This is the third of four chapters today.
"What the heck is going on?" Jenny asked, typing on her keyboard. "I thought Deoxys were supposed to be really rare Legendaries, so how come there's thousands of them in the city?"
"Ma'am, we just confirmed," one of the techs called down to her. "The EM radiation is disabling Pokéballs in the entire city."
Jenny swallowed. "Then we need to get everyone out of the city so we can protect them more effectively. Call the nearest towns and get them to send out all the Pokémon they can to defend the evacuation sites."
She typed in a code, hesitated, and confirmed it. "Emergency evacuation plan three – maximum speed, minimum spacing."
The computer system receipted the order, and began broadcasting the evacuation alert. Then, not more than ten seconds later, all the lights flickered and died.
"What now!?" Jenny demanded.
"Power cut!" the tech replied. "Must have been a cable got hit or something – looks like the transport systems are still working, I can see them from the window, but the robots all shut down without Main Control."
"This is really bad," she winced. "Okay, uh… can we use radios? If we can, distribute the order – evacuate by the main bridge and get people on ships."
Jenny stood. "I hate doing this, but we need coordination. I want everyone here out and to the backup centre on the mainland – move it!"
"All right!" Charizard growled, wings hammering the air. "I don't get a chance to do this kind of thing nearly often enough!"
He inhaled, flames building behind his fangs, and launched a spike of Flamethrower into the air. It mushroomed out, forming an umbrella-shaped plume which he used to clear the fragile Attack forms from his path.
After about ten seconds, Charizard was as high as the tops of most of the skyscrapers – and cancelled his flamethrower, letting it fade to give him some idea of what was ahead.
He rolled to one side as soon as he saw, letting a Night Shade pass him without connecting, and chuckled before firing forwards a Fire Blast to smash into the blocky Defence form.
It formed a shield with crackling psychic energy, and the Fire Blast splashed off – though it did knock the Psychic-type backwards some distance in the sky.
Charizard examined it for a moment, then snorted and moved in closer.
The Defence form strengthened its shield, and Charizard replied by simply body-checking it aside with a Wing Attack and continuing his ascent.
"Draco Meteor!" he bellowed, launching out a ball of orange energy shaped a little like a rock, and the prime Deoxys looked down a moment before the Draco Meteor triggered – with the result that it got blasted skywards by an explosion of orange Dragon-type energy.
Charizard watched it recover and shift to a Defensive form itself, and pressed his attack – then got attacked by at least four others using blazing-fast volleys of Psychic, and had to break off to fight them.
The original Deoxys shifted to Speed form and made good its escape, directing several more clones to do nothing but keep Charizard occupied.
Charizard replied by wrapping himself in a massive Fire Spin, but the Speed forms blurred away before they could be attacked and waited for him to emerge.
Snarling in frustration, Charizard flared his wings – slamming the Fire Spin aside, but forcing it into a Counter Shield rather than dispelling it.
Thus protected from sneak attacks, he picked one particular Deoxys and powered after it – firing patterns of Embers and Flamethrowers to bracket it, then grabbing it with both claws and entering a power-dive which finished with the Deoxys clone embedded in a pavement.
Turning to face the others, Charizard roared a challenge.
If he couldn't go after the actual Deoxys, this would do for now.
"How much further to the lab?" Ash asked, looking around. "I – look out!"
Rebecca's Metagross produced a shield of shimmering green energy, which blocked a Psycho Boost ball aimed at them from a nearby Attack Form.
Tyranitar contributed to the battle by firing a Dark Pulse, which hit the Attack Form and blew it out of the sky – making it dissolve in a shimmer of sparks.
"Those ones seem to be powerful, but not very tough," Rebecca reported, one eye on her laptop screen. "And the bulky ones seem to be unable to attack strongly."
"What about the fast ones?" Max asked.
"They seem to be more generalists," Rebecca frowned. "Apart from being outrageously speedy."
She glanced up at Tyranitar, who was keeping pace with the group with a careful lumbering tread, and then at Mega Steelix. "It's a good thing we've got so many powerful Pokémon with us."
"Yeah," Ash agreed. "These Deoxys are pretty strong."
Rebecca reached for a Pokéball, then shook her head. "Sorry, I keep forgetting… wait a moment."
She took her backpack off with one hand as they jogged, and rummaged in it while trying to balance her laptop.
"Should I take it?" Max asked.
"Go ahead," Rebecca said gratefully. "Uh… yes, here it is!"
