Chapter 20 – The Controlled Town

Lacunosa Town

The walled town even at night seemed lively, full of people talking and laughing outside bars and walking through the busy streets, most other settlements didn't have this kind of liveliness. There were Christmas decorations and lights hung up outside the many windows we passed. In a few weeks families from all over would gather together to celebrate the festive season. I had hoped since how close we were to the end of this journey we could be a part of that, all of us together again free of fighting and in peace.

But the talking, laughing and cheering seemed to grow silent not even ten steps into the town, the people stopped what they were doing and looked right at us, some moving aside to let us pass. They stood in silence, faces with a blank expression, placing whatever they had in their hands down on either the table or ground.

"The heck is wrong with these people?" Brent asked, more to them than us hoping one of them would tell us why they were doing that. "Think these folks ain't welcoming to outsiders? Friendly bunch 'eh?"

"I have been here before many times during the five year search and before that, never have I encountered anything like this before."

"That whole thing was either a new weird internet craze going on, a so-called hilarious prank, or they are taking drugs, I'm too tired to care right now, let them have their fun on someone else." Espeon said sighing before letting out a big yawn.

"An internet craze ya think? Don't know what the fun is in that if they don't bother letting us in on it afterwards, it was weird, not funny at all."

After walking the remaining distance to the Pokemon Center we thought the whole silent stares of those people would've stopped, but they didn't, they continued on even while we entered the building. We just ignored it and made our way inside to book ourselves a room for the night.

Inside the center was almost empty besides the nurse casually sorting out some documents at the desk with her Audino beside her helping out. Lisa and I approached the desk and asked for a room for the night. Without a word or looking up at us handed us a key to the room we would be spending the night in before getting Lisa's information up on her computer. Then the nurse and the Audino just like with the people outside stared at us in silence with the same blank expression on their faces.

Lisa handed Brent the key and watched him and Espeon walk down the corridor towards the room before watching me approach the video phone looking up at it briefly before returning to Lisa.

"Not going to talk to Aqua today?" Lisa asked.

"No, not tonight, she'll be asleep by now, I'll talk to her and our children tomorrow morning. I have to tell her about what's going so far with Team Annihilation Reborn and the update on the search. I haven't told her much about it since we found my sister and dad. Do you have anyone to talk to back in Sinnoh, Lisa?"

"No one that doesn't work for The Savior's." She shook her head "If I did make contact they would know I was here since these video phones have tracking on them. I would then expect them to order me back there or even send a few agents to come look for me. Then Brent would be ordered back by his superiors."

"Would you go? Back to your home region I mean."

"I will go back, but not before I help you save Latias and stop Team Annihilation Reborn first, well actually after we relax first before I go back and face a possibly angry boss, maybe even risk getting fired."

"I'm sure it won't come to that." I said as we made our way back to the room to rest up for tonight. "Me, Brent and Devon could put in a good word for you for all you have done if things do turn south."

"I don't know, going against orders to stay in the region given to me by my bosses won't be forgotten about after the situation going on in this region has been dealt with. Even if you do a good thing it's the going against orders they'll care about, no matter how much help I get from you guys."

Entering the room we found Espeon enjoying her bed on one of the two bunk beds in the room while Brent was at the other side of the room by the window.

"Hey you two, we'll go get some food in the morning. Right now I'm feeling pretty beat up after that long trek through the previous route." Brent leaned his back against the wall.

"Hey Bent, are those guys still out there?" Brent looked opened the curtains slowly and looked outside the window, he shook his head.

"Nah, the street is empty now. Must've given up on that prank of theirs and either left to bother someone else or have all gone home…" He shook his head. "But something about this doesn't feel right."

"What do you mean Bent, how we are constantly hunted by Shiny Latias' controlled soldiers, hired bounty hunters and other crazy colourful characters all trying to either kill or capture us." Espeon yawned as she began to lie down on the bed to get ready to go to sleep.

"When we first entered the town everyone I saw all stopped what they were doing and all looked directly at us, not one of cracking a smile. You guys don't think they're being controlled or something?"

