Chapter 37: Sir's Endgame
The first thing I noticed when stepping out from the relative safety of the pokemon center to Mulctuary Street in warfare mode was just how thick the air was with smoke being cast off from the many fires that were breaking out from every direction. Because it was not just Mulctuary Street under siege, but everywhere around Naporia City was currently under attack by what I was sure was the entire membership of Team Anonymous, however many members that may be. But that was not our problem. Our problem was simply getting past this guy's Krookodile and this girl's Mega Pidgeot that were devastating Mulctuary Street so that Eliza and I could just fly directly out of the city via Tropius and return to Ilragorn's mainland by air. That was on the top of my list of priorities and nothing else mattered.
Eliza's coughing from inhaling the smoke gave away our position almost immediately upon exiting the building, instantly drawing the attention of both the airborne girl and the grounded guy, who both seemed very confident in their battlies abilities based on easily they dispatched of the cops moments earlier.
"For a second, I thought that was Evan," the guy called out to his female companion in what was clearly supposed to be some sort of inside joke between the two, making them both laugh. Evan? My brother, Evan? That can't be a coincidence, we look too much alike. These two fuckers knew Evan? How could they? Was he okay?
"Then I'd actually be concerned," the girl replied with a smirk. "Although that Golem standing behind the two has me a little nervous for my mon's sake, Ace. If you could take care of that, that'd be great."
"Sure thing, Brit. Anything for you, babe. Krook? Get on with it, kill them all."
"Golem, fight for your life! We're not going down without giving everything!" encouraged Eliza in anger as she became outraged by witnessing just how easily these people issued orders to murder. Golem reared his head toward the Krookodile that was getting ready to assault the entire pokemon center and its parking lot with one powerful Earthquake.
The Evan comment was still ringing in the back of my head, but I had no time to process, only to act back against the Anonymous agents or risk getting me, Eliza, our pokemon, and everyone crouching in fear inside the pokemon center killed. I wrenched a pokeball from my belt free and from the ping and burst of red energy, Passimian emerged, instantly bouncing back and forth from one side of the street to the next like a ping pong ball going haywire, hopping along several upturned cars and chunks of fallen debris all the while.
Passimian had recognized the immediate threat that was Krookodile and before anyone had even had time to fire off an attack, Passimian had already launched his own U-turn, bouncing off the Krookodile's head with his feet using the bug move, causing Krookodile to stumble several feet and almost lose his footing, but he did not fall.
"Damn, nice one, Passimian," I complimented, genuinely impressed at his speed.
"Krook, redirect all your focus on the monkey," the boy ordered his mon with annoyance over this not going as smoothly as planned. Krook relented on trying to conjure up a powerful enough Earthquake to level the pokemon center and the two brave trainers defending it (Eliza and myself), and instead shifted attention to the Passimian that instead of U-turning back into his pokeball so another mon could come out like normal, Passimian was just U-turning all over the street and sidewalk, constantly moving to keep himself from being an easy target to Krook's Earthquakes.
"Hermes!" the girl grabbed her M-Pidgeot's attention using its nickname. "Help Krook down there, fire off a Heat Wave on the two dipshits!" M-Pidgeot's eyes locked on Eliza and mine as it dived downward to be closer to all the action, raising its massively outstretched wings. When the wings were brought down, a great rush of raw red flames burst forth from the feathers, and a Heat Wave that would not miss was fired at Eliza and me.
A heavy weight from behind shoved me aside and I nearly fell over as Golem rolled his way between me and Eliza, planted his feet sturdily into the ground, and looked at the incoming Heat Wave with a smirk on its flat face that was pretty comforting to see.
"Rock Blast through it!" Eliza ordered Golem, who spat out 5 chunks of rock that went shooting into the Heat Wave. The first and second rocks together overcame the Heat Wave attack and the flames had faded before they got close to its intended target. The third, fourth, and fifth rocks all had the bonus of coming from behind the Heat Wave attack so both M-Pidgeot and the girl called Brit didn't see any of the rocks coming. One of the rocks successfully snapped the right wing of M-Pidgeot, breaking it, and causing the M-Pidgeot to steer like a wet paper airplane for a few seconds hopelessly through the air in an attempt to land safely on a rooftop. But the damage from Golem's Rock Blasts was too severe and M-Pidgeot ended up crashing right into a glass window pane of the fourth floor of an office building several shops down from the center. The crash and broken glass severely injured Brit's ankles, ensuring she would never walk again and ending her career in Team Anonymous while M-Pidgeot was just knocked out and heavily in need of medical care soon from the amount of blood lost.
