Aaand I'm back, only two weeks late! There were some technical difficulties, but it is now here for you to read!
The sun was a catalyst during the first twenty-four hours. It's arrival at dawn spelled destruction for many human settlements as pokemon coordinated attacks with militaristic precision at first light. Those that didn't fall in the light sputtered out of existence with its absence as the sun's departure led to the same fate for many other settlements because of the nocturnal pokemon.
Governments came apart at the seams as they tried and failed to protect their citizens from the slaughter. Sometimes, it wasn't even pokemon that were the greatest threats. Human factions took control of the disorder to try and assert their power; killing any that stood in their way of conquest. While the pokemon rested from their bloody crusades the same humans that they tried to exterminate had picked up their work and continued the killings, suddenly free from the norms and roles that kept them from becoming what they really were: monsters hidden just beneath the surface.
The blood was spilling with no signs of slowing, and for the longest time all the world could do was bleed as its inhabitants turned on each other. The land could only bear so much and it eventually gave way to the seas, where they themselves turned red as the soil overflowed with the bodies of the dead and the damned.
Yet, despite all of the suffering and loss, the world kept spinning. The light would fade and let hope for a better tomorrow be crushed with its eventual return. The darkness would quietly usher empty promises and threats for the survivors as they struggled to make do. The cycle was a curse that many looked up to despite their suffering. It was for guidance through these times, either for bloodshed or a chance to go without for a little while longer.
In Alola, the moon was looked upon as the sun's reign slowly ended. It was saught out by the religious, the tourists trying to find something salvageable from their ruined vacations, and the empowered creatures that wanted vengeance. The archipelago's future had been written in grievances that never saw the light of justice. Blood was the fastest way to fix those grievances, and tonight Melemele was going to bleed.
The trees cast shadows that warped the landscape around the facility. Their darkness was spreading and slowly swallowing the land inch by inch. As the void crept along, the movement within that very same darkness remained just at the edge of sight, but ever present.
The Ariados' impatience had cost them, from what Alexander learned from the dying soldier. Through weakening puffs of smoke, an image of a glorious fight was told were only thirty soldiers had managed to fend off a swarm of the vilest creatures to have ever tried to take a piece out of them. They held their own, pushed them back, and the web slingers were going to pay for daring to go against them.
Alexander wished that the man's injuries hadn't made him delirious. His squad was hiding inside the main building for a reason. They were holding them at bay only because of the electric fence and the few brave souls that dared to peek through their respective windows to take shots at anything that tried to pass beyond it.
Through a small gap in the wall of Poison Sting Alexander watched as some Ariados tried to break the floodlights that kept the shadows from advancing. Trying to topple one of the lights with String Shot led to complete failure as the soldiers simply fired into the darkness where the combined webbing petered out of existence. They suffered losses from it, no doubt, and quickly responded with Poison Sting. The building was assaulted in waves of the needles and forced the soldiers away long enough for them to target the lights. One by one the bulbs were destroyed, letting them advance a bit more.
The soldiers returned fire, and the pokemon scattered as the bullets flew. It had become a waiting game. Eventually, the lights would fade and leave the soldiers blind to whatever would transpire inside the compound.
The sound of metal on metal broke Alexander's attention as he looked over to the soldier. He was gouging the fuel tank with his combat knife and diesel was running down the length of the man's arm. His cigarettes had long been reduced to discarded butts, saving them both from an accidental pyre. Weakly he fumbled with the dog tags around his neck and offered them.
"Can you give this to my commander? I'm not-" A series of wet coughs broke his monologue before it could begin. "- up for the walk, ya' know? I'm gonna stay down here, give 'em hell the moment they try and nab me. Bastards won't know what'll hit 'em. Might even give my pals enough time for the chopper to get here."
He looked past Alexander and at the empty space above them. A hand pulled out a grey cylinder that Alexander quickly identified as a phosphorus grenade. "Get out'ta here, there's an unbarred door by the parking garage that I was supposed to get to. Be careful, my pals don't have any clue as to what the hell is goin' on in there."
"Evac?" Alexander asked. He didn't want to meet the rest of the soldiers, but he needed a way out.
