Juniper hung up the phone. Everyone in the laboratory, including Cheren and Sabrina, looked at her expectant,
"Sabrina was right, team plasma is at it again," she said firmly, "they boarded the plasma frigate and crashed it near the giant chasm, if the report is correct they've taken over the entrance to the cave hoping to find Kyurem,"
"everyone knows Kyurem isn't there anymore, what are they getting at?" One of the many trainers in the room asked,
"beats me," Juniper replied, "but Sabrina has been given green light to go and stop them, the police will escort you there whenever you are ready...any idea where Colress is?"
"No one has seen him for a while, maybe he joined team plasma again, he's a criminal after all," Cheren said.
"That's extremely unlikely," Sabrina replied, "I'll investigate about his whereabouts when this is over, but for now we must focus...any trainer who can fly to Humilau city, do it, I'll wait for you on the outskirts of the city. As for the rest of you who can't fly, Marlon the gym leader has offered to come here and take you there himself, it's his job since he's the closest to the giant chasm anyway, be ready, we do this now."
Sabrina got out of the laboratory full of trainers to find even more of them readily waiting outside. She repeated her instructions, then she got into a police car which was waiting there just for her. She sat in the passenger seat, closed the door, and the car drove off. The driver was a well built policeman with an abundant and well groomed mustache covering his mouth.
A sense of dread started to surround Sabrina. She knew the opposition didn't have any chance of defeating her and the trainers; she was absolutely sure of her side's victory. And yet, she couldn't get rid of the feeling that something was wrong, a tragedy seemed unavoidable.
"Good day ma'am, I'm officer Mark Ward," the policeman said, "I'm here to make sure everything is done by the book, but make no mistake, I'll do whatever's necessary to take those dirty mooks down once and for all, and I'll gladly get out of your way...I'd be lying if I said I won't enjoy watching the region's finest trainers kick those scum's asses. The fact that you are here and that I'll be seeing this from the first row is the icing on the cake, those idiots have it well deserved,"
"I hope you understand this doesn't bring me pleasure," Sabrina responded, "I don't know if they've done anything wrong yet, all I know is that something terrible will happen if we don't stop them,"
"of course, but just so we are clear we are not going there to negotiate, you are to stop them cold, they don't deserve one more chance,"
"I already gave them a chance, they didn't take it..."
A few hours later they reached the outskirts of Humilau city. There was a considerable amount of mist around, something they hadn't taken into account. Nevertheless the giant chasm became visible soon after; Mark stopped the car just as the head of the enormous cave stood out from over the fog on the horizon. He grabbed a black fur lined coat from the backseat and handed it to Sabrina, he told her that the snow in the giant chasm had left but the cold had stayed.
Sabrina got out of the car wearing the coat. She called out her Mr. Mime, and the joyful attitude with which the pokemon came out clashed jarringly with Sabrina's expression, it was no happy occasion. Another police car arrived and parked just behind them, two policemen came out of it, wearing the same coat as hers. Then a loud growl rumbled on the sky, and the six people on the ground raised their heads to identify its source. From the clouds came out a dragonite full of energy, with a blue haired trainer wearing protective goggles on top of the dragon, then, behind him came out many pokemon more, most of them dragonite and charizard, one besides the other as a group. They descended from the sky as if the sky itself had sent them there to uphold righteous justice, and met with Sabrina just as three blue jellicent joined them too from ground level, all of them carrying a bunch of trainers, as well as the gym leader Marlon, on their giant heads.
Sabrina nodded at the ensuing crowd. All of them, even the policemen, seemed more excited than worried, just like her jolly Mr. Mime.
"Alright listen up," Sabrina said decisively, "form a line, shoulder to shoulder, and stand behind this Mr. Mime," she pointed at her pokemon, "he will be our first line of defense, he in turn will walk behind me as I go over there to do some recon, we weren't counting on this fog after all."
The troops obeyed Sabrina diligently and she advanced first. She found the perfect spot to stand in formation just a few feet away from the cave entrance, with enough space to stay hidden from the enemy using the fog as cover. Sabrina left them in position and called out her sigilyph; the flying ornament came out in complete silence in accordance to Sabrina's mental guidance.
The colorful flying type flew furtively inside the cave while Sabrina closed her eyes, and saw in her mind what Sigilyph saw on the cave. A group of people wearing red, with their eyes and ears covered in a red glow. Some raticate, some amoonguss, some garbodor and seviper, but nowhere near equal the amount of people; they weren't match for her alone. The group of people inside the cave mechanically raised their heads at the same time, sensing movement. They seemed to be robots more than people. Sigilyph kept inspecting the cave, it didn't find Grimsley, but it discovered that the entrance was also the only exit, as most of the tunnels inside were sealed and there wasn't a lot of space.
