Chapter 38: Warzone
Lt. Riley was doing as he was ordered, just as he had for the five long years he had dedicated himself under Sir's tutelage. Despite the fact he had awarded the newcomer Evan as his right-hand man over Riley, who's been loyal forever. But Riley swept that from his mind and focused back on his orders. He was causing havoc. Rather than rolling with the Anonymous underlings that were wrecking the police stations in the north side or the stragglers tearing apart random streets all throughout Naporia, Lt. Riley had found it more his liking to roam around the outer edges of the city, hoping to attack any of the citizens that had gotten so close to tasting that taste of freedom from the invasion by running to the coast, wanting to steal their moment of joy from them and to see the look of horror and realization on their faces when they realized they weren't getting out of the city alive.
Not only would the citizens be stopped by the massive invisible psychic force field created by Gothitelle who was casting it off from the very top of the St. Meloetta's Holy Church that arched like an umbrella around the entirety of the city, but they would also have the unstable Lt. Riley and his pokemon to contend with.
At this point late in the night, Lt. Riley had already done some severe damage to both the city and its people. His reliable longtime partner Muk had engulfed a young trainer's plump Vullaby that had been trying to protect the crying trainer and her screaming parents that had been attempting to flee down the boardwalk that led out to the docks where rental boats were tied down. Needless to say, Muk's appetite was not sated with just the tiny pokemon.
Lt. Riley's Salazzle, cunning as she was quick, had used her Flamethrowers to burn down a children's park behind a small, adorable grade school. Salazzle had then lit up the school, the cars in the parking lot, the whole front yawn including the neatly-trimmed bushes and trees, and the liquor store next door. Nothing had escaped the path of the hellfire unleashed by Salazzle.
There were times where whole crowds of people would be rushing from around a corner, all of them coming from the same party, the same building, it didn't matter, they were scared and they were running together in a blind panic toward the way out of the city. But Lt. Riley told Salazzle to make sure that didn't happen while the two of them watched from rooftops, and Salazzle let out an Overheat upon the crowd just as they got near the very end of the street where they would have crashed straight into Gothitelle's invisible wall anyway. They always went down screaming, fully engulfed in flames, but soon they were just piles of ash littered over the streets and sidewalks near the cities borders.
"I love my job," Lt. Riley smiled to himself in genuine glee. He was having the time of his life.
"How many pokemon do you have on you?" Sir asked Ava in the most casual of tones despite the dire circumstances. "I want this to be a fair match, after all. I want the history books to record that I won a fair fight against this old shrew."
"Your charm is completely gone along with your moral compass, I see. Quite sad, Miles. I've sent four of my carry on pokemon out to aid in cleaning up the mess you have going on out there. I've just got the two." Ava gave an impressive leap that defied expectations as she hopped from the bleachers and landed comfortably on both her feet in the sand pit of the battle arena below, instantly planting her cane in the sand beside her and leaning her weight on it once more.
"Lovely. My Buzzwole and Gothitelle are currently on an errand and my idiot brother-in-law lost my precious Nihilego. Of the three I got on me, I swear I shall only use two to decide this match." Sir looked to his Dragonite, mutely presenting it as his first pokemon to fight. Dragonite caught the glance, nodded sternly, then flapped its wings hard to take flight. Dragonite had its eyes locked on Ava but remained dangling several feet in the air, watching and waiting to see what pokemon he would have to tussle with.
Ava reached within the folds of her long purple robe and pulled out an old pokeball that looked extremely used, like it had seen many battles. And from that pokeball she released a tall, beastly pokemon that stood on its hind legs with its long, flat, purple face roaring up at the opposing, inferior dragon type flying above. Dragonite roared back at the Garchomp to show he was not intimidated in the slightest and the hairs on both Ava and Sir's necks rose up as the dragons refused to back down and the pitch in their roars escalated louder and louder.
"Your Garchomp!" Sir laughed as he looked upward at the familiar flat face. "I completely forgot you had that old thing! I love it, love it. Lovely. A battle to see which dragon type comes out on top. Very nice. I like that. And then I'm sure you have your Mega Metagross waiting in the back, don't you, my dear? Your ace in the hole? The only unbeatable pokemon in all of Ilragorn from what I hear. We'll see if that holds true."