"Hmm… the nurse here did the same thing." Lisa remembered when she and I were at the reception desk before. It was quiet, inside the center and outside. We turned the lights off, it was too quiet.

It was a little after one in the morning after two hours of silence passed the door to our room had opened. The door was pushed open by the nurse walking in slowly before turning to one of the bunk beds with a knife in hand. She then raised the knife up high above her head before stabbing into the fabric of the bed sheets with her knife, but underneath the sheets weren't Lisa, Brent, Espeon but a set of two pillows underneath she sheets.

Brent jumped down off the opposite bunk bed and quickly tackled Nurse Joy before she could react, pinning her to the floor while the rest of us jumped down and flicked the lights.

"I thought something was up." Espeon spat as she walked closer to the nurse, using her Psychic to pull the knife out of her hand to disarm her. "Those guys outside staring at us, the nurse and her Audino doing the same thing, either bounty hunters or you're most likely one of the controlled. So which is it, a bounty hunter or one of the controlled?"

The nurse didn't respond, she tried over and over again to free herself from Brent's grip, a word never or grunt never escaped her lips. She was controlled alright. Then from outside of the window we heard metal scrapings and things being thrown at the window. Lisa opened the curtains slightly and gasped. Then all of us saw perhaps the entire population of the town out on the streets all with weapons coming for us.

"There are a lot of people outside, all of them with weapons; knives, rocks… what the…!?" A window from down the corridor could be heard being broken, they were trying to get inside, and we had to move.

"Come on, we got to leave right now!" I said to them before grabbing my scalchops and walked towards the door. Espeon attacked the nurse with her Psychic and rendered her unconscious, the only way to break Shiny Latias' ability to control.

All four of us left the room and out into the corridor, turning in the opposite direction away from the main doors to head out the back way, but then one of the doors in front f us burst open and out came several controlled people armed with all kinds of weapons.

"What is this? A zombie game or something? Where's a ink ribbon and a type writer so I can save my progress?" She joked as she used Confusion on the group of the controlled in front of us, providing us a chance to move past them without being grabbed by them or injuring the towns folk. We had to escape from this building.

We entered through the staff only section of the center to find four workers inside all armed with weapons; scalpels, hammers, even a broomstick. Espeon and I thought them off while Lisa and Brent searched the area for the back door. We made sure not to harm them but to push them back until we found a way out.

Espeon used her Psychic to push them back, used Protect when they got too close to her and attacked over and over again, but they never showed sign of fatigue, she controlled them to fight and not stop doing so until whatever task they were given was done. With my Psychic, I pushed the four off of Espeon and threw them far back.

"Hey guys, we found a way out through here!" Brent called out to us and we ran out of there to catch up to leave the building. Outside in the alley however didn't prove to be better than inside for the amount of the controlled were already here; a square alley with seven near the trashcan on the right with more behind them, almost twenty of them coming directly for us on the alley leading out from the main street on the left. We were about to get back inside until we noticed the workers and more from the corridors had already caught up.

"Damnit! What the heck do we do?" Brent grunted, reaching his hand for his Pokeball. "We got to fight them off!"

"There's too many of them!" Espeon raised her voice as she prepared to us Protect or Psychic.

"Then what can we do? Let 'em capture us or let them kill us? I don't think so! We gotta fight them until we get an opening and we take it, or we're goners!"

I searched the alley for some other way we could escape. Seven that were standing by the trash on the right side of the alley did have an open door behind them, but there were already controlled inside that building, who knows how many, could be worse than trying to fight through the hoard coming at us to the left. Going back inside the building we had come out of would mean we would be trapped with how many there were, perhaps with no way to escape if we did fight them off.

I didn't know what to do; to fight them off or to try and find some other way to escape. But before I could decide, I noticed up north of the alley behind a chain linked fence was a girl in a yellow raincoat wave and shouted.

"Come on, this way!" The girl called out to us from behind the chain linked fence gesturing us to follow them by climbing over it before we were overwhelmed by the controlled townsfolk. Without wasting another second all of us ran and jumped at the fence and climbed over it as fast as we could, and without a word we followed the girl as she guided us through the dark alley, turning many corners until at the end of the alley she opened a door and we ran inside before she slammed the door shut.