She held up a Mega Stone with a jet-black Mega fleck, coloured only by a red central section and the faint brown of the main stone. "I hoped it wasn't in the Pokéball..."
"What's that?" May asked.
"It's Tyranitar's Mega Stone – a Tyranitarite," Rebecca clarified. "I was hoping to use it to surprise someone at the Battle Tower…"
She looked over at Ash. "This Tyranitar's yours, right?"
"He's my friend, yeah," Ash confirmed. "And – yeah, do you mind if I borrow that?"
"Go ahead," Rebecca agreed. "It's not as though I'm going to be able to use it without Tyranitar."
As Ash took it and passed it to his Rock-type, Masquerain fluttered down and waved his wings in warning.
"Look out!" Drew called, pointing. "More Deoxys!"
Houndoom's tail snapped out, striking the floor, and he howled.
A moment later, Beat Up copies of the entire group formed, and charged towards the incoming Deoxys horde.
"Nice work, Houndoom!" Ash called, as the doubles began to burst – and their attacks, ranging from weak to overwhelming, thinned out the horde of Deoxys duplications. "It's great you can do doubles too!"
"Thanks," Houndoom said, breathing heavily. "It's… quite a lot of strain to do that many at once."
Lucario took a few steps, his form as smooth as silk, and destroyed three leakers with precisely aimed Dark Pulses off his palms. "We can't stay here forever."
"Right," Ash agreed, and concentrated on his staff – and on Tyranitar.
In an odd way, he'd known the Rock-type since before he was born. When they picked up Larvitar's egg, he'd been scared and traumatized, and it had taken Ash to coax him into accepting them.
After that, they'd not had long together – but they'd been great days, of getting to know the brave little Larvitar, and then managing to find and rescue his mother from the poachers.
And then, several years later… or even slightly earlier… they'd met again, and Larvitar had grown and become Pupitar then – very quickly – Tyranitar.
Ash remembered all the times he'd helped Tyranitar overcome his weaknesses, and the golden-orange light of Mega-Evolution flashed.
"That felt strange," Mega Tyranitar complained.
"Huh, so that's what they look like," May said. "Very spiky."
"I hope I don't have to get used to this," Mega Tyranitar said slowly. "If it's like it was when I first evolved, it could take weeks..."
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Ash said, replacing his staff on his back – where it pulsed gently as it kept both Mega Heracross and Mega Tyranitar sustained. "Can you-"
"Look out!" Mega Tyranitar interrupted, taking a step forwards and spreading his arms.
He roared, punching forwards with his left arm, and the Deoxys Speed Form which had been about to attack ran squarely into the fist.
"...ouch," Tory said faintly.
The diamond shimmered in sympathy.
"That's going to help a lot, thanks!" Ash said. "Okay, I guess… which way is it?"
"Don't you remember?" Tory asked, blinking.
"Ash has a bad enough sense of direction he's learned not to rely on it," Brock summarized.
"Ouch," Tory said faintly. "But… it's this way."
He took a few steps, but then stopped. "Uh… is it me or is the ground shaking?"
"Well, it's not the ground because it's an overpass," Rebecca said, then blinked.
"Run!"
"What's happened?" May shouted, glancing at Brock.
"I guess the overpass got damaged!" Brock called back. "And there's about two tons of Pokémon on it!"
May glanced back, spotting Mega Tyranitar, Mega Steelix and a glimpse of Rebecca's Metagross. "...oh, right."
She let out a cry of shock as the bridge shook beneath her, and then Blaziken grabbed her and sprinted to solid ground.
"Thanks," she said, panting. "Wait – Max! Drew? Brock?"
"Why didn't you say Ash's name?" Drew asked, slowing to a stop beside her.
"He'll be fine," Brock shrugged, dropping down from a few feet above them. "Thanks for the save, Flygon."
Flygon buzzed, glad to have helped.
"Where's Max?" May asked, looking around. "Beautifly?"
"Over the bridge!" Beautifly replied – then there was a crack, a crunch and a cloud of dust as the overpass collapsed.
"They're all on the far side!" Brock said, craning his neck. "I can see them!"
"What now?" Drew asked. "Can Flygon ferry all of the Pokémon over?"
"He might have trouble with Mega Steelix," Brock frowned. "And Mega Tyranitar, actually. We might have to take the long way..."
"You get so used to Pokéballs you really miss them when they're not there," May sighed. "Okay, I guess we'll have to go down to the main level and cross there."
"That might not be a problem for long," Drew said, looking back the way they'd come. "That looks like a lot of Deoxys."