Team plasma was basically trapped there. Either it was a trap, or they hadn't found what they were looking for and were desperate and on their last legs. Sabrina's experience led her to believe the latter supposition was true, and at that point she hated Grimsley the most. He had led that pathetic group of people to a senseless demise in a cave with with no exit, for no reason; it was obvious to her that he thought of them as useless pawns, less than cannon fodder. She called out her espeon.
On the inside of the cave, everything looked a darker, almost black shade of brown except for the entrance. Everything outside looked a grayish kind of white because of the fog. It was obvious there was someone outside, could be hundreds of people for all they knew. The afflicted remnants could feel the vibrations of the ground on the soil of their feet. Drops of sweat fell off some faces, others were fully crying, but none of them uttered a word or moved one inch, not because they didn't want to but because they couldn't. Then the vibrations became much more apparent, loud cries filled with rage were distinguishable and, suddenly, the face of an espeon appeared from the fog, right in the middle of the white. Then its full mesmerizing body appeared at the same time the psychic pokemon shot a beam of pink light from its forehead directly at a seviper, propelling it against the ceiling and fainting it instantly. Sabrina's face appeared after her pokemon, and behind her a rampant assault by a myriad of trainers and pokemon followed. It was obvious they weren't there for any other reason than to annihilate.
The remnant's pokemon hurried to move in front of their carers to create a line of defense, but neither the trainers nor Sabrina slowed down and instead charged at them with full force. Espeon directed another psychic at an Amoonguss, which fainted right after receiving the entirety of the attack, but its unconscious body stayed in its place. Sabrina ran to the unconscious giant mushroom and used it as support to jump through the remnant's pokemon. She arrived behind enemy lines, surrounded by the remnants. Her espeon also used the amoonguss to jump behind enemy lines and followed her into the pit of glowing heads.
Sabrina also took out her gallade, which came out instantly attacking a nearby raticat without having to listen to her trainer's orders, at least not verbally. Espeon fainted pokemon left and right by creating light beams from its forehead while gallade fainted pokemon at the same pace by physically hitting them with energy blades that came out of its arms, and a full on pitched battle ensued, with Sabrina and her pokemon as the main source of the attacks.
The remnant's pokemon fainted one of the imposing pokemon from the opposition at the same pace the opposition fainted three from the remnants, while the three policemen guarded the entrance with their arms crossed, enjoying the carnage. Mark Ward, although entertained, thought it'd be even better to join in. He smirked as he took out a pokeball before one of his colleagues lowered his arm, however. He'd have to conform with watching. Amoonguss and sevipers fell to flamethrowers and dragonbreaths, if the remnants could have expressed their feelings they'd have cried, while the freely expressive trainers smiled ecstatic, curb-stomping their way to victory.
A malicious looking crobat flew over gallade and methodically dropped a red mask right on its head, just like the one the remnants were wearing, and the crobat dropped another one on a nearby dragonite as well. The dragonite stopped listening to its trainer's orders and stopped moving altogether. Then the dragon released a vicious fire punch on a nearby excadrill from its own side, and followed that attack with an earthquake that affected every pokemon near it, including Marlon's already weakened jellicent, which fainted from its intensity. Sabrina caught wind of this and called her gallade back, causing the headgear to fall on the ground, however, this gave the remnants enough time to get the drop on her. Their exploited pokemon ganged up on espeon, a garbodor's gunk shot and raticate's hyper fang promptly fainted it. Sabrina called it back too.
Meanwhile, a trainer's skuntank cornered one of the many pokemonless remnants to a wall, and its cocky trainer appeared behind it clapping sarcastically. The thoroughly confused remnant started waving his hands up and down like an insane person, but at least he started acting more akin to a person,
"what's the matter with you, too scared?" the cocky trainer shouted, "skuntank, just use pursuit let's knock him out," he shouted again, but his pokemon hesitated. The skuntank cried its name and caused the spastic remnant to stop struggling and take off his mask,
"stunky? Is that you?" the remnant asked, "it's me, Jonny, you remember me right?"
"What are you doing? Skuntank come on!" the trainer replied anxiously, but skuntank did not move.
Jonny raised his arms, "you have to help me, someone is controlling me somehow, or at least they were, until I saw you,"
"what are you talking about? Stop messing with me it's a trap,"
"no it's not, look at your skuntank, he'll tell you, I was a member of team plasma and he used to be my pokemon. I released him when the team got dissolved, you can see he is not hitting me...is he treating you right?" Jonny moved to pet skuntank, "look at you, you are all grown up,"
"get away from my pokemon!" The trainer cried.
Skuntank turned and gave his trainer a look, "please don't make me hit him, he isn't evil," was the only thing it could mean. The trainer grew anxious, he took a few steps back and called his pokemon back. Jonny grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him,
"you have to believe me, something is going on! Tell the policemen someone is making us do this, most of us don't even have pokemon anymore!"
