"The city is under attack."

Five words boomed around the Center's lobby and silenced the crowd. The man that spoke was the assistant chief of police, in person, flanked by many senior officers. They looked beaten in their bandages and bloodied uniforms but still stood tall by a hastily constructed communications center. If he had done a better job at hiding the nervous twitch in his crossed arms, he might have appeared as calm as he had wanted to. Assistant Chief looked around again, letting the words sink and spoke before the whispering could grow too loud:

"The coastline was targeted and our relief efforts within the marina and the beaches have been destroyed. We fear that the attack will move inland and deeper into the city, where we are now. Our forces have been spread thin trying to keep the peace, and many cannot leave their posts without leaving the city open for another attack. Because of this, the Hau'oli Police Department, and the alolan government as a whole, needs your help in repelling this attack. If you want to keep your friends safe, as well as the fine citizens of this city, then please step forward."

Alexander didn't blame the locals for trying to recruit trainers; he definitely wasn't surprised. The department had to have owned a pokemon storage system, and whatever came out of that, plus hostile looters and everything else that was happening, had no doubt had killed too many of their officers to still be an effective force. He didn't know the story about the National Guard- they might not have suffered as much, but their numbers alone couldn't fill in the space from what was lost.

Trainers were the next best thing outside of law enforcement and the military. If the trainers were good, then sometimes they were even better than law enforcement. If said trainer were in the right place at the right time, then they were the best thing you could get. The last couple cataclysms had been solved by trainers: children with a couple pokemon, and a lot of spirit. No grand weapons, no training, just children that were still wiping their mothers' milk off of their chins. It had baffled The Company that toddlers were getting ahead of them in containing such incidents, and because it kept reoccurring they doubled down on hiring and preparing field agents to observe and contain incidents before civilians could get involved. It had been too early to tell, but Alexander's work had gotten busier so it must have been somewhat effective.

A few seconds of silence strayed after the request, but four trainers stepped away from the crowd and to the line of officers. Six more followed, and a faint grin crossed the Assistant Chief's face as even more broke away from the group and volunteered. "Thank you all for volunteering to protect our beloved city; when the day breaks you will be honored by the Alolan Monarch personally- your willingness to help will not be overlooked."

Alexander found himself noticing the officers inside the communication center. They looked slick with sweat, even from his place across the center, and he couldn't hear them over the growing din, but he could see their jerky movements and how some of their cohorts left the table and exited the center in a blind run. Through one of the final windows that wasn't blocked off, he saw a couple of military vehicles pull away swiftly, and in their space a couple more filled in.

A guardsman came by and nudged the grunt slightly, interrupting his attention on the spewl and the much quieter panic. "You're that Interpol agent... Markus? We're mobilizing now. You're on Beta Squad; they're out front and are leaving in ten. The squad's in the, uh, fourth truck."

Alexander stood there quietly, processing the responsibility that had been dropped on him. He felt growing anger swell within him, but the guardsman had waited a couple seconds for a response and scowled when he didn't get one. "Did you not get the memo?"

"No." He replied shortly.

Whoever the guardsman was, he lacked patience. "Did you hit your head? You just got the memo, now move it!"

Yes, actually, and it hurts like hell.

His cover files had placed him in this situation- one he didn't want to be apart of, and he was not going to deal with a guardsman of all people trying to order him around. The grunt leaned back against a counter and raised his eyebrows, even if it was lost behind his helmet. However, his posture easily managed to convey a challenge to the man.

The air between the two grew sharp as the guardsman came to face him directly. The volunteer, who broke his attention away from the recruitments, stood frozen as he looked between the two; he was uncertain on how to diffuse the situation before Kauane whispered something quietly.

Alexander felt something strange come over him. His skin prickled as a cool sensation spread under his skin and across the grunt's body; the weight in his bones lifted and he felt himself starting to relax. The pains that had he had tuned out began to melt away, and the hurricane of thorns that had been slowly shredding his patience and rationality started dissipating until it was manageable. He felt better, and even though his head still hurt he felt his reasoning for confronting the guardsman erode.

He needed to blend in and go with the flow. Yes, he was screwed into doing something he didn't need to do or be apart of, but when was there a day when that didn't happen? An opportunity would arise where he could slip away.