Lacunosa Town Pokemon Center - Storage Room

The light switch was flicked and the whole room lit up. Once a storage for the Pokemon Center now a shelter for the girl, half of the cans of food and drink consumed and littered in one full trashcan beside a sleeping bag and unlit lantern.

"Thank you for helping us back there." Lisa said calmly to the girl in the raincoat as she knelt down beside the sleeping bag. "Are you… is there anyone else with you?"

The girl shook her head. "No one, just me. Are you with the police?"

"No, but uh… we're here to help. We're with The Savior's." She said with a smile, finally kneeling beside the girl. "My name is Lisa, how about you, do you have a name?"

"Mary. M-my name is Mary." The young girl removed the hood and looked up at Lisa with her brown eyes; her face was covered in dirt. I didn't know how long she had been living in the storage room for, maybe weeks from the looks of it.

"Can you tell us what happened here?"

"A month ago was when they first ordered all of us into the town square. I thought they were going to take us away, but instead a Pokemon came and could speak human language, she told them something about killing Zack's uh… friends when they see him enter." She looked up at Brent. "Is that you? Are you Zack?"

"Not me kiddo, my name's Brent. The Dewott here, his name is Zack." Brent pointed me out to the girl.

"Why are they after you?" She asked, so I explained all I could about who I was and why Shiny Latias was after me without getting into it too much. She told us about how she had been staying in the storage room for a long time fearing Shiny Latias would return again to control her.

"I noticed there weren't any Pokemon amongst the controlled humans attacking us inside the center. Where are they?" I had noticed when we were attacked, how we saw no Pokemon in the town. Shiny Latias wanted me to fight and absorb the life energy of Pokemon so I could get stronger, so where did they go?

"The soldiers after they came rounded all of them up and had taken them to their underground base just north of the town. It's past that large house on the town wall."

"Ah, past the executives house, eh?" Brent asked. "Looking out the window of our room early I saw a lot of lights in that area. Not very well hidden if ya ask me."

"There are a lot of soldiers over there patrolling the area." The girl said. "I tried to go in but there were too many of them, plus the drones are the worst, if they see you everyone soldier and drone will come after you and fire their weapons."

"Do the controlled react differently to you?" Lisa asked, the girl shook her head.

"No, they're the same when they are not in that state, like none of this ever happened. But I couldn't live in my house because of those soldiers patrolling everywhere, checking each house with every person to see if you are one of them. I have been in here hiding and scavenging whenever I can… I didn't know who I could call to stop this. The phone lines had been cut, and beyond this town there are patrols…"

"I suppose we can stay in here until morning, and then we can make our move to retake this town again from Team Annihilation Reborn's control." Brent sat down on the wooden floor trying to get comfortable before sleeping. "Going there right now especially with that many controlled on the streets could get us killed. They'll probably be off the street come morning."

"Yeah, me too." Espeon lay down beside Brent. "Hopefully they'll calm down and go back to their homes. Resting now and a little food in the morning will give us our strength needed to take back this town from Shiny Latias."

"If we do see some of the controlled before heading to the lab, how do you think we should handle them?" I asked as I sat beside them.

"If we leave them like this then they could harm other people or capture 'em to be controlled like 'em by Shiny Latias should she return. So maybe we should…" Brent thought about it for a while before shrugging. "Nah, knocking 'em out should bring 'em back to normal, ain't no other way unless that happens. We don't have any tranquilizer darts to do that, so a good ol' whack to the head will do that."

"I suppose it'll have to do until we get a tranquilizer dart to handle with people, and maybe Pokemon for me without actually battling them. I'll ask Devon once the town is back under control."

"You're safe with us. In the morning my friends and I will do all we can to help the people and Pokemon of this town. We'll reunite you with your parents again soon." Lisa comforted the young girl. We were all tired and needed to rest before moving out in the morning to free this city from Shiny Latias' control.

