing. If more people watched this right where we were, I'm sure we would hear the crowd talking about what they had just seen, or talking about Latias more saying she is some evil Pokemon. Thankfully because of how early it was there weren't anyone around, just us four.
Without a word we walked away and down the street we needed to rather than stay in the street with the monitor any longer than we had to. All of us were thinking it, all four of us knew who the true leader of Team Annihilation Reborn was and who was making Latias do and say all of the horrid things. A villain we had to find fast and deal with her before the situation had worsened. The media and most of the citizens of Unova believe Latias to be responsible for the horrid acts these past few days. We just had to get the true leader out into the open, defeat her once and for all and perhaps all of Unova would see Latias just as innocent as the controlled soldiers Shiny Latias used to do her bidding. I had hoped that at least, because after all of this, I had hoped Latias could find peace rather than being hunted down by a craze mob still believing her to be truly evil, ignoring the facts that her sister was the true evil one.
Team Annihilation Reborn Underground Base No.02 – Entrance
It was passed off as a detention center for citizens who should ever break curfew or their silly rules. It even had a sign 'Detention Center' hanging just above the entrance of a building that was once an underground bunker built during a war almost twenty years ago to protect its people and Pokemon from enemy threats. It was located a little north of the Mistralton City airport and near the city border, so if there was ever a threat to the city like a bomb dropping, the people and Pokemon would have to travel all the way here to be saved from the explosion of a bomb. In the past I remember reading about this and it was highly criticized for the location and there being only one with a total capacity of there being two hundred inside despite there being thousands living in the city at the time of the war. And now in the present this place was abandoned until Team Annihilation Reborn came and used it for a detention center but in reality it was an underground base used to imprison those whoever disobeyed their rule and turned ordinary citizens and Pokemon into soldiers to be added into Shiny Latias' growing army of mindless soldiers.
Outside of the bunker was an old rusty chain linked fence in a 'U' shape around the bunker and the opening was the only way in. There were a few trucks used by Team Annihilation Reborn soldiers at the sides, so if we were to move in we would have to stick close to them if we were supposed to be sneaking inside without going in for a frontal assault. Crouching low behind a bush off the side of the road, Brent gestured for us to listen as he went over the plan.
"Devon told us about the three ways we can enter this base." He pointed with his finger towards both sides of the bunker. "Two ways we can enter but both lead to the same pipes we can enter the bunker through. At the side of each bunker are two small vents we can crawl in through, but these won't get us all the way through the bunker to where we need to be to find Henry, we'll have to climb out and descend further from there. Another way but one I don't see us coming out alive if we do enter from the front; just go in for a frontal assault. That way we'll be alerting almost if not all the guards stationed in here."
"How many soldiers are in this bunker?" Lisa asked.
"Devon said there were a good amount inside, but the majority are those annoying drone things that shoot tranquilizer rounds at anything that moves. They're the dangerous ones. A soldier would take an average of five to ten seconds on alerting the entire base of intruders, whereas drones can instantly alert the base at the sight of intruders by scanning checking for authorized ID. Unfortunately we don't have any IDs with us so we'll have to be careful wherever we go."
And then what I thought would be a boring and yet slow placed stealth portion to the mission immediately became a frustrating and dangerous frontal battle as from above us, a random drone we hadn't noticed had seen us and scanned us alerting the entire base we were here. The four soldiers from the bunkers entrance were alerted to our presence and began to move in to our location. Zackary destroyed the drone with his Psychic and we were left with plan 'B' frontal assault.
"Dang it! Where the heck did that thing come from?" Bent struggled to say as the soldiers began firing at us, but the bushes for some reason shielded us from their nonlethal rounds. "Ah, we can't move in like this, we gotta evacuate for now and we will come back-"
"No!" Zackary interrupted. "They know we are here now. If we leave, the soldiers will transport my dad and every prisoner and the documents we need to find the others away from here to who knows where. We got to do this now."
"He's right about that. Who's telling where they'll take them if we go now. This may be our only chance." I said. "Plus the soldiers are using tranquilizer rounds on us. They're not going to kill us, only capture us and probably kill us later but at least we still have a fighting chance to succeed on this one."
"Oh great, now that sure does take a whole load off my shoulders!" Bent scoffed.
"Me and Zackary will move in. You two stay here and send out your Pokemon to assist us."
