Chapter 30 – The Fifth
Team Annihilation Reborn HQ – Entrance Hall
There we stood in the entrance hall of the one place I was searching for five years, the place depending on the outcome of the battle with Shiny Latias may be where the fighting could end.
A blue marbled floor in the large rectangular room, huge marble pillars on all four corners with the silver Team Annihilation Reborn 'A' emblem engraved near the top, and a long red carpet from entrance to the large carpeted stairs in front of us which would take us to the next floor of the base. But no soldier's, no controlled Pokemon or drones was there with us, not even Shiny Latias was there. Aqua had a vision of the future, me, Espeon, Lisa and Brent were all inside this base, and somewhere at the top we would find Shiny Latias
"Where do you think the bitch is?" Espeon asked as she craned her neck up to get a look at the next floor to see an elevator, and several doors on both sides.
"Towards the top I'm guessin'. Probably waitin' on us to arrive for one last clash up on the roof!" Brent punched the air. "Big open space like that is a good place to battle than battle in here, but dangerous."
"And in between her and us are more soldiers just waiting for us further inside." Lisa took a step forward to look up at the stairs. "It'll be dangerous the closer we are to Shiny Latias, traps waiting for us no doubt."
"Well, we won't get there by standing around." I stepped forward. "The others out there fighting are counting on us, Latias is counting on us. Let's end this once and for all."
I'd like to say we took the elevator all the way up to the top floor and found Shiny Latias just waiting for us for the final battle to begin after ten minutes arriving inside the base, fighting her and ending the battle in so little time, so the others outside didn't have to fight for long, risk being captured by Team Annihilation Reborn soldiers and taken to become one of them or tortured, whatever they were controlled to do with intruders. But in reality we had to take the long way up to the top floor by using the stairs and fighting our way up floor by floor so we weren't trapped inside if Shiny Latias knew we were here.
It was true when Aqua told us if we had more inside with us to help fight the controlled it would be way too cramped inside with little to no room to move around. We had to fight small groups of drones and controlled soldiers after arriving on the fifth floor, increasing in numbers the further we walked up. But we didn't stop; we were so close on ending this battle for good we had to keep going.
The controlled Pokemon were the worst to fight, given how my ability absorbs the life energy of a Pokemon I defeat in battle making me stronger but ends up killing them in the process. I admit I defeated three of them, using little of my strength to push the controlled off of Lisa when one or two of them pounced on her and tried to bite her, scratch her, and use a move to inflict damage without hurting them so Lisa and Brent's Pokemon could be the ones to defeat them. But my moves when pushing them off of Lisa and threw them against the wall, they never got up, and I grew slightly stronger. Not all controlled Pokemon were strong, some were inexperienced in battle, and some controlled to just make it seem like they did pose a threat, make it seem as if they were stronger than they looked, that they could brush off a light or medium strength attack and back into the battle.
The Pokemon outside did put up more of a fight compared to the ones inside the building, perhaps they wanted their defenses better outside than inside. I would have thought they would keep the stronger ones back in the building used for defense while the weaker ones where sent out to the front of the battle. At least we didn't have to fight a lot of Pokemon inside the building, the further we walked up the less Pokemon we saw and instead encountered more and more drones and soldiers of different variety.
Arriving on the twentieth floor we came to a stop when more soldiers emerged from one of the doors blocking our way. There were six of them, three usual soldiers armed with assault rifles, one soldier we called 'Defenders' carried large shields as their only weapon used to bash into the enemy equipped with an anti Pokemon device used to prevent Pokemon from using their moves against them. One soldier wearing lightweight gear allowing faster mobility equipped with duel stun batons. And one more another type of soldier I hadn't seen before was a heavy soldier using heavy weaponry, a riot gun loaded with tranquilizer rounds, stun grenades attached to the belt, and a grenade launcher strapped over their shoulder.
The soldier's with the assault rifles, the standard common soldiers we had faced through the region for five years were easy to deal with, but in large numbers or with a group they could be dangerous. The Defenders I had faced only once until now were difficult to face especially since they had anti Pokemon move devices attached to their belt they were almost unstoppable to defeat if a Pokemon were to fight them. But getting close to their device and damaging it and they would be open for attacks, that of course you get past the shield first and land a hit on the device.
The soldier armed with the stun batons was tricky to deal with, moving around incredibly fast, dodging our attacks by jumping around, countering them by moving in close after we attacked and hit us with the stun batons, paralyzing me, and Espeon temporarily before the effect wore off, but left us feeling slightly weaker.
And finally the heavy soldier was… mixed on how to deal with them. Mobility was slow; they had strong defense, and strong tranquilizer weapons a lot more effective than being shot by a tranquilizer round from one of the common soldiers.