"I'm ready to finish this, Miles," Ava told him honorably, in a sad voice as she resigned to the fact that she would have to put him and his pokemon down before he caused even more death outside of the city. She was the only one capable of stopping him, she knew that. No one else in Ilragorn possessed pokemon with the raw strength needed to take down a threat of this magnitude as far as she was aware.
Compared to the screams and sounds of alarms wailing and building collapsing going on all around Naporia City, it was a quiet paradise everywhere else outside of the cities limits in the Isle of Naporia, with most of that area being occupied by Fuji Jungle.
Evan Hunter had remained back in the jungle after expertly bringing down the Elite 3 using the element of surprise and the fact they had been so underprepared, and he had successfully set off the Dazzling Gleams into the night sky to signal his boss that the invasion was clear to go. But his final task of that day was one of the most important of all, even if it was the least flashy one that so few would ever know about. He was still in the patch of open salted land where the Elite 3 had been driven insane, though they were now absent. They had all stumbled away into the treelines, mumbling and drooling, their brains fried and no longer a threat so of no interest to Evan. He was more focused on the suitcase he had brought with him that he had been mulling over.
Inside the Miltank leather suitcase were hundreds of Rage Berries that Sir had supplied him with back at Headquarters what seemed so long ago but was really just several hours. Evan was aware these were berries that permanently infected wild pokemon, with some side effects being their eyes blood vessels are constantly in overdrive so they appear red along with a proclivity to kill for no reason at all. While it was hard spreading the Rage Berries around in enough areas in Ilragorn since pokemon areas were so barren for the most part, this was the first time any Anonymous members would be dropping a batch of Rage Berries in the Isle of Naporia. Fuji Jungle's pokemon were much healthier and more vibrant than the average pokemon on Ilragorn's mainland, so dropping hundreds of Rage Berries all over their floors overnight would be a great way to cause discourse throughout one of the last safe places from Anonymous' touch. And causing heavy amounts of chaos and stress on the island was the last part of their plan.
"Mr. Mime! Dodrio!" Evan released them from their pokeballs, realizing what he needed to do. "Use Psychic to disperse these berries all over the jungle. All over. We want as many pokemon infected overnight as we can muster, so really stretch your brain to get some of them in those hard-to-reach places. Up in the highest branches so the strongest flying types get infected. Deep underground so the toughest ground types get a bite. We want people to understand Team Anonymous isn't playing anymore, and it starts with getting wild mons to eat these Rage Berries. Understood?"
Mr. Mime and Dodrio went right to work, Mr. Mime mentally grabbing handfuls of berries from the open suitcase and sending them out flying like pinballs in every direction into the jungle, Evan was sure with expert aim in specific spots that Mr. Mime had already seen with this precognition psychic skills. Dodrio had to be a little more archaic in his ways of delivering berries, and settled for grabbing a mouthful in its large beak, then flying off to the tops of the tall, spindly, many-leafed trees to spit them out in places only the more adapted pokemon could reach.
Little did even the highly perceptive Evan know that he had been watched the entire time he was there, including his attack on the Elite 3, by an observer high up in one of the trees herself, and something about Evan was so very familiar to her. She remained nestled high up in the branches, quiet as could be, shrouded under the leafage and darkness so that neither Evan or his pokemon could ever notice her.
Eliza and I had remained for the most part lucky in that we hadn't bumped into any other Anonymous agents due to a combination of Passimian's stellar navigation and most of the agents being preoccupied with other things at the moment, probably further up north in the city where most of the nice stuff was.
After a while, the two of us had stopped running as it seemed pointless and more important to conserve energy since we weren't currently being pursued. We settled for ducking low and weaving between the sea of abandoned cars filling up the streets as Passimian would wave us forward from the top of a building as a sign that we could proceed forward safely, or give us the stop motion with his hands to signal that we wait back a while.
There were a few stragglers also dipping and hunching between the sea of cars as they moved about, also hiding from the Anonymous agents and their powerful pokemon. I felt compelled to offer help for just a second, to insist that they join us as we escaped this chaotic city falling apart, but the more we added to the group the more likely our plans would go awry. Right now we just needed to get to the coast so that Lapras could swim us back to Ilragorn's mainland, and getting too distracted from the plan would result in everyone dying.
