Chapter 6: The Full Price
"This is Atlas to Epsilon, we have reached the location and are now preparing to engage," said a man fully clad in black military gear as he exited the black electric off-roader which had brought him to the destination.
"Roger that you are clear to engage, remember we need the Pokemon back alive, try to maintain minimal casualties," a voice replied from his head-mounted radio.
The human stepped out into the pitch-black night, turning on his night vision helmet and moving to the trunk of the vehicle, pulling a long rectangular case out of it and unclipping two latches on each end. A metallic gray dart gun in the shape of an AR-15 was unveiled, along with several magazines loaded with tranquilizing darts. The man loaded and cocked the gun and slid it into a sash on his back before shutting the trunk.
The voice from his headset once again started playing, "a tracking drone chased the targets from Sigma? to a cave only a few dozen meters from this point, you have been cleared to take advantage of any outside assistance. It once again must be stressed that the Pokemon you may encounter are not believed to be a threat and must be taken alive at all cost."
"Roger that," he scoffed, he's never botched a mission up before, so why the command keeps treating him like a rookie is beyond him, but he'll just once again prove his effectiveness and professionalism and maybe they might just give him a position that isn't patrolling some random island in the middle of nowhere.
The agent then pulled a jet black Pokeball from his waste and deployed it, spawning with a bright blue beam a Crowbat that hovered silently in the air next to him.
"OK buddy," he talked quietly to the Pokemon, "I want you to stay back just in case I get into trouble, if you see something go down I want you to use your confuse ray on anything that moves. Don't go too hard on it though, the last thing we want is one of the Pokemon to kill themselves while they're in a daze."
"Crow," the flying Pokemon gave in understanding.
"Let's get this over with, should be a quick and easy job," the human said while approaching his target, his companion staying a couple of meters behind at all times.
At the cave, he saw a small fire burning lightly with two stretched out shadows protruding from it. He took his weapon off of safety with a 'click' as he got closer, keeping the sights aimed in front at all times.
In just a few fluid moments he saw three living creatures sleeping and launched a dart straight into their necks, ensuring that they wouldn't wake up anytime soon.
"Almost too easy," he whispered to himself, wondering why command would give such a seemingly idiot-proof job to him.
"Coming in command this is Atlas, the task has been completed without error, one young adult male, one male Scorbunny, and one female Plusle have been neutralized, awaiting further instructions."
"Epsilon here, you are a negative for wrap up, your objective requires at least one additional Minun for retrieval. Over."
Before he could even think about this statement, the operator heard a leaf crunch far behind him and immediately placed his crosshair on the source of the sound. A Minun had just walked in on him, no doubt the other he had to knock out. This one, however, proved to at least put up some resistance unlike the others as he turned and started running in the opposite direction on seeing him. He fired a dart from his weapon, which barely grazed the creature's leg and just cut the limb instead of implanting itself. This worked to his advantage as the Pokemon stumbled, allowing him to hit the Minun straight in the neck with a second tranquilizer.
He had to admit, a small part of himself felt bad for the small being, as he watched it struggle to flee under the noxious effects of his projectile before collapsing fully onto the ground. Despite this, he knew a job was a job and he had bills to pay and a family to feed.
"Atlas calling in again, add one male Minun to the list of neutralized targets. Over."
"Roger that, if no other targets present themselves you are free to bring them back to command. The higher-ups say they only need the Pokemon, whatever happens with the human is solely up to you. Over."
He knew what that meant and swallowed from the idea, even though it had been phrased as a choice, there was only one right solution to this problem and he hated it. Then again he was more than aware of what happens to those who break protocol.
The agent pulled a small silenced pistol from his belt and enter the cave aiming it at the heart of the unconscious human and with pulled back the trigger, closing his eyes as the gun let out a sharp "click."
He had forgotten to change the fire select. Of course, he did. This only made it harder for him to carry out the deed as when he finally readied the gun to fire he found his hands were trembling, something he thought he had gotten rid of a long time ago.
"Maybe… maybe this one can live," he thought to himself, realizing the lose-lose he found himself in. "No, if command found out, I'd be reprimanded back to a recruit if I'm lucky, and if I'm not…" he let out a huge gulp, his throat tightening as this issue only grew more complex in his head. "It's not like this is the first time, one or a hundred murders, it's all the same." He had finally brought himself to a conclusion although one he did not like, he aimed the pistol, his hands shaking heavily and pulled the trigger once again, this time the gun giving off a "tick" noise instead. He refused to look at what he had done. Instead, he picked up the bodies of the three Pokemon, placed them into cages in the back of his car and drove off, hoping he would never have to think about that decision ever again.