"Geodude!" Brock said. "Can you make a bridge?"
"No can do, Brock," Geodude said, shaking his head. "This place is full of wires."
"Underground, then!" May decided. "Tyranitar, can you help keep them away while we look for somewhere?"
Mega Tyranitar nodded. His spines began to light up, energy blazing between them, and then a torrent flashed out towards the oncoming Deoxys horde.
"Ash!" Brock called, hands around his mouth. "Keep going, we'll try and keep them busy!"
"How many left?" Jenny asked.
"We're not sure," her assistant replied. "The cruise ship's loaded almost to the line – but it's going to be another load."
"Then send it off now – the sooner it gets back the sooner we can load everyone," the chief policewoman said. "How are the defenders?"
"Holding – so far," he summarized, pointing to the ongoing battle.
Everyone they could find with a Pokémon able to fight was there, with the complete Pokémon Centre complement trying to keep them in fighting trim.
It wasn't easy. These Deoxys were powerful, if fragile, and vast in number – it seemed like there were always two more to replace one that got knocked out.
As the ship left with a wash of spray from the propellors, someone shouted. "Look out!"
Jenny turned, to see a Blastoise take three Psychic attacks at once and go down. The trainer next to him ordered his Blaziken in to fill the gap, but after four long seconds of one Pokémon doing the work of two the Fighting-type took a bad hit as well – and, pushed beyond endurance, fell backwards.
The swarm of Deoxys flooded through the breach in their defensive line, and then… stopped.
They scanned their vision over the ship, and then over the humans crammed onto the wharf, and turned to leave – but not before picking up both trainer and Pokémon and dumping them on the quayside next to the waiting evacuees.
"What happened?" asked the head Joy, running up.
"I… don't know," Jenny admitted. "It's like they don't want to beat anyone, just… want us out of the city."
She raised her voice. "Everyone back onto the docks! There's no point fighting if it doesn't want to hurt anyone – not yet, anyway."
"Right," her assistant agreed, and turned to spread the orders.
Jenny reached for her side, then sighed. "I miss having Arcanine… and working radios, too."
"Do you think the others are okay?" Max asked, glancing aside at Ash. "There were a lot of Deoxys..."
"Yeah, I'm sure they're fine!" Ash replied. "Remember, there's Mega Tyranitar and Mega Steelix with them – and the others are great at fighting too, so I'm sure they'll be fine!"
"It's a good thing that we've got Latias flying support, though," Lucario commented. "Without her we'd be kind of flooded."
More Deoxys blurred in from above, using Speed formes to close, and Latias fired a blast of Dragonfire from invisibility.
The green cone of energy sliced through the formation, popping about half a dozen Substitutes and making the rest scatter, and Entei skidded to a halt and roared – a roar full of fire and fury as he pushed out a Fire Blast with it.
With lightning speed, some of the Deoxys switched to Defence Form, and others blurred in behind their shielding bubbles of protection to ride out the attack.
"Metagross, push them aside!" Rebecca ordered. "Try and expose the ones hiding behind them!"
"Hah!" Metagross shouted, slamming a metal leg onto the ground, and cracks radiated out from it. The psychic push hit three of the Defence forms, pushing them back, but wasn't able to actually move them aside.
Latias shimmered into visibility for a brief moment, just long enough to blow one of the clumped groups out of the sky with a Mist Ball, then recloaked and dodged away from the attacks sent her way.
Entei took a Psycho Boost to the side, and staggered – then rallied, roaring, and the flames turned from crackling orange to a shining dusky rose.
"SACRED FIRE!" he roared, in a voice that shook the ground, and the curtain of red flame marched across the sky to smash aside any Deoxys not protected by a shield bubble.
Mega Heracross fired a storm of Pin Missiles into the inferno, and managed to hit one Deoxys hard enough to pop his shield – letting Entei's raging fire in, and producing a dull and resonant explosion.
"Houndoom, are you okay?" Ash asked, looking down at the panting Dark-type.
"Too many duplicates," Houndoom got out, between pants. "I'll be fine with a bit of rest."
"This isn't working," Rebecca said, glancing down at her computer again. "There's more of them every time – we won't make it to the lab at this rate."
"We need to move faster," Max said. "Arc!"
He raised his Key Stone, concentrating until it blazed, and Arc let out a forceful yap in response – then let Mega Evolution sweep over him, until he stood taller than Rebecca and considerably taller than Ash.
"What do you mean, faster?" Tory asked, apprehensively. "How does that help?"