"Supposed to get it hours ago, but it didn't show. Somethin's happening at the base that slowed them down... but they was sayin' that they were sendin' us somethin' since we... gotta' hold of the professor. The poor bastard chose the wrong day to... come to work." The soldier grimaced and pulled the pin. He shoved his dog tags into Alexander's hand and smiled through cherry-red teeth as Alexander jerked away. He clamped his hands around the lever and grimaced. "Move your ass... unless ya wanna go out with me."
At the sound of the pin, Kara startled and accidentally jolted Alexander, who in turn smacked his helmet against the underside of the truck as he scrambled away from the man. He didn't trust his remaining strength and being trapped in a glorified bonfire wasn't how they were going to go out. He rolled out from under the truck and flattened spines as he forced himself into a run. The Poison Sting couldn't puncture his boots, thankfully. They came with the suit, so the company hadn't skimped out on their durability.
As he crossed the lawn the swarm's collective anger began dripping down his neck as Alexander pumped his legs harder. It burned more than his muscles and lungs combined and felt like fire was being poured down his back.
Dark streaks blurred at the edge of his vision as the Ariados' precision was weakened by their bloodlust. Every missed shot was another step, and Alexander made them count as he closed the distance between himself and the parking garage. He ignored the fallen he passed and tuned out the sound of flesh being mutilated as the entrance to the garage drew closer. The gunfire that futily tried to suppress the Long Leg Pokemon was faint in his ears as he focused on the final yards.
A Poison Sting pinged off his helmet and jerked Alexander's head sideways. He felt his neck pop in retaliation and grunted as he was nearly knocked head over heels. Small bits of concrete from the building was dislodged by the assault and dust stuck to his suit as Alexander found enough strength to push himself up the ramp and into the lot.
Kara wasted no time and energy surged through the suit- and Alexander- as she ejected herself from the transceiver. There was a security gate that she could close; hopefully it would give them time to find the door. She found the card reader for it and entered the device. It provided the pathway she needed and the world became strings of code as Kara shot into control. There was nothing complex about the system, she realized. The controls were child's play and the gate was descending before Alexander could get his breath back.
The human in question fell to a knee and sucked in a lungful of air. It wasn't enough; he was burning up, yet drowning at the same time. His skin broke out in goosebumps as he struggled to tear off his helmet. He fumbled with the latches but just couldn't get the grip he needed. Lightning bolts racked through his body as he started to hyperventilate.
What's happening to me? He thought, barely keeping himself from falling into a panic. This pain was new. A blooming rose flowered in the back of his head and tried to split his skull open; its roots dug into his chest and threatened to choke out his heartbeat. Dark splotches wavered in his vision as he struggled so the grunt didn't notice when one of them grew legs.
Alexander finally managed to get somewhere with the latches and pried until they gave. He was so close to getting the helmet off. He almost got to enjoy the feeling of fresh air when a Sucker Punch got in the way.
It hit like a sledgehammer and knocked any chance of coherent thought out of his mind. He began falling through an empty abyss without any sense of control. Fragments of memory fell past him: incredible landscapes, empty promises, a doctor trying to keep him at the hospital. Groggy thoughts floated around in his head and Alexander started to become self-aware of his plight. He wondered if Chief had hit him too hard. He must've said something stupid to deserve this.
I should learn to shut up sometime.
Eventually, something faintly resembling awareness came crawling back and started settling from its forced vacation. Alexander found himself on the ground, nearly kissing the cement as something that tasted like iron pooled around his head. His helmet had wandered off somewhere, and he took a moment to relish the cool air blowing against his face. Undefined shapes whistled by as the ungodly ringing that succeeded the plane crash came back with vengeance and forced a groan out of him. Sparks drifted past him and Alexander was brought back to the cabin of the plane for a nanosecond as he felt for the kukri he had hidden in his armor. The lights fluctuated from a power surge as a siren slowly started to cut through the ringing.
Some of his training was kicking in before he was fully aware of it as he clenched the machete harder and prepared. He could feel the presence of something behind him. He needed to roll twice, and on the second roll shift his weight to his knees and use the momentum to throw the blade with as much force as possible. It was a last resort to buy an operative time if they were having their ass kicked because the maneuver was easily avoidable if the opponent was agile.