It was a dreamless sleep that night, waking up in the early hours of the morning to prepare ourselves to make a move towards the underground lab up north of the town. With food in our stomachs and Pokemon healed and fully energized and we were ready to go.

Mary stayed behind inside the storage room until all of this was over, understandable since where we were going it would be way too dangerous for her to be with us to battle against the soldiers and more of the controlled citizens, they would most likely assume she was one of my friends/allies and attack her.

The cautious walk towards the underground base was uneventful; we encountered no one walking on the streets or through the alleyways, like walking through a ghost town. We walked up north past the executive's house until we found the entrance to the underground lab, once an abandoned underground subway graffiti and left to ruin now filled with Team Annihilation Reborn soldiers, the main base of operation. Once the soldiers had been taken care of, Devon's team could move in and take care of the rest.

Only five outside the building, two drones hovering above, and like last time we attacked a base like this, Espeon and I moved in first with Lisa and Brent held back for a while until they sent out Seviper and Pidgey once we were close to the soldiers. The drones were easily destroyed, and the soldiers defeated and rendered unconscious within a matter of seconds. Were we too slow to defeat them plus the drones? Did they have enough time to call for reinforcements alerting the entire base of intruders? Of course as a large group of soldiers and drones left the base and attacked. Maybe with some planning we could've taken them out stealthily if we had been patient first instead of rushing in there, so much for not taking any risks…

Brent sent out his Seviper and had him use Poison Tail, slamming his tail down on three soldiers moving onto more soldiers to attack after rendering them unconscious, using Screech at the enemies affecting almost every soldier allowing the other Pokemon a huge opening for an attack wide open, and we took it.

Lisa had her Umbreon use Dark Pulse calling forth darkness from beneath the feet of the soldiers exploding upon impact and sending them flying before they had come crashing down. I used Scald sending a ball of hot water at a soldier about to come out of being affected by Screech, using Psychic to pull the soldier into the Scald before throwing him into more soldiers.

Espeon jumped up with the assistance of one of the downed soldiers by climbing up on his back and used Hyper Beam at the group of soldiers. To finish this I had used Psychic to grab the last remaining handful of soldiers left and hurled them at the town wall.

It was a dangerous attack for me to use, risking their lives wanting to get the fight over and done with so we can save the town and continue on. I noticed at the end of the battle the voices in my head already started all calling out to me wanting to kill the soldiers to get it over with. But the voices had already faded before the others could notice, and without a word I entered the base with Espeon, Lisa and Brent following behind.

Lacunosa Town – Team Annihilation Reborn Underground Base

We fought and defeated the many soldiers and drones within the base that had but not without receiving some damage ourselves, a few cuts and hits by the soldiers melee at us and using knives to slash at us and the drones using their blue pellet attack to weaken Pokemon Lisa and Brent sent out or Espeon and me, whoever was closer.

The base was crawling with soldiers weak allowing us an easy battle and strong almost forcing us to flee, but we pushed on determined to see this through. we moved further into the base only stopping to either hide from a large wave or two of enemy soldiers and drones, into storage rooms and offices of doors left unlocked. One door in particular was unlocked to provide us a room to hide inside from the soldiers had something of value to us, something if Lisa hadn't walked closer to one of the computers on the desk we could've missed and moved on to Reversal Mountain to battle Shiny Latias.

Instead of standing by the door ready to battle the soldiers should they enter the room and find us in here, Lisa noticed one of the five computers was already left running with a single file on the desktop. The description about the file read 'Prisoners and T.A.R. (Team Annihilation Reborn) file' and she called us over but not before Brent barricaded the door using a chair first. "Hey guys, look at this."

We got closer to the computer; Lisa sat down on the chair in front of the computer. " 'Prisoners and T.A.R. file' Maybe this thing has some kind of prisoners list. Maybe Reiko or Latias could be on this list." Brent read the description, looking back at the office door first before asking. "Are we gonna read it? Whatever's on it might be important."