We attacked the common soldiers first and defeated them with Espeon, Seviper, and Umbreon's combined moves targeting each one while the other three soldiers moved in to attack, the heavy soldier fired flash bang grenades blinding us, the Defender and the stun baton soldiers moved in to attack us with their weapons, charging with the shield and stunning us with the batons for a moment.
Espeon jumped up at the Defender trying to climb over him and destroy the device, but she was pushed off by the Defender using his shield. Seviper tried to slither underneath the shield, but the Defender slammed his shield down on Seviper's body. I ran up at the soldier with the stun batons and slashed at him, his batons and my Razor Shell colliding with one another and locked in combat with him eventually landing a hit and pushing him back defeated after a while. the rest had to deal with the other two soldiers.
Lisa and Brent moved in on the Defender to try and break through his shield and get to the device. The Defender wouldn't let them get through his shield; he pushed them back with it, trying several times to charge at them into a wall crushing them or push them back down the stairs, Brent grabbed the shield and attempted to take the shield off of him or push him over using his strength. While the two fought over the shield, Lisa quickly reached her hand out for the Defenders belt and yanked the device off from him. It didn't take long for their Pokemon to attack the Defender with their moves and defeated him for good.
The heavy soldier threw a stun grenade at us, but Espeon threw it back at the soldier with her Psychic before the grenade had gone off affecting the soldier by slowing him down. She moved in close and used Zen Headbutt at the soldier and he fell back against the wall defeated.
After the defeat of the sixth soldier, before we could continue on up the stairs, we heard footsteps running up the stairs. We looked over the railing to see Team Annihilation Reborn soldiers running up the stairs. Thirty, perhaps more soldiers of variant types all running up the stairs.
"Ah great, just what we needed!" Brent grunted as he looked down over the stairs at the amount of charging soldiers coming up the stairs. Releasing all of his Pokemon and after a quick heal he turned to us. "Okay, you two get up those stairs and find Shiny Latias and defeat her, we'll hold 'em off for you guys!"
"Bent, there are far too many of them for you two to handle on your own!" Espeon argued with him, trying to get them to come with us so we could face the enemy together.
"Don't argue! Me and Lisa can take care of these guys, we'll show 'em what we are made of. You two need to defeat Shiny Latias and the fightin' will be all over. You gotta save Latias, bring her back home to be reunited with her daughter!"
"Brent…" Espeon said softly, saying his name rarely without shorting it to Bent. We could see they were determined to stay behind and hold the soldiers off for as long as they could while we searched for Shiny Latias. The odds didn't look good for them, ten minutes maybe more was what I was betting for how many there were charging up the stairs. Aqua foresaw Lisa and Brent inside the base with us, they needed to be here to hold off the controlled while me and Espeon continued on alone to fight Shiny Latias. Not wanting to leave I understood and nodded, not wanting to let this go to waste.
"We'll go. We're coming out of this together!" I said slowly backing away with Espeon towards the stairs.
"Good luck Zack and Espeon, we're going to make it through this!" Lisa said before her Pokemon stood in front of them to prepare for battle.
We heard the battle raging on below, Pokemon cries as they used moves, gunfire and explosions, Brent and Lisa ordering their Pokemon to either dodge an attack or protect another Pokemon or themselves. The further we got up the stairs, the quieter the battle got, but we couldn't go back, not until we had defeated Shiny Latias and saved Latias.
Team Annihilation Reborn HQ – 37th Floor
We arrived on the thirty-seventh floor and had to search the floor for the stairs which would take us to the next floor since the main stairwell didn't have any more stairs. With our moves prepared for an ambush, we walked through the door by the stairs and walked down a very narrow corridor until we reached the end. At the end of the corridor to the left corridor was a large red double door with no handles or sign to let us know what was inside the room. And on the right was a door with the sign '37-40 Floors' on the side.
Before we could walk down the right corridor towards the door my Savior's device in my bag rang and I reached inside and took it out and answered to find Aqua appearing over the monitor. The image was kind of fuzzy, the signal was getting bad, but we were able to make out the message. I could hear the gunfire and explosions in the background and shouting from Devon's team as the battle still continued. I was happy to see she was all right, but I was also curious as to why Aqua had called, a vision she had seen was my guess.
"Aqua, are you all right?"
Aqua nodded and smiled, relieved to see me. "I'm fine, but Devon's team have lost a lot due to fighting the controlled here. You're Pokemon are fine, advancing further inside the outer section of the base to take down the heavy mechs and tanks. Your brother Ren took a hit to the shoulder, nothing serious, but he'll be out of the battle for a little while."