A Shuckle could have avoided Alexander. He managed to flip onto his back before his body screamed in protest and caught up with his state of mind. His vision blurred even more so than before; he closed his eyes and shut it out. The alarm he had been hearing stopped and the ringing began to fade away. For a moment he wondered if he had even felt anything to begin with. Nothing was taking the opportunity to maul him; he was clearly vulnerable and easy pickings.
He wasn't going to waste time thinking about it. While he waited for his body to quit protesting Alexander found a moment to try and collect himself. There were no sharp pains when he had tried to move, so no broken bones. His muscles felt like they had been bathed in acid, but he could get over it. His head was throbbing and when he touched his temple his hand came away wet. He had torn his stitches. The doctors were going to be livid. Everything else wasn't broken enough to become an obstacle thankfully.
Alexander grit his teeth as he propped himself up with his elbows. The heat of the pavement that began radiating through the suit drew his attention. The garage was demolished. It was pocketed with deep holes and shallow marks were etched into the pavement that left crossing trails along the floor and walls. Smoke was obscuring the ceiling so he couldn't see the severity of the damage, but the darkness within the parking garage suggested that the lights were long gone.
The smoke was pouring out of a couple of cars. The paint that had been scorched from the vehicle was a sight Alexander had seen before with lightning strikes and the plane crash.
The crash.
"Kara," Alexander croaked. The patterns in the scorched concrete were identical to the ones from the crash. When he found the courage to attempt to stand he noticed a strand of web attached to his foot. It trailed across the floor and ended near a patch of the scorched cement. The silk was tougher than it looked and it took a couple of slashes with the kukri to remove it. The problem aside, Alexander forced himself upright. He coughed as he inhaled smoke and called out for his absent companion: "Kara!"
His voice echoed throughout the garage and bounced back at him through the silence. There wasn't a response. Kara was tough, she'd be fine.
Swallowing his unease Alexander distracted himself by slowly stumbling towards his SP90. It looked miraculously untouched from the fight and was resting underneath a fried car. He reached down to grab it and felt something pop in his back as he did so. His skin prickled as he touched it and a burning sensation began creeping down his spine.
An image of a crouched figure flickered through his mind and Alexander felt himself snarl. Fury began to build up in his chest as the figure stiffened, suddenly aware of something. A thought tore through the vision and whispered in his ear: This one was going to pay.
The sudden anger boiling in his chest overrode the complaints his body had. He went into a roll and a crimson blur smashed into the wall he had been standing beside. He twisted and his knees found purchase as he lifted himself into a crouch. Brown eyes met purple and for a brief moment, both were equally shocked.
Then Alexander blew it apart. The rounds held no mercy for the Ariados and each one tore large chunks from its body. The pokemon tumbled and came apart as gore quickly painted the wall around it.
Each report and spent casing was a heated blade that dug deeper into Alexander's head. He had failed to notice how sensitive his ears were before and was harshly informed of it as he nearly became deaf. His gunfire started to become faint as the ringing came back like a tsunami. Sharp pains racked through his brain and caused him to see stars until the target finally collapsed seconds after its attack.
Alexander ceased firing and felt his skin burn even more. He swung around in time to squeeze off a few more shots before he was slammed by another arachnid. It latched onto his sides and gave him a solid view of the inside of its mouth as it tried to take a bite out of his face. Somehow he managed to grab it by the mandibles and stop it, but his arms trembled as he struggled to keep it at bay. The web spitter seemed motivated by the sign of weakness and started to push harder against him, quickly gaining ground and shrinking the space between them.
He wasn't going out like this.
Raw rage filled every part of his body and Alexander's face contorted as he roared and twisted one of the mandibles with as much force as possible. The Ariados shrieked as something crunched and its bottom jaw hit his armor as it tried to shake its head free. He quit pushing it away and instead yanked on the screaming pokemon; slamming its head against his armor a second time before he rammed a knee against its soft underside. Its grip loosened and Alexander quickly propped his foot against it and kicked it off of him with all the force he could muster. It fell away and with his hands now free he grappled for his gun as it tried to recover from the shock of the beating.
The Ariados screeched and came back at him, but was stopped short when a boot smashed against its face and knocked it back a couple more inches. Alexander managed to bring his weapon around and squeeze the trigger. Four rounds tore into the monster before his gun ran out of ammunition, but it was stopped.