…
[Flashback]
Max was sitting ideally on a tree stump as a cold breeze made him shiver, but this failed to bother him as his mind was currently being occupied by his own thoughts. Only being partially distracted by Rose who was pacing in front of him.
"Come on Max, we can't just stay in this forest forever, winter is coming and we have to find somewhere to stay."
His focus elsewhere, he didn't give the Plusle the slightest bit of acknowledgment and instead kept his head pointed down towards the dirt. He honestly wouldn't mind sitting here until he froze to death.
"There's a human town not too far from here. I heard they're a lot safer for Pokemon then they once were, I'm sure we could find someplace to keep warm for at least a few days."
Max had heard the same thing from a few of the Pokemon that had passed by them, albeit only in passing. Apparently, the humans had a war, whatever that was, lead by a very far away place called Unova. The people there won and enforced a new law that affected everyone: Pokemon could no longer be forcibly captured. In fact, even the owning of Pokeballs was now illegal. Now Pokemon everywhere could freely leave their dens and colonies and find a new life besides humans without needing to fear being caught and subjugated. Of course, this doesn't stop Pokemon that choose to live with humans, and in fact, many still enjoy fighting beside and learning with the creatures. This did scare him in a way he knew it shouldn't, his parents had always warned him never to stray near a trainer, and now the world had changed so much.
The fact he had thought about his parents made him from a fist with his paw as he started to tear up.
"Aw, don't cry Max, we don't have to go anywhere until you're ready. I know humans can be pretty scary, it's not like anyone is going to force you to talk with one. I- er we both know that it's going to start snowing soon and the temperature will begin to drop fast and neither of us wants to be out here when that happens."
This is a speech Max had heard a million times before or at least a variant of it, and just as always, it failed to help him cheer up at all.
…
The first thing that Max felt when he woke up was the sensation of needing to throw up. He tried to stand up but hit his head on something metallic, adding a headache to his list of problems. He then tried raising himself on all fours, this time achieving it unobstructed. The Minun appeared to be in a metal cage of some sort that was only a little bit larger than he was. Through a set of tightly grouped metal bars in front, he could see a brightly lit white tiled wall with a counter pushed against it. On the table, the surface was various objects that all looked very technical in nature.
Max tried pushing lightly against the metal bars and, unsurprisingly, they didn't budge even slightly.
"Rose…?" He let out lightly in a hopeless tone, pleading that he wasn't alone in this strange place.
"Max? Max!" A familiar voice shouted excitedly from his left.
His mood immediately shot through the roof knowing that he wasn't alone. "Rose is that you? Where are we?"
"Yes Max it's me and I don't have even the slightest clue," her voice started to change to a tone of slight worry, "I've tried attacking this cage and all it does is reflect the moves right back at me. I don't think there's any way to leave…"
This, to say the least, disheartened the Minun. The obvious explanation to his current situation was that he had been captured by humans, but that answer came with its own slew of problems. It seemed that in his current position he had nothing to do but wait and hope a solution presents itself, it's not like he has the ability to phase through metal or anything.
Somewhere between a few minutes and a few hours past by before anything had happened but, of course, this wasn't going to be the case for much longer.
"Tee-hee," Max heard come from seemingly nowhere, altering him and causing his head to dart around to find the source of the sound.
"It looks like I'm a bit late, but late is better than never!" The voice continued in a whimsical feminine tone. "Time traveling and dimension-hopping is hard work don't you know! I guess now would be as good a time as any to introduce myself though."
Suddenly a floating green figure materialized itself behind the bars of his cage, its giant blue eyes staring straight at him. In fear, Max shot to the back of his cage, pressing his body as far away from the thing as he could.
"You know it's not nice to call someone an 'it' or a 'thing.' Most Pokemon have names you know."
The nonchalance of the creature eased Max slightly, but he still didn't want to get anywhere near the strange Pokemon.
"I know this isn't the most ideal way to meet but you could at least give me a chance before depicting me as a monster in your head."
It only just now crossed his mind that the green being was ready his thoughts which only furthered his uneasiness.