"This way, Arc's big enough – and fast enough – for me to ride," Max explained. "You can come too, and with Entei and Latias we can make it to the lab that way!"
"But..." Tory looked frightened, and cast around for something to say. "What about the other Pokémon? They can't come with us?"
"We'll be okay," Mega Heracross said, noticing a Normal Form Deoxys hovering overhead and firing Pin Missiles at it. "But you need to stop them, or we won't be for long."
"Just you?" Ash asked. "Can you manage it on your own?"
"He won't be alone," Houndoom said, standing back upright. "I'll be with him for as long as I can."
"So will we," Guy insisted. "Houndoom needs Delta, Lucario, Cinder and I to give him good templates."
I am too slow, Metagross said reluctantly. So I will stay if you promise me my trainer will be safe.
"I agree. Go!" Lucario nodded.
"But… if I..." Tory shook his head. "I… I know I have to, but I can't get on a Pokémon!"
"But you need to!" Plusle said, restraining herself from tugging on his trouser leg. "Come on!"
"Plusle, look!" Minun called, pointing.
"Don't overdo it, Pikachu," Ash warned. "We're going to need quite a lot of power to run the lab in a power cut."
Pikachu nodded, cheeks sparking.
"Look out!" Plusle said, pushing Tory to the side.
He shouted in surprise, landing with an oof on the ground, and watched with surprise as Plusle and Minun linked hands.
A blast of electricity shot out from them both, gaining strength from their opposed polarities and close friendship, and hit an incoming Deoxys-attack.
Then Pikachu obliterated it and the Defence form behind it, but Tory didn't notice that bit.
"You… saved me," he said, blinking, and pushed himself onto his side. "I… thank you!"
Plusle and Minun turned, smiling brightly.
Tory hesitated, then picked them both up – one in each hand. "Thank you so much!"
After about ten seconds, he put them down again and tried not to look like he wanted to wear gloves. "I… sorry."
Plusle shrugged, waving her tail.
"Come on, we need to go!" Ash told him. "Are you okay riding on Latias?"
Tory looked surprised, then nodded. "And… uh, can she take Plusle and Minun too?"
Latias appeared in a flash of blue about ten feet away, and nodded. "I sure can!"
"Okay, Tory, lead the way!" Ash said. "Rebecca, you get on Entei – he can take you."
"What about you, Ash?" Max asked, as Mega Arc crouched down and Rebecca tried to balance her laptop.
"I'll be okay," he shrugged, then took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, Latias, let's go!"
Latias sped off, with Entei and Arc breaking into a loping run behind her.
Bringing up the rear was Ash – boots outlined in flickering blue light as he pushed Aura into them and sprinted far faster than he had any right to.
It still meant he was setting the pace, though, and even Arc occasionally had to check his stride to make sure Ash was keeping up.
Twenty miles from Lilycove Harbour, attacks flashed back and forth over the weather deck of Kyogre's Revenge.
"Be usin' Thunderbolt!" called one Grunt, and a flash of electrical energy blazed out from his Lapras' horn.
The attack flickered along the side of the attacking Gyarados, making it moan and fall back.
"Good!" called Shelley. "Keep 'em from reachin' us! Repel the scurvy boarders!"
"El-tee!" someone called from the conning tower. "We be about to dive!"
"Right!" she agreed. "All hands below decks! Ready the guns!"
Aqua grunts recalled their Pokémon, falling back with discipline, and the remaining attackers pushed on – until a pattern of shells from the deck gun blasted a waterspout out of the sea and made their Wailmer-shaped boat capsize.
The strongest of their attackers peeled off, ready to help rescue the swimming Pokémon and humans, but a shouted command had her turning again and back on course.
Shelley turned to her most trusted ensign. "You be Scuba qualified?"
"Aye!" the ensign agreed.
"Then be holdin' em off until we be below the surface," Shelley told her, and swung herself up to the ladder inside the conning tower before lowering the hatch with a clang.
Now alone on deck except for her graceful Milotic, the ensign readied herself for the coming battle.
Moltres dove, wings flaring, and screeched a challenge – inhaling, then shooting a great cloud of flame.
Using it for a distraction, she closed in faster with her wings swept back. She dove until the pressure hull filled her entire field of vision, then she spat a bright line of heat aimed to burn through the steel and prevent the Aqua sub from diving.
Water splashed into the side of her beak, and she stumbled in the air – then pulled up, barely avoiding a crash, and glanced over at the Wailmerbot.
