The Virus
Disclaimer: I, UBE Chief, do not own the copyrights to Pokemon. If I did, things would be WAY more interesting.
A/N: I know, I know, this is long overdue! I'm sorry! Hopefully the amount I've written will soothe your anger towards my tardiness.
Bonus points to those who figured out what AoD meant a few chapters back. You know who you are, and here's a cookie. BTW, that cookie is stored on your internet browser. Enjoy.
Chapter Seven: How it Feels
To be a hunter; to be the hunted.
To be a murderer; to be the victim.
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Allow me to introduce myself.
Some of my foes run before me.
Some of them stand and fight against me.
Some of them even commit suicide rather than be finished by the likes of me.
My designation is known throughout the land.
I am...
"Die."
Bang
The Angel of Death.
Sent forth by the military, I am required to eliminate those who stand in the way of victory...including friendly forces - although Command only knows of those casualties as "collateral damage", even though I personally killed each and every one of them.
I prefer to work alone; a solitary hawk watching its turf for prey, waiting for the right time to strike.
What Command doesn't know, however, is that I was never on their side, not even from the beginning...but that's another story to tell, in another time. Here and now, I have been dispatched to deal with a few outsiders who have broken into one of the military installations. There are infected, but they're outside of my mission parameters...for now.
Right now, though, I was progressively making my way through the installation, killing any solitary soldier I could find. Apparently, the small group had locked themselves in the armoury. Ingenious.
Soon, I heard a commotion in a nearby hallway, and I went to investigate. A large group of soldiers stood poised, arms at the ready, at a door. That must be the armoury. This could also prove useful - killing two Pidgey with one stone, to use an old adage. As I hid around the corner, the door blew outwards. Time to strike.
"Fire!"
I raised two of my right-hand fingers up and focused. The immediate area lost its colour and turned into static-grey.
"Negative Void."
At that, I snapped my fingers, and a large pitch-black sphere appeared in the soldiers' midst, obliterating any traces of them in an instant as the sphere turned white from the inside-out.
Again, I repeated my actions, raising the same two fingers up and focusing.
"Negative Wave."
This time, I turned my palm around in a shoving motion, making a pitch-black wall appear before it, and allowing the wall to extend down the hallway, eradicating the rest of the soldiers who were still alive (and disoriented) from my first attack; again, as the void turned to a blinding white light from the inside-out.
Withdrawing an SMG from the depths of my cloak, I moved to the now-open door, ready to finish my mission.
We stood, transfixed, at the carnage before us...or would have, if the attacks we witnessed hadn't wiped the hallway clean of any residue.
"Oh no," Sarge whispered. "No, no, no. We need to get out of here, now."
"What? Why? Isn't that guy on our side?" Alex asked, confused.
Sarge chuckled darkly. "I wish. He's on nobody's side. He fights for himself. He doesn't even fight for his family."
"How do you know that, Sarge?" I inquired.
He opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it. "Never mind. We need to get out of here before -"
"Hello."
We all jumped back, glaring at a cloaked figure lazily leaning against the doorway, a P90 hanging from a strap on his hand. The person took his time surveying each and every one of us, his view pausing on Sarge for a little while longer than usual.
"Sergeant, how nice to see you again," the person said, hood still covering his head.
"Sarge? You two know each other?" Seth growled.
"Yeah, you could say that," Sarge replied, a grimace on his face.
Something told me that this guy wasn't going to let us live. I slowly began to raise DI, hoping to not get noticed, when the man disappeared.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," he whispered in my ear. Looking down, I saw the P90 pressed against my chest.
'And I wouldn't dare do that if I were you,' Lily replied. We both glanced over, and saw Lily holding a Focus Blast in her palm. I had a quick look around and saw everyone else surrounding us, looking for a fight.
The man scoffed. "Amateurs." He twirled around, temporarily blocking our views with his cloak. Next thing we knew, we all had a weapon pointed at our heads.
"Hey Daemon, remember when I told you I was the first Pokemon to be enlisted in the military here?" Sarge asked.
"Yeah, but is this really the time for this?" I replied.
"Well, it was half-true. I was the first to be enlisted in a front-line position."
"Wait, front-line position? Do you mean...?"
"I was the first to be enlisted," the man said, whipping off his cloak with a flourish.
What stood before us was another Gallade - but his colouring was very different. Instead of green, black; white, grey. His crest atop his head was a dark shade of red - similar to blood. His eyes and gem were still the standard red, but that only complimented his alternate colouring.