"I guess I should apologize, I can see how one could get scared by a stranger appearing out of thin air. I'll make it up to you by telling you my name, I'm Celebi and I get that your name is Max?"
The Minun opened his mouth a little, trying to force some speech out but found himself at a complete loss for words.
The green Pokemon slowly floated away from the bars of his cage and flew rapidly around the room he was in, staring at everything with a childlike curiosity.
"Man, you really got yourself into a predicament here, that will make things a lot harder for me but I think I can help you solve all this."
Max finally managed to find something to say, "P- please… who are you?"
"Ah still confused I see, I guess that's understandable. As I said, I'm Celebi, time-traveling extraordinaire."
Max just blinked at her, this didn't help him understand what was going on at all.
"Apparently, at least according to the legendaries, there's something unusual happening in your reality and it's revolving around you. So I came as fast as I could to figure it out but I guess that wasn't fast enough," she gave out a bit of sorrow with this last statement. "I guess I wasn't entirely too late as I did get to mostly fix your little mistake in the Unknown Temple. You should really know better than to wander into strange places. I also protected you during your little fall, I do wonder how you've managed to survive this long."
Max didn't know who this Pokemon was or why she was talking down to him, but at least she didn't appear to be an immediate threat.
"Can you… help me- er… us out of here," he managed to ask, making his only current desire clear.
"Hmm, I really shouldn't be interacting with anything in your reality, you know the Butterfree effect and all that. Just communicating with you is going to be a big enough headache to resolve, but the situation really is dire enough to allow it."
Rose spoke up from beside him, sounding somewhat worried, "Max who are you talking too, are you feeling alright?"
Celebi immediately spoke up, somewhat embarrassed, "oh I should have mentioned, you're the only one that sees me. Like I mentioned, anyone or anything I interact with causes ripples in time, something I'll have to personally stop so they don't get out of hand and collapse your entire universe. It's a pain to resolve so I hope you understand why I'd want to avoid detection."
"Yeah Rose, I'm fine… my head just feels a little fuzzy," he replied, hoping this Pokemon wasn't a hallucination and that he wasn't starting to lose it.
"I can assure you I'm as real as it gets, here I'll even prove," the Pokemon said with an air of defense in her speech. She then vanished into thin air before appearing inside the cage with Max a moment later. This, understandably, frightened the shit out of the Minun who jumped up and slammed his head into the metal roof.
"Geez, calm down I'm not going to harm you, in fact, quite the opposite. The fairy-like Pokemon then stretched out one of her fingers and flicked his nose with it, causing a slight pain and proving her permeance."
"OK, your real I guess…" Max said while protecting his snout with one paw. "But what do you want with me?"
The green Pokemon flickered to outside the cage and started hovering in place. "You really don't catch on too fast, do you? I'll be honest I'm not too sure what your importance is yet, I just know that you're vital to something."
Max just stared blankly at the Pokemon once again, still not following where she's heading with this.
"Anyways I highly doubt you're going to be much use locked up in a place like this, so I came to help in between my investigation. I can teleport you straight out of here and to somewhere safe and far away if you'd like."
Max thought this over for a second but immediately reached an obstacle with this proposition, "can you teleport her to," the Minun asked while pointing to his left.
"This is exactly what I was afraid of. I'm sorry but I can't do that, teleporting you, and trust me you're a special exception on your own, will already cause a whole slew of problems. Attempting to manipulate someone other than you in this timeline could have disastrous effects."
"So then what…" Max asked, not really how this Pokemon could assist him and Rose if she can't actually do anything to anyone but him.
"I could at least teleport you outside of this cage, but if I do that it would be a while before I could safely do it again. Still, it would be better than you staying in there, waiting for whatever you're in that cage for."
"I guess you're right, go ahead."
"There we go, now we're getting somewhere. This may hurt a little… or a lot, it's been a long time since I've teleported anyone else."
"Wait what-" he tried to get out but was cut off by a purple glow forming around him, slowly heating up his body and becoming thicker and thicker before he could no longer see through it. The next thing he knew he was on the cold metal floor a few feet in front of the table his cage had been on.
"Looks like I still got it even after all these eons. Anyways, I gotta go figure this whole mess out, try not to get yourself killed in the meantime, Ciao."
With that, before Max could even get a word in edgewise, she had vanished into thin air, leaving the small mouse to his own devices in the small room.
