Thanks again to Cornova for letting me write this story!
"...swear I'm not lying! I was in a call with my son just after it happened- the Battle Frontier's a slaughterhouse; all those pokemon went nuts at once and..."
"We've got more MCI survivors incoming- No! From the marina now! We need someone to clear that damn parking lot or we'll lose..."
"...Dad, me and Jake made it off the ship, please pick up when you get this..."
"...ould you want to leave? Look outside! The whole city is starting to fall apart, you think the police will protect us when the next..."
"...hands in the air! Do it, now! Gun! GUN!"
Connor was hardly out of his drugged stupor and he could already tell the hospital was going to hell. With a groggy yawn the man began to sit up, his vision still blurry as he looked around.
Cots lined the walls of the hallway, the sorry excuses of bedding were only spaced out for doorways. Each one was occupied, and Connor's brow furrowed in disgust as he turned to get off his own cot and stepped in someone's blood with his bare feet. The floor was filthy, blood was streaked along the floor where gurneys had rolled through the mess as dozens of bloody shoeprints adorned the normally sterile, white floors.
There were people everywhere else, taking up what little space remained as they looked for loved ones. The majority ducked as one as if their minds had synched, and Connor flinched as explosive reports filled the air. A couple of people screamed as the crowd began pushing away from the gunfire, streaming through a set of doors beside his cot. Within moments the hallway was empty save a few brave souls that refused to leave their loved ones and a lone officer whose attention was focused down a different hallway.
Slowly the scientist pushed himself further off the cot and felt the skin around his shoulder blade stretch and prickle. A startled gasp was all Connor could manage as he teetered between blinding pain and focusing on not falling face first into the recess of germs around him. Spots danced in his eyes as he carefully slid further and off the cot, managing to stand up without blacking out.
Some sorry excuse for a doctor hadn't given him enough pain killers and Connor found his irritation rising as he spied a nurse peering around the corner at the commotion. He took a couple shaky steps in his direction, but before he spoke the scientist had a startling realization that he was in a hospital gown and his original clothes were no where to be found.
He couldn't remember taking anything off, and for a horrifying moment Connor realized that somebody had stripped him down and seen him nude. It wasn't that he was embarrassed, but that he didn't know if anything besides surgery had happened to him while he was out. He had to deal with a couple of freaks working under him before, some sick bastards that liked alone time with test subjects when they thought he wasn't looking. He didn't question The Company about where they got their grunts, but they had to have known about what that batch was like. Why they didn't warn him about who he was working with upset him but he had managed to solve the issue. Still, the mere thought of possibly being in that position made him light-headed, and because of it, he didn't see someone approaching him.
A hand grabbed his good shoulder and yanked Connor backward, the lack of warning causing him to slip. He started to fall and the hand turned into a vice, keeping him from sinking any further. Any indignation that he could have voiced died as fingernails dug into him. The man began to panic and scrambled for something to grab onto, finding nothing as a few stray people watched with wide eyes as they refused to intervene. The officer at the end of the hallway failed to notice his plight, too involved with whatever had happened to catch the struggle.
The hand tugged upwards and Connor was lifted to his feet. He scrambled and had just managed to get them under him again when a well time shoved knocked him off balance and through a doorway; he barely managed to catch himself on a shelf as he found himself in a small storage room. There was a gagged doctor tied down on the floor at his feet- the one that had admitted Connor into the hospital. The door clicking behind him sounded like a gunshot in his ears so the scientist spun around, not knowing who to expect.
"Connor Steig: Bioweapons expert, microbiologist, biological engineer- you look like you're about to piss your pants, relax."
Connor was looking at another doctor, but he quickly noticed that his ID didn't match his face. Dark skinned, hard eyes, a small tattoo of a Gastly peeking out from under his scrubs. "You were fuckin' hard to find, do you know that you look nothing like the picture we were given? You were some noble-ass man with a stick up his ass, but right now you're a cowering bitch. Two completely different people."
Fire was burning in the scientist's eyes and he spat: "Excuse me, but who do you think you are?"