"Who...are you?" I asked.
"He, is the military's elite. He is...the Angel of Death."
The "Angel" spoke. "It's nice of you to introduce me to your allies, Sergeant," he said. "But you seem to have forgotten to tell them who else I am."
"Sarge?" I inquired.
He grunted and closed his eyes. "He...he's my..."
"Father. What, too ashamed to admit it, son? You should be proud to be my offspring."
Sarge snapped open his eyes and glared at the "Angel". "Proud? Proud? Why should I be proud? I'm disgusted that I'm your son!"
"Insolence!" The "Angel" spat, closing the small distance between himself and Sarge, backhanding him. "I gave you life and my old callsign, and you're disgusted? I can easily take both away from you!"
Sarge slowly turned his head back to the "Angel". "But, what will Mother think?"
This seemed to stall the "Angel". "Damn. Damn, damn, DAMN!" He slammed a fist into a wall, punching a hole clean through it. Then, he sighed.
"Fucking hell. Fine. You all live. I highly doubt that my mate would allow me to live if I killed any one of you."
'Damn straight,' a voice projected into our minds. 'What the hell were you thinking, Arc? Going to kill our only son? You would be lucky to be recognizable if you killed him!'
"Arceus-dammit, Sam!"
At that instant, a Gardevoir appeared beside him, arms crossed and frowning.
'And what about his mate, hmm? What would you do about her?'
"Mother..." Sarge said quietly.
'John,' she replied softly, gliding over to him. 'It's been too long. Why have you stayed out of contact for so long?'
"Same reason as Dad, I guess. Military work keeps everyone distant from their relatives."
Just then, an explosion rocked the complex.
"Damn," Arc said, looking at the ceiling. "Seems like either the remainder of the forces here have started destroying the base, or we have a very bad problem on our hands."
"Lily," I said, "You said that there was a large group of infected amassing outside, correct?"
'Yes,' she replied. 'You don't think…?'
"I don't think, I know," I replied. "Sarge, Seth, ready up. I don't think it's a good idea to stay here, especially considering that the autocannons didn't hold them back."
"Well now, that's only because I had EMP charges on them before I arrived," Arc said sheepishly.
"And you didn't tell us...WHY?" I shouted.
"You didn't inform me of the horde of infected assholes out there, ready to tear this base to shreds to get to us!" Arc retorted.
"GUYS!" Sarge shouted, "I think we need to get past this and DO something about it before we're all dead, capiche?"
Arc sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "You're right, son. Luckily they only need a reinitialization time of five minutes…"
"Well, all we have to do is wait!" Alex said loudly.
"…after we reboot the computer systems. Which, ironically, takes twice as long to boot up, not to mention the time it takes to get to the system core from here," Arc finished.
The air was silent as we let that sink in.
I sighed. "Well, we have multiple options here. One, we try and run for it -"
'Which is suicide,' Lily said, crossing her arms.
"- Two, we attempt to contain them by either controlled breaches -"
"Also suicide," Seth growled.
"- Or by luring them into an area before killing the lot of them -"
"Impossible, considering we don't know the exact size of the horde…and it's also suicide," Sarge - John - added.
"- Or we can go and attempt to reactivate the computer systems so that the autocannons can whittle down the infected before taking any of the above actions."
"That can buy us a lot of time," Elaine said, looking hopeful.
"There's one other option," Arc said, looking sombre.
"And that is?" I asked, glaring at him suspiciously.
"The self-destruct mechanism. It's a last-resort system, utilizing seven tactically-placed nuclear warheads in and around the underground complex. Also, ironically, the system for it is in the main computer core - where we have to go to reset the systems for the autocannons."
I balked. "Are you serious? I didn't lead everyone here to die!"
"And yet you lead them here," Arc replied, looking at me with a grim smile.
"We came here looking for answers, father. Not to get ourselves killed," Sarge retorted.
"Answers as to why Command sent you and countless others on a suicide trip to the various cities and towns in a pathetic attempt to control this outbreak?"
We stood in shock.
"Yes, I knew about it. I was one of the head commanders who authorized the mission - but not without trying to see if there were other options first."
'And here I thought you had been completely taken over by Darkrai…' Sam contemplated.
"Only during battle. His control lasts for a while before I can control myself once again. Anyways, what's it going to be?" Arc asked as the explosions grew louder and more frequent.
"Stupid question. C'mon everyone, let's go and reactivate those computer systems!" And with that, I lead everyone out into the hallway, following Sarge's instructions on how to get to the mainframe.
