Eternal Path to Power

by Buc Nast1

Chris makes his living in the kitchen, but when a life-changing fish crosses his path Chris is trust into the high stakes world of Pokemon Training. During his journey he finds out firsthand that things aren't always as they seem.

Chapter One: Symphony of the Night

The wind slowly whistled through the trees, leaves softly billowing in the wind enjoying their soft caress. Drops of water trickled down the length of the green foliage and dangled precariously above the ground slowly swelling until finally releasing their hold on the leafy vegetation. Time seemed to slow to a standstill as the teardrop(S) made their descent into the obscurity of the night, the light of the moon reflected in their gaze when suddenly...

A spatter…

Followed by a plop…

A tiny rustle of leaves as a figure stalked its way through the forest underbrush sent many more drops of water to their imminent doom, it seemed as if a lone cloud had settled over the forest, and wept over the woodland. The screech of Zubats dancing about the night sky echoed rhythmically across the crowns of the majestic oaks only to be quieted by the ominous shadow cast by a predatory Noctowl patrolling its usual stomping grounds. The rapacious avian circled the trees for a what seemed like an eternity to the creatures below, peering from beneath the feathery crest on its brow it scanned the woods below searching for its prey. Hovering as if held aloft by a whim it gracefully swooped into the night below, there was a struggle, followed by a few pained squeals then replaced by the rustling of leaves. The Noctowl perched on a branch with on foot gripped securely on the limb and the other on its quarry, the prey was an unfortunate Marril, the water mouse hung lifeless from its claws blood trickling from the wounds inflicted by the bird's deadly talons.

It was the law of the jungle…

Hunt or be hunted…

Confident of its position the Noctowl eagerly began to tear into its catch, but its hunger overwhelmed instinct and it began to pay less attention to its surroundings and more attention to its prey; it would prove to be a costly check. The smell of blood attracted other hunters in the area small Buizel crept up to the oak the Noctowl had perched only to be scared away by a tense rustling behind it. The bird by now had ceased to pay heed to the stresses of the ambiance surrounding it, and now was keenly focused on its' quarry how could have seen the pair of eyes gazing at it from the forest floor. The keen eyes followed the Noctowl's every movement as it planned and plotted, slowly it crept along, taking care not to disturb any dried leaves that may give away its position a low growl formed in its throat, but was quickly swallowed.

The moon cast its light on the forest momentarily illuminating the area and bringing the hunter into view. Light bluish under fur contrasted against the navy color of its body, a slender tail swayed mischievously behind it as the star-shaped tip glow a faint yellow. The Luxio tensed its muscles as it placed on paw on the tree trunk and pressed hard allowing its' claws to grip the hard bark, and it began to scale the oak. The various songs of the night once again began to echo amidst the woodland masking the footfalls of the Luxio as it stalked closer and closer to the unwary Noctowl. Now it was a scant foot away and still the bird seemed not to notice its presence, by now the bird was cleaning itself with its slender tongue and looked up to see a flash of white light. Blinded the Noctowl fell off its perch and with a mighty heave the Luxio jumped after it, tumbling through the dense underbrush predator and prey struggled against one another in the timeless struggle of life against death. However in the end it was the Luxio who triumphed, using the electricity that coursed through its body it was able to paralyze the Noctowl so it would be unable to fly away, then broke the birds' neck with a single Bite to the neck.

IT was the law of the jungle…

Hunt or be hunted…

The hunter now carried its' prey into the darkness, its tail had now ceased glowing and disappeared altogether. The high pitched squeaks of the Zubat had now been replaced the low drone of the Dustox. Mating season had come around and the swarms of insects overwhelmed the night sky going about their nightly rituals, powdery dust choked the sky as it fluttered down to the forest below and rested on the treetops. Further down the landscape the buzzing of the Dustox gradually grew dull off in the distance until finally it could be hear no longer and instead the sound of waves crashing against rock resonated throughout the night sky. The spray of sea salt peppered the rocky alcoves along the beach; the rocks themselves seemed to come alive as small Krabby scuttled from tide pool to tide pool looking for some unwary aquatic insects while themselves not wishing to become the meal for some hungry Staryu.