Zackary ran out of the bushes first and I followed out into the open towards the soldiers and the many drones all buzzing fast towards us, a loud metallic clicking from all of them indicating the start-up of their stupid tranquilizer pellets they fire constantly at their targets painting them blue. Lisa and Bent both sent out their Pokemon to assist us with the enemies; Lisa sent out Umbreon running up to us to face the soldiers head on, and Bent sent out his Murkrow fling above the battle field attracting more than half the drones chasing after him.
With the sighting of Zackary, all soldiers were controlled to say 'Enemy sighted, Zack Raines!' so they switched their weapons to nonlethal methods on capturing Zackary and his allies so they wouldn't kill anyone of us.
Four soldiers attacked from the front of the bunker teamed up with three drones circling around them to form some kind of protection or something around them, I don't know. Zackary moved in first and used Scald at the drones, hoping to sabotage the machinery within the drone, but the drone evaded the move and shot at Zackary with the blue pellets, but these pellets it shot at us were blocked by my Protect I used close to Zackary. Umbreon moved in and used Dark Pulse creating a large beam of darkness from the ground underneath one of the four soldiers injuring them before evading another drone from firing at her.
Murkrow used Wing Attack towards the drones following him while they shot their pellets at him, getting hit in the process but managed to strike two out of the five destroying one instantly but left one damaged for a while before it blew up.
I used Psybeam on one of the soldiers throwing them into the truck before teaming up with Zackary to perform a powerful Psychic on the last two remaining drones and crushing them. Murkrow attacked one of the last three drones with Fly, spinning it were it flew before it spun into the truck where the soldier I threw into lay unconscious still.
Umbreon attacked on the of soldiers using Bite on his leg, but the soldier kicked her off and shot her with the pellets a few times before his attack was interrupted by Zackary throwing his scalchop at his helmet knocking him back before finishing him off with a Razor Shell, obviously nonlethal but enough to render them unconscious. The last two soldiers weren't troublesome to take care of, I'd say they were the easiest to take care of than the others we had dealt with, so with a simple usage of Psychic against the bunker walls they were rendered unconscious.
With all soldiers and drones defeated, our next step was getting further inside the base to find either the prisoners and Zackary's dad, or the documents containing the locations of the other underground bases and perhaps Shiny Latias herself, whatever we discovered first. So far so good, the battle went well, no one died, and morale was pretty good… I guess if you don't count Bent's fast panting from the fight we were all in then all is good.
"You alright Bent?" I asked, noticing he was clutching his chest as he knelt down on one knee gasping for breath. He looked up at me and quickly nodded his head.
"Y-yeah. Just catching my breath… phew, it's been so long since I was in combat I forgot how it can feel… phew, damn!"
"That was fun. Glad to see you are still alive and kicking it after all these years." Umbreon smiled as she walked up to me. "We should catch up sometime soon."
"Heh, glad to see you too Umbreon. Definitely catch up again. But let's save all the catching up after this." I said, happy to see an old friend. But right now we had the mission to finish first.
Lisa came out from behind the bushes and joined us, walking past a still panting Bent and kneeling down to check up on Umbreon. She wasn't hurt, just covered in one or two blue pellets painting her black fur that could easily be washed off. "Great job Umbreon." Lisa smiled. Usually after a battle she would recall her Pokemon back inside her Pokeball, but like Bent, she left her Pokemon out, who's telling where and when more soldiers and annoying drones will show up again.
Murkrow perched on top of Bent's head thinking Murkrow was acting as lookout for the team by staying where he was but that was half the truth, in reality he sat there to rest while serving as lookout. With a shrug I turned away and followed Zackary as he began to approach the front double doors of the old bunker and began to enter ready to begin the search.
Inside the bunker the first thing we had come across was a long and narrow corridor with a large ramp leading down towards the first set of two open doors where many soldiers and Pokemon emerged from. Remembering Zackary's ability to absorb a Pokemon's life energy and killing them if he ever defeats them in battle, Brent sent his Murkrow down followed by Umbreon and I to deal with the Pokemon and Zackary dealing with the soldiers.