Alexander discarded his gun and went for the kukri. The Ariados was making horrific sounds as it desperately tried to cling to life. It saw him coming through its death throws and managed to drag itself a couple of feet away before he caught up to it. He kicked it again and knocked it off balance before it could go any farther. As it tried to recover the cold steel cut through its neck and sent the decapitated head rolling.
Alexander watched its body struggle weakly and turned away, not wasting more time than he needed. The fighter stumbled back to his weapon and exchanged his spent magazine for a fresh one. He scanned everything that was visible with a couple of quick sweeps: the cars, walls, and floors. There wasn't any movement in the garage aside from him, but he refused to lower his weapon from his shoulder.
The energy that Alexander felt moments before began to dissipate and his vision started to swim. His stomach twisted and he retched up the last thing he ate.
It was the food that the hospital had offered them. A cup of fruit and a pathetic excuse for a sandwich was all they could offer; the inflow of patients was overwhelming the staff and they were running low on nearly everything. Connor was lucky to have snagged a cot in that madhouse.
The monster of a headache that Alexander had been dealing with all day was creeping back again as he recalled some of what he forgot. It lined up with what Kara had told him, but there was still pieces of the picture missing.
Wiping his mouth, he felt his hair stand on end and turned expectantly. It was about time.
"I'm glad to see you're doing okay."
"I'msosorryAlexareyouokayyou'rebleedingit'smyfaultIshouldhavenoticedandnowyou'rehurt!"
Kara was a frantic orange blur that Alexander couldn't track. Her hysterical ramblings went by too fast for the transceiver to properly adapt them so it began to whine nearly as loudly as her wailing. The combination of the two quickly overpowered his sensitive ears and his headache plunged into unforgiving territory. He flinched as she buzzed around him and felt his blood run cold. His chest seized slightly and he took an unsteady step towards her. She had never acted like this before.
"Kara, listen to- Kara! Stop!"
The command worked. Kara became a silent, perceivable shape again and Alexander's heart nearly stopped. She had a deep cut that leaked a bluish liquid. It was dripping onto the cement and crackled with every impact as small arcs of energy shot from the epicenter and across the ground. Incredibly bright, blue arcs of energy also flickered around her as she buzzed in a small circle in front of him. The ozone was thick as the two watched each other with unparalleled horror.
"Kara..." Alexander breathed. He fought back a surge of panic and raised his arm slowly. The energy around her snapped and bit at his hand but he didn't stop. That injury could kill her. "Get in the transceiver."
Kara zipped away and shuddered. There was another untranslatable spew that Alexander cut off with a wince. The transceiver's speakers activated again and she started again: "No! You're hurt because I-"
Alexander shook his head. He wasn't going to argue. "You need a stable area to recover!"
"I let them get to you Alex. I'm not going to let them have another chance." Kara spoke softly, but there was an edge to her words that tried to end the conversation. It might've worked with another employee, one that just didn't give a damn or was a pushover, but Alexander was neither. She realized too late that she had upset him and started to move again to avoid Alexander's glare.
Alexander twitched as he tried to keep a rational conversation. It was mental stress that was hampering Kara's judgment. She wasn't in her right mind; it was reasonable that she conveniently forgot the last seven years of her memory that retained to him. It happened with the disturbed all the time. Forgoing his anger he tried again to reason with her.
"Let me help you! You can't help me if you're injured like this." She didn't respond and kept flitting around him. A growl escaped his lips and he staggered forward in an attempt to get closer. It was foolish, but he was going to try and force her if this continued. "Kara, please."
She whined somewhere behind him but the transceiver remained silent. Forget not arguing, he was about to go crazy. He could curse in eleven different languages and he was about to use every single one of them when Kara reappeared with his battered helmet. She offered it to him quietly and they locked eyes. She was terrified for him. Alexander softened and quietly took it from her. He tried to find something to say and his mind blanked. "I'll live, alright? I've survived worse."
The resolve left Kara's eyes and she caved. He wasn't wrong. The suit hummed quietly as she entered the transceiver. It made Alexander's skin itch and he bit his tongue as his sore muscles were hit with another jolt of electricity. Taking a breath and shaking the stiffness out of his arms, he flipped the helmet to look at the damage.
He traced his fingers along the large dent that it now sported and felt sick. This suit was meant for an inter-dimensional crisis. It didn't break easily. He'd worn similar models three times before: once investigating an anomaly in Johto; and twice in Sinnoh before his squad learned of that cursed feather.