"Ooh, there's that stick you were missing." The grunt taunted, "Now I recognize you."
Their little spat ended as a walkie talkie on the man's waist sputtered static. "Agent Little G, we don't see you on the cameras. What's your position?"
Little G held up a finger as if to say 'give me a minute' while he answered, infuriating Connor to no end. What was it with grunts and absolutely no respect?
"I've found the scientist, no visual on his companion. Hold on-" The grunt looked at Connor, his face serious again, "do you know where Agent Cipher went? We know he left the building late yesterday, but after that we lost his trail."
Connor began to retort when he caught onto what Little G said. "Yesterday? What do you mean, yesterday?"
Gone was the disrespectful grunt, his attitude serious. "At five O'clock yesterday, your only security left you here. Right now it is... four in the morning. Your ass has been out a while, I take it? Anyways, do you know where he could have gone?"
"... not a clue. Why in the hell are you interrogating me? Are you not evac?"
"So you're oblivious and ignorant." Little G snarked, shoving roughly past Connor and stooping over the actual doctor, who tried to squirm away the best he could. The grunt's eyes sparkled darkly as he addressed the man: "Do you want to tell him where our friend is right now?"
When the gag came off the doctor didn't even utter a peep- he just shrank further away and tried to curl himself into a ball. "Aw, look at him pretending to be a Squirtle... its a shame I know how to crack 'em open." With a growl, the grunt stood and booted the doctor in the side. Connor winced as he heard something snap in the man's chest. A guttural yelp escaped him before the boot slammed into the side of his head, silencing him.
Connor slowly slid away from Little G, feeling sick at the outburst of violence. What was wrong with the Company's grunts?
The doctor cursed faintly as he was lifted back up and his eyes went wide as a blade was pressed to his neck. Connor himself flinched as the grunt tutted in an annoyed manner as if he were scolding a child. "Do you want to keep this up?"
"N-no, please! We-we didn't have the time! When he came in it was already too late!"
"It sounds like you didn't even try to save him. Am I right?" Little G growled, pressing the metal further into the flesh.
"We couldn't save him! We didn't have the staff or- wait wait wait, wait! His heart was still beating when we put him down there, he could still be-" Little G reared back and slammed his fist into the man's skull with a sickening crack. His head whipped back and the doctor crumpled, leaving the room quiet yet again.
Connor felt a smirk working onto his face despite his reservations. After being threatened, manipulated, and abandoned by that dreg, he felt he got what he deserved. "Alexander's dead? Good." He noticed the surprise cross Little G's face and he wasn't inclined to elaborate; instead he stood taller and watched the new grunt with critical eyes. "I'd like to get out of here now. Lead the way, please."
Unbelieving chuckles escaped the grunt's lips and he shook his head slowly. "You are becoming the worst headache I've ever had to deal with, you know that? Like, most of you arrogant sons of bitches don't quite understand how important us grunts are. We're the ones that're required to document everything and protect your people, and it's taken for granted. We know that Agent Cipher got you here before you bled to death, so please tell me why it's good that a loyal agent like him is dead?"
The scientist scoffed at Little G. "I'm not inclined to tell you anything other than he threatened to kill me to cover up his own rule violations." His eyes narrowed as the grunt stared at him as if he was stupid before his radio beeped.
"Any new intel?"
"None, the package is as oblivious and dense as a Slowpoke. Not surprising, given he's been out for a couple- don't give me that look, you little bitch!" Little G snapped, not tolerating Connor's glare. "He doesn't know shit about why Cipher left, but the damn doctor accidentally informed him about his condition."
"Do you mind filling me in on what I'm oblivious too?" Connor interrupted, fed up with the grunt's attitude to the point where he didn't care if he was interrupting anything.
"Will you just- If you quit talking for just a few fucking minutes I'll give you a couple thousand Poke to spend on yourself, so please just shut the fu-"
"Agent, please refrain from cursing over the line." The radio interrupted, through the voice suddenly sounded distant. "Agent H is... having a difficult time trying to confirm if Cipher is KIA, so can you have Connor look at the CT scans to give us a guess?"