Back in the armoury, Arc sighed.
"Damn kids. Gonna go and get themselves killed…"
'They don't have as many chances as you do, Arc. What happened to you? You're not the same Gallade I fell in love with all those years ago,' Sam asked.
"Shit happens," he replied, then teleported away.
Sam sighed as well, then followed suit.
Several minutes later (and many collapsed pathways), we found the mainframe.
"'Bout damn time," Alex groaned, stretching his legs.
Nobody spoke back; we were all too damn tired from the events.
"Alright, which one is the terminal to reset the autocannons?" I asked around.
There was a sudden whoosh next to me, and I jumped aside, startled.
"We need to access the main terminal. It holds all the codes to reset any system in the complex," Arc said, showing indifference to my reaction to him. He moved over to a larger computer and pressed a key. Instantly, the screen came to life, a blaring, flashing red:
WARNING:
COMPLEX DEFENCES DOWN
SATTELITE CONNECTION LOST
LAST RECEIVED TRANSMISSION AVAILABLE FOR REPLAY
REPLAY? Y/N
Arc pressed the "Y" key and the screen changed again, to a video of an older man, clearly military, sporting salt-and-pepper hair. It was then I noticed the five stars gleaming on his shoulder. A General of the Army.
"To anyone who receives this message:
All hope is lost. All transmissions to and from our main research facility has been lost. We assume all have been killed or transformed. That facility housed the one possible cure to this disaster. We cannot send anyone to the facility, as it is nearly too remote to get to by land, and impossible to get to by air because of its superior anti-air defence grid which is on a separate nuclear power supply deep underground.
We have realized that our usage of the nuclear warheads in the failed Tactical Nuclear Squadron mission has jeopardized Pokemon DNA to the mutagen, and now anyone and anything is vulnerable to it. Our only hope is that someone, somewhere, is immune to this.
In the possible event that all of our underground complexes have been overrun, I have all stations to self-destruct within forty-eight hours of this message being sent. All personnel are to immediately evacuate to a safe area and prepare for the worst. Only the main research complex will not be destroyed in case there is someone who can get to the cure and distribute it.
Coordinates to the research complex are in an attached folder. Remember, you have forty-eight hours from the time I send this message until your complex detonates. Good luck."
"Forty-eight hours…someone check the time and date it was sent!" Sarge shouted.
I quickly ran over to the terminal and checked the time stamp of the video.
It was forty-seven hours old.
When I turned back to the group, Sarge and Arc instantly read my expression.
"We need to move out, NOW," I said.
"But what about restarting the -"
"You don't understand - we NEED to move NOW!" I almost yelled. I turned to Sarge and Arc. "Motorpool. Where." The pair looked at each other and said simultaneously: "Follow me," before turning and running right out of the room. I bolted after them, and only hoped everyone else was following.
Lily sighed before turning to the computer console. 'Does anyone know how to get info from this thing?'
We finally reached the motorpool. I looked behind me, only to find out that nobody had followed.
"Where is everyone?" I asked aloud.
With a soft whoosh, Lily appeared next to me, along with everyone else.
'You forgot to get the co-ordinates from the terminal, Daemon,' she said softly.
"Ah, damn. I knew I forgot something."
'Luckily for you, she decided to get the info after you ran~' Sue yawned, perched atop Elaine's head.
I facepalmed. "What'd I do without you, Lily?"
'I'm glad we don't have to find out,' she replied with a smile, taking a hold of my arm.
"Okay, now that that's over with, how about we get back to running? How much time was left, Daemon? You never told us," Sarge said.
"Ah, shit, right! The timestamp was from over forty-seven hours ago, so we need to get moving!"
"That's not enough time," Arc said.
"Not enough time for what?" I asked.
"Minimum safe distance is well over twenty kilometres. We'd get about fifteen before the complex detonates."
"Perfect," Seth growled sarcastically.
"If we had known one, maybe two hours before, we wouldn't have lingered as much..."I said, slouching.
"Nothing you can do about it," Sarge said. "We probably still would've done the exact same thing - we needed the supplies."
'But we can still teleport to a safe distance, right?' Lily asked, worried.
"If - and this is a big if - we combine all of our psychic powers into it. Not many know this, but there are psychic dampeners built into all of the complexes - they're just turned down a lot to allow for minor teleportation in and around them, not for long jumps," Arc said.
"Then let's do it! We're wasting time talking about it!" Alex said; eager to get away from this place.