Alexander huffed and pushed off the counter. As he made to walk passed the guardsman he stepped into his path and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Do you think you're more important than me because you're Interpol? Think again, asshole. You're in my city, alone, so show some respect."

Guardsmen were just as bad as cops. Cops always had an issue with bigger agencies getting into their territories and taking their cases from them. Guardsmen took an issue with other agencies not caring about their feelings or questioning what they thought they knew. It always boiled down to respect, honor, and all the crap that they liked to stoke around civilians. It hurt their pride when you didn't cave to them.

So Alexander looked the man up and down, and scoffed. The reaction was predictable and immediate: the guardsman tensed at the slight and his eyes narrowed. Had they been alone, there wouldn't be any doubt that the interaction would have devolved into a fight- the way the muscles in his shoulders tensed gave that away- but to try and fight here, around his superiors, would cause more damage to himself than the grunt. Not to mention that Alexander would break this man like a twig if he did raise a hand against him.

He might break him anyways. It was as if the man's anger was a noxious gas: the grunt's skin was starting to burn despite his suit, and even after his revitalization he was feeling the headache threatening to come screaming back. Once again he had to wonder if he was losing his grip. He thought back on the facility he had escaped, and all the rage and bone-chilling anger that he had felt. He had seen something, and he couldn't tell if it was a hallucination. Possible brain damage, maybe? It wasn't like he could go back to the hospital to find out.

Alexander focused back on the guardsman after a couple seconds of him glaring in his face and grew bored. Deciding that time was wasting he firmly grabbed the man by the collar of his body armor and shoved him aside. The minor assault startled the man, and within the second it took for him to become enraged the grunt was lost in the stream of bodies.

It clicked as Alexander sat down in the bed of the truck that there were no pokemon near him during his recovery, aside from Kauane. With his distractions aside the grunt had a moment to wonder why he wasn't hurting anymore, and he could only think of the mismagius as the culprit.

Sneaky. Would've thanked her if she wasn't so subtle. At least you're not the asshole your species is known for being.

He jerked slightly and held onto the side as the vehicle started moving, and he looked around at his squad again. There were two guardsmen in the cab, three officers with him in the bed, and two trainers. One appeared on the verge of puking but was still trying to keep on a brave face; the other sat silently with fierce determination. The officers and guardsmen had assault rifles and three pokeballs between the lot of them, and the trainers had been given body armor to make up for their lack of rifles and had four pokeballs between the two of them.

"Who shot you in the face?" The fierce trainer asked. He had a sunburn that painted his face a dark red, and he looked like he should still be in grade school- the kid couldn't even be a teenager. The alolan government was basically throwing babies at their issues. Alexander rescinded his previous thoughts on the matter, this recruitment was a dumpster fire in the making.

Before Alexander could say anything the air above them rippled as a trainer on a Pidgeot flew past, tailed by a police helicopter. They quickly became lost among the buildings as they took point; Delta Squad was already approaching their quadrant and needed them. The air support was strong enough to face whatever they were dealing with. At least, that was the intel from the officers around him. They were talking quietly among themselves and trying to keep themselves distracted, and the child's invasive question perked their interest and drew their attention to him; their conversations petered out as something potentially juicy came up.

"An idiot." Alexander said simply, not liking the bluntness the kid had. The following silence was thick and painful as the bed of the truck waited for elaboration. It frustrated the grunt.

You all can go to hell. Alexander thought to himself, leaning off the side slightly to look at where they were going. The officers recognized his posture and went back to what they were doing prior, and the kid scowled but said nothing else.

Alexander turned to his transceiver next and held it nervously. Kara wasn't up yet, and he had been watching the progression bar grow longer as Kara did whatever she did to accumulate herself after a recovery. He couldn't call it a boot up because that would insinuate that she was a program, and then she'd kick his ass for it suggesting it. It was probably more like waking up after being knocked out for surgery and struggling to fight past whatever drug they had pumped into you.

The bar crawled a little closer to its endpoint, and froze. Alexander stared at it for a couple seconds, uncertain if it was actually moving, and felt his jaw lock when it refused to budge any further. He didn't know what it meant- he hadn't seen this happen before. Does this mean there's a complication? Is Kara still hurt?