On the computer Lisa clicked on the only file left on the computer titled 'J1-3' it was journal written by a scientist working at the base. Each journal entry had a date at the top and underneath was written:

06/07

We have moved most of the prisoners from the previous location after last month's 'interference' from outside forces. This location is temporary until the next location is available for prisoner transport, but torture is still on the table for whoever on the team is open for that kind of thing. I'll probably do it if I am allowed to take pieces off of them or a limb to being with my experiments.

"So there are prisoners here." Brent grunted after reading the journal entry. "Man, these people are sick, torturing 'em, using 'em for experiments? They're living beings damn it!" Brent punched the wall with his bare fist, showing no sign of injury for how hard he punched the wall causing it to crack a little.

"Now we know about their plan we can help to prevent more people and Pokemon from suffering Shiny Latias control and imprisonment." I hoped off the chair and made my way towards the door. "Let's find these people and free them."

"Oh yeah, so I'm going to leave this computer on with confidential information left running, let's hope no one read it; said the dumbest guy working here probably…" Espeon sighed. "Either this guy really hates his job or he really is too dumb to leave information like this on for people to read."

08/12

Most of those injected with the Doom serum all have emotional triggers that effect how they battle, ranging from a limited killing spree, confusion, or renders one unable to battle. Zack with his rage, Shiny Latias with her confusion at time, all things we never expected upon when the serum was created.

A Pokemon was transported to Black City the other day by orders of Shiny Latias, she explains that if the target were to have his friends all killed in this very town he would enter a berserk like state and kill everyone her plan would probably backfire, and Shiny Latias does not want that to happen yet, with no other explanation as to what she intends to do with the Pokemon.

"A Pokemon being transported to Black City?" Lisa pointed at the entry. "Maia told us to go that city, she told us something was there. Maybe that Pokemon is Latias."

I reread the journal entry, finding myself feel a little bit hopeful on the inside that this Pokemon was indeed Latias within Black City. " 'Her plan would backfire' is what he wrote in the journal, maybe this Pokemon is really her…"

"At the end of this journal entry this guy doesn't know what Shiny Latias is going to do with the Pokemon." Espeon said. "If Latias really is within Black City we'll have to be careful. Shiny Latias could very well be waiting for us there with hundreds of soldiers, drones, Pokemon, and so on. We just focus on only trying to find Latias within Black City without being careful about the soldiers or the risk of running into Shiny Latias we'll all be seeing the 'Game Over' sign in front of us with no retry available."

"Yeah, we can't be rushing there, Black City must be heavily guarded if Shiny Latias' sister is locked up somewhere there, they'll be on the lookout for us. I'll contact Devon once we get out of here and ask him to monitor Black City for us; Team Annihilation Reborn activity, that kind of thing." Lisa said, rereading the previous journal entries first before she scrolled the screen down to reveal the final entry.

11/24

Shiny Latias has controlled most of the townsfolk to kill all of the target's friends should he enter the town using whatever weapon they can find but also preventing them from leaving until all of his friends are dead. They act normal to others passing by, but upon the sighting of Zack's allies will they engage in battle with the targets friends.

This way Zack will unleash his anger and enter his berserk like state so he can kill all Pokemon we have at the base we'll release once the citizens of this town attack the Dewott's friends. The Pokemon we have here are strong and would help the target grow stronger once he defeats and absorbs their energy killing them in the process, power needed so Shiny Latias can use the Dewott as her weapon to take over the region if not others if she so desires. Other settlements within the region are already going through the same as Lacunosa Town; a base being built to monitor the area, citizens being controlled by Shiny Latias to attack Zack but not kill him just his allies. We should have all of this done by the start of the new year if all goes well.

"This is bad; other areas within this region are at risk from suffering the same fate as this one."

"Yeah, about that; just how are we going to take care of the civilians?" Esepon asked, looking up at the monitors to see people walking around the town with weapons in hand, obviously still looking for us. "If we call in Devon's team to take care of them they could be hurt trying. Devon's team doesn't exactly have a lot on his team or a lot of resources to handle the controlled, especially that many people out there."

"Then I suppose we just handle 'em ourselves. Just knock 'em out so they don't hurt anyone else when we call in some help." Brent clenched his fists.