The air in the little room suddenly started to heat as Connor and Little G glared at each other, the former's eyes turning slightly amused and the latter's turning very, very dark. "Sorry for that, but I'm just going to use my psychic powers to guess that Connor's going to say that he's dead."
"Don't joke about that!" The voice snarled, loud and unexpected. Both Connor and Little G flinched at the abrupt uproar, and with its absence, they looked at each other again, but the fight in the grunt's eyes was gone. He pulled a small tablet out of his pocket and powered it on, flicking through it for a moment before turning it so that the scientist could see the screen.
A black and white image was present, and Connor didn't need to even process it as he opened his mouth to answer. As he did a small flash caught his eye and he nearly choked on his own breath as the grunt drew a small, silenced pistol and trained it on him. "You look at it first, prick. You hate this kid for saving you? Fine, but he's one of us, and whatever he did to hurt your feelings will be nothing compared to what I'm about to do to you if you don't do what we want."
Connor swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. It seemed like he was going to need to be more convincing. With a tense little stand off the scientist pretended to cave, trying to make the grunt feel like he was in control. The scientist knew he was bluffing, he was important after all. His eyes graced the tablet again and he noticed one lightly colored spot within Alexander's brain the size of a penny. It was one hell of a hemorrhage, and Connor realized that the chances of him being alive were not good.
"Agent Cipher might be alive," Connor said, forcing his words. He threw some truth into the fray and intended to follow it with a lie. "Of course, there's always the chance that he didn't survive the initial bleeding, but-"
"He survived." The grunt interrupted, throwing Connor off. "He was alive when the CT scan happened, and he was alive when they declared him legally dead. This place, it doesn't have enough room or resources. They started declaring the people with the lowest chances of survival as dead to conserve what they could for the more stable patients. They did it to Cipher, but-"
"Agent Little G, please evac your charge to the roof. We're pulling out; Agent H has discovered multiple ghost type pokemon residing in the morgue. Cipher has been assumed KIA. His transceiver is not responding, so the chances of any Company exposure are nill. Please evac now, we cannot waste anymore time."
Connor saw a chance and smirked at the grunt, chuckling. "Oh well, we tried. How about you lead the way now?"
Little G stood frozen in time, his pistol still focused on Connor's chest. He couldn't do it. He so badly wanted to pull the trigger on this man, but he was too valuable. Slowly the gun fell to his side and the two stared at each other; the grunt eventually turning away and laying his hand on the door handle. Connor felt victory and started to follow until he heard a faint groan rise from the floor.
"Wait, you have a Class A to deal with."
The grunt froze in place, unmoving as Connor repeated himself. Slowly the man turned and faced him, and it was the dead look in his eyes that made him pause. "Come tomorrow, half this damn city is going to be Class A."
With that, Little G turned and left. Connor's brow dropped and he called out: "What do you mean?" He followed the grunt, hesitantly at first, then quicker as he realized that he wasn't going to stop.
The two passed dozens of cots as they walked, Little G ignoring Connor's inquiries until he stopped abruptly in front of an overflowing tack board. Hundreds of faces and numbers adorned it, all pleas requesting to call a plethora of numbers if one of the faces had been seen. The scientist realized he could hear the grunt's breathing: hard and uneven. He traced a hand over a little girl's face and pulled away as if the image had burned him. He turned sharply and continued on, leaving Connor to wonder what that was about.
The hallway opened up to a large waiting room filled past capacity and the two had to shove their way through. Well, Little G shoved his way through, Connor stuck to his back like glue because he wasn't risking injuring his shoulder. The entire hospital was cramped, he realized, as they traveled up a couple flights of stairs and found themselves shoving through more people many floors up from where they started. He could feel eyes following them everywhere they went, a couple people tried to stop the grunt leading him but where rudely moved aside. The air was hot and thick; it was worsened by how unsanitary the hospital had become as well, iron and body order dominated the hallways.
