Satori in Kalos
Interlude II
Hakurei Reimu
Hakurei Reimu sat behind her large wooden desk in her rather large office. For she had a desk, and she had and office, despite vehemently telling the chief she did not want them. Resting on this desk that was hers against her will was a sizable stack of paperwork which she was supposed to fill out. Reimu had no intention of doing so, deciding she would rather eat one of Shikieiki's lectures.
The office was the one place Reimu didn't want to be. All she really wanted to do was sit at home drinking tea and watch television. She often entertained the notion of moving out of Lumiose, out into the countryside somewhere to live a simple existence. Maybe as a shrine maiden. But alas, such a notion doesn't pay the bills. Bills which Reimu had plenty of, and money to pay them of which she had little.
Which is why she didn't object when the police chief promoted her to Head of KPD Special Operations on competence alone. It came with a fat paycheck, which Reimu wanted, but also came with an office and desk, which Reimu had not wanted. It also came with responsibility, of which Reimu really had not wanted.
But she was undeniably competent. And it wasn't all that bad, incidents were few and far between that actually required her full attention. The Jennys (different department) handled the altercations involving pokemon, which was most of them. The others were usually minor infractions and local officers could take down the criminals by themselves and their own local leadership, even if the criminals were armed. It was on rare occasion that her division had to deploy in full force.
Reimu had a feeling today was one of those days.
Which is why she was actually in her office, instead of at home. Call it intuition, call it unconscious pattern-recognition, call it dumb luck. Reimu generally knew when her services were going to be needed and she became a bit of a bad omen in the office because of it. In the officers' words, when Reimu bothered to showed up they all knew "shit was going to go down."
Reimu spun around in her spinny-chair, waiting for something to happen. She did her best not to look at the paperwork on her desk. A few minutes went by in silence, and Reimu considered turning on her computer. But the instant she did, she knew she would be bombarded with hundreds of old emails probably requiring bureaucratic nonsense. So she opted to leave it turned off. Plausible deniability.
Before she could do anything else someone knocked on her door. Reimu perked up but didn't respond. The door swung open anyways and a woman in black-and-white clothing walked in.
"Yo, Reimu," said the intruder.
Reimu sighed. "Oh. You."
"Heard you actually showed up at your job. Had to see it to believe it."
Reimu pushed against her desk and the chair rolled back a few feet. "I do work, you know. Shikieiki doesn't pay me to do nothing."
"Could have fooled me."
"What exactly are you doing here? I don't remember seeing 'Marisa' on my roster of employees."
Marisa just smiled and made her way over to the couch, dropping down onto it longways. "I bet you didn't even read that roster," she said. "Anyways, Alice is in town so I thought I'd meet her."
"Who?"
"A friend, don't worry about it. Since I'm in town anyways, I thought I would drop by. I went to your apartment first, by the way."
Reimu sighed again. "Want me to go get us something to drink? We have a nice break room."
"Coffee, please."
"Decaf?"
"Hell no," Marisa said. "What kind of wuss do you take me for?"
There were a couple of other officers in the break room. They gave Reimu a wave and typical greeting before continuing their conversation. Reimu grabbed a coffee packet and stuck it in the machine before pressing the large "brew" button. She then took out a teabag for herself and began boiling some water.
The officers spoke to her while she waited. "Captain Hakurei," they addressed her. "Do you know what's happening today?"
Reimu shook her head. "No idea. Hopefully nothing."
"It's never just nothing. People around the office are thinking it has something to do with the power outages, although others think Team Flare probably escalated."
"What in god's name is Team Flare?"
The officer looked a bit put down. "Ah, er...right. I guess we'll just see what happens later. They're bad guys, by the way."
"Descriptive," Reimu said as she finished brewing her tea and Marisa's coffee. She walked back to her office, where she found Marisa crumpling up the paperwork on her desk and throwing it across the room into the waste bin. Judging by the amount of paper balls on the floor, she had an accuracy rate of 10%.
"Finally!" Marisa said, greedily taking her coffee from Reimu's hands. Reimu walked back behind her desk and sat down, sipping her own tea. The two of them sat and conversed about trivial things. It was an activity Reimu generally liked. A subtle conversation about nothing of any real meaning. Unfortunately the current setting diminished her enjoyment. The mere fact she was in her office added a certain amount of pressure and stress.
And it was not ill-founded stress either. Before Reimu had finished her cup of tea, the Holo Caster on her desk began to blink and make a beeping noise. Reimu reached over and pushed the button to answer the call. A rough holographic image of a short woman appeared in a large hat. The hologram was in shades of blue though, so her actual features were hard to distinguish.
"Hello, Shikieiki." Reimu said. "Bad news, I take it?"