Jessie and James were on the slowly sinking hull, wet but out of immediate danger, and as she watched Victreebel retrieved a soaking Audino from the sea.
Glad her friends were okay, Moltres banked around again and focused on the Milotic.
That had to go.
She gained height, wings spreading as she drank in the sun's energy, and then lanced a powerful green-yellow Solarbeam straight down.
"Muddy Water!" the ensign said crisply, and Moltres hissed as the mud and dirt dulled and scattered the energy of her Solarbeam.
The brownish liquid fell back with a splitterplish across the weather deck, and a moment later great fountains of bubbles rose up from along both flanks of the submarine.
Moltres knew what that meant – they were running out of time.
She elected to try a different tactic. Pulling up in an elegant backflip which made the incoming Bubblebeam miss, she spun briefly before diving out of the sky in a dramatic stoop.
Light flared on the leading edges of her wings, building a golden phoenix like a larger version of herself, and she fired the Sky Attack directly at Milotic – judging that, if it didn't knock the Water-type out, it would at least send her flying.
There was a red flash, and then Milotic was gone and water was everywhere.
Moltres winced as water battered the base of her flaming wings, and she forced out a Heat Wave to knock some of the impact aside. Then she pitched down to attack-
-and a Water Pulse smacked her in the side, nearly knocking her into the water.
Slamming through a wave, Moltres spluttered and thrashed at the air to get back up before she crashed entirely. What-
Looking back, she saw the Milotic for a moment before it and its trainer were pulled underwater by the submerging Aqua ship.
She had to think for a moment before she got it. The Aqua trainer must have recalled her Milotic for just long enough to get it out of the line of attack – then sent it out again quickly enough to counter.
That was… annoying.
Sighing, she turned towards the sinking boat to pick up her trainers. With everyone in Pokéballs, it would be just Jessie, James and Meowth – which she could carry.
"That be fine work!" Archie roared, slamming his fist down on the padded armrest. "Fine work indeed! Be givin' that grunt a promotion!"
"She already be an Ensign," Matt reminded him. "The only level after that be Lieutenant, if you be Captain."
"So she be an el-tee!" Archie confirmed. "An' be makin' sure you be stoppin' to take her on board through one of the escape hatches, too..."
He sat back. "We be havin' the Orb… we be havin' the location… now nothin' be stoppin' us."
"Except Magma," Shelley pointed out. "They be havin' an Orb too."
Archie gave her a look.
"How are you holding up?" Brock asked, looking between the Rock-type and the Steel-type.
"I'm okay for now," Mega Tyranitar reported, his deep voice reverberating in the confined space. "Kind of tired, but not tired enough to stop me fighting."
"I'm all right as well," Mega Steelix agreed.
"You're some of the only ones," Geodude said, lowering his aching hands. "I've never pulled bedrock up that far before..."
"It's going to be useful, though," Brock noted. "With that kind of reinforcement, hopefully Deoxys can't get into the building."
"You did see what they were doing when an attack hit, right?" Drew asked.
"...okay, it means we'll have some warning," Brock amended. "How's your team doing, May?"
"Venusaur says she's okay, but I think she's more tired than she's letting on," May hedged. "She took a Psychic, and she is Poison-type. Glaceon is better, but Blaziken's about ready to fall over."
"I'm fine," Blaziken insisted, one blazing palm on his side.
"You're not!" May said, shaking her head. "I saw that attack hit you – and that was after a long battle, too. I appreciate that you want to protect me, but you're not invincible."
"I should-"
"Don't finish that," Roserade said, shaking her head. "It's not going to end well."
Blaziken shook his head stubbornly, then sat down – harder than he probably intended.
"If I could I'd put you back in your Pokéball for a rest," May said. "But since I can't… just take care of yourself, okay?"
Blaziken huffed.
"And I thought he was the mature one," Leafeon chuckled.
Her daughter smiled. "Well, you know how it is..."
"What now?" Drew asked, peering through the slit in Geodude's earth wall. "Do we just stay in here?"
"For now, yeah," May confirmed. "Everyone's tired, and hungry – but even without a Pokémon centre we should be much better after a few minutes' rest."
She glanced back to where Flygon sat, somewhat awkwardly, on a bench. "Besides, we might need to help Ash in a bit. You heard about the robot thing, right?"
"Of course I heard about the robot thing," Drew said. "Why?"
"Well… knowing our luck, that's going to happen again too," May pointed out. "And if Flygon's ready to fly when it does, then he can fly one of us up to help disable the robot. Much quicker than what Ash did last time… and less dangerous, too."