Then they pushed through another set of doors and the entire scene changed. The hallway was empty, cool, and clean; a relief that Connor verbally expressed in a sigh. He realized that his escort had not stopped and irritation crept into his sigh as he sped up again. He managed to catch up to him, but only because Little G had decided stop where the wall had fallen away to a railing, which allowed them a view at the city around them as the glass exterior of the building was revealed in a modern design. The scientist stopped and looked at the void between them and the exterior, then down a couple of stories where he could see a cafe. Over half the glass panels had been shattered, and with a start, he also noticed large police barricades and fortifications within the cafe. A few officers patrolled the open space, heavily armed with military-grade assault rifles and armor. There were even a couple National Guard uniforms wandering around down there.
"While you were taking a nap this entire city has been coming apart." Little G stated, turning away and motioning to the other visible buildings- some burning or full of gaping holes. "It started at dusk, random attacks started happening everywhere. Mostly in the areas by the forest, but also down at the waterfront. The beaches were shut down, I think a couple of major roadways were destroyed, and the marina was sealed off to keep people from trying to leave. The waters out there has changed, I've personally seen three large boats- shipping freighters and a cruise liner- go ass-up and sink. This city is scared. Martial law was implemented to keep people protected from whatever happens next, but police chatter has told us that a few have outright ignored it. The police can't leave their posts to stop them, and apparently, the low-lifes here know it and have been creating hell."
Connor was silent as a pair of National Guardsmen turned the corner and jogged past, but before he could say anything the grunt continued: "None of it matters, really. We've lost control, Connor. We had a base here, a large one, and it went code black; the bigger issue about it is that it didn't purge. We managed to get some of our agents out, but the ones that we couldn't reported a psychic was attacking. An hour later, the military base near the crest of the mountain went dark on us but reports suggest that our own guys took it over without reporting it to us."
"We can get reinforcements to deal with that, can't we?" Connor asked after a while, the two in the process of slogging up a flight of stairs.
"It's only us." A voice directly behind him said, causing the scientist to startle and trip on a stair. A firm, gloved hand snatched him from his rapid descent and hoisted him up, and up, and suddenly Connor found himself being slung over the shoulder of a very large man. A soldier, none the less.
"How bad was it, H?"
"I managed to count six bogies before I had to duck out. Cipher doesn't stand a chance.."
"Connor, meet Agent H. He fought like hell to be carrying your ass, so quit being a baby and accept fate."
"So this is Connor? I'm sorry about your guard- we managed to pick him up on the way here, but my judgment got him killed. He was having seizures and by the time we managed to get here he was too far gone for me to do anything. I thought that this staff could help him, bu-"
"Don't apologize to the asshole, he wanted him dead."
"...Your mouth will get you in trouble one day." Was all Agent H said before falling silent. His grip digging into Connor's side was the only thing that the scientist could go off of, but he made the assumption that he was just as volatile as the other grunt.
Connor stayed silent, feeling that provoking them any further would be a bad idea, seeing how he had achieved what he had wanted in the end. Although, the fact that the two grunts had skirted around his question raised more questions.
They could get reinforcements, right? Yes, the company had suffered a catastrophic loss, but the exposure of the organization had to be high on their priorities. There shouldn't be any other matters more pressing than that.
The outside air was more acidic than it should have been. Hundreds of fires were lighting up the night as dark smoke reached for the darkness, only to fade into oblivion. There were sirens all over the city, small cracks of gunfire here and there that went unheard as the beating of rotors drowned it out. A Chinook, the same one that had airlifted Alexander, was waiting for them, it's rear ramp open.
Most of the soldiers from before were still there, loyally protecting their transport. They were Company grunts, insurgents that had been controlling the region's military. A few were even from the lost base.
The few soldiers that were not Company were lined up in a neat row inside the helicopter, restrained and unconscious. The grunts didn't have it in them to execute the lot, not after knowing them personally for years, and especially considering they needed good little soldiers in the following months to come.