"Maxwell Street!" Eliza suddenly broke the silence between us after so long, startling me. She seemed very excited despite the circumstances.
"You recognize it?" I asked Eliza as I followed her eyes to a bent street sign reading MAXWELL ST above LUXINGHAM ST.
"Of course! Maxwell Street is a straight shot to Naporia Beach, we're almost out!" replied Eliza cheerfully. On cue, Passimian motioned them forward after keeping them in waiting for a rather long time while an Anonymous agent riding atop a Noivern spewing Hyper Voices at a bank on Luxingham passed through, completely unaware of our presence.
Eliza and I broke into a run once more, nerves taking over as we were both just so eager to get out of the city and evade having to interact with any more Anonymous goons. The two of us sprinted through Maxwell street, hopping over the cars and giving up on moving with any kind of stealth. The image of the brown, coarse sand along the shore and the waves of blue ocean water just up ahead half a mile were calling to us and urging us to rush through Maxwell Street, which seemed isolated besides several lumps of ashes near the end of the street where the sidewalk morphed into sand.
I had been ahead of Eliza by several meters when I reached the end of the street and slammed facefirst into something invisible and hard that instantly broke my nose and sent blood shooting out as I ricocheted off the invisible wall and landed painfully on my back, groaning and moaning from the feeling of running into a blank wall that caused my nose to be currently gushing dark red blood down my chin and onto my white shirt, staining it. Eliza had skirted to a stop just before hitting the wall herself as she screamed in empathy and shock over my current state. Passimian had appeared by my side as well, leaning over me concernedly, poking at the blood on my shirt with an inquisitive finger. Thanks for the warning, Passimian. Up ahead all this time and the one time there's something ahead you just let me run right into - focus. Focus. Prioritize who the bad guys are here.
The aching pain in my nose that felt red hot and swollen was making my eyes well up with tears, as if someone was pinching my nose with a painfully tight clothespin and making it hard to breathe. I had one hand covering my nose in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, and the other holding over my stomach, which I realized in annoyance had also slammed rather hard into the wall and now half my torso was bruised from bouncing so hard onto the grimy street.
"What the fuck was that?" I asked both myself and Eliza as she and Passimian helped me to my feet after some struggling.
"Our master's pokemon at play. Truly incredible what they can do, when they've reached the very limits of their power being trained by the best of the best." It was a man's voice, but a man that could hardly be a few years older than me by the sounds of it. Passimian, Eliza, and I all whiplashed our heads to find the source of the voice, and we came to rest on a man in his early twenties with a crewcut and black military camo clothing standing atop a pizza joint that had been upturned and heavily damaged (with sludge from the looks of the inside.)
"Another Anonymous goon," I told Eliza in an attempt to reassure her as I could tell from her quickened breathing beside me that she was frightened by this man. But more blood pooled out of my right nostril and into my mouth as I spoke, making me almost retch in disgust at the metallic taste of my own blood, and this definitely didn't help Eliza relax.
"I am affiliated with Anonymous, indeed. However, you'll be pressed to find I'm not just some low-lowel informant or rookie apprentice just starting out in this organization. I am Lieutenant Riley, one of its longest members and one of Sir's most loyal followers. And I see you two have the same mindset as the last few thousand people that tried to just stroll right by and expect to just walk out of this city willy nilly like I'm just going to let that happen."
"I got this asshole," I told Eliza while doing my best to wipe the blood off my lips and chin with my forearm.
"You sure you don't want help?" Eliza asked in a doubtful tone, seeing as I did not look to be in tip top physical condition. I ignored this and turned to Passimian, who felt my gaze and stared back.
"I choose Passimian," I said, giving him a small wink of encouragement. I knew he could do this, no matter the pokemon. I almost missed it, but my monkey winked back.
"I choose Muk," Lt. Riley said as he chucked a pokeball at the ground and from it popped out a huge wad of purple, slimy gunk that I knew to be the bulky poison type that originated from Kanto.
"Are you sure you don't want me fighting him? I have a Golem!" Eliza suggested once more, irritating me since she didn't think I could do this.