"Uh, Bent? You do realize there must be a hundred plus out there? Even if we do defeat ten or twenty of them they'll overwhelm us very fast."

"We have our Pokemon to help us out. As long as we plan this out well we may come out of this all in one piece." He crossed his arms as a smirk appeared on his face. "They don't have any ranged weapons, only close melee weapons, our Pokemon have ranged attacks."

"Pokemon moves are not safe to use on people, so we have to make sure our Pokemon reduce the power of their moves and not full force."

"Not a problem Lisa, me and my Pokemon have dealt with people before, they know how to stop 'em without causing any serious harm to 'em!"

"Can rendering someone unconscious be harmful to them? I mean does it actually damage something? Hmm… what was it?" Espeon questioned.

"Ah, they'll live. And besides, if they are not free of Shiny Latias' control they will always be a puppet the rest of their lives."

"There are soldiers in this underground base still as well as the prisoners we need to save. The towns people outside need to be taken care of before we send Devon's team to secure the place." I asked, checking once more on the monitor to see if the town had any Pokemon walking around also controlled. "I'll stay inside the base and take care of the soldiers. You guys head outside and handle the civilians."

"Can do Zackary. Once the civilians are all taken care of we'll call in Devon's team." Espeon looked up at Lisa and Brent. "Once we leave the underground base we'll spread out and take out as much civilians as we can. That way we are not all in one spot gathering all civilians towards us, surrounding us with no means of escape possibly. Just don't do anything reckless."

"Got it!"

"Being reckless ain't my thing!"

"You can count on us to do this, be careful in here Zackary."

"You too guys." And with that, the three ran out of the room together to leave the base but not before Lisa sent out her Umbreon and Brent his Seviper to help bring the people of the town back to normal.

I fought inside the rest of the base, fighting off small waves of controlled soldiers and drone and scientists hiding inside a room here and there using whatever they could to try to inflict damage to me, but all attacks they threw at me were all easily deflected and them defeated, but no Pokemon controlled by Shiny Latias was ever found teaming up with other controlled human soldiers or drones within the base.

Their numbers seemed to be smaller the further I went inside the base, only encountering a small handful of soldiers at a time. This fight to retake the town again free from the controlled soldiers was soon at an end, refusing to let a single soldier or scientist escape or sneak past them not wanting either of them escape the base and fight Espeon, Lisa and Brent outside. They had orders to kill my friends, not put them to sleep and capture to be taken back to another base.

After minutes of silence after fighting the soldiers, I turned a corner of a long hallway to find the cage room, a room all Team Annihilation Reborn bases have were all prisoners were kept locked up in small cages to be kept there until they either starved to death or taken to another room to be tortured or controlled as another soldier used for Shiny Latias' army.

The prison area was slightly smaller than the previous ones I had seen in Team Annihilation Reborn underground bases, cages tall and wide enough to fight a Wailord. There were small cages stacked on top of the other on shelves filled with smaller Pokemon shivering with fear at the sight of me not knowing I was there to help them. They didn't look like they were controlled by Shiny Latias but sometimes she can control others to appear normal until at the last second they strike, so I left them in there not wanting to risk fighting them and absorbing their energy.

I noticed people at the back of the room inside cages all wearing torn rags or wrapped in bandages for clothing, most covered in dried blood and dirt, looking malnourished and weak. I ran over there to find them all alive still, but then I noticed in one of the cages was Reiko no doubt about it, she had the same purple hair and tattoo on her left shoulder of a Dewgong. I cut the cage door open with my shell and approached her, but she was unconscious.

"Reiko! You're alive!" I smiled, happy to have found her again after all these years. "Don't worry; I'm going to get you and everyone else out of here." I crawled out of the cage and looked back at the Pokemon cages, checking each one to see if either one of them had Latias inside, but none of them did.

"Enemy sighted; Zack Raines!" alerted a soldier stepping into the room before aiming his gun at me, and soon two other soldiers entered, one with the same gun as the soldier who had alerted any solider within the area of my presence, and a different soldier variant I had never seen before. This one was wearing bulkier white armor than the others armed with a riot shield and a baton.