Three of the soldiers shot at anything close by, nonlethal rounds on the Pokemon fighting against us, a Herdier, Pansear, and an Unfezant. Unfezant attacked first upon flying past the soldiers by using Air Cutter, attacking all three of us with its wings moving swiftly around us. Herdier moved in fast and used Play Rough at me, jumping in and damaging my right shoulder before jumping off of me ready to attack with another move. But Umbreon struck it with a Bite and Murkrow using Sucker Punch to knock it back. Zackary moved in past the Pokemon and slashed his Razor Shell at the three soldiers, combining his Psychic and Razor Shell to spin one of them around and slashed continuously at one soldier while he used the other to attack the other two.
Pansear was just about to use a fire type move beginning to form at the palm of its paws, but before it could form completely, I used Psybeam slamming it back into a wall knocking it out cold. I guess using Psychic based moves and slamming said enemy against a wall is my specialty then.
Zackary had finished off the last of the soldier's by using Scald right into them, screaming at first but then fell silent lying unconscious along with the other soldiers.
But our fighting wasn't over just yet, upon descending the remaining section of the ramp and entering through the double doors we were attacked by may be perhaps the largest amount of soldiers we had ever faced; twelve soldiers stood at the far end of the corridor firing their tranquilizer rounds at us using only the doors as a shield. The rounds they fired at us weren't strong enough to break through the doors and hit us, but it didn't stop them from using round after round as four moved in. Zackary and I moved out but not before using a combined Protect to shield not only ourselves from the tranquilizer rounds being shot at us, but Murkrow and Umbreon as they moved behind us to fire ranged attacks at the enemy soldiers near us.
Two of the four soldiers were attacked by Murkrow and Umbreon while we moved closer towards the eight soldiers at the far end of the room. Zack occasionally but not often would used another move to fight the soldiers that had gotten close to us only to return on focusing on Protect to shield us from the tranquilizers.
With two of the soldiers already dealt with, the third was about to attack Umbreon and Murkrow on the left side of the Protect while the fourth on the right side was left to do whatever he wanted. The small tranquilizer rounds they fired at us wouldn't be enough to break through our combined moves, but a few good hits with the butt of his weapon could break Protect and leave us wide upon for us to be knocked out which would spell out 'Game Over' for us and no visiting the Pokemon Center after. I was about to break our combination to deal with the soldier, but suddenly from above as if in slow motion I saw a fist being thrown right into the soldiers stomach before another hand reached out and grabbed him and threw him over her shoulders and onto the floor. Looking back I saw Lisa and Bent standing behind me, fists up and ready to fight.
"W-wha…?"
"Looks like you four need help! So here we are ready to do some fightin'!" Bent grinned. "We both saw you needed help, we looked at each other and knew we should do our part by joining in and so here we are!"
"Um, no Brent that's not what that look was about. I was thinking we should send in more of our Pokemon to help out, not rushing in there!" Lisa protested, giving him a stern look. "I tried to run after you and pull you back to where it was safer but too late now!"
"Ah! Well whatever, let's send these soldiers crying home back to their mommas!"
I heard Zackary beside me growl, possibly annoyed at how he didn't want any of us to be pulling these kinds of stunts like this, especially when facing dangerous soldiers. If Zackary was going to save his friends kidnapped by Shiny Latias then we had to be serious with this. I was going to have to talk to Bent later that day and tell him to up his game and be serious with this, not wanting to have a repeat of what happened to Sakura and Isaac happen to one of us if he rushes out like that again.
With the four soldiers dealt with we moved in closer to the soldiers at the far end of the long corridor, only for them to start throwing stun grenades at us, less impactful the further away you are from it, but one or two of them up close would be enough to knock anyone out, and with all of us together like this then that was bad for us… thank you Bent, you idiot!
The soldiers began to throw the grenades at us, but with careful timing I pushed each grenade they threw at us back at them or into a room with a door already wide open while also coming back to use a combined Protect to shield us all from the tranquilizer rounds. I had managed to get two or three soldiers with a thrown back grenade, knocking some out, but they still continued firing at us, throwing grenades the more we had inched closer to them.
It was a surprising but scary moment when our combined Protects had broken leaving us wide open for any of the soldiers to open fire at us, throw another grenade. What we did next wasn't planned; it was just something all of us did at the same time. Without looking at another, without pausing, with the Protect broken all of us ran at the last remaining soldiers and used whatever move or attack we could use; Zackary throwing his scalchop with Razor Shell at one soldier right at his visor causing it to shatter upon impact, Murkrow with a Wing Attack hitting two soldiers across the abdomen, Umbreon with a Dark Pulse blasting underneath the feet of two enemy soldiers, and Bent and Lisa with a combined punch right into the face of an enemy soldier.