"Krook, Dragon Claw that stupid monkey, get some damage!" the boy, Ace I believe he was called, snapped irritably. Krookodile was a bulky pokemon who carried a lot of weight on him, but he was able to move pretty fast himself when he wanted, and he was swinging some powerful Dragon Claws at Passimian as if he were an incessant Cutiefly buzzing around a restaurant that needed to be swatted. Passimian was U-turning and bouncing up, down, left, right, diagonal, and backwards in some of the most beautiful dodges I'd ever seen him perform.
"Close Combat," I said, realizing this was the first time I'd ever be having Passimian use this move - one of the most powerful of all the fighting type moves, and wondered if he could handle it. Tropius has mastered Leaf Storm, Drapion had learned some nifty tricks like Toxic Spikes and Earthquake coverage, and Lapras had the rare Freeze Dry to surprise nuke water types that thought they could wall. It's about time I push Passimian to perform at his absolute best, and that meant he'd need to be able to throw out Close Combats comfortably.
It worked like a charm, too easily. In a flurry of fists with speed and velocity that I'd never witnessed him dish out before, Passimian unleashed an onslaught of powerful jabs and punches right into Krookodile's white stomach in seconds right after dodging under a Dragon Claw. The final punch from Passimian sent Krookodile's unconscious body flying right into Ace and then a mailbox, with Ace sandwiched in between the two. The impact of Ace's head smashing into the steel mailbox would cause him brain damage and in a little over two weeks, with his IQ matching that of a toddler, his Anonymous career would be over.
"Holy shit, we did it," Eliza said in a stunned voice, out of breath. Golem rolled and Passimian hopped back to the group and the four of us rejoiced in our victory protecting Mulctuary Street from these Anonymous goons, however brief.
"I know. But that was just two of them. There could be hundreds more in this city for all we know. Let's keep going." An idea to save time occured to me, and I released Tropius from his ball to join us. Tropius was giddily flapping in mid-air, his green leaves and cheerful disposition standing out amongst all the chaos and horror and burning buildings around us.
"Oh, we're going to fly out from here? Smart." Eliza picked up on it, recalling her Golem to his pokeball while I recalled Passimian.
"Tropius, fly me and Eliza straight off of the Isle of Naporia that way-" I pointed in the direction north, back toward Ilragorn's mainland. "It'll take you a while to fly over the ocean route back but if you need to take a break, we can alternate with Lapras surfing us out while you rest. Got it?"
Tropius nodded, then lowered his neck to the floor so that me and Eliza could board upon his back, me in the front with her holding onto my hips. Tropius remained on the ground, however, even after several long moments of me and Eliza just awkwardly straddling my pokemon and waiting for him to start flying.
"Uh, Tropius, what the fuck, man? What are you doing?" I couldn't help blurting out in frustration, the intensity of the situation making my nerves on edge and so any time wasted would naturally make me overreact.
Tropius made a pathetic little whimper as his body trembled significantly underneath me, and Eliza spoke what I was thinking just as it came to me.
"He's not strong enough to carry us both."
"Damn it, Tropius!" I snapped, immediately regretting it after seeing the hurt look on his face over him being too weak to fly the three of us out. "I'm sorry. That's not right. We'll be fine. We'll keep you in the back for later, okay?" Tropius nodded in understanding sadly as I recalled him to his pokeball, keeping all the swears I wanted to shout to the sky locked firmly in my head.
"So what do we do now?" Eliza wondered, anxiety returning to her voice.
"We got to just walk out of the city the old fashioned way. We'll do our best to evade any Anonymous members but if any get in our way, we fight to kill. Agreed?" I said sternly, remembering her saying she didn't like the competitive nature of battling. But if ever there was a fucking time that I needed Eliza to be competitive about fighting, it was now.