His career had changed because of that. He had been containment and emergency response for regional and global threats. He was good at his job. At one point he was frequently called on to protect the world. Sometimes the company's ass also, but whichever came first. How many times had he been called to stop or manage a cataclysm in the last four years alone, seven times?
It didn't matter anymore. They thought he was dangerous now. He wasn't trustable with the world's safety anymore, regardless of his performance. Alexander fell from protecting the world to only protecting the people that screwed it up in the first place.
He traced a crack in the helmet to the glass faceplate and noticed a couple more now spanned its length. One went through the reflection of a face he didn't recognize at first. It was lost, weak. Yet, it still dared to sternly glare at him until a droplet of blood fell from its scalp and landed on the helmet, covering its eyes. Alexander slid a thumb across the drop and smeared it further along the glass, blurring the face until it was gone. Satisfied, he carefully slipped the helmet over his bloodied scalp and felt for the latches, securing the helmet to the suit with the ones that could still seal.
"I should not have allowed you to leave the hospital." Kara declared. The volume was lower than normal and Alexander's heart skipped a beat. She couldn't be that injured. His panic didn't go unnoticed and she calmly spoke again. "Your hearing is sensitive, Alex. I'm fine, but you're not. I won't hurt you again."
"You didn't hurt me." Alexander retorted. He found the door that the soldier had told him about and locked it behind him. He continued down a brightly lit hallway with his weapon at ready. "I've been worse."
"I left you vulnerable. I ignored how erratic your vitals have been, and I failed to pay attention to the environment. I put you in serious danger and you're hurt because of it. That's my fault."
The lights flickered and darkness swallowed the hallway. Gunfire erupted somewhere above them and Alexander started walking faster as the intensity of the reports began to increase. Emergency lights activated and illuminated parts of the hallway before the visor darkened and cut them off.
Alexander remained silent as his vision was returned to him as a colorless landscape. Shapes became white lines with depths altered into shades of grey and black. It was company standard enhanced vision- meant for extremely bright light or lack thereof. It worked much better than traditional night vision.
"...do I want a status report?"
"The integrity of the electrical systems are failing. You are going to want to take a left." Kara warned. "Hostiles have reached the building and are attempting to breach rooms on the right."
"How do you know this?" Alexander asked between pants. He didn't doubt Kara for a moment and followed her orders without question. Picking up the pace his feet stayed low to the ground to minimize the sounds of his footsteps.
"I've gained access to the wireless security cameras within the building. They're rebooting from the power fluctuations so the system hasn't noticed me yet. Take a right and watch your step."
Alexander faltered as he processed multiple forms in the obliterated hallway he had to pass through. He couldn't find a better description besides lumps of flesh; there wasn't enough there to call them figures. It was more like pieces. They might have all belonged to only a couple living creatures, but with the number of scattered parts it was hard to tell what belonged to who. The damage to the mutilated bodies extended to the deep gouges in the walls and what remained of the collapsed ceiling. The debris was navigable, so after stepping over a severed arm he pushed on. He was mindful that his boots had little traction in the pools of blood, so he trotted carefully.
Once he worked past the worst of the carnage Alexander followed Kara's instructions down a couple more hallways. The gunfire ended as he came to an unmarked door and Kara's silence once again got under his skin. "Is this it?"
"Is this it?" The door parroted back. "Authorization confirmed. Agent Cipher, state your business."
Alexander blinked and took a breath. The company always had a way to take him by surprise. Why he was already in this specific database wasn't something he had the luxury to think about for long. "Emergency retrieval of the ARK and all mobile company property in the wake of a Code Grey cataclysm."
The system remained silent for a moment before the door opened. "Granted. Please speak with Agent Shifter. Learn why he had unauthorized contact with the Redacted, redacted, and HQ, and why he has ignored attempted contact from HQ and redacted."
"Affirmative," Alexander responded. Deciding that he was done he started through the door and up a flight of stairs. He didn't know who Agent Shifter was, but he looked forward to meeting the mole. The agent was going to be helpful for navigating this facility since he was stationed here.