"You're mobilizing to the power plant," she said sternly. "I'm on my way to your office. I'll be there in five minutes."
With that, she hung up. Reimu sat for a moment and took a long, final swig of her tea to finish it off. She stood up as she set the cup back on the table and made her way over to the left wall of her office, near the couch where Marisa was still sitting. On the wall was a heavy switch. Reimu threw it with no hesitation.
WOO WOO...WOO WOO...WOO WOO...
An alarm started sounding through the entire office, echoing throughout every corridor. Reimu briskly walked out of her office leaving Marisa behind.
"Everyone active, let's go." Reimu shouted loudly. It was a redundant statement, all the officers were already in motion from the alarm. Everyone reported to the armory and suited up in the standard-issue vests and equipment. Reimu's department was not affiliated with the Jennys nor did they use pokemon. They were a tactical unit and used real weapons.
Reimu arrived in the armory to see her officers mid-dress. She went to her locker and put on her bulletproof vest, grabbed an automatic rifle, pistol and a slew of other equipment before walking to the open area at the back of the armory.
"You," she shouted to one of the officers. He looked up. "Get me a floor plan of the power plant." The officer nodded and ran off.
Reimu waited while everyone went through their preparations and headed out to the garage. Most of the officers would get into the vans, but they also had two helicopters they would be using.
When everyone had left the armory, Reimu took a small ear bud and stuck it in her left ear. "Roll call," she dutifully listened until every last team had called in. Around the time they were finishing up, the Chief of Police Shikieiki Yamaxanadu walked into the armory.
"Reimu," she said as she approached. "Your teams ready?"
"Just about. What's happening?"
"Long story short, an organization of criminals identifying themselves as Team Flare invaded the power plant and took an unknown number of employees hostage. They're currently occupying the power plant and have been for some time now."
"Is that the cause of this damned blackout? How are we just learning about this now?"
Shikieiki crossed her arms. "It's isolated. Employees had shifts that lasted weeks, not hours. And we never looked too closely because it was always somebody else's problem. We didn't get a handle on the situation until we sent a few investigators after missing persons reports were filed. Reflecting on procedure can come later though. Your primary is rescuing the hostages above all else."
"Got it." Reimu said. "Rescue the hostages, stop the bad guys."
After a quick discussion of a few technical details, Shikieiki left Reimu to her work and went back to her office. After she left, Reimu headed down to the garage. "Roll call," she asked again. Everyone was ready this time.
"Captain, I've distributed the blueprint to every team."
"Good work." Reimu opened the door to the garage and made her way to one of the vehicles. All of the vans were ready to move, just waiting for her signal. She pulled herself into the van that was waiting for her and sat down next to the other seven people in full tactical gear. Reimu accessed the map on a computer in the van and glanced over the plans.
"Alright then. All teams to the Kalos Power Plant." At her words, the vans in the garage pulled out onto the streets of Lumiose, sirens wailing, heading north through Lumiose to the power plant. The road would cut out once they left the city, but the vans were designed for off road use.
Reimu looked over the map as they drove, making comments here and there to everyone else about what they could expect. The power plant was a very isolated structure, and just looking at the floor plan sickened Reimu to her stomach.
The power plant was located far in the dangerous part Lumiose badlands, only accessible through the four access corridors that led from the plant to the safer areas. The plant itself was in a dangerous and rocky region that only a fool would try to cross. Reimu reasoned that while this made surrounding it easy, actually entering the plant would be impossible.
The next thought that came to Reimu's mind was going in through the air, but until she knew more about the placement of people in the building she couldn't go ahead with that plan.
The last fact which really tied the whole mess together was that communications would fail if they came within a certain distance of the plant. Reimu didn't understand the exact reason, something about interference from the plant, but the implication was clear enough. They had to have a solid plan before they could start an assault.
Reimu's teams made it to the staging area and parked the vans, spilling out and setting up. Four vans split off and headed to guard each of the four entries to the plant. Reimu didn't go with any of them, and instead stayed in the staging area to manage the situation.
"I want eyes in there." Reimu said to the technical guy.
"I don't know what to say," he replied. "The electromagnetic interference is going to wreak havoc on any camera we try to get in there."
"I don't care what you have to do. Get it done."
He saluted and ran back to his computer to try to work something out. Reimu bumped around the staging area making sure everything was set up and ready to go for a long term standoff. The fact that Team Flare had already held the plant for weeks and kept hostages there spoke volumes about the time scale she was going to have to deal with. Although she was mostly focused on getting everyone on point at the moment, it's likely she would have to start having her officers sleep in shifts if it stretched on for more than a few days.
After everything was set up properly, Reimu started focusing on her actual plan. Without any information on what she was dealing with, she couldn't in good faith start an actual assault on the power plant without risking the hostages. So she didn't even consider it, instead all she focused on was getting more information.