She slowly nodded, her eyes avoiding meeting mine. Not good enough.
"Agreed!?" I repeated, louder, almost spitting on her face accidentally.
"Agreed!" Eliza answered, her eyes looking right into mine, mad at me for making her do this. I hated to be a dick right now, but we both needed it and she would thank me later.
I released Passimian from his pokeball again, and he gave a cocky smirk that I knew said 'oh, now you need me?' as he settled on the ground in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for me to give him new orders after just recalling him.
"Passimian, we're going to have to escape the city on foot. So you scout up ahead the whole time, use your stealth, and double back if you spot Anonymous members so we can change direction."
Passimian bounded his way north, hopped on top of a bent STOP sign, ricocheted off of a broken traffic light, then bounded his way from rooftop to rooftop of the buildings of Mulctuary Street until he reached the end of the block and zipped on right. Eliza and I were running along the sidewalk half a block behind him, dancing around broken glass and limp bodies, racing to keep up and move quickly, neither of us wasting energy on chit chat and focusing only on sprinting.
While Adam and Eliza were tussling with Ace and Brit in front of a pokemon center over on Mulctuary Street in the southern region of Naporia City, bigger fish had been frying over on the north side for hours.
The leader of Team Anonymous had allowed himself to get his hands dirty to properly invade Naporia, but it all started with Evan successfully eliminating the threat of the Elite 3 in Fuji Jungle. As soon as Mr. Mime had fired off the signal of 3 Dazzling Gleams into the night air, Sir knew to proceed with the invasion as planned. He had been watching and waiting from high above the ocean waters about a mile off Naporia's shores, riding atop his longtime partner Dragonite, just drifting amongst the gray clouds restlessly until the pink fireworks above the jungle went off.
Sir had then proceeded forward to take over Naporia City with his entire squadron of Anonymous members at his heels, all of them in their standard black garb riding atop their own pokemon from behind him either coming from the ocean or from the gray clouds above. There were agents riding atop Dewgongs and Dragalges and Milotics who were weaving through the rough ocean currents with several Anonymous agents holding for dear life onto their backs. There were fliers like Togekiss, Mega Pidgeot, Mega Altaria, and a few Gyarados' transporting many more Anonymous agents via the air, but one thing was for certain - the full force of Team Anonymous was coming down upon the Isle of Naporia that night, and many lives would be destroyed in the coming fallout for years to come. Sir would see to that.
Sir's first order of business to his lackies was to infiltrate and destroy all of the Naporia Police Stations and Fire Departments scattered across the city in order to cut off the civilians from any help. That assignment alone took up most of his agents and their resources. He had to ensure that the police were far too occupied tending to the massive distraction of Anonymous agents terrorizing them to be any threat to Sir's ultimate goal. This was the moment when years of planning and thinking and doubting finally would pay off, and Sir had to be sure there was nothing stopping him.
Sir's second order of business after sending out most of his members to distract the police force was to trap everyone inside the city so that maximum damage could be inflicted with no room for error by any wannabe heroes trying to flee the Isle of Naporia so they could get back to the Ilragorn mainland and warn the authorities over there. Sir had complete confidence that his Anonymous members could hold their own and best the police force of the Isle of Naporia. The police force of all of Ilragorn, however, was a different story. In order to ensure no one could escape the city, Sir released two pokemon from his own unusual black pokeballs latched to his belt. From them, two very different pokemon emerged.
The first was the muscular bug/fighting type Buzzwole, an ultra beast much like Nihilego that shared not only its dangerous ability, but also its deadly attacking prowess. While Nihilego was more dangerous due to its speed and special attack, Buzzwole was a physically bulky behemoth with a lot of health that could eat up a lot of hits before being brought down. The second one released was a regular psychic pokemon, albeit not a very common one. It was female, wearing a long black gown that went down past her feet, with white bows acting as buttons lining down the front of her dress. The purple face bore no emotion on Gothitelle's blank, heavy-lidded eyes, but she floated in the air using her psychic energy making her look very surreal and mystical.