The staircase ended and Alexander found himself in a small room cramped with server towers and a large wall monitor. A cluttered desk was against the wall with the monitor and an empty handgun case sat open on it. The gun in question was in the center of the room, right beside Agent Shifter's body.
"That's unfortunate." Kara deadpanned. He could have helped them find the ARK faster.
Alexander nodded in agreement and attempted to avoid looking at the former agent's brain matter. It was more difficult than it should have been because it was a large gun and it had scattered the gore everywhere. Swallowing his disgust and disappointment in the agent he looked around. "What am I looking for?"
"A flash drive. It has the Alolan coat of arms on it: the first Kalosian explorer to discover and conquer the islands."
With that description, Alexander found the flash drive quickly. It was large, resting on top of a stack of papers on the desk. He picked it up and rolled it in his hand for a moment. "Hey Kara, I just found a couple million dollars."
"It's four hundred million." Kara corrected curtly.
Alexander ignored her and whistled as he admired the stick. "Expensive paperweight."
It wasn't supposed to be anything, but somehow it lit a powder keg. The suit heated up and Alexander's eyes widened as Kara snapped.
"Are you seriously joking right now!?"
Alexander lost his patience and he sneered at the corpse at his feet. It was just another thing to fail him today. Any helping hand could have done but no, this agent had to be a coward. "Oh, are you the only one allowed to joke?"
"I joke when it's appropriate! Now's not the time for your poor attempts at humor!"
"Your's are not any better!"
It could be summed up as stress that pushed them to this point.
Alexander was pushing himself too hard and he was paying for every inch. He had fallen from the sky, nearly had his head split open twice, slaughtered pokemon, and he wasn't even certain how much of it was real, if any of it were. He didn't have the luxury to think, and that was exactly how these simulations ran. Now he was being yelled at by his closest friend. He couldn't move on from these things like her, couldn't follow the rigid guidelines that the company programmed into her. It pissed him off that she expected that from him. He wanted to scream and break shit until something happened. Let Kara fry him or an Ariados eat him- hell, let the Company stop the damn simulation before he kills himself in a rage; something had to change. The smoke and mirrors couldn't work anymore. He wanted the truth- it had to be the truth. He was starting to come apart at the seems, and he didn't know how much longer he could go on before he broke completely. Whatever it was with this simulation, it was getting to him. It was eating him alive.
Kara was afraid. More so than any other point in her existence. Someone had given her enough power to finally protect Alexander from the company. She foolishly thought she could stop everything that wanted to hurt him, but she couldn't. She hadn't considered that the company wasn't the only threat. Alex was just another human to whoever started this. He was supposed to die too, and she couldn't stop them all from coming after him. She couldn't even stop him. He was just as dangerous to himself as everything else. He refused to listen to her and kept throwing himself into danger because he refused to accept what was happening. And now he dared joke about it like this was a game. He had no clue about what was coming. The whole world was falling apart in front of his eyes and somehow he still couldn't see it.
"Do you even care about what's happening, Alex? You might not even walk out of here!"
"I always have before," Alexander deflected. He was a survivor. He survived his missions, the company's ignorance, SABER, everything. At least until now.
"What about Guyana? The experiment that breached in Kalos? You don't have the company anymore to pick you back up; we're on our own now."
The room had grown smaller during their fight. The intensity of their bickering was growing and sweltered in the closed area as they turned on each other. The lights flickered as energy surged into them and harshly illuminated everything.
Kara had said something that Alexander had ignored beforehand, but it came back to him at that moment. "You keep trying to tell me that they won't be able to get to us because they're too weak to survive a war. Nobody knows about them Kara, so how who is going to go after them? What type of war could uproot them?"
Kara didn't realize that her energy had been flowing directly into Alexander. It was accidental, she would never go back to doing what she used to do to him when he was just a stranger. "You and Connor talked about how there would be an uprising. It's coming, Alex. Nobody sees it but the pokemon, and they know about the company."
Alexander did not realize that Kara wasn't intentional zapping him. He could take the shock even if it was much, much worse than usual, but it hurt on a personal level. It felt like all the times she had tried to control what he said or did. She always claimed that it was to protect him from himself so that the company would overlook him, but it had only drove him further into disobedience. It made him livid to think that she was trying that tactic again. "Explain to me how the company is going to fall to a bunch of scattered wilds. Are they going to try and bust down the doors, Kara? Even with these juiced powers, how are they going to get close before they're torn apart?"