The slimy trails left by Shellos illuminated by the moon led from the beach to the grassy plains and rocky cliffs of the inland region. A Pelipper could be seen roosting atop a rock formation that was slowly being eroded by the constant battering at the hands of the unforgiving sea. Underneath the anxious waves numerous colors of light danced beneath the surface as if themselves being enticed by the light of the moon. With a jump a Remoraid leapt from the depths and was immediately engulfed by a breaker landing once again in the safety of the depths. The sea was a bounty of danger for sea-going and land-dwelling Pokemon alike, however flying Pokemon did manage to make an easy living off of picking up fish from the depths however this was not without risk as well. Many a Wingull had met its end tangling with the mysterious monsters that called the sea their home, but the promise of almost unlimited food was worth the risk. The white foam sliding across the tops of the waves deposited themselves along the coastline, masking several sets of footprints that had not been there previously. The footprints led farther inland and stopped at the dense forest edge, voices could be heard although barely it was clear however that the group of strangers had a purpose.

"Surge we're about 2 clicks south-west of our destination." A voice struggled to communicate inaudibly, but the bass in his voice made this quite difficult. The man was clothed in brown and green fatigues with lines of black placed strategically to help break up the figure.

"Good we're moving right on schedule then, Hunter you're on point with the 'pig'. Wilkins you watch the rear."

Lt. Surge gave his orders quickly and concisely, on this mission there wasn't much time for formalities, or much time to re-explain the mission details. The shortest soldier quickly trotted to the front of the pack, despite the large weapon he carried. Meanwhile a taller man stopped mid-step and hid behind a tree until all his fellow team members had stalked by him, he then took his place at the back of the line his back facing his team. Boots crunched on the numerous twigs littering the forest floor, neon green specks danced around the various shadows cast by the numerous trees.

"Halt." Lt. Surge whispered as he held his fist in the air at an angle to signal and dropped down on one knee, the other members did the same. He had glanced around and the ground ahead was much to smooth for his liking. The training he'd received told him to follow his instincts and that is what he did.

"Frost gimme a STILL ASAP." Surge spoke into the microphone that hung from his earpiece.

[Good to hear from you. Are you inside the line?]

The Lieutenant took a moment to look at the digital map displayed on his left arm, and by slinging his weapon onto his back gained the unhindered use of his right hand. A few clicks later and Surge had an answer.

"Yes we are about half a click past the Line of Demarcation and about forty-five minutes from our target objective."

[Great. Now about that STILL, gimme about 20 seconds.]

"Copy that Frost." Surge spoke, signaling that he had successfully understood the request.

A few feet from Surge Wilkins adjusted the silencer on his MP-5 Submachine Gun, the non-reflective black metal blended in with the darkness almost perfectly until the moon illuminated it slightly causing the soldier to duck into the shadows once more.

[Alright Lieutenant there seems to be an abandoned missile silo about 5 meters north of your position…]

Surge held his breath.

[…But it looks like the silo is connected to a series of underground tunnels you could possibly use to gain access to the facility.]

Surge left out a silent sigh of relief at the news, at worst it could have been a minefield. Back in the war the Army did not have the technology to utilize a Satellite Thermal Imaging Landscape Layout generator, or S.T.I.L.L for short. The proliferation of technology such as this had made the battlefield a much safer place, but at the same time it made it that much more dangerous.

[How will you proceed Lieutenant?]

"Surge it's your call either we take the tunnel, or continue to the rendezvous point by cutting through the forest and across the cliffs." Hunter stated seated at the base of a particularly large evergreen.

"Farsight what does the facility look like?" Surge spoke into his earpiece once again.