"Passimian, Bulk Up," I started with something nice and easy, considering the Muk was still a distance away, still lolling on the sidewalk in front of the pizza joint, and it didn't look fast enough to take advantage of Passimian setting up in time.
"Muk, Curse up and boost right along with it," Lt. Riley ordered, and I watched as my Passimian flexed his muscles to the point the veins were popping and then the muscles would stay at that boosted volume as Passimian's attack and defense got a +1. Unfortunately, Muk basically canceled out Passimian's boosts by boosting his own attack and defense with Curse, which had the aftereffect of slowing Muk down even more. But Muk was never outspeeding Passimian anyway.
I could boost up Passimian's attack all day, but Lt. Riley would just have his Muk use Curse to nullify any advantage we would get. So we just had to begin straight up assaulting him with hits and chipping down his health.
"Let's get close to Muk and throw off some Iron Heads in his face, alright? But keep moving, never stay still, use your speed against him!"
"Thunder Punch the engine of the car next to you."
While Passimian hip hopped from side to side in his usual zigzag pattern that normally worked so well to knock opposing pokemons aim off, Muk utilized the extra time Passimian took to safely approach him rather efficiently. Muk rolled more than moved his gigantic, gelatinous body a few feet off the sidewalk and into the street toward the closest crashed car he could reach. Muk then formed something resembling a fist with a piece of his sludge body that began sparkling electric bolts as he harnessed the power to use Thunder Punch just before slamming his fist down into the hood of the car, his electric-powered punch clashing against the engine, massively overheating it and causing it to explode within moments.
Not a huge explosion, but damaging and enough to put the car he'd Thunder Punched on fire - at least the engine in the front hood he'd punched directly into, which would slowly spread over the rest of the car. Muk hadn't exactly been sure where his trainer was going with this order, but Muk had learned to roll with the punches long ago if he wanted to succeed in battling. Even the Thunder Punches.
It was at that moment that Passimian came shooting out of nowhere into Muk's side with the coconut slice on his head shining a steel chrome as his Iron Head was a direct hit. Muk groaned as his body sloshed back in recoil, his back slamming into the side of the burning car.
"Get under the vehicle and toss it at Passimian."
"Get some distance between you two, avoid the car - keep zigzagging, yeah!"
While Muk slunk his malleable body underneath the ignited car, Passimian obeyed my commands and started hopping backwards in great bounds with back-and-forth irregular jumps to remain a moving target. Much quicker than anticipated, Muk found the strength to chuck the car into the air, and it went spinning like a football through the air toward Passimian who was about 50 meters down the street at this point, hopping amongst the sea of cars packed like sardines all down Maxwell Street.
"Look out!" I warned.
Passimian looked up as he heard my words to catch a view of the flaming car descending through the air, black smoke and broken pieces of the car flying behind it from the sheer momentum of Muk's punch to it. Passimian veered quickly toward the safety of the sidewalk, making one giant leap that sent his small body zooming through the air and about 20 feet over abandoned cars that a few minutes later would all become engulfed in flames. The car Muk sent into the skies came crashing down where Passimian had been just moments before, a loud BOOM raging through the air and an explosion to top it off from multiple engines in the vicinity beginning to overheat and explode from the flames of the first car. It was clear it would spread like wildfire and all of the cars lining down every inch of Maxwell Street would soon be ablaze all because of Muk Thunder Punching that first car. How much damage could one fucking pokemon cause?
"Ava," Sir began in a soothing voice. "Before we fight to the death here, I just want to thank you for all the training you gave me, it really did shape me into the trainer I am today. You showed me how to unlock a lot of the skills I didn't know I had."
"Well, then, I'm massively disappointed in myself," replied Ava, spitting on the ground in disgust at his words. "Did I show you that the way to power is to murder and steal and cheat to get ahead?"
"No, everyone else in this world did," Sir answered brazenly, not backing down.
"You should have been the bigger man."
"Look at me, Ava. I am the bigger man. I'm the fucking biggest man." Sir was visibly furious at her insult, the veins in his clear forehead popping. "Dragonite, Dragon Claw!"
Ava didn't flinch. "Garchomp, Stone Edge."
Thus the clash of the titans at Naporia Colosseum at last begun.