Chapter 13
A/N: No comment. On with the story.
Cynthia let out a cry of pain as she and her Garchomp landed abruptly on a pile of soft snow. She rolled off her Garchomp while touching her head. She was a sure of a welt there. She opened her eyes carefully and looked around her. Apart from her Garchomp twitching and shaking uncontrollably beside her, she can't see anything because it was too dark. Not even moon light to illuminate her way. Her Garchomp! She almost forgot about her pokemon's vulnerability to coldness. She quickly returned it to the warmth of its pokeball. She took out a flare gun and shot it upwards. The flare flew up for a few seconds before exploding into red bits that fell around her, bathing the whole area in red light.
Cynthia seized the few second of illumination to scout her surroundings again. She found her self on a high place overlooking towers and obelisks around her. There seems to be a garden directly below. To her front was a huge palace of some sort. The whole place was made of a kind of reflective material, probably ice. She knelt down and swept away the snow around her. The ground below was smooth and cold, like cement floors. Cynthia could feel the coldness creeping up from her hand which was touching the ice below her. She quickly withdrew her hand.
Cynthia flickered the small pencil xenon light on her ViewCam on. The building reflected the light into beautiful multi-coloured pictures around her. She took in this amazing sight in a second. However, she reminded herself of her mission and called out her Togekiss. She asked it to use safeguard to protect itself from the cold and rode on it. They carefully navigated themselves to the garden. Upon alighting, she withdrew her Togekiss as it began to shiver from the frigid temperature. She put down her bag and pulled a flat communicator. She switched it on. After giving Bryan and Jarlo, the people who requested her for this mission, a brief report on her current status, she took out another cube-shaped machine. She slid the communicator back to the back pocket of her bag. The machine was activated. It uses the Zubat supersonic theory to accurately scan the surrounding area.
Cynthia watched as her ViewCam continuously revealed a scale-model palace. Cynthia watched as the machine showed moving objects. She frowned. Obviously, she came to the right place. There were still Pokemon guardians in this long abandoned place. She waited until the machine revealed an enormous chamber guarded by a dozen pointy legged and tri-fingered Pokemon and a single object. A flat object. A shard.
Cynthia left the machine where it was, in the garden, as she took her bag and began to walk her way through to the chamber. She set her ViewCam computer to calculate the safest and shortest route to the chamber. Her brow furrowed again as she saw the route. She needed to get through at least twenty pokemon guards, not to mention dozens of traps in between.
---
Cyrus checked his computer screen. The Team Galaxy mother ship was rushing to the Artic Circle at a speed of 250 kilometers per hour. They were going to reach the frigid seas of the North Pole in a few more minutes. Cyrus stretched in his seat. He thought of the frigates he had sent to find Team Elphar's ship. He pressed the contact button on the control panel in front of him.
"Captain green one. Status report," said Cyrus into the microphone.
"Report commander, we failed to locate the Elphar Mother ship. We tried everything we have on this ship, including radar, infrared and the newest supersonic equipment,"
said the captain carefully and slowly, knowing how the commander accepted failures.
"We'll talk about this later, come back here now," said Cyrus, in a deadly tone. The captain and his partner gulped audibly over the microphone.
Cyrus broke off the conversation. Ellen's ship was not following the route that was shown by the GPS tracker. This suggests that he hacked the tracker and planted a false lead. He focused himself to the mission on hand. He will deal with the traitor later.
---
Cynthia was panting. Her body was rushing with adrenalin. She just managed to get through a particularly dangerous trap which involved metal spikes and falling icicles. If not for her Magmortar and its Flamethrower that melted the spikes and icicles, she would be writhing on the floor with spikes and icicles piercing her body.
She checked her ViewCam. Two more traps and a dozen more Regice and Abomasnows to go. Cynthia smiled weakly at her Magmortar, though it was covered by her ski mask. Magmortar seemed to be able to sense Cynthia's feeling and started swinging its barrel-like arms, a sign that it was happy. Suddenly, Magmortar raised its arms towards the front, poised for attack. Cynthia's ViewCam warned that three Regice was coming their way.
Cynthia looked around. She saw an ice statue of a kneeling knight holding a sword in front of him. She turned off the pencil light. She hastily returned Magmortar to its pokeball and ran quickly, but silently, in the shadows, to the back of the statue. She preferred not to attack this time. Too many attacks will alert them of her presence and they will step up their defenses, making it almost impossible to get to the chamber.