About three miles farther inland perched atop a cliff Private Carroll Riley a.k.a Farsight lay prostrate underneath a dense bushy growth gazing into her.50 Caliber Sniper Rifle which stood comfortably on a flexible metal tripod, the three legs dug into the rock and held the weapon in place. Farsight kept her scope trained on a structure even farther off in the distance for a moment not even acknowledging she even heard the question.

"Well Lieutenant there seems to be four sentry guns on the upper level, and I've got three, four, five confirmed hostiles. I can prolly get rid of 'bout two, or three for ya."

"Do what you can, but don't compromise your location, if you don't have a clear shot then don't take it, I have eyes in the sky to give us a better route."

"Roger that lieutenant."

"Alright let's move it out."

Surge stood up with a heave and didn't notice an object had fallen from his pocket; the light of the moon illuminated the Thunderstone for a mere instant, the gem silently sparkled for a brief moment before fading into obscurity.

The faction trudged through the forest for about an hour having decided the silo was too unsafe to travel without incident. Before long the structure loomed tall in front of them surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence, the search-lights made the silver paint shine brightly for a moment. Hunter took only moments to cut a hole in the fence just wide enough for the others to crawl through.

"Hunter you stay here and establish a secure line to call in for evac, I want a bird in the sky exactly ten minutes from now." Surge grunted out the orders to the private who nodded and immediately disappeared back into the forest.

"Wilkins, Jackson hop to it. We've got 'til 0400 hours to complete the objective or no evac."

The two figures hurried through the fence and stalked along the southern end of the facility, the wide beams cast by the searchlights seemed sentient themselves as they faithfully scanned the night for any threats. Surge fixed the scope on his standard issue M-16 Assault Rifle as he stopped to assess the situation; silently he spoke an order into his earpiece.

"Farsight you think you can ice some of the hostiles?"

There was no response until a dull thud sounded in rather close proximity, and then came another.

"Two down, there's an entrance about one hundred feet from you, hurry before the searchlights catch you."

Surge gave the signal and his two grunts followed him as they sprinted across the open area taking care to stay low to the ground, Wilkins sprinted ahead as he readied his lock picking mechanism and in less then six seconds all three Ops members were seated safely inside the facility. The smooth marble floors were covered a bluish tint cast by the fluorescent lights. Surge gave the signal and Jackson took the pole position as they crept down the hall, there was an eerie silence hovering over the entire building.

"Surge I don't like this." Jackson whispered.

The lieutenant had to agree taking care not to disturb his grenades Surge reached behind his back and procured a small white and crimson orb about the size of a jawbreaker, he quickly tapped the silver dial in the center and the orb swelled to the size of a tennis ball. Without a care Surge then tossed the ball into the center of the room and with a loud 'POP' the ball opened revealed a metallic globe with a large magnet on either side.

"Magnemite use your Metal Sound technique." Surge ordered.

The magnet Pokemon slowly rotated on its axis as it began to levitate, and emitted a low humming noise that quickly rose to a high-pitched screech.

"Nothing here Surge." Jackson reported.

Surge nodded and they began to creep forward until they were in a position to gaze around the corner, and to their surprise what met them was the sight of numerous guards sprawled out on the ground in pools of crimson blood. The soldiers gingerly stepped around the unfortunate guards weapons trained on every corner searching for the cause of the carnage.

"Frost is there another agent on this mission?" Surge barked into the microphone.

[No sir not to my knowledge…]

Frost swallowed hard as he saw the scene through the HUD. Blood splatters decorated the walls as they dripped onto the flow in cherry-red streams. Smoking bullet holes adorned the walls as well, further down the hall tangled wires dangled from large gaping holes as white hot sparks fell to the floor.

"Looks like someone had a party here." Wilkins said sarcastically.

"Now's not the time for jokes soldier!" Surge barked.

Wilkins snapped back to attention, Surge usually didn't yell at his team members, but he was frustrated and confounded by this new development.

"Surge, over here!" Jackson yelled.