"Gothitelle, use your Shadow Tag ability throughout the entire city of Naporia - really focus here, we can't have any holes in the wall. I need you to block off the city limits - don't allow anyone, man or pokemon, to get in or out of the city as long as you're concentrating. I know you got this." Sir turned from his levitating Gothitelle to the much more physically intimidating Buzzwole. "And you, Buzzwole. Defend Gothitelle with your life. She's one of the most powerful psychic pokemon on this entire island and I know she has the power to keep everyone trapped in Naporia, but with that comes her guard being forced to be let down. And that's where you come in. Any pokemon or person tries to get close to her, you fucking kill them. Understood? I don't want any loose ends getting out of the city tonight."
Buzzwole and Gothitelle nodded obediently to their master before both of them took off through the air as they glided upward toward some of the highest skyscrapers in the city so that Gothitelle could have a wide range to throw out her ability and psychic energy to encapsulate everyone within the city.
"Sir?" one of the Anonymous lieutenants broke Sir out of his thoughts as he watched his two pokemon scale the St. Meloetta's Holy Church to set up on the roof beside the massive bell. Sir turned his attention to one of his most tenured members, and a longtime loyal servant to Sir.
"Yes, Riley?" Sir replied, looking over his previous attempt at grooming a protege that had lacked the chops that Evan had to fill that post. Lt. Riley was a few years older than Evan and had been an Anonymous member for much longer, but he was quite a ways below him in the food chain.
"Will you be wanting backup for wherever it is you're heading off to, Sir?" Lt. Riley asked. "Or should I partake in destroying the city with the others?"
"Go have some fun tearing apart some buildings and sending a message that Anonymous is not to be fucked with. I can take care of myself, Lt." While Sir's reasoning for invading the city that he gave all of his members about building up Anonymous' reputation was total malarkey, Sir didn't trust any of his members with the truth just yet. Only Evan and himself needed to be aware of that.
With Sir left alone to his own devices at the northern border of the city where it was fairly isolated but with a good view of most of the city, he watched and waited as slowly, the screams and smoke started. A fire would be blooming far off in the distance one minute, ignited by a Magmortar's Fire Blast blowing up an unlucky taxi cab, and then a complete separate one would sprout up just a few blocks to the east started by a Rapidash's Flame Wheel over a recycling bin in a back alley. Car alarms were one of the first things to go off as angry Rhyperior's were firing off Earthquakes into the grounds, but soon the blaring cars themselves were being hurled through the air like bean bags before crashing back down into earth with a terribly loud smash by a moody Conkeldurr. Most of the cars had people in them.
Satisfied with the amount of chaos his team was delivering upon the city, Sir whispered directions into his Dragonite's ear and the two of them zipped high in the air and then Dragonite started flying toward the Naporia Colosseum so hard the wind was whipping painfully at Sir's face. But Sir hardly noticed; he was too caught up in what would be waiting for him at the Colosseum if his calculations were correct to be concerned with a little thing like pain.
The Naporia Colosseum had an open roofed top much like the colosseums of the great past, making it easily accessible to Dragonite to fly directly over the building and then descend straight down into the battlefield of the Colosseum, which had tons of sand to cover over the solid ground. Dragonite landed with precision in the dead center of the battlefield, giving Sir a complete 360 degree view from the center of the Colosseum looking way out into the bleachers and far stands at the highest, furthest spots away. Of course at this hour the stands were barren as the Colosseum was closed to the public until the morning, but Sir was familiar with a certain someone's pattern of always spending the night in the Colosseum before the big day.
"Dragonite, tear that wall down," Sir ordered as he hopped off of his pokemon's back and watched as his dragon mon charged at the wall using his tiny but powerful wings to propel him, and with one mighty swing of a fist - a hole was punched through the solid cement walls separating the battlefield from the resting quarters of the Ilragorn Champion when she wanted to spend the night in the Colosseum before the League began, which was her tradition from what Sir remembered.
The sleeping quarters were small but clean, very humble for that of a champion seeing as the cot in the corner made it clear that the Colosseum was never designed to be used as a vacation spot for island royalty, but Ava had such a care for her craft that she somehow felt sleeping in the Colosseum gave her more of an attachment to the League in some bizarre way. That's what she had always told Sir, back when he didn't go by that name. Speaking of Ava, she was nowhere to be found as the small room she usually slept in every year was unoccupied, leaving Sir momentarily cotton mouthed as he worried if all of this night was for nothing.