"Alright, everyone stay close. Lily, Sue, you two are going to have to sync telepathic signals with me and John for this to work," Arc said, taking a deep breath.
I could feel them combining their powers, as the side-effect was pressure behind the eyes for all non-psychics. I had to start rubbing my temples to ease the pain as their concentration built up.
"Almost...there..."Arc muttered, a clear purple-blue outline surrounding him and beginning to show up on us.
CRASH
"WHAT THE F-"
Standing in the massive hole it created, stood a massive monster. Well over seven feet tall, heavily-built, my first thought was-
Run.
At that simple thought, our claustrophobic surroundings disappeared, only to be replaced by a setting sun, some hills, and...
"GAHROOOH!"
Surrounded by the mass of infected beings, ready to tear our throats from our still-breathing bodies. Battle instinct took over.
"Lily, Protect!" I cried out.
A glittering green sphere expanded from her, pushing all infected masses away from us - if only for a short while.
"We are NOT at the minimum safe distance!" Arc shouted.
"You think they give two shits? This Protect won't last long enough for all of us to get our bearings straight, so get prepped for battle!" I retorted, jerking my head towards the infected, now beating their limbs bloody against the protective shield surrounding us.
'It's now or never,' I thought.
"SCATTER!" someone shouted behind me. I whipped around, DI at the ready, only to see the horrifying scene before me.
That monster - that same monster from the motorpool - was charging toward us. I knew that the Protect would have no use against it. Everyone was already moving, in slow motion, as my adrenaline decided to kick in at the sight before me. I turned around once again, only to see Lily standing in fear at the behemoth.
"Lily!" I shouted, trying to get her attention. No dice. "LILY!" I shouted again. A blink. She slowly looked at me, as if asking what to do next. No more time. I ran over to her and pushed her out of the way just as the being broke through the Protect and shattered Lily's concentration. As I whipped around once more to face it, it managed to grab me and began shoving through the crowd of infected.
Now that I was up close and personal, I realized that this beast was a horribly mutated Machamp. "I need to get it off of me!" I thought as I attempted to raise DI. In fear, I realised that the Machamp had my limbs pinned as it shoved the pair of us through many creatures in an effort to wound me. I was working, but it wasn't to the desired effect. I had to do something.
Gritting my teeth, I headbutted the beast. It roared, spittle flying in my face. I tried again, wincing in pain from the contact. Seems like the infected still have some sense of pain, as I felt the Machamp lose a bit of grip on my right arm. Good enough. I managed to rotate DI into a somewhat usable position and pulled the trigger. With each round escaping the barrel, the Machamp's grip grew weaker. After I counted seven shots, the grip on my right arm was non-existent.
I twisted around slightly and saw we were headed for a wall. "Oh shit, this is gonna hurt!" I rotated back and placed DI under the Machamp's chin - and pulled the trigger once more. As its head exploded into a meaty mess, I realized, too late, that our momentum would still bring us to the wall at quite a clip. At the same time, I noticed that the corpse wasn't holding me tightly anymore, and it was slowly collapsing forward.
I shouted in surprise as I hit the ground, rolling backwards until I slammed into the wall. I felt the air leave my lungs, saw my vision explode into stars, and the world slowed down to a snail's pace. I tried to roll to my right, cursing in my head that I seemed to be moving far too slowly for my liking.
Disoriented, I staggered to my feet, looking around for DI. The world was still moving too slow. As I bent down to pick DI up, blood rushed into my head, giving me a very weird sensation. Although time was slow - still - it appeared to me as though everything was moving faster, too. I spotted an infected Marowak charging me with its bone.
"Too slow," I thought. Sidestepping it, I calmly placed DI's barrel in line with its head, and pulled the trigger. After the gore stopped falling, it was only then that I noticed that the rest of the infected were quickly retreating. I wondered why. Suddenly, I felt an electric shiver travel up my spine. Did nuclear weapons have an EMP before, or after detonation? Just then, the world went dark.
Lily's POV
"Where is everyone?" I thought as I blasted yet another infected being away from me. After Daemon pushed me away, it was chaos. Everyone got separated, and it was hard to keep focus on anyone at any given time. As far as I knew, Daemon, Arc, John, Sue and myself were alone, while Alex, his Snorlax, Elaine and Seth were together in a group, holding their own. I tried getting to Elaine, but the horde of infected was just too thick to get past, and every time I attempted to float above it all, there was some grotesque...thing coming at me from the air, so I had no choice but to go back down into the horde.