Surge and Wilkins sprinted down the hall and around yet another corner followed closely by the Magnemite. The sight that met them was a man harpooned to the wall, and his comrade lay next to him in a pool of gooey purple acid. The acrid smell of burning flesh permeated the hallway and Wilkins had to take a moment to turn around and vomit before composing himself.

"Pull it together, since we're here set the charges." He ordered.

With a new sense of purpose the grunts went about their new task, strategically placing C-4 charges at various points in the building. Surge strutted over to the locked door, and noticed that the security light was green, meaning it was unlocked. Pressing the white button on the security pad next to the door, the large metallic doors opened with a whoosh and suddenly Surge was attacked! The guard charged at him as soon as the doors opened wide enough, the lieutenant jump with a start and gave a well timed burst to the man's midsection that sent him sprawling. Despite his training beads of sweat started to roll down the back of his neck.

"Whoa, good one Surge!" Wilkins congratulated him, Jackson was silent.

Surge walked over to the guard and saw it was not a combat-hardened man like the others, but rather a woman no older than twenty-one. He also noticed that she wasn't a guard at all, but rather a computer technician. Her lips were an unnatural blue color and her skin a very pale shade of white accented by a sickly green hue. Wilkins was the first to notice that they were in the control room and immediately went to work downloading information from the main computer onto an external hardrive. Jackson continued to scan the room for signs of what sort of struggle occurred, the strange thing about this room was that unlike the hallway there was very little blood. From what Jackson could tell everyone in the room died from some sort of asphyxiation stemming from the lack of oxygen.

"This just doesn't add up…" Jackson said quietly

Surge nodded as he pulled back his fatigued bandanna to scratch his spiky blonde hair and that's when he noticed a strange tingling feeling he had in his hands. Surge cautiously looked up and found himself face-to-face with a nightmarish ghoul. With a yell Surge opened fire on the figure who immediately vanished into the ceiling tiles, Wilkins and Jackson instinctively turned around and opened fire on the ceiling as well.

"Magnemite! Use Shockwave now!" Surge yelled desperately.

Almost on cue the metallic globe began emitting a faint yellow glow which darkened in color. Magnemite then released a bright yellow beam of electricity that scattered on contact with the ceiling tiles. Outside the control room they saw the figure emerge from one of the gaping holes in the wall and continue down the hallway, the Spec Ops members gave chase.

[Lieutenant what the hell is going on in there?]

Frost yelled the question into the intercom, the sudden hail of bullets had caught him of guard. Then to his horror he noticed a blinking red light on the dashboard.

[Surge someone tripped the charges early, so you've five minutes to get the fuck out of there!]

"What the hell do you mean tripped?" Surge asked as he sprinted around the corner and squeezed off a single burst from his rifle that narrowly missed the mysterious figure. A silvery glint caught his eye and he ducked as a throwing knife whizzed by where his head had been mere second before and lodged itself in the wall. This annoyed Surge more than anything as he reached down to his belt and hurriedly yanked a grenade, pulled the pin and lobbed it down the hall in one fluid motion. The grenade hit the marble floor with a metallic 'clank' and immediately exploded into many razor sharp fragments that ricocheted off the walls until lodging themselves in the soft flesh of the fallen guards.

[Lieutenant you and your team only half about two minutes until the building comes down on you!] Frost barked into the headset.

"Team lets move!" Surge yelled as he sprinted around yet another corner. Wilkins was hot on his heels spraying the area behind them with a hail of bullets; Jackson was already out the door scanning the area.

"Surge Sentry Guns at eleven o' clock!" Jackson called out moments before diving back into the hallway and narrowly avoiding a spray of toxic sludge. A loud explosion sounded followed by the crash of burning metal on concrete, and Surge knew then that the Sentry had been taken care of.

"Lieutenant it's good to see you again." Farsight said with an air of relief.

Surge smiled to himself as fired a burst into the doorway this time hearing a deep-throated groan. If he had to guess what the sound belonged to, he bank his salary that it was a Pokemon of some sort.