He was working himself up and jumping to conclusions too soon. After a full ten seconds of the bar not moving, each one pushing Alexander slightly closer to a panicked meltdown, it leaped forward and the screen began to lighten. He sat back slowly, calming down as he watched his transceiver intently. It began to heat up against his arm as energy flowed through it again and into his suit; some warped icons flashed in his damaged visor as Kara came back online. She appeared on the interface and Alexander had only a second to see that she was looking afraid before she turned off the screen.

The grunt was at a loss for words. She's panicking. The last thing she remembers is that Ariados getting to her. Now it's a different place at a different time: this is too much for her to take in at once. Quickly Alexander reached up and turned off his external speakers before looked down at the transceiver again.

"Kara, we're safe. No more Ariados." She was looking through everything she missed as was getting up to date, and speaking normally wouldn't get through the influx of data. Short, clipped sentences would get through. At least, that was the hope. The silence dragged on as Alexander waited for a response from her. "Kara. Talk to me. Please."

Alexander reached down and held the transceiver again, and as an afterthought started drumming his fingers against it lightly; it was one of her pet peeves for him to do that. Still no reaction.

"There's nothing." Kara finally stated. She was quiet as if she didn't believe what she was saying.

"I'm sorry?" Alexander asked, not understanding what she was talking about.

"I'm cut off, Alex. There are no signals leaving this island: no cellphones, radio transmissions, not even emergency channels. I'm not picking up satellite reception, either. It's all gone, the fabric of communications has unraveled. I don't know what's happening out there." Kara distressed. Alexander sat further back in the bed, processing what Kara had told him before she picked up again more urgently: "Why are we here? Why are you here, when you're hurt?"

"Kara, rela-"

"Don't tell me to relax! You have no clue about what is going on!" Kara seethed. She wasn't letting Alexander do the same thing a second time. She couldn't. There were some frequencies she could still monitor, and the information she was learning was making her sick. She had been awake for less than a minute, and everything she missed in the last seven hours was being forced on her at once.

Something had taken down the satellites.

Something had separated the islands.

Something is attacking Hau'oli City.

Alexander was running headfirst into the fray.

Alexander is hurt.

He's hurt.

"My cover got me nominated for this, it wasn't my-" Alexander flinched as a surge of energy made his skin tingle. Kara was scanning him. He remembered the ride out of the facility, his experience in the morgue, the plane crash. The grunt felt a bead of sweat run down his neck: Kara was about to explode. She wouldn't accept him explaining that a Mismagius had miraculously made him better. "I'm fine. You don't need to do that."

It was a miserable attempt to stop the inevitable.

Alexander felt Kara stop her scans and prepared his ears for the yelling. He looked away from the transceiver and at a checkpoint they were rolling upon. There were only two officers holding the area, and they had been prepared for them because the point was already open. Slowly it closed behind them and vanished behind a curve in the road. Alexander was still waiting for Kara to berate him. It was beginning to scare him that she wasn't.

"Why are you not in a hospital?" A simple question. One without a simple answer.

Why they thought you were dead is beyond me... Haunter's words floated around in Alexander's head for a moment and he began to think harder about what had been said down in the morgue.

"I think... they thought I was..." Alexander trailed off, unable to answer honestly without sounding crazy. Dead. Terminal. Not worth saving. More silence. Alexander's suit was starting to heat up. He felt afraid.

"Go back to the hospital." Kara ordered calmly. The amount of energy pouring through the suit gave away how she was actually feeling.

"I can't." He'd shot someone. They'd be looking for him, and walking right back into their presence after that would be inviting more bloodshed.

"Go back."

"They won't help me."

"Then I'll kill them and fix you myself."

Alexander couldn't argue with Kara, not when she was this angry. She wasn't hiding what she felt; before, Kara always hid things. It used to be a guessing game, once. The disaster was bringing it out of her.

Kara wasn't waiting for Alexander to make a decision. He was ignoring how bad his condition was, and from the number of stress hormones and chemicals she was detecting from a simple blood scan he was on the verge of shutting down. He couldn't win this fight. He wouldn't win this one even if he was in peak shape- not with what he was up against. She could disable the truck easily- there were enough sensitive electronics in the vehicle that one good jolt would cause it to die.