"Miles - I should have known," a disappointed voice carried over from the bleachers several meters above Dragonite, where an old, white-haired woman with a slight hunchback and holding a cane to support herself looked down at Sir with disgust.
"Ava, good to see you, too, my dear. It's been a while." Sir replied with a nasty grin over his handsome face. But Ava could see through the perfect teeth and expensive black suit and into the dead eyes that revealed a cold heart.
"When you disappeared into thin air all those years ago I just had hoped you'd simply gotten bored of Ilragorn and run off overnight to start over somewhere fresh - I thought maybe Kanto since you were always talking about it. I can't tell you how many times I prayed to Arceus that you were fine and had just off run off to Alola, hoping you were getting some sun under that tight skin of yours. But in the back of my mind, I always considered that you'd gotten yourself killed by The Family. They were at the top of their game, not many other organizations had ever had the nerve to tussle with The Family. But then Team Anonymous showed up out of nowhere, and all of the top agents in The Family start getting put down one by one, and now The Family is all gone, and there's only Team Anonymous left. Never in a million years would I have thought that you are the reason there's a Team Anonymous in the first place." Ava was thinking out loud, letting out all these thoughts she had considered here and there over the years, but never so in depth and so thoroughly as right now with all the evidence laid out in front of her. "Why would you do it, Miles? All this destruction? All this death? Have you looked outside to see what your animals are doing to my city? To my people? You were destined for so much more than this, Miles."
"I was just one of your pawns in the Elite 4, you call that greater than being the mastermind behind the organization that is going to single-handedly take down this entire island in one fell swoop? I'm going to go down in the history books, Ava. I'm going to be remembered. They're going to know my name for a long, long time. But you? They're already forgetting about you as we speak. You've done nothing but sit by all year as my agents have been robbing Poke Marts of their shipments of the rare chemical we need to create Rage Berries."
"Rage Berries?" Ava questioned.
"My agents have been planting these berries in the wild for uncaught pokemon to eat. It causes some kind of severe brain damage and creates a very aggressive, very territorial nature in any pokemon that eats it. The pokemon is then immune to being caught, pokeballs simply bounce off of it as it is untameable and the pokeballs technology recognizes that as such. This forces people that encounter our infected test subjects to engage in a battle to the death most of the times. Many times to the trainer who is caught off guard."
"That's shameful," Ava covered her mouth in horror and shook her head at the former member of her Elite 4 so many years ago. He truly had become the monster that created Team Anonymous. "You're using your talents in the worst possible way. Do you have any idea how much you could change if you used your brilliance constructively rather than destructively?"
"Oh, I intend to change plenty. It all starts tonight. With us." Sir said in a false friendly voice.
"Oh, does it?" Ava asked in that same overly-cheerful, phony tone.
"Oh, yes," responded Sir eagerly, rubbing his palms and nearly frothing at the mouth. "But we're going to have to have a little battle first, Ava."
"About time."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
At last, I am approaching the end. It feels really good, but also a little scary to know this story I've put so much time and so much of my life into is almost over, and now I'm going to have to find a new outlet to focus my time and energy. I hope for whatever flaws my story has, for however many characters you liked that I killed off too soon, or for how cruel I made circumstances for some of the protagonists at times - I hope in the end, you were able to see through all that to see the bigger story I was trying to tell here about having your world shaken up and just learning to figure it all out as you go, even when all your plans go to shit. For example, I just found out I have a little over a month to move, and I think of this story for a little bit of inspiration. Like, if I can write about a guy for 3 years in a 150,000 word epic who gets swept up in pokemon battling when he had no interest in it from the start, absolutely I can manage to find a new apartment and roommate within the month, easy peasy. If Adam can gather the nerve to tussle with the alpha dogs of Team Anonymous, I can gather the nerve to focus on what I need to do and find a new place to live, fast.
I'm trying to put a lot of action and intelligent plays in the final battles involving Sir, Ava, Evan, and Adam so forgive me if Ch 38 takes a while, that will be another massive turning point in the tale but definitely ups the stakes even more.