The unfortunate doctors that had been called up to deal with the wounded would never be seen around the hospital again. They were held at gunpoint as they worked to save the professor's life and the lives of the many other wounded.
Then Connor was dropped into a seat next to a much larger grunt armed with a light machinegun that he didn't recognize. He cursed as one of his stitches threatened to tear free and held his back. He looked up to see his two escorts talking with another man, and it clicked why their codenames were so silly. Little G had a tattoo of a Gastly, H had a Haunter, and if he was correct, then the third man was going to be named Big G, judging from the Gengar peaking out from the cuff of his uniform.
A few of the gagged soldiers caught his eye, and with annoyed curiosity, Connor interrupted the three's conversation: "Hey, what in the hell is going on with the Class A's around here? You're breaking protocol."
Every single person was looking at him now. Their reactions were of surprise, annoyance, and impatience.
Big G's was one of impatience, and as the helicopter began to take off he moved over to the smaller man and crouched down to his level. "There's been some changes in management lately. New rules, too. We don't have to terminate Class A's anymore."
Connor leaned back, sweat starting to appear on his brow. It should have been obvious all along that something wasn't right. "This is a rogue unit, isn't it?"
A frown, then Big G was sitting next to him and adjusting a small device on his wrist. "There's no such thing as rouge anymore. Any surviving Company member is allowed to do whatever they want, and whenever they please: all in the name of survival. We're together in this because there isn't anywhere to go, and nowhere to run. We're almost extinct."
A hologram shot from the grunt's wrist and Connor paled as text and images crossed the screen. "We've lost all contact with Johto; the entire region is beginning to burn and our bases have been unresponsive. Goldenrod City and the Radio Tower have fallen, so all civilian and military communications have fallen in the surrounding regions. Global communications are being targeted and are collapsing; satellites are dropping like flies and we've gotten confirmation that Rayquaza has been targeting them. On a good note, our satellites have gone unnoticed, thankfully."
The grunt continued as if Connor wasn't losing all color in his face or trembling like a leaf in the wind. "Major metropolitan areas like Hearthome, Goldenrod, Sunnyshore, and dozens more have been annihilated with no confirmed survivors. We are in the midst of a Code Black Cataclysm and our goal is to survive it. Going rogue is no longer possible because there is no longer anything to run to. There is only us left, and I hope you understand that there will not be many replacements to keep you alive if we keep dying."
Connor nodded, not hearing what the gunt said next but nodding to that as well. He was left alone, and the scientist began to weep. His parents lived in Hearthome, it was the city he grew up in. To learn that it was gone, that they were gone...
Everything was gone. He had read the updated message from HQ. There was nothing left of his life. His past: gone; his future: gone. There was only right now, in this helicopter surrounded by people that he couldn't associate with.
A small streak of light flashed passed the window nearest to him, and the scientist flinched. Another flash happened, then another. The entire fuselage had grown silent, and many faces were peering to watch something unfold. Connor himself was drawn to it, despite his turmoil, and found himself not understanding what he was seeing.
There was one building that had been taller than the rest. It had survived the worst of the outbreak to transmitting data all across the region, connecting the islands so that everyone would know what was going on. It wasn't unlike the Radio Tower, the two buildings connected large amounts of people across large distances, and it fell for the exact same reason. Fire engulfed the building, every window was blown out and raging as another rocket struck it near the top, blowing off the top floors and scattering flaming debris across the entire city.
"Was this the contingency plan?" Connor heard somebody ask hesitantly. There was silence as the building burned, a pillar of fire brighter than anything else on the horizon.
"It was all we could do." A voice replied. It seemed to echo in the fuselage as the city began to shrink from site, the waves below reflecting the flames into warped, twisted variations of the city. Connor looked from the city's skyline to the inky waves below, and amidst the glowing reflections, he could swear that he saw the future of the entire planet below him, burning in a shroud of darkness.
I know this chapter is shorter than the previous ones, but it was a necessary installation. Did you see anything that I missed? Any suggestions for how I can improve, or things you want to see? Let me know, a review is appreciated!