"I wasn't sticking around," Alexander asserted, knowingly throwing off her train of thought. She didn't know his plans, and it was his fault that she was getting so worked up. "there wasn't an opportunity for me to get out at the Pokemon Center, alright? With everything that's happening in this city I figured the ride to wherever we're going would have plenty of opportunities for me to slip away. I'm walking away from this the first chance I get."

"And straight into a hospital." She added, much to his chagrin. What would be worse for me: going back to the place where I shot a man, or defying Kara?

A tiny jolt prickled his arm and Alexander nearly lost his patience. "Quit zapping me, I'll go."

"It needs to be soon, Alex." There were many reasons behind Kara's warning. Alexander thought he was okay, but they both knew that he needed medical attention now. The grunt should've tried to get help at the hospital, but he had ignored it because his partner was worse off then he was. She hadn't pieced that together yet and was probably considering him incapable of taking care of himself, but when things calmed down she'd realize why he was here in the first place.

Kara had been listening to the radio chatter, and only she knew that if Alexander made it to their destination he wouldn't come back from it. In the couple minutes she had been awake over half the channels had gone dead, and they all were tethered to the teams that had made their way to the front line. Comments of biting sand, requests for fire support, and demands for various types of pokemon littered the communications between the front lines and the headquarters, but with what she knew she still couldn't figure out what was attacking. She did not have access to files on the local wildlife, and if she did there was no doubt she could have figured it out by now.

The truck came to a screeching halt. Everyone occupying the bed startled and braced themselves for a crash that didn't happen, and an officer banged on the back window to voice his irritation. "What's going on?"

"There's no more broadcasts coming from the frontlines." Kara stated, knowing why the truck had stopped well before they had even touched the brakes. She hid the nervous pulsing in her system: they were close to the frontlines. She felt some relief that Alexander seemed to read her mind because her sensors picked up how his hands tensed against the wall of the bed.

Alexander eyed a couple cars parked on the curb. He doubted that he would be fired on for deserting, but placing a couple things between him and them by the time they realized wasn't going to hurt anything. He pushed himself up and was out before the rest of the truck could react; the grunt made it a bit further before they started shouting behind him. He nearly made it too, before a tumultuous eruption of crumbling cement and earth cut off their yells completely. He stumbled and glanced sideways, realizing that the world had become silent again as he watched the road curl and buckle; a low wave of shattering concrete swept towards him and without a moment's hesitation he kicked his feet and flew up and over the tidal wave of stone.

Landing on the still moving and unstable concrete threw Alexander forward, and because the weight of his armor gladly betrayed him by cooperating with gravity, he couldn't catch himself and landed on his face. Pebbles scraped against his visor as the disorientated man began to prop himself up, cursing as dozens of smaller impacts struck his backside. The ground beneath him was shimmering and reflecting light, adding to the confusing environment as the grunt looked around to assess what was actually happening.

The sight took his breath away.

It was raining oblique slivers of light, with such intensity that he couldn't clearly see what was happening around him. Reds, yellows, blues, and silvers flashed past him and melted into the ground, an unyielding color of steel that only existed for the reflecting light to come back and paint the fresh slivers anew. It was much like a kaleidoscope, with every surface constantly changing shape and color, but otherwise eventually returning to what it once was.

It was mesmerizing to witness, and it captured Alexander's awe as he slowly stood. This was what was hitting him: an endless rain of symmetrical colors that shattered as they struck his armor.

His attention broke as a jolt shot up his arm, and the high pitched voice of a furious, disbelieving rotom finally pierced the bubble of wonderment that the grunt had been trapped in. "What in the hell are you doing Alex! Run!"

The storm around him suddenly lightened, and as he looked around him the grunt had to look up at the surrounding buildings. The exposed interiors of the skyscrapers around him lay recovering, beaten into submission like the once unmarred pavement at his feet. The flashing lights of the smashed truck behind him glowed faintly, coloring the buildings in fluctuating red and blue as the horn blasted and echoed through the rumbling out of sight.

There was screaming coming from the wreckage. Movement. The truck shifted violently, and the shattered headlights flipped over each other as the vehicle rolled a few times. The horn died as the weight against it was relieved, and a grey form began to rise above the remains of the vehicle.

Pins were sharp against his skin and cold lances rolled through the grunt as he watched the scene unfolding before him. The nosy kid was the source of the unholy screams, and he was struggling against his Rhydon's grip as a surviving officer removed a large shard of glass from his abdomen. There was a repertoire of fear in the drill pokemon's eyes as it held its trainer, and the officer suddenly started shouting at it didn't make it any better: "Ease up or you're going to crush him!"