"Just hold out a little longer, this will be over soon." Aqua's image over the device lost its signal temporarily, but returned to normal soon after.
"Zack, you're on the thirty-seventh floor of the building?" Aqua asked, her image on the device almost replaced by static, but her voice was still clear.
"Yeah, we just got here. Did you see another vision?"
"I did. There should be a large red double door to the left, can you see it?" We turned our heads to look down the corridor to see the doors.
"Yeah, what about them?"
"Don't go up the stairs down the right corridor, it's collapsed and you won't be able to get up to the next floor, it'll only slow you down. Through the double doors you'll find yourself in a larger room, and in it there is another door with stairs inside that'll take you all the way up to the fortieth floor."
"Ah, that's nice, an express stairs to the top floor. But what about Shiny Latias?" Espeon walked closer to me and looked at the device. "Where is she? And also, where is Latias?"
Aqua shook her head, "I don't know. But what I do know is that Petrov guy is inside that room past the double doors. Only him that I could see, no soldier's or any controlled Pokemon. So be careful." The connection was getting worse, any moment the connection would be cut, but I suppose until we reached the top we would be all right until then.
"You too." I quickly said to her before the connection was cut, and I put away the device and turned to the double doors. The two of us cautiously walked down the corridor towards the doors, stopping a few inches for a moment, and then the two of us at the same time used Psychic to push open the doors and immediately using Protect to shield ourselves from Petrov.
Sitting on a desk in front of a window wearing a white suit was General Vladimir Petrov standing up in shock at our presence. He jumped up from his desk reaching for a gun on his desk, but Espeon was quicker and pulled it away from him and throw it out of the room and into the corridor behind us.
"I don't think so, bub!" Espeon growled, glaring at the man. "You try anything funny; you'll be eating through a straw for rest of your miserable life! So just stand there and behave."
"So you are the Dewott my boss wants captured alive and controlled to be used as a living weapon to take over this region?" He chuckled. "Defeating my team, fighting countless foes all these years coming out with many scars, I can obviously see why she wants you as her pet. You are strong, capable of putting up a fight, as I am also capable of putting up a fight." He unsheathed his rapier. "I know it is foolish to go up against a Pokemon such as yourself, but with these drones equipped with anti Pokemon moves at my disposal I find myself at an advantage to unleash all of my rage for what you have done to my team. Shiny Latias will not be enraged if I cut you up a lot more and maybe slice off your tail."
"Where is she? Where is Latias?!"
He turned to the door where the stairs where, then looked back at us. "She is through there. Right up the top of this building if the Latias you seek. But do you think you alone can defeat Shiny Latias and save the day, hero?" he chuckled. "That was your dream, to become a hero? Oh yes, the Savior to come and fight the big bad, not only to come and save the Pokemon he loves but to save the world? This world is corrupted! Shiny Latias wants only to save the world, not destroy it. Day by day people are destroying it, being cruel to another, violent crimes, and needless wars here and there! With Shiny Latias she wishes to save them from their doom. To prevent these fools from destroying one another, and to bring order and mend this broken sad world. Defeat Shiny Latias if you can, but your precious Latias will be remembered as the violent evil Pokemon that hurt and killed all of those innocent people and Pokemon across this region. No matter what you tell them, to everyone about Shiny Latias' control ability controlling her to do those things they will never let it go, they will despise her still. The only target for them left to be angry at. That is the kind of world you wish to remain intact."
"This region and the world will know who the real evil one is; Shiny Latias, not Latias!" Espeon growled. "We'll always be there for Latias after this, she didn't do anything wrong!"
"To some, yes. They might believe you; learn to let it go after time." He shook his head. "But there will always be those who believe your Latias was the one responsible, they will never let it go. A peaceful life after all of this for her? I do not think so. She'll always be remembered as the monster the world believes her to be, not Shiny Latias."
I had enough of this, I wanted to just knock him out and continue up the stairs to find Shiny Latias and battle her, I had no reason to listen to him anymore. Then as soon as I prepared to use Psychic to knock him out, that was when he started chuckling, then the sound of buzzing behind us.
The two of us looked back and quickly dodged out of the way as four drones flew inside the room almost flying into us, coming to a stop when they hovered in front of Petrov. He pressed button on a device attached at the hilt of his sword and the blade was engulfed by a blue energy. "This sword given to me by my general before me for my efforts in my services, a sword that has seen battle countless times, not a collector's item dull and weak, but a strong and sharp blade capable of slicing the head off with ease. But this device I have just activated allows me to fight any Pokemon I want without them from taking it from me. Sure you may try using your moves against me, but I am not some petty soldier you have faced countless times before, I am the leader of The Five, the final of my team left standing. Today you will not die Zack Raines; today is the day you will suffer!"