"We need to make contact." Reimu said out loud, although to no one in particular. She brought out a map of the power plant again to reference. As she did so, the sound of a helicopter echoed overhead. Reimu looked up to see the chopper land down a distance away, and a few officers step out along with Onozuka Komachi, the head detective of the KPD.
Komachi made a beeline right for Reimu. "Hello~" She said. "Seems pretty busy."
"I assume you have a reason for being here?" Reimu asked.
"My case. Investigating, same as always."
Reimu dropped her head. "We're kind of in the middle of something here, you know."
"Aww, don't be like that." Komachi then yawned. "I can help. Isn't negotiating key here? Isn't information king?"
Before Reimu could respond, one of her officers came over with a few questions. She turned away from Komachi while she resolved the issues while Komachi just milled about. "Okay," Reimu said. "What do you know?"
Komachi dug the shaft of her scythe into the ground and leaned against it. "Team Flare," she began, "is after something. They have some driving goal, and simply taking over the power plant isn't it. This is a step to achieve their goal, whatever it may be. They certainly have no intention of letting it end here, nor do they particularly care for leveraging something besides their own safety and escape."
"That it?"
"They're organized, equipped and funded. As for trained, probably not." Komachi looked around for a bit. "I'll be around," she said before wandering off. Reimu let her go.
"Team Two," Reimu said into her microphone. "Do you have shields?"
"Roger."
"Prep for entry in twenty."
"Roger. Prepping for entry."
With that, Reimu called a few officers over and hopped into one of the vans. Team Two was standing guard at one of the plant entry corridors, about ten minutes away. Reimu still was issuing orders and organizing things during the ride while her teammates sat in silence around her.
When the van arrived, Reimu found Team Two standing by the entrance. Three of the officers held large tower shields, two had put a plastic explosive on the door and the others were standing to the side guns at the ready. The team she came with set up a bit away and took cover behind some vehicles. After all the preparations were complete, Reimu spoke lowly into her mic.
"Execute."
The explosives on the door detonated, blowing them inwards. Immediately after the officers holding the shields moved in, followed by the others shining flashlights. Shouts of "KPD!" were heard as the officers flowed into the corridor. The entire procedure only lasted a few seconds.
"Clear." Came a voice in Reimu's earpiece. She hadn't really expected to encounter anyone right at the entrance, they were far more likely to be held up near the interior of the plant than at the far edges.
"Proceed forward. Check in every sixty seconds, halt and retreat backwards if no check-in." This particular order was to test the range of the interference.
"Roger."
Reimu waited while her team proceeded through the corridor. They made it about three-fourths of the distance before communications broke down due to the interference, and halted around that location. They hadn't encountered anyone else, so Reimu told them to stay where they were.
She went over her options. First option was she could follow in and meet up with the team before proceeding into the plant. She'd lose contact with the rest of the force though, something she really really shouldn't do. So her next option was to let the team go in and handle it themselves.
While she was thinking over what to do, an officer gestured to her with a phone in his hand. She took it.
"There's a warehouse in Lumiose that manufactures cable with electromagnetic shielding. A few thousand meters' worth is on its way." It was the officer from before.
"Good work."
"There's more. I got some of the guys rigging up a thermal to the helicopter. We tested it, it won't succumb to the interference. We should have eyes in about an hour."
"Excellent work. Get that cable over here and that in the air." Reimu handed the phone back to the officer and focused back on her earpiece.
"Retreat to the perimeter," she told the team inside the power plant.
"Roger, captain."
And thus the waiting game began again. The hardest part of Reimu's job wasn't the combat, or the micromanaging, or even the fear of being shot to death. It was the waiting. The uncertainty. Having a plan and executing it was the easy part.
This early in the game, there was still plenty to think about. Even though Reimu wasn't sure what the thermal scan would say, she could make plans based on the different possibilities. There was no point in waiting for the information to come in before making the plan. If she knew she would receive certain data in the future, it was more helpful to think of what she would do in each possible case now. That way when the data did finally come in, she could act immediately.
Reimu kept looking over the maps, over the unit distributions. Who was where and doing what. It was all redundant information, but she kept looking over it.
Finally, a cruiser pulled up. An officer got out of the seat and opened the trunk, heaving a huge spool of cable out towards Reimu. She nodded towards the officer and told him and some others to set it up. On one end of the cable was a phone that would be held by a single member of Team Two, the other a phone held by Reimu.
"Thermal chopper is in the air, captain. All the other entries also have cable."
"Roger," Reimu said. "Everyone prepare for entry."
Reimu could see the helicopter flying over the power plant, a good distance above it. As it flew around, a thermal map of the plant appeared on her screen. Reimu studied it intently for a few minutes before calling some other officers over and asked them to take a look.