The beast was trembling and it loosened its grip, but as it did the trainer nearly jerked out of its grasp in his throes. The officer bit his lip and pressed a large patch of cloth against the wound, and Alexander could see it soak through almost immediately.

"Alex! Now!" There was fear in Kara's voice. Kara didn't become afraid. Ever.

The officer turned away from the child under his hands to look for something among the still forms at his feet and noticed Alexander. "Marcus! I need you here, now!" The ferocity in the officer's voice burned like fire against the grunt's skin, and the cold venom working though him intensified as the Rhydon turned its terrified gaze to him as well.

Alexander stood there, felt the unrestrained electricity flowing into him from Kara losing her restraint, felt the sea of fear and anger resonating from the survivors of the crash, and ran.

Alexander would never have risen to the highest ranks in the Company. It wasn't because of his checkered history, or even the damage his last team had done in Kanto. To get to the top, you needed to have the Company's total trust that you would do the entire job and follow the regulations, without hesitation. You needed to follow orders, no matter what was entailed, and you followed them down to the text. He was everything that they wanted from him. He was everything that they thought was dangerous. Politics well above his awareness circled him daily. Things he had no control of stained his chances of rising to the elites.

Alexander was dangerous. He was a liability that they couldn't afford, a loose end in a neat, orderly blanket of shadows and power that stretched back throughout history; One sewn by a needle of ruthlessness and immorality that led history along into today. All it could take was one person to unravel it all. A person that could follow the rules and codes; a person that did so with contempt long smothered and buried by a decade of constant desensitization.

No, Alexander was the perfect soldier that the company admired. He just had a heart, and that made him a liability.

Glass crunched under his boots as he skidded to a halt in their midst. Blood flowed freely around him as the remains of the rest of the cab lay scattered, and he reached out to apply pressure to the boy's stomach when the ground trembled again.

Alexander, Kara, the officer, and the Rhydon all looked down the street where the attack had come from. It was then, they realized, that they had not been the targets of the attack at all. They had just been behind it.

A skyscraper was breaking its formation with the rest of the buildings around it. The building teetered as it's foundation failed it, and for a second the group was transfixed as its base finally gave out. It began its descent into the earth; lower floors folding up into each other as the weight of everything above came crashing down. A grey cloud of dust began to rapidly bloom, swallowing the building and rapidly expanding into the surrounding area.

Kara watched as Alexander somehow pulled the kid free from his Rhydon's grasp and began to run. She should have known better. It was so Alex, to stick his neck out for something that didn't matter. He should've listened and run when he had the chance, and now the statistics were drastically against him surviving. She began running scenarios that could help improve his chances, and within a few seconds, she was highlighting a building for him to enter. It would protect him from the debris field, and possibly give him enough space to escape the scene unnoticed by whatever was attacking the city.

This kid's going to die. Alexander vaulted through the remains of the building's front and skidded as he examined his surroundings. He was in the lobby of a mall, with a long hallway before him lined with stores. That idiot shouldn't have pulled out the glass; that's an artery bleeding. I can't stop that.

Said idiot came flying past him without stopping, passing him only because the grunt had to take in his surroundings. He noticed cuts and blood staining the man's back then. He began to run when he more or less felt the floor quake and heard stone and steel give way for the Rhydon, who was not running from the cloud of debris but was rather chasing Alexander and his dying trainer.

He couldn't continue running forever, not with the kid's blood running down his armor in rivulets. The grunt skidded to a stop about halfway through the building and kicked in a cheap door to a retail store, and as he ran inside the officer noticed him and called out:

"Why in the hell are you stopping!?"

Alexander ignored the man's oversight and forced the squirming child down onto the floor. He reached out and tore a shirt off a hanger before pressing it against the wound, causing him to scream yet again as pain he had never felt before tore through his younger body. The officer appeared at the door, and the look on his face said it all. Alexander felt fires burning within him and barked: "Find a belt and more clothes! Now!"

The floor shuddered again and things fell off shelves near the back of the room, and as the officer began ransacking the place they heard the door screech and shatter as it was torn from its hinges and thrown through another front across the hall. The frame imploded as Rhydon shoved its way through, and the murder etched in its eyes almost made him abandon the kid then and there. He heard the officer's approach falter and the fires became a hellstorm.