With the enemy soldiers defeated we moved on further inside the bunker were more fighting continued. Bent was sternly reminded to stay back in cover with Lisa and send out any Pokemon should we need backup. We fought drones, more soldiers with a seemingly endless supply of tranquilizer rounds and Pokemon. If we hadn't been caught back up on the surface I wasn't sure how things may have been for us or how we could've got back outside. I suppose waiting for Devon and his men to show up to help us out after contacting them I'm sure we would've been caught sooner or later, so we had to act fast while we were here, not sure if there would be reinforcements. I would've asked 'how about we call Devon and his men to come help us before we try and enter?' it was because of how little men Devon actually has left. He wants us to go in first before sending his team to go out and assist us. We are more of the main team while Devon's team is the backup, the guys who'll help us escape fast without trouble.
While searching the underground base, we did happen to locate a room with various documents inside, just like the informant mentioned in the reports of this place. The documents were many, ranging from daily reports to blueprints and classified files all left in the room without a lock on the door and left out the boxes all lying on the tables for anyone to come in and take. Well actually the door handle was broken before we approached it, as if something with claws had recently slashed at the handle breaking the door. The documents left in the document cabinets were useless things, orders on paints, materials and other things to fix up the place, and yet the important documents, the same things we were after were all placed on the table stacked in a neat pile.
"The hell? You think someone came in here and tried to take all of this stuff away, but then left for some reason?" Bent guessed, opening one of the folders to find a map of the Unova region with various locations marked. "Kind of seems odd to find all of this stuff lying around. Almost as if they want to be stopped if they are leaving all these blueprints and maps around."
"The door handle has been broken." Zack walked over to the door and examined it. "Claw markings at the side of the door… something definitely broke in here. Where it has gone is anyone's guess."
On the table, using my Psychic I looked at a file classified as 'Useless' and took a single document out and glanced over at it.
This file contains information on prisoners/interesting subjects with no value to Team Annihilation Reborn and Shiny Latias. Subject No.01887 has been confirmed by Shiny Latias as of November to be terminated before the end of the year. The subject will be used to enrage Zack Raines and our goal will be closer than we thought.
'Subject No.01887 must not leave the underground base or have direct contact with her mother.
Reason for subject being deemed useless: Shiny Latias states that she despises the fact that Zack Raines' blood flows through the subjects veins and would rather terminate her than raise as her own, to control her as another soldier for her army.
End of Note.'
Reading this confused me, until it hit me that this subject they were talking about was Zackary's and Latias' daughter? Latias was pregnant before the battle with Team Doom. Latias got captured by her during the battle and nothing was ever heard from her or their daughter, up until now. "She had a daughter… up for termination by the end of this month? Wherever this underground base is we better hope it's close by or we'll be too late." I wanted to say something to him, to tell him what I had just found, but right now we needed to stay focused. I would tell him later, but right now we had to find Henry first.
We took the files with us not wanting to risk leaving them for someone else to take them. Even taking the file with the documents about Zackary's daughter and other locations of the underground bases within this region. I just hoped we had time to save her after this, I could only imagine how Zackary would react if his daughter had died because of them.
Underground Base – Prison
"Guwah!" Shouted the last soldier as Bent had punched him through the door of the prison room of the bunker, the place we had searched for some time while fighting our way inside this bunker.
"And for the eighth time now, that is the last of 'em!"
"Bent, please stop that or you'll probably jinx us with that." I sighed before stepping over the unconscious soldier with the others as we entered the room to find ourselves stepping inside the prison. It was a long rectangular room used as some kind of storage room of some kind with a glass ceiling. Stacked against the walls were cages in various sizes stacked beside the other, others smaller than most and some large enough to fit half the size of a Wailord. Hmm, yeah if I ever was an evil antagonist wanting no one to find out what I do to the prisoners in one of my underground bases I too would most likely have glass ceilings, no one would be able to see through that… well, whatever the reason for there being a glass ceiling, I reckon they didn't care or were believed no one would dare go up against these guys.
Immediately, Zackary walked ahead of us and searched each cage for Henry. Bent shut the door behind him before Lisa and I helped Zackary search the other cages for Henry. Despite the horrid smell the further we got inside the prison and walked closer to the cages we saw the aftermaths of the horrific injuries and states the prisoners were left in, a small amount left lying there unconscious or too weak to move, others with limbs cut off, flesh peeled off with nothing to cover over the flesh, others you could hardly tell what kind of Pokemon it was or if it was a human for how badly they left the poor souls in.