"What do you think, sixty people?" Reimu asked.
"Approximately. It's hard to tell." Someone said, and pointed to one part. "This part here is pretty grouped together, not exactly sure how many people that is. Maybe about ten."
"That's the break room," Reimu said. "They're most likely the hostages, it's really the only contained area besides the storage areas. But those have nobody in them."
"So fifty hostiles? That's quite a number."
"Maybe," Reimu responded. "But this place has a lot of narrow areas, so numbers won't matter much. They're holding position where each of the access corridors meets the actual plant. Kind of as expected."
"There's quite a few milling around the entire plant," an officer said. "And a few by the hostages, although...well, it's hard to tell if any are in the room with them. It doesn't seem like it though."
Reimu shook her head. "We have to assume they have the ability to execute hostages at any moment. Unless we can get an actual visual. But we don't have that."
Turning away from the screen for a moment, Reimu tapped the side of her earpiece. "Here's the game plan, everybody. We're going to do a simultaneous entry from all four tunnels. Try not to fire unless you're shot at first."
After all four teams declared they were ready, Reimu spoke again.
"All teams, execute."
Reimu waited for the teams to move forward through the corridors. She really wanted to be in there with the teams herself, but with the substandard communication setup there wasn't much she could do. Since she was the person in charge, it was hard to justify entering the fray herself.
After a minute a voice rang from her phone. "Team Two holding position, contact made with Team Flare. No shots fired."
"Roger Team Two. Hold position."
Similar declarations came from all the other teams at about the same moment.
"Team Flare is demanding we retreat or they're kill a hostage." Came a report from one of the teams. Typical.
"Throw them a phone," Reimu said. She could hear the sounds of the team shouting to Team Flare and the phone being tossed. In situations like these, it was imperative to open communications between the two sides as soon as possible. Actually talking resolved these sort of situations far better than going in guns-blazing.
It's not like Reimu had a problem using violence or anything, for the most part it was her preferred option. But hostages situations were messy and not nearly as trivial as "shoot all the people who aren't us." Hence throwing a phone to Team Flare.
"Tell your men to get back!" A coarse, female voice came through Reimu's headphones. She adjusted her mic.
"My name is Hakurei Reimu. Who am I speaking with?"
"GET YOUR MEN OUT OF HERE," she shouted louder.
"I'm afraid I can't do that," Reimu rolled her eyes, although it wasn't for anyone's benefit but herself. "Not unless I can trust you aren't going to hurt those hostages."
"If your men back down then they'll be fine."
"Like I said, I can't just take your word on that. How about we start with your name?"
There was silence for a short bit. While Reimu waited for a response, she gestured to one of her officers to find out where Komachi was and bring her over, or get her on the line. Her presence would be important for negotiations.
"Tenshi," said the voice on the other line.
"Nice to meet you, Tenshi." Reimu said into the mic. "All we want is to make sure those hostages are going to be safe."
"They're fine, now have your men get back."
"I'll make you a deal, Tenshi." Reimu said. "I've got a lot of worried families here. All I want is the names of the hostages so I can tell their families they're okay. If you can do that, I promise I'll have my men get out of your hair, okay?"
After a bout of silence, Tenshi responded. "Fine. It'll take a few minutes."
"That's great. It's nice to be working with a professional." Reimu finished with. Reimu had assumed there were worrying families, although she wasn't actually certain. It wasn't about actually getting something tactically viable (although they would be watching their movements on the thermal map), it was just about establishing trust between her and Tenshi.
A short while later, Tenshi gave the list of names back to Reimu, and in response Reimu drew back the police a hundred meters. But the situation was far from over.
Over the next few days, negotiations between Team Flare and the KPD proceeded rather well. Reimu didn't want to say it, but they were going too well. Suspiciously well. After a bit of back and fourth, they had exchanged some food and water for one of the hostages. Through some further social maneuvering, she managed to get another four hostages out with no shots fired.
Suspiciously well.
Reimu realized it eventually, although far longer than it should have taken her. They were stalling. And yet Reimu didn't quite know what to do. Whatever objective they were trying to accomplish clearly required holding the power plant for a certain period of time. But Reimu was succeeding—rescuing hostages.
Of course, "a hostage here, a hostage there" can't go on forever. The bad guys will always keep at least one hostage. After all, if they give them all up then all the KPD would have to do is move in and shoot them all. Reimu doesn't play very nice, and the public is aware of this.
She also wasn't one to stay by the book. Although Shikieiki didn't exactly agree with her on this point, field decisions were hard to predict and every situation was different. But in this particular situation, the book was working extremely well. And Reimu had a feeling that she knew was a bad sign.
She wasn't in control.
She needed an edge. Something to shake the status quo.