I began focusing, creating a barrier around me to prevent interruption. I could only do a few of these before tiring myself out, and I didn't want that to happen while I was completely surrounded.
"Garde..." It's been a while since I actually had to say my species name. We usually only need to do so when preparing a powerful move - like now. All other times, we try and talk to our trainers via telepathic transmissions, but most of the time it just comes out as our species name. I took a deep breath and crossed my arms.
"Voir!" I shouted as I brought my arms out in a sweeping motion, creating a massive bubble - a Psychic bomb, if you will. I was already somewhat tired from dispatching so many other creatures that this bomb drained me more than it should have. I need to move. Immediately I scanned, looking for the closest source of clear intelligence. Yes. There. Locking onto it, I teleported, appearing next to John.
"Tough times, huh?" was the first thing out of his mouth, firing his weapon into the horde.
"No hello?" I replied, using our native tongue.
"Duck," he said, and I complied, firing a Psybeam at a charging Rhyhorn - or what was left of one - as he fired over my head at something else. "Hi. Where's Daemon?"
"Lost track of him - and everyone else - right after he pushed me out of the way of that gigantic creature. You were the first clear-headed being I could lock on to," I replied, now standing back-to-back with him, our gems nearly touching. I blushed from the close proximity.
"Don't worry. I've already got a mate of my own. By the way, I know you've been keeping the news from everyone else - especially Daemon. Has he ever sent you to a Daycare to handle that?"
I blushed harder and sent a feedback of Psychic energy at him to show my discomfort in the subject.
He laughed as he blew another head off. "I see. Well, I won't tell anyone, but I'm quite sure my father and Seth already know. Not sure about the rest, however."
"Is this really the time and place to talk about this?" I growled, putting far more power into my attacks than was necessary.
John chuckled. "If we aren't going to talk about it now, then we might as well talk about it when everyone's back together...by the way, are you a -"
"Shut up!" I yelled at him. I know he was just wondering, but my body is my privacy...until I decide otherwise.
"Wait, what's going on? I noticed a whole lot less infected attacking us - it seems like the rest are retreating," John wondered, lowering his weapon.
"I think that might be a question to ask your father..." I replied, motioning to a steadily darkening figure in the distance.
Arc's POV
"Kill them."
"No."
"Kill them."
"I will not let you control me!"
"Kill them. Kill them ALL."
"Get out of my head!"
"We both know that you can't stop me."
"I can damn well try!"
"Submit."
"No!"
"You WILL submit!"
"Get the fuck out of my head!"
"Feel the darkness...be consumed by it...USE THE POWER I GAVE YOU!"
"I won't use it for your gains!"
"USE THE POWER!"
"GET - OUT - OF - MY - HEAD! AAAAAAHHHHHH!"
I couldn't hold back the darkness. I needed to release. I had to submit - if only temporarily. Darkrai won't get full control. Not today. Not now. I just needed him to use me so I can use him.
My eyes snapped open, revealing a grey landscape of the battlefield I was fighting in. The infected were running away from me - and rightly so. It seemed Darkrai still had an insurmountable hold of fear in these beings' bodies. They seemed to be converging on a point over a hill for a second attack. I would not let that happen.
"No, what are you doing? Discharge the move here!"
"No."
I teleported in their midst, taking them by surprise. I must've been a terrifying sight to behold - a darkly-coloured Gallade, surrounded by a visible Aura of death and darkness. Time slowed down and the grey slowly turned into static as I charged up the pent-up darkness inside me. I saw them running again.
"Too slow. Negative Bomb!" I shouted as I slammed a fist into the ground.
"NOOO!"
"This time, Darkrai, you lose."
Panoramic view of the complex (as seen from a security camera)
A large sphere of pitch black seemed to appear from just over a hill, quickly encompassing everything in its path. As it approached the complex, everything in front of the camera turned to static before suddenly filling into a void of darkness. Seconds later, the screen fills to white before dissolving into static; then cuts out altogether.
A/N: This is now the longest chapter I've put out - second only to Chapter Three, that is. Fourteen pages, over 4,500 words on Microsoft Word, and hopefully enough of a storyline to hold your appetites until the next chapter.
To be honest, I didn't have much inspiration going for me about halfway to two-thirds in, so that's the main reason why the chapter got delayed for so long. I'm truly sorry for that.
So, until next chapter,
- UBE Chief
P.S. Yes, I threw a techno-cookie at you guys. Clever, huh? Nerdy-ness ftw...?