"Why, what did Ash do last time?" Drew asked. "I heard about the robots going haywire, but the actual solution must have been some kind of rumour – all I heard was about jumping across floating robots in mid air."
"That's pretty much exactly what did happen," May confirmed.
I have pictures, Ethan informed him. Would you like to see?
"...oh, right, of course it was real," the Coordinator sighed. "Okay… and what were you doing during the attack?"
"Mostly getting caught, running away, and helping power the city," May shrugged. "No biggie."
At his expression, she relented. "Okay, well – basically, the shield Deoxys put up stopped any wind from getting in, so the turbines shut down."
"That shut down power for the whole city?" Drew asked, blinking. "There's river current and wave generators too..."
"I guess that with the shield up it must have stopped the river flowing through as well," Brock guessed. "It didn't cross the whole river on both sides, so it would have flowed around the island and headed out to sea. And the waves is obvious."
"Why don't we have solar power, I swear..."
Leafeon watched her trainer lie back on one of the benches and sigh, then chuckled and flirted her tail.
"Trainers," she said to Glaceon.
"I know-" Glaceon began.
"Really?" May asked, hands on hips. "What about trainers?"
"...um..." Glaceon looked guilty. "...can I not answer?"
"Like, you should have stopped talking a while ago," said Skitty, yawning from her position in May's bag.
After a particularly unfortunate Assist had led to her using Explosion, she was out of the running for battles for now.
The ground shook, and May glanced nervously up at the ceiling.
"It'll be okay," Brock told her. "Geodude builds strong."
"I guess," May agreed, looking over at the Pokémon providing them light. "And thanks, you two."
"My pleasure," Stantler said, his antlers glowing faintly.
"Wait," Drew said, sitting up and giving a puzzled frown. "That's an illusion, right?"
Stantler nodded.
"So how come we can see by the light it's making?"
"...good question," Stantler admitted. He glanced at Ninetales. "Any ideas?"
Ninetales gave a many-tailed shrug.
Entei vaulted a ten-foot security barrier, skidded on the gravel, and came to a halt just outside the main door of the LaRousse Research Institute's main laboratory building.
"There," he said, mildly. "Told you we didn't need to stop."
"It was a request," Rebecca said, getting off and looking faintly green. She rubbed her aches. "I much prefer riding Metagross..."
Latias airbraked and came to a much smoother halt, letting Tory climb gratefully off and drop the last few inches to the ground.
"Thanks," he said, checking Plusle and Minun were okay. "That was really fast – I was kind of too scared of that to remember to be worried about Pokémon, I guess."
The drumbeat of paws from the other side of the security barrier slowed, and then Max let out a breathless shout as Mega Arc jumped right to the top of the barrier.
His paws wobbled for a moment as he scrabbled for purchase, then Latias stretched out her arms and gave him an extra push to levitate both him and his passenger over the wall.
"Is that all of us?" Rebecca asked, counting Pokémon.
She frowned. "Wait, where's Ash?"
Ash jumped over the wall.
"...okay," she said, then nodded her head in agreement. "I suppose I should have expected that by now."
"Which way to the lab?" Ash asked, brushing gravel off his boots.
"Are you okay, Ash?" Max said, giving him a look of concern. "You seem kind of tired..."
"I am a bit," Ash admitted. "Mostly because of that run."
"Wait, I didn't see that," Rebecca blinked. "You ran?"
"Yeah?" Max said. "He was doing it all the way here."
"I was too busy trying not to fall off," Rebecca said.
"Okay, I think I've worked out how to open the doors," Entei said.
He inhaled, and let out a blast of Sacred Fire which blew them off their hinges.
"Hey, that's my dad's work!" Tory protested.
"The locks are electronic and the power is out, we would need to have done it somehow," Entei said.
"When did you learn Sacred Fire?" Pikachu asked, interested.
"It was back allowance," Entei replied. "Long story. Now, which room did your father work in?"
"Uh… this way," Tory said, stepping gingerly over the solidifying glass.
AN:
Fortunately for Ash and co., they are rather better armed than last time.
In fact, between the Megas, the experienced Pokémon, the Legendaries and the fact almost everyone was out of their Pokéballs, they're doing about as well as the evacuation effort.
There's also Tory working out his problems… oh, yeah, and something about Team Aqua too.
...really, when you think about it, Deoxys-purple's plan kind of assumed no-one would object to being moved out of the city by a horde of alien Pokémon.