At the corner of the room we heard a loud metallic snap as Zackary used his Razor Shell on a cage door opening it up and stepping inside. Lisa, Bent and I ran over to the cage to discover Zackary was kneeled beside a human prisoner, long uncut hair, skinny body showing off his ribs covered in multiple untreated wounds, and two legs cut off a few inches where his knees used to be. "Dad, h-hey ca you hear me? It's me Zack!"
Henry opened his eyes weakly, finding difficulty on keeping them open, closing them whenever the light inside this room touched his eyes, but at the first sight of Zackary, he opened his mouth to speak. "Z-Zack?"
"It's me; we're here to rescue you, all of you." Zackary looked back at Lisa, and she reached her hand inside her own bag and handed him a bottle of water. Zackary opened the bottle and offered him a sip of water. It wasn't long, but Henry passed out, so Brent immediately contacted Devon to call his men in the bunker to rescue the others trapped within.
"So, you have found your adoptive father, Zack Raines!"A woman's voice called out from somewhere within the room, a voice that made all prisoners in the room cower back inside their cages. It wasn't Shiny Latias; I had sensed it to be a human somewhere there with us. "Congratulations are in order I suppose."
"Who are you?" Zackary stepped out of the cage and held his scalchop, searching the room for whoever it was in the room with us. Then we all noticed on top of one of the cages was a woman waving at us before standing up in one swift motion and then jumping off.
"I have been monitoring you Zack Raines and your team ever since that drone scanned you outside alerting the base to your presence." All of us watched as the woman walked a little closer towards us before stepping into the light. She was wearing a Team Annihilation Reborn soldiers uniform, jet black, helmet with a white letter 'A' on her shoulders. However, despite being a member of Shiny Latias' controlled army, this soldier seemed different than the others, a lot chattier and less action, that was a new one for us. "You could've entered this base a lot better than you did, fighting almost all of my soldiers and drones in here, but you had to invite your other allies into the fight." From behind, she brought out a rifle and aimed it at us. Neither of us moved, and yet we were close to retaliate. Surprisingly, she jumped up and remained in the air a burst of fire emerged from a jetpack she was wearing made her fly. She used the jetpack to fly further upwards, shooting the glass ceiling with her rifle causing it to break. Thankfully not by us so we were saved from glass rain.
The woman wearing jet black armor used her jetpack to fly up on top of the tall cages where larger Pokemon the size of Golurk were placed, rested her rifle on her shoulder as she spoke. "So you're the Dewott Shiny Latias wants captured."
"Who are you? Another controlled soldier she has sent after me?" Zackary growled, readying his scalchop.
"Sent here to find and capture you, yes. Am I a controlled soldier you ask? Hardly." The woman tutted. "I am doing this on my own free will."
"Wait, you're not controlled? Then how come you're following Shiny Latias?" I asked.
"I believe in her vision to be the best one. A world without corruption, hatred, war, were everyone can be who they want to be without judgement, without being laughed at, ridiculed by those who are so mighty on top of their own clouds because of their dreams they wish to become a reality. Criminals will become a thing of the past, murderers taking away lives of those we hold dear, thugs hurting innocents and stealing our own possessions, schools without pathetic bullies will be a bad dream, streets will forever be safe to walk in without fear of being robbed or hurt. Doesn't that sound like a better world than this one?" She said, pointing with her finger at all of us.
"It does sound nice, but her methods are too extreme." Zack used Razor Shell to prepare to attack at any minute. "She hurts and kills innocent people and Pokemon, using them against their own free will to do her bidding. I have watched controlled soldiers kill their own families because she made them do it!"
"She is just ridding the world of those still trapped under the old worlds corrupt ways. Better to clean away the filth before it corrupts the young. I joined because I desire change to this world. Juro, our first leader of Team Annihilation once fought for a world we are building. He almost achieved this goal almost ten years ago, and then you arrived, Zack Raines!" She lifted the rifle off her shoulder and readied her own weapon. Umbreon, Murkrow, and I all readied our own moves ready to attack.
"I know you suffer, Zack Raines. But I can offer you something your allies cannot do as of this moment. I want you to kill all of your allies standing before you, and I will take you back to command and you can see your Latias again." She let go of her rifle to offer him, but Zackary refused.