"NOW DAMNIT!"

The frame of power over the other man shifted from the beast looming into the dark-clad individual screaming at him. The ferocity in Alexander's voice made the room's occupants' skin tingle, and the air thickened as the officer stumbled and forced a wad of shirts at him.

Thin. Polyester. Of course it's summer clothes. They wouldn't absorb like cotton, wouldn't slow the bleeding. The grunt felt panic digging into his chest. "Cotton! Get anything made of cotton! Pants, shorts, anything! I'm trying to save his life, not prolong his death!" The beast's eyes changed as he demanded more from the officer. He wasn't trying to steal away the monster's trainer, he was trying to save him.

Alexander threw away the first shirt, now soaked completely, and grabbed the entire wad of plastic. He pressed the mess against the wound to at least try and slow the blood pumping out of the kid, and when the officer came back with what he needed he nearly threw the wasted clothing into the horizon as he grabbed the naturally weaved cloths from him. The trainer lashed out and struck his helmet as the grunt pressed the absorbing fibers to the wound, and began to scream bloody murder as he tried to pack the gash. The presence of the Rhydon grew stronger and he spoke harshly:

"If we don't stop the bleeding, he dies! Officer, grab the belt and wrap it around his stomach!"

It would only be so long before he lost his power over the man. The fear, blood, and heat of the moment made him weak and easy to manipulate. The drill pokemon was threatening his control, and Alexander had to keep using words relating to death to keep the creature from ripping him a new one while he worked on the trainer's injuries. The belt came and he picked the kid up for it to slide under him, and the officer worked on restraining the kid as Alexander wrapped the belt over the clothes and tightened it down. Finishing the grunt reached down and began to lift the kid up, but as he did he felt sudden pressure against his side that knocked him sideways. Stumbling, he fell as the Rhydon reached down and under the kid, its claws crushing the cement beneath him. It carefully lifted him up and held him close, with the tentative nature such a beast needed to handle such a fragile creature.

The officer looked on silently before shifting his attention outside the store. Grey dust had clouded out the windows and was slowly wafting in from the broken door frame. He began wrapping his face with a shirt before heading to the trainer but hesitated as the drill pokemon growled at him.

"We need to get him to the hospital, and he won't be able to breathe out there without this." He explained cautiously, waiting for the pokemon's permission to approach. It eyed him silently before looking at the dust pooling in. It lowered its head and nodded, and the officer slowly began to wrap another shirt around the whimpering boy's nose and mouth. He looked to the grunt as if to ask Will he make it?

Alexander didn't answer. Instead, he turned and ran through the doorway. He heard them follow and focused on looking for any shapes that loomed out from the thickening cloud. The advanced vision wouldn't be able to see much further with the thickness of the dust, so it remained off. Abandoned personal items, carts, and merchandise passed him by as they made their way through the complex, and the only sound that filled the void was the kid's suffering.

Somehow, throughout the entire accident, they had failed to see what had cut down the skyscraper. Not even Kara knew what the threat was. When they finally found an exit and left, they still didn't see it. But it saw them.

Alexander froze as the dust before him shifted. His arm lashed out and caught the officer before he could pass him, and glass shattered out of their line of sight, no farther than thirty yards away. They both stood still and scanned the area before them, beggining to back up in sync with each other until the Rhydon was at their back. It was a waste of time because it was still dark outside, and the lights from the city couldn't fully penetrate the powder in the air. The murky haze wasn't giving up anything.

The grunt didn't like this one bit. Something was out there and knew where they were, and they were completely blind. His armor could probably take a few more heavy hits, but it wasn't going to hold out forever; the kid wouldn't even be able to take a graze in his condition; the officer was slightly better off, but not by much. Rhydon could probably tank whatever came at them, but its priority was the trainer, nd it would no doubt leave them if it meant keeping the kid safe.

They waited as silently as they could for anything else to move, and the officer tugged on Alexander's shoulder and silently pointed in the other direction. He nodded in agreement and began to usher their monster of an ally away when a dark shape began to materialize. It was large, towering over the four individuals, and two pinpricks of golden light looked down on them as silence finally overtook the group.