"How- How did you get out," Rose utters, her head barely visible from his lower point of view. "I guess it doesn't really matter just help me get out of here too."
Max nodded his head, although he had no idea how he would go about accomplishing the task.
"Try looking on the counter behind you," the Plusle instructed, "there are some important-looking things on it."
Not having any reason to disobey, the Minun hopped up onto the table, looking around at the papers and clipboards laid all over. One thing did catch his eye, a large remote with a few huge buttons.
Max tried pressing the smallest and topmost one, a green light lit up on the side of the device and he could feel electricity start surging through it. He then pushed in the center most button and he heard a click come from one of the cages, shortly followed by the opening of its bars. Having found the solution to his problem, he activated the final switch which unlocked Rose's cell.
The Plusle quickly hopped out and onto the floor, stretching her body and looking towards Max. "Thanks," she replied in a calm tone, "but now how do we get out of here?"
They both looked around, the room they were in had no windows and only a single closed sliding door out. Rose, however, was quick to notice a ventilation shaft opening in one of the corners of the room.
Max watched as Rose walked up to and first attempted to pry the metal grate off of it but to say this was futile would be an understatement. She then tried shocking the obstacle but as the lightning bolt connected with the alloy, it reflected back and fried the Plusle causing her to stagger back a few steps before regaining her witts.
"Are you ok," Max asked quietly.
"Yeah, but whatever this is made of mist be the same thing the cage was constructed out of and can reflect the electricity straight back. Anyways, I don't think we're getting through here."
"Then I guess the only other way is the door but there's no way we could get that…"
"I mean we can at least try, the door seems to be powered by electricity, so maybe there's a way we can use that to open it."
"But the door looks like it's made of the same exact white metal, we can't really do anything to it."
"That may be true but…" Rose looked around a bit before perking up and pointing towards a black rectangular device on the wall next to their escape. "Look at that, it must control the opening of the barrier in some way, and it's not made out of the electro-proof stuff."
"So what are you thinking," the Minun asked.
"Here, let me show you," she said before proceeding to launch a second thunderbolt from her body, the shock being concentrated where the keypad was.
The device began smoking for a few seconds before giving a sharp electronic beep and shutting off. Right after this, the door slid open, revealing a white hallway, colored just the same as the room they were in.
"Well, I guess that worked better than I thought it would," Rose said while taking a proud stance. "So let's get out of here, not like we have much reason to stick around," she communicated while already starting to leave the room.
Max followed closely behind, entering into a massive hallway with dozens of rooms on each side and bright fluorescent lights shining above them.
They weren't allowed to analyze the space for long because soon after a hatch slid open above them and out flew two small metallic drones that hovered at eye level in front of them. One had a long tube attached to the bottom which was pointed straight at Max while the other had what looked like a camera, fired a laser that traced the outline of his body.
Max didn't budge from this, largely out of fear while Rose took a few steps back and started to crackle the electricity in her cheeks.
"Stop, stop," a deep voice with a thick Russian accent played from behind the duo. The drones appeared to respond to this and flew up and towards the scientist which had given the command. The man who had spoken was tall and burly, wielding a bright orange beard from his chin and a bald head. "Aren't you two an escape artists," he said with irregular breaks in between words, seemingly struggling to make English sounds. "Do not worry, there is no trouble for you two here," the man recited while sounding oddly cheerful. "We were just about to begin introductions with you, come follow."
Both of the Pokemon looked at each other, unsure of what to make of this man. Neither really saw much reason to make an enemy out of him so they both did as he asked and walked behind him.
"I will be running a few tests on you in a short time but do not worry my friends, it will not be anything painful, should be short than you are on your way. Also, you can call Nikolov. Why not introduce yourself now, short on the tongue," the man asked before giving out a hearty belly laugh at the supposed joke.
It was obvious to Max what the joke was towards, Poking fun at how most humans can't intrinsically understand Pokemon. Only through spending a long time with a Pokemon and 'bonding' with them or the help of psychic powers, could a human be able to comprehend any individual Pokemon's words. So to him, they were essentially mute.
While following behind the human they passed through several sets of doors and turned at several intersections in the halls, this place was a labyrinth.
"Here we are," Nikolov said while pulling a key card out of his lab coat and sliding it through a scanner next to a wide door. "I'm sad that I will be leaving you here but we will surely meet again friends." The scientist then motioned for the pair to enter the room, which they did only to have the door behind them instantly slide shut.