"Go to hell if you think I'm doing that!" He growled, his eye glowing a brighter red indicating the start up of the voices inside his head trying to control him to unleash his anger and kill whatever or whoever is near. But thankfully the brightness faded indicating he had calmed himself down.
"Shiny Latias wants you alive; I am a member of her army. Under the command of General Vladimir Petrov, I have been instructed to hunt you down and take you back to command and the new world will begin the first steps on being built. I am Iris one of the five members of 'The Five'. Let's go!"
The soldier was fast all thanks to her jetpack allowing her to move fast like a rocket in the room, firing more tranquilizer rounds at us with every opportunity she had at us. The four of us stayed together protected by both mine and Zackary's Protect shielding us from Iris' attacks. Umbreon and Murkrow both tried to use ranged attacks to land a direct hit at Iris, but she was too far away for a move to hit.
"Dang it! She's too far away; we'll never get her like this. We have to change up our tactics." Bent grunted as a tranquilizer round hit the Protect, a hit almost powerful enough to break the shield.
I watched as Iris moved around the room, studying her movements and how she attacked. Yeah she was quick, making sure to get as far away from us landing a direct hit against her. Coming up with something, I suggested, "We have to split up. Move around the field and attack when we get close."
"No, we are not splitting up!" Zack refused, shaking his head and keeping our combined Protect held stronger than before. "We can do this, she'll get in close and we'll finish her off. We can do this!"
"Zackary, we can't get her from here, she's too far away for anyone of us to land a hit." I looked at him as our Protect grew stronger, strong enough for us to have this talk. Zack turned his head down, shifting his eye away from mine; I could see the worry in his eye. And I could tell what he was thinking about. "I know you are worried about losing us, how Sakura and Isaac were tragically killed that day. But if we don't split up right now the Protect will shatter and she'll finish us off." I placed my paw on his shoulder and he looked up at me. And I said gently, "We will split up into two. We'll attack with our Pokemon and be should be able to land a hit."
"Yeah I agree. We're a team right? If we are gonna be able to defeat Shiny Latias and her army we should work together. By splitting up we can do this and save your dad and the rest here." Bent said, placing his hand on Zackary's shoulder.
Lisa placed her hand on Zackary's back, comforting him and trying to help set his mind at ease. "We can do this Zack. Let us help you." Zackary looked back at us before turning his head back in the direction of Iris in silence.
"Right… okay then. We'll split up and take her down together."Zackary nodded his head. Lisa stood behind me, and Bent stood behind Zackary. After Iris stopped shooting at us, Zackary and I both stopped our combination Protect and immediately used a singular one before splitting up by running in separate directions; Zackary moving in close to get around her with Bent following behind, and me and Lisa running a little closer to Iris but making sure it would be so we could cut her off if she tried to flee from them and run into us.
Iris saw this and moved back, gaining a little distance from mine and Zackary's small team, shooting at us. Zackary and Bent were now north of the prison room and Lisa and I were south, all running straight for Iris. But in her position, Iris would have to turn and fire her weapon at us every time, only for her attacks to be shielded by Protect Zackary and I used.
Then with one final turn, Murkrow approached fast at her with a Wing Attack damaging her leg by slicing below the kneecap. When Zackary and Bent approached just in range for Zackary to grab hold of her with his Psychic, Iris used a flash grenade before using her jetpack to fly up to the glass ceiling.
"Nice try, but I'm afraid our little game ends for now. But until then, grow strong and survive so our next battle will be something else entirely. You almost got me, I have to admit that. But next time I will have the upper hand." The Five member Iris said before using her jetpack to fly her through the glass roof of building, escaping far away from here. The sounds of her jetpack slowly fading away in the distance.
"Ugh… how come every time in these boss battles once their HP/hit points are down low they always flee rather than fighting until the end?" I panted for breath. "Kind of annoys me when they do that, I just want to finish them off for good… she didn't last too long here also."
"Yeah, but we'll get our chances next time. But for now, let's get these guys out of here." Bent said before checking on Murkrow.
"Do you think she was testing us? I mean it did feel as though she was holding back, especially when all she did was shoot at us with her gun nonstop, she could've used something else but that was it." Lisa said, returning Umbreon back inside her ball.