"The 'bird' is en route Surge, proceed to the dust-off point and clear the LZ." Hunter squawked into the headset as he gave the other Ops member covering fire with his M-60i Smart Gun dropping two Sentries in the process.

Surge lobbed another grenade outside the building and counted to himself until he heard the dull explosion smothered by a wet 'plop' noise. Taking this opportunity Surge gave the order to head out the door in the open field, almost immediately the team was met by a nauseating odor that hit them like a wall. The source of the stench appeared to be the piles of purple filth that littered the field; Jackson knelt down to test a sample when much to his surprise the pile of primordial ooze began to move. The small piles of muck began to pile on each other and growing in size until the mess revealed itself as an amorphous pile of lavender-hued sludge.

"Grimer…Sludge attack now." A shadowy voice commanded.

Obediently the Pokemon opened its' seeping maw and ejaculated a barrage of sticky sludge from its throat headed straight for Jackson. Wilkins stared in horror as he watch the toxic filth headed for his teammate, Jacksons' feet were glued to the ground, his legs were like jelly-he was paralyzed with fear! Surge's Magnemite sped in the path of the oncoming projectiles, and intercepted the grime mere moments before they would've made contact with Jackson.

"Rapid Spin!" Surge barked an additional order. "…then finish up with a Thunder Wave technique!"

In quick succession Magnemite put up a barrier of light to shield itself and Jackson from the barrage of noxious sludge. The stench was almost overpowering but the Magnet Pokemon seemed largely unaffected as it launched a weak stream of electricity at the purple blob. The Grimer was hit by the glowing stream of lightning almost head-on, the tingling energy coursed through its liquid body almost instantly, scrambling the message canals between its brain and nervous system. The Grimer struggled to move, but found itself unable to do anything short of melting into a standing pool of muck.

"Acid Armor huh?" Surge said to himself. Through the course of their encounter it was now clear who they were fighting against, and before he had time to complete his thought several loud explosions reverberated through the building sending all personnel present flying to the ground.

"Alright team party's over; let's get the hell outta here! Magnemite you've done great, so return." Surge recalled the levitating globe into the red and white sphere once again.

Wilkins promptly leapt back to his feet and ran to help Jackson who was still visibly shook by his close encounter with death. Hunter trotted out into the open to help carry Jackson back into the forest, Surge took a moment to look at the scene then the Ops team disappeared back into t he dense woodland almost as quickly and stealthily as they had first arrived. The distant beat of a helicopter several minutes later signaled that they were no longer on the ground and were headed safely back to their home country, they smoke ascending to the heavens the only real clue that they had even been there in the first place.

The light cast by the towering inferno illuminated the entire field revealing piles of smoldering metal and patches of dead grass. A murky puddle that reflected some of the light given off by the blaze seemed to be all that remained of the Grimer that had caused so many problems. A figure stalked over to the fallen Pokemon and carefully dropped a small berry into the puddle. There a sizzle as the berry was digested and the Grimer returned to its original form, then a beam of red light struck the blob causing it to retrograde into the same radiant form before being sucked back in an orb similar to the one used by . The blaze illuminated the figure enough to reveal his garb-Purple and black fatigued robes wrapped tightly around his slender frame, a long black cloth that draped down his back that seemed to be tied around his neck and finally a Japanese Oni mask which he allowed to dropped into the dust. The ninja turned and walked towards the forest, the chains attached to his twin Kama clanging together almost rhythmically as he walked.

"Yes… the package has been picked up." He whispered into an earpiece hidden behind his own bandanna.

The shadow trudged around the field for a few moments before donning his mask once again. He turned around momentarily to view the blazing building one last time the before quickly vanishing into the night for the last time. Rain once again began to pour out onto the earth, time seemed to slow to a standstill as a multitude of fragile water droplets made their descent from the ballooning clouds into the obscurity of the night, the light of the billowing flames reflected in their gentle gaze.

The End