"I don't know," the trainer nervously replied, "I don't know!"
Jonny realized it was useless to try and reason with the trainer, he would never listen to him. Jonny ran away while the trainer stayed there like a statue. He tried to run outside, the fog had fairly dissipated and he could see some trees behind it. He sprinted as fast as he could, only to be stopped by Mark Ward at the entrance,
"you have to help me officer, someone is making us do this!" Jonny said,
"yeah right, shut your mouth and stay put, things will go better for you if you keep quiet," Mark replied at the same time he detained him.
Meanwhile, Sabrina called out her metagross and made it throw a bullet punch at the roaming crobat, taking it down immediately. She then jumped on top of her pokemon, knelt down on it and closed her eyes. Metagross ran rampant through the battlefield with Sabrina on top of it and, once they reached the turned dragonite, metagross released a powerful meteor mash right at the dragon's stomach, leaving it out of breath and opening its eyes wide. The corrupted dragonite answered with an outrage, it engulfed itself in a green glow and struck Metagross' face and body. Metagross endured the hit, as did Sabrina, and together they prepared to hit back at the unconscious aggressor. Without hesitating, metagross released another meteor mash right at the dragonite's jaw, and managed to take it down; dragonite dropped to the ground and the mask fell of its head. Sabrina opened her eyes and identified the dragonite's trainer. She proceeded to berate him for not calling his pokemon back, which would have resolved the issue. The trainer just stood there and received the scolding looking like he had just seen a ghost.
The corrupted dragonite was the remnants' last hope of victory. Most of their pokemon had fainted, and it was only because of the multitude of people that they couldn't identify how many of them were left. Suddenly, all of the remnants still wearing masks stopped moving altogether, raised their hands up, and moved to make a circle around the trainers and their pokemon, who stood expectant and ready to strike them down. Once they were all distributed in a circle, half of them picked up rocks from the ground, then grabbed the unarmed ones right next to them by the neck and raised their arms, while holding the improvised weapons up, obviously threatening to strike each other down with fatal results,
"stop and give up!" They all cried at the same time like robots, "you think you've won, you think you are more powerful than me but you don't know the extent of my power, either way you'll lose and I'll win,"
"it's over Grimsley!" Sabrina shouted, then let out a growl filled with rage, "this is a move only a true coward would make!"
"It's over for you, whatever happens I've already won," the remnants shouted in unison once more,
"you are delusional," Sabrina replied, this time with a calm voice.
Still on top of Metagross, Sabrina took off her coat at the same time her alakazam suddenly appeared from the mist, to everyone's bemusement. Alakazam shot a psychic directly at its trainer, which Sabrina received with her arm raised, right on her wrist. A pink glow started emanating from both her and metagross. Suddenly all of the remnants started glowing too, one by one they released the objects they had on their hands and started floating, each of them with a good distance left between each other.
"Wow, that's magnificent," all of the remnants said in one voice while Sabrina tossed them around, "I could use that."
She ignored them and kept them floating while all of the trainers and their pokemon left the cave in horror. Mark Ward and Jonny watched Sabrina raise her arms, she started levitating as energy visibly emanated from her. She used her telekinetic powers to neutralize everybody still on the cave, then she came down from metagross, having lost her patience. For some reason the remnants still tried to attack her, a few sevipers, raticate, and a few mind controlled remnants who managed to reach the ground; she tossed them away like pieces of paper without even touching them. Sabrina grew desperate and irritated, she wondered what Grimsley had done to those poor mooks to make them so submissive. She brought one of the remnants to her and took off his mask to look at it closer, causing all of the remnants still wearing masks to shout, "No!" At the same time. The mask then exploded on her hand, hurting her,
"No!" Sabrina cried too, "take off all of their masks now!" She hurried to grab all of the remnants she could to take off their masks and advised all of the trainers and policemen to do the same, but they didn't move, they were either confused or just indifferent. But Jonny listened, he struggled with Mark and broke free from him, then started taking off all the masks he could before they all exploded, and only he and Sabrina reacted in true horror. All of the remnants fell to the ground, the red glow disappeared and the cave became totally silent.
She grabbed one of the remnants with the destroyed mask still on, took it off her red hair and started stroking the unscathed parts of her face, thankfully most of it.
"Are they going to be okay?" Jonny cried just as Mark angrily detained him again,
"I cannot know just yet, my best guess is that they'll survive but I don't know with how much damage, a face scar at best...I...I was right, they were going to cause a tragedy, whether they wanted to or not...Grimsley was never here." Sabrina grabbed the mask and clenched her hand, breaking it into pieces, "I will end him."