The soldiers moved in, firing a special type of ammunition at me to try and put me to sleep. I dodged out of the way by rolling out of the way, but three rounds hit my leg and arm, not enough for me to feel the effects. I threw my scalchop at the one of the normal soldier's helmet breaking the visor before he fell back and I used Psychic to grab the other soldier to push him against the wall knocking him out leaving me at a one-on-one battle with the last soldier, the shielded variant I had never faced before.

I tried to use Psychic to pull the shield form him, but for some reason my move didn't seem to target the shield or the soldier. I moved in and used Razor Shell against the soldier's shield trying to cut it in half if I could but my move was bounced off the shield and I was immediately pushed back by the soldier's shield

Another look at the soldier's gear I could see he was wearing an anti Pokemon device preventing a Pokemon from using moves against them. If I could destroy that I'll be able to end this fight and call in Devon's team to help these people and Pokemon locked in the cages and the civilians of the town. The soldier attacked with his baton, I blocked the attack with my Protect before using Scald sending it flying at the soldier, but it didn't do much since he blocked the move with his shield.

The soldier held his shield up high to his chest before running at me and charging with his shield in front trying to run into me with it, I got hit by the attack, bashing the shield into my face and knocking me on my back before using his baton to hit me right in my stomach. He was about to strike again with it but I rolled out of the way and quickly stood right back up.

The soldier gripped his baton tight and approached fast and tried to attack me with it but I deflected his attacks with my Razor Shell. He then used his shield and hit me with it before striking his baton at my shoulder twice before stepping back. I growled before trying again to defeat the soldier, moving in at slashing at him my both of my scalchops using Razor Shell, but he blocked most of my attacks with his shield and baton, stumbling a little back after I had slashed at his shin.

Wanting to end this fight, I thought that if I could get in close enough I could damage the device protecting the soldier. Once that was taken care of the fight would end, only problem was that the shielded soldier was fast and would strike me if I had got too close with his baton. That plan was still on the table for me if I managed to get in close and damage the device he had on, other ideas on how to defeat the soldier I thought about running out of there with him chasing after me so I could get back to the others and call for assistance.

The soldier held up his shield to his chest and he charged right at me with it, and I ran at him after finding perhaps a way to get through his shield and get in close enough for me to damage his device. I ran fast at the solider, getting very close until before the shield could hit I got down and slid underneath the shield and slashed at the soldier's utility belt grabbing it before it hit the ground. With the belt kept tight hold by both of my paws, the soldier in turn turned and kicked me sending me flying into the cages filled with Pokemon some yelling at me for waking the few that were asleep. After a quick search inside the belt I found the device I destroyed it and used Psychic at the shielded soldier before finishing him off for good.

With the area clear, I made one last sweep of the base before calling Devon's team, returning to Reiko to check up on her until help arrived.

Reiko then regained consciousness and opened her eyes slowly, looking at me. "Z-Zack….?"

"Hey it's me, I'm right here. You're safe now. Don't move, I have called in for some help and they'll take care of you."

"I'm… happy to see you…" she smiled weakly, and I smiled back happy to see her again staying with her until help came.

Outside of the base all four of us reunited again at the town square while Devon's team helped the people and once controlled soldiers receive medical care. The town would soon be back to normal, for the people and Pokemon who had suffered under Shiny Latias' control may take them a while, but we were sure they would be alright again. Mary the little girl who had helped us before was seen reuniting with her parents, going with them to some place safe until we knew Team Annihilation Reborn or Shiny Latias would never come back to the town.

Reiko was taken to the hospital t treated for all the injuries she had suffered. Devon said Reiko would receive the best care and would fill us in on any updates to her health, but he did say that if we didn't find her that day he said that any later might have been too late.

The four of us remained within the town again for another day to rest and oversee that the civilians and the Pokemon once controlled were being taken care of first before leaving the town the next day to continue our fight against Shiny Latias.

To be continued…

Trivia:

Shiny Latias was originally going to appear within this chapter as some sort of end chapter 'boss fight' but I decided against it and have her appear later on in the story.