The ice guardians hovered silently, through the corridor. Cynthia could feel the coldness even five meters away. There seems to be the slightest of hesitation when they reached the end of the corridor. Cynthia's heart was pounding against her ribcage. She feared the worst and her hand flew to her pokeballs. However, the Regice continued their patrol. Cynthia then quickly advanced through the corridor, relying on the computer to guide her way.
After a few minutes, the computer ceased giving updates to her computer. Cynthia was shocked. She tapped it, willing it to work. Alas, it was no use. It seems that the machine outside had stopped working. Cynthia frowned again. She seems to be frowning a lot lately. She would have to follow her heart to get to the chamber.
Cynthia closed her eyes. She felt her mind wander through the whole palace. She saw every detail, every pokemon that resided in this building, every wall, everything.
As she opened her eyes, her will burned with the flames of determination.
"I shall let the Aura guide me," thought Cynthia.
---
Cyrus and his team of Galaxy members came down to the frozen seas of the Artic Circle by a smaller aircraft from the mother ship. They landed quickly and departed in an orderly manner. They set up a mini base within a few minutes. Cyrus went inside to debrief his men. His men had lined up into two straight lines.
"Men, today, we shall be capturing the Sinnoh Champion, Cynthia, for our use," Cyrus said to the two lines of Team Galaxy members. A few people's eyes went wide at this, but they quickly returned to their composure.
"The champion must be captured alive. If I sense any hesitation, any doubt, then I shall personally hunt you down. Is that clear?"
"Yes sir!" barked the men.
"Good."
---
Cynthia wanted to hit herself for not thinking of this earlier. She had packed some repels into her bag. Why didn't she think of that before? The pokemon guards practically flee at the smell of the repel. Her way was clear. She met no one along her way.
She then came to a huge and delicate carved arc. There were many strange pictures on it. Cynthia reached out a hand to touch. However, her inner sense reminded her that there might be sensors on it. She continued walking. She came to a huge room. The chamber.
It was a magnificent room, with doors and arcs that lead to every where. There was a huge chandelier on the ceiling of the room. It shone brightly; its light reflected everywhere, throwing images, colourful images into the air. There was also a cylindrical platform in the center of the room, below the chandelier, both connected through a beam of light bluish light. Cynthia walked her way slowly to the platform, savouring the beauty of the chamber.
There was a lone and flat object hovering and rotating in the beam of light. Cynthia recognized it as the Icicle Shard. She walked up the stairs around the platform to it. There was a plague there that wrote the following words:
Take it,
And be free of freedom.
Leave it,
And be imprisoned of destruction.
Destroy it,
And you will be sure that you shall never leave this place.
Protect it,
And you will be sure that you shall always leave the world of demolition.
Take care,
Auraer.
Cynthia took this as a test of bravery and confirmation. Take it or leave it? She thought. She read the words again. She then decided to take it. As she stretched out her hand to take the shard, the entire chamber rumbled and quaked. Cynthia quickly took the shard and pocketed it. She turned round to see flashes of blue light that signaled someone was using Ice Beam. She called out her Togekiss and teleported herself out to the garden.
Wheels in Cynthia's mind turned rapidly. The repels haven't lasted long enough to be out of use. Then why did the pokemon guards attacked? She frowned. Just then, gears clicked. There are other intruders in this palace! However, just as she figured it out, someone stepped out of the shadows and shot a tranquillizer bullet at her. Cynthia only managed to give the Icicle Shard to her Togekiss and commanded it to leave her and give the shard to Jarlo and Bryan. She then fainted. The last thing she saw was the flash of light that signaled Togekiss's departure.
---
Cyrus and his team lowered themselves down the dark circular hole. They landed on a smooth and cold surface. Cyrus whispered into his microphone to ask his men to spread out, find Cynthia, remain silent, and use night vision. He, on the hand went down to the garden. He found a battered supersonic sensor machine on the ground. This showed that someone came here before. He hid himself into the shadows.
Sure enough, within moments, a flash appeared in the garden. Cynthia came through with her Togekiss. Cyrus raised his tranquillizer gun, aimed and shot her in her arm. She passed an object from her breast pocket to her Togekiss before falling down. Cyrus commanded his men to abandon all missions and regroup at the tower as he walked towards his prize.
"Cynthia…" muttered Cyrus. He smiled for the second time that day.
A/N: Sigh, slow update…