The drones separated and flew towards us shooting the blue pellets at us. Espeon ran to the right side of the room and threw books and furniture at them gaining all four drones attention. Petrov walked around his desk, and with one hand he held his sword and ran for me and he thrust his sword to stab me with it aiming for my right arm, but I used Razor Shell to block the attack, pushing him back a little.
Petrov thrust his sword again at me, but at my legs. If my move wasn't blocked by the anti Pokemon move device then I would've been able to destroy his sword and ended this battle quickly. I would've used Psychic to finish him off, but that move took some time to prepare and use, so this was all I could, a sword duel moving back and forth blocking strikes and thrusts all while trying to find an opening, but because of how fast he moved that proved difficult.
Espeon had trouble herself to attack the drones, trying to throw objects at them with her Psychic while attempting to evade an incoming blue pellet, some hitting her on her legs and back. She used Hyper Beam up at one of the drones that flew in close to her using a new attack by moving in close and shooting a small spark of electricity used to stun. I wasn't sure if all drones had that kind of attack or if it was just the four drones Petrov controlled, but the drone was destroyed by her move with Espeon shaking after the electricity had touched her, this didn't stop her from going after the three remaining drones, using whatever she could at them while dodging the blue pellets as best as she could.
Petrov backed stepped slightly and quickly slash at me, cutting into my right cheek very close to my eye, the one good eye I had left. Raising my scalchop I moved closer and slashed at his legs and with his sword he blocked each of my strikes. Slashing at his legs to land a hit wasn't my plan, I only wanted him to lower his sword, and using my left paw gripped on my scalchop I used Razor Shell, slashing him and cutting up his lip.
This attack had enraged him, and his attacks returned to thrusting his sword to stab at me, each strike quicker than before, some attacks too fast for me to deflect or block and instead had my left cheek cut and right ear cut at the edge, if the attack was angled differently and I would've lost my right ear. His attacks weren't meant to kill me, no; he wanted to inflict as much damage as he could before knocking me out and taking me to Shiny Latias.
Stepping back and putting one of my scalchop back on my hip and used Scald, sending the scalding hot ball of water at Petrov hitting him right into his chest before moving in close to lift him up with my Psychic to throw him into his desk. Petrov saw me run at him and again thrust his sword at me, but I deflected the blade and knocked the sword out of his hand. Petrov slowly raised his hands and glared at me, but then he started to chuckle and closed his eyes.
"At least I was able to inflict damage to you before my defeat. Although I wish I could inflict more pain, one for each member of The Five you and your friends have defeated… Shiny Latias will be the one to inflict the largest amount of you'll ever feel. I guarantee you that is your fate!" And without a word, I used my Psychic to knock him out, defeating him for good.
Espeon had dealt with the majority of the drones, finally grabbing onto the last drones left and threw it at the ceiling causing it to explode upon impact. The ceiling quickly began to crack where the drone had hit before the ceiling came down on us. Espeon and I were separated from each other, Espeon on the side where we came in, and I on the side where the door was that would take me to the next floor.
"Espeon, are you all right?" I called out, unable to see Espeon through the rubble.
"Y-yeah, I'm good, y-yourself?" She coughed.
"I'm fine." I looked at the rubble, using Psychic to try and pull some of the rubble or lift them up so Espeon could try and crawl through. But doing so only made the ceiling collapse even more. "It's no good, I can't clear this rubble away."
"I tried to get some of this away, but I'm only making things worse." She again coughed. "And I am still trying to catch my breath from the battle just now; I don't think we can lift any of this up without causing another cave in. I think it'll be best if I go back and try to go up that other stairwell down the other corridor. I know Aqua told us it's collapsed, but it's better than nothing. I'll be careful."
"Right, I'll meet you on the fortieth floor!" I called out to her, finding myself growing anxious and uneasy at the thought of the two of us separating like this, especially since Shiny Latias was very close, I didn't want Espeon running into her. And the way back was crawling with soldiers, we couldn't go back. "Shiny Latias is on the rooftop, so don't go too far ahead and fight her, we'll do it together!"
"Got it, I'll meet you there Zackary, be careful!"
"You too!" I heard her run out of the room and into the corridor until I couldn't hear it anymore. I looked up at the door hanging off its hinges after the ceiling collapsed and climbed through to find the stairs still intact. Alone I walked up to the next floor to find the thirty-eighth floor inaccessible and continued up until I reached the top floor with the anxious feeling growing worse with every step.
To be continued…
Trivia:
The six soldiers Zack, Espeon, Lisa, and Brent faced on the stairs originally faced Zack alone with Petrov.