The room was narrow but long, with the walls painted a dark blue instead of the traditional white and a large chunk of the right wall was made of a heavily tinted glass. Before Max could inspect anymore he found himself being picked up by someone and attempted to struggle which proved to be futile.
A masculine voice above him spoke, "just play along and we won't hurt you."
Max didn't know how to take this but didn't really want to worsen his situation by angering his captor.
"Ow, Arceus damn it this one shocked me," a different voice said beside Max. The Minun turned his head to see Rose as she dropped to the floor and immediately jumped up to her feet while the human behind her flailed his arm around in pain.
"Permission to neutralize the angry one," said someone from across the room.
"Permission granted, we only need one right now," a voice coming from a much younger sounding man sitting in a chair in the center of the space replied.
The guard on the other end raised a large tool he was carrying and launched a dart from it, impacting Rose in the neck who tried to pull it out before collapsing onto the ground.
Needless to say, this only panicked Max more who started up his struggle once again from the arms of his captor.
"Calm down, your pal here isn't hurt just unconscious, now do as we ask to make sure it stays that way," said the sitting man.
And, once again Max had found himself unwillingly relaxing, trying to keep his cool as the human holding him placed him on a chair across a table in the center of the room.
Rose's limp body was placed next to him on the human-sized chair he was placed on which strangely helped to calm him down.
"Alright, now that everyone here is where they need be, I'm going to ask you a series of questions, nothing too personal, and nothing you should have any problem answering truthfully. My friend here will allow me to understand you, and also tell if your lying or not."
Max looked to the side of the table at an Espeon sitting idly.
"Firstly, what are the names of you and your friend here."
Max didn't want to tell these people anything, he was already getting all sorts of bad vibes from them and this place, but they were expecting a response and he would need to give one.
"Uh… Max and Rose," he answered hesitantly.
The human proceeded to write a suspiciously large amount down onto a clipboard. "Now tell me, what are you doing on this island?"
"We… um- got shipwrecked and landed here. I've been here for at least a few days."
"Good, Good," the man said as he continued to write. "Here's another one, where did you get this from," he inquired while placing a small circular object on the table and sliding it towards the Minun.
The object turned out to be the Pokemon sized compass, something he hadn't even noticed the disappearance of. Max was unsure of if to tell them of the temple or not as he still wasn't quite sure if it was even real or not. "I- I- found it in a long clearing, I tripped on it and that's how I saw it."
Once again the man began writing but this time took an abrupt break to talk, "my friend here tells me your telling the truth which is good, but that you're leaving out a few important details. She's got it covered this time, but try to be a bit more descriptive next time. Now I want you to keep that and wear it like you've been doing, don't be shy, put it on."
Max did as he asked, although confused and feeling more than his fair share of fear, and places the object back around his neck.
"Now can you recall back for me when you were intruding on our property. There was a small period before you entered it where we picked up something odd coming straight from your location, did anything odd occur to you during this rough time period?"
"Right before entering the lab… That was when the quake started and I fell down the sinkhole, I should have died or at least taken a beating but came out mostly fine…"
Max was about to try to explain this when he was stopped.
"Thank you, We've all heard enough now."
"The Espeon must have been reading my thoughts, I guess that's alright this time but it really isn't that nice to know someone can tell what you're going to say before you say it."
"Now would you mind taking up a temporary residence here until we finish getting to the bottom of this enigma you've created?"
"Uh-"
"Great, don't worry once we're all done you'll be allowed to leave. As for now, I'm sure you won't mind being voluntarily sedated?"
"Wha- N-"
"Good to hear you being so willing to work with us. Now I'll just remind you that while you're here you automatically void any rights you have to your body and consent to any projects or research we will place you through."
Max finally realized that these people wanted to do something horrible to him and tried to get up and run away but found a needle entering his side sharply before he could even leave the chair. Night quickly overtook and he passed out before even being able to react.
"Goodnight, we'll be seeing you in the morning and hopefully you enjoy your stay here…"
Author's note: The longest chapter yet, and quite a bit happened in it. Max and Rose seem to have fallen into something far greater than they realize and Jae's whereabouts along with all of the rest of the crew are unknown. Wanna know what happens next? Well then stick around for the next chapter!