"Either that or she was all too high and mighty thinking she was better than us, showing off her moves with a damn jetpack and flash grenade. She wasn't all that special." I shrugged; annoyed that Iris escaped, but relieved that all of us made it out alright, and that Zackary's dad was alive. Looking over at Zackary treating to Henry's wounds while backup was on the way, I felt happy seeing Zackary smile again. Two Shiny Latias taken from us were back with us, and two left until we were all back together. But Zackary wouldn't rest all that much until everyone was back, but at least he would get some rest from saving his dad.
Mistralton City – Hospital
It had been four hours since we received help and had Henry along with the prisoners taken to the hospital. We waited three hours in the waiting room only to receive an update that Henry was going to be alright, and the doctor told us the most obvious thing about him saying that he would never walk again… uh, yeah I don't think he will walk again either because no legs to do so… what's next; they'll tell me the shocking discovery that 2+2=4?
It was a large rectangular room on the fourth floor right next to the reception, full of empty chairs with only us four occupying the four seats out of forty against the large windows with a view of the city, tables with various magazines to pass the time, and vending machines near the entrance for all your snaking needs, and yet we were still left with questions about the woman named Iris who attacked us in that bunker.
"General Vladimir Petrov, I have heard of him before when I was in Johto seven years ago. He was once in the army earning the title of captain but jailed because of his affiliation to Team Annihilation." Lisa told us as she glanced over at the device Devon gave us to keep us in contact with him. She held up a photo of the man. Pale skin, I'd day in his mid to late forties, black short hair and a moustache and goatee wearing a Johto military uniform. I didn't know what to think of this man at first, but when I would meet him in person, I'll tell you this now, I hate the man.
"Yeah I heard of that guy, tall skinny guy who has a strange obsession over opera." Bent shrugged in his seat after looking at the photo Lisa showed us all of the man. "I heard that the soldiers who were once with him in combat often heard him talk about opera, poetry, and art to whomever was nearby, they'll thought he was a total whack job."
"Then if this guy is in charge of this 'The Five' that Iris woman is a part of then we'll have to deal with him sometime soon."
"Oh great, another set of bizarre weird guys giving themselves odd names coming at us one at a time per location we travel in." I said sarcastically shaking my head. "How is it we attract these kinds of guys with every adventure we go on?"
"Well, whatever the reason, we'll just beat 'em like we always do!" Bent smiled as he leaned back in the chair. "Or unless they run outta guys to send at us." I smirked at that and thought about us endlessly finding a new threat every year and fighting them thus saving the region/world again and again… that kind of thing sounded both boring and repetitive, I certainly wouldn't want that, risking my life all the time and finding no peace. Like with Zackary, I too wanted to end the fighting once and for all and retire.
Zackary sat in silence on the other side of the room while watching out of the window perhaps deep in thought. Perhaps he was worried about how a set of new group were after us thinking the same think would happen to us like it had happened with Sakura and Isaac. With both Yuri and Henry now in safe hands, all we had to do was find Reiko and Latias. The only way for all of us to be truly at peace is when Shiny Latias and her Team Annihilation Reborn have been defeated once and for all. I had hoped the final battle between us would go our way and the peaceful future for us would be right around the corner welcoming us for a life without fighting.
We would stay in that hospital overnight until we get some rest before continuing with our journey but not before getting an update on where it is we should be heading next to shut down these underground bases.
During our quest to save our friends and family while also fighting Shiny Latias and her army, I had noticed something that Zackary did the others didn't. With every route we walked upon, with every city, every town and settlement we entered and left, Zackary was always watching out for all of us with a slight barrier of Psychic energy around us all should a surprise ambush ever happen. He was protecting us, refusing to allow the past to repeat itself. Maybe I should've said something when I first noticed, maybe I should've told the others about it so we could all say something, but I didn't. I don't know why I didn't.
To be continued…
Trivia:
Lisa and Brent were originally set to appear in a later chapter, towards chapter 20 or later, but after going over the draft I made for this story they would've entered the story a bit too late near the final battle, so I had to work it around so they enter earlier and interact with Zack and Espeon a whole lot more.
AN: Just a heads up, this will probably be the last chapter of the year before continuing with the story in early to mid January, just going on a little break for the holidays. I will try to finish the story very shortly after so I don't make you guys wait too long. Should you decide to want to have your own original character be put into the story just pm me and let me know the details and what not. Take it easy and see you next time.