"It's not the wilds that are going to end the company," Kara warned. "How many operatives care for their pokemon?"
Not enough. Most of the employees they knew were apathetic about their pokemon. The rules protecting them were lax, and it was common for abusers to go unhindered. Alexander was one of the few to look at them as a being of worth, and for reasons that Kara couldn't understand he would reach out to them. He didn't care if it put himself at risk for disciplinary action or a beating if he crossed the wrong person; he never hesitated to try and help. He had seen enough of the Company's abuse to understand Kara's logic, and she felt his heartbeat pick up. He pressed his hands against the sides of his helmet and shook his head slightly.
"I don't believe it," Alexander whispered. It was like a veil had been lifted, and he forgot his reservations in a heartbeat as his mind raced.
This- this felt too elaborate for the company. They were predictable.
Something cracked and in a flash of rage he kicked the desk with enough force to lift it a couple of inches. Everything resting on it was sent airborne and scattered around the room as he cursed. "What did we do!?"
It was a complete change in direction that Kara had not expected. She couldn't even guess what was going on in Alexander's head, but she needed to stop it. "We didn't do anything!"
"We were supposed to respect and protect them, this world! We treated them like tools instead! I could've done anything to change it, but I didn't. If the company falls then they'll move on and go after everything else. There'll be a slaughter in our names because I didn't speak up!"
This couldn't be real.
"This isn't your fault!" Kara asserted. The voice and its message were the trigger for the genocide. Not Alex. "Someone wanted this bloodshed."
It had every reason to be.
"Who? Who could have the power to do this?" Something bordering hatred in Alexander's eyes flared as he clenched his fists. "It was one of our own, wasn't it? A rogue unit, some egghead in a lab- did we finally spite the wrong pokemon, the wrong God?"
Probably. The company loved to pick at things that should be left alone. Kara paused as the fire in his eyes extinguish as something crossed his mind. "Alex? What are you thinking?"
He didn't want to believe it.
A rogue unit. Was this his punishment? They wanted to rub it in his face and really show him the damage he could have done. He didn't know they had gone rogue until it was too late. He had tried to stop them; He followed the procedures by the book and he did everything he was supposed to do. It still resulted in a new Black Zone and increased pressure from the Kantonean government. The company was nearly exposed because of his old unit, and Mount Tensei was thirty feet shorter because of it.
Somehow they knew he hadn't told them everything. He had refused to mention what had actually killed his entire squad and blamed the local pokemon instead. Yes, they had helped in the matter, but they had been turned into puppets for that thing. Them and their own pokemon, too. That creature, it couldn't be brought to the company's attention; they would try and capture it and people would die.
So this was their trump card then. They refused to let him go and the SABER program was their last shot to force him to talk. He nearly fell for it.
The monitor interrupted his mulling as it lit up to display an incoming live feed request. The icon flashed a couple of times and before he could be stopped Alexander patched it through. It was back to his impulses again, he couldn't appear weak. They had to trust him.
There was an unusual burst of static as it began to connect that Kara recognized as a signal issue. It faded after a moment and brought them into the company of a familiar, powerful face.
High Command looked nothing like she did earlier in the day. Her formidable appearance was shattered by inches of stained bandages and a ruined posture as she propped herself against the cubicle wall. Small smears of blood ran along the bridge of her nose and her rumpled uniform was speckled with more of the bodily fluid. The stripes that symbolized her rank had been replaced with a series of stars, something Alexander had never seen before and Kara once while reading through files. Despite being disheveled and pale, the most startling thing about her was the soft smile that crossed her face when she saw them. It radiated from the backdrop of darkness that surrounded her.
"Someone finally found the time to answer my call." She uttered softly.
Kara and Alexander stood mute at her sudden appearance. He stood at attention and began to solute before High Command shook her head. Her eyes looked sad, but the glare from the monitor made it hard to tell if it was a trick of the light.
The duo didn't realize it, but they were receiving the last broadcast that HQ would ever send out.
The longest chapter yet, I hope you enjoyed the read. If there's something that you think I should work on with my writing, let me know. I can only improve with your criticism, so lend me some if I need it.
Also, it'll be heating up next chapter, so stick with me if this is going too slow for you!