Chapter Seventeen: Freedom on Steel Wings

Epic Gary moment courtesy of moi lolz.

Gary anxiously waited, the silence deafening. He kept the pendent hidden in the palm of his hand, tucked under his long sleeved shirt. He nodded off for a minute, but jerked himself awake. He couldn't fall asleep, not now. Thankfully, the guard decided that he would. There was a sudden snort as the guard started to snore, loudly. He sighed at the sound; it seemed to echo off the stone walls, driving him crazy, but he secretly blessed it, for if the guard was asleep, then he had a better chance of escaping.

He pulled the pendent out, eyes going back and forth shiftily, watching for the guard, but he wasn't going to awake anytime soon. He held the pendent, a small sphere with green and gold swirled around each other like the ying-yang pattern. It had an interesting story behind it, a gift from his father during his travels in the Sevii Islands. He was told it represented the balance between the sky and earth, the gold of the sun and the green of the earth. He remembered the small box it came with and the day he received it, a young boy of eight, watching his parents divorcing. Ironically, the gift was no the key to his survival.

He pressed a small button and the pendent flipped open, revealing a pokeball. Shortly after his Silver Conference run, he had gone home to think. During the process, he came across the stream where he and Ash fought over the Pokeball and an idea struck him like a thunderbolt. The next day, he went to the jeweler's, asking for his father's gift to be modified, to store a pokeball, in case of emergencies (with Ash's horrible habit of attracting Team Rocket, Gary wasn't going to risk being caught off guard).

Gary gently shook Dawn awake. "Psst!" he whispered in her ear. She stirred slowly; ever since they had been captured, she had been sleeping more often, probably as an escape from her reality. Gary couldn't blame her. "We're breaking out of here."

"We are? How? And what about our pokemon?" Gary, with a smug, victorious smile on his face, exposed the pokeball stashed away in his palm.

"We're using this bad boy to get out of this dump." He pressed the white button of the pokeball and it popped open, releasing a nidoqueen, who yawned and stretched.

Dawn's face lit up, the first spark of hope ever since she had arrived there. "You mean 'girl'," she giggled, her first joke in a long time too.

"Guess so." Gary got Nidoqueen's attention, who had milling around, unsure. Gary exposed his foot, the one that was in chains. "Break this chain. Her's too." he gestured to Dawn's chain. Nidoqueen nodded and the spike pokemon tramped over, grabbing Gary's chain in her two paws. With barely any effort, the chain snapped in two, the spare chains clattering to the floor. Gary winced; if the guard heard it, then they were through. He told Nidoqueen to stop and the trio froze, waiting to see if the guard had woken up. A few heartbeats passed and there was no indication that he had waken up. Nidoqueen continued and she broke Dawn's chain. Grateful, Dawn gave the blue pokemon a bear hug, elated. Gary smiled and then pondered their next situation, getting out of the cell and freeing Mrs. Ketchum, who had been watching the scene. He mouthed to her, "We'll get you next." she nodded and hunkered down to wait.

Gary, his mobility back, went to the barred gate that held them prisoners. He peeked down the hallway, to chuckle at the guard, who was slumped over in a drunken stupor, as evident by the bottle of whiskey, tipped over as the pungent odor filled the air. It was obvious that the guard would need a lot to wake him. "Maybe we stand a chance after all." He ordered Nidoqueen to him. "Can you break this gate, without waking him over there?" he pointed to the snoring guard. She gave a curt nod and she grasped onto the iron gate, squeezing slightly on the metal. Gary and Dawn watched in amazement as the metal crumpled under her paws like tissue paper. There was an audible groan as she started to lift the gate out of it's moorings. Screws popped from the hinges as the pokemon managed to lift the entire gate away, metal crumpled and bent. She then placed the gate aside. Gary took a cautious step outside. Unfortunately, it was at that moment that the guard decided to stir. He lifted his head up and gave the escaped trio an odd look. He blinked a few times, then glanced over at the tipped whiskey bottle. Gary almost laughed as he flopped over once again, asleep.

"Now for Mrs. Ketchum," Gary said to himself. "Nidoqueen, open that gate too." She oblidged her trainer, but this time, she made an opening, pulling the bars aside. She stepped in, followed by Gary, then Dawn,who watched the guard with a leery eye. Nidoqueen, like she did earlier, snapped Mrs. Ketchum's chains as well. Mrs. Ketchum tried to stand, but her knees gave way and she was forced to lean against Gary.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"No prob," he replied. As he led her out of the cell, the guard stirred once again, and this time, he realized that it wasn't just an alcohol induced hallucination.

"What the?" He shook his head in surprise. He opened his mouth to shout something, but was cut off by Dawn's command.

"Nidoqueen! Slug him!" The spike pokemon looked confused for a moment, since it wasn't her trainer that gave her the command, but she listened and she charged, pumping her fist. She leaped on the table in a single bound and she swung her fist upwards, giving a nasty uppercut to the man's jaw. Bones cracked and gave way under the force and he fell backwards off his chair in a large clatter, unconscious, his jaw clearly broken.

"Crap!" Gary cursed. "They defiantly heard us now!" His assumptions were correct when clamor rose from behind him. He whirled his head around to find that torchlight was starting to light the stairway behind him. "Carp!" he cursed loudly again, mind spinning like crazy, trying to think of something. He shouted to Nidoqueen. "Nidoqueen, behind us! Use Hyper beam, now!"

Nidoqueen thundered behind him, planting her feet firmly into the cobbled floor. The room thrumed with energy as Nidoqueen built up for her attack. A white beam shot out from her mouth, the colors of the prism swirling and twisting around each other, forming a beam of white light. Gary shielded his eyes from the dazzling display and sensed the room's ambient temperature increase as the beam struck home, at the base of the stairs. Debris and people flew everywhere as the attack landed just was the first dozen or so soldiers entered. Gary flinched as he heard the screams and moans of the dead, dying and injured. He knew he would have to pay for it in the end, but this was survival now.

Dawn rummaged through the unconscious guard's belt, looking for the keys to release their Umbreon and Piplup. "Got it!" She shouted. She ran to the cell where Piplup, Mr. Mime, and Umbreon were being held and jammed the key into the keyhole. The door swung open and Piplup jumped into her arms.

"Pipllllup!"

"I'm glad to see you too Piplup. Now we got to get the others. Have you seen them?"

"Lup pippip!" The small penguin pokemon pointed frantically to two belts hanging on the wall, along with their packs.

"Great job Piplup." She snatched the belts and packs off the wall hangings and ran to Gary, who took his belt gratefully.

"Thanks Dawn," he said appreciatively, eliciting a blush from the young coordinator.

"You're welcome." She noticed the pile of debris and carnage behind them and she turned a pale, ghastly shade. But she quickly recomposed herself, to yell at Gary: "Great, our way to freedom is blocked. Now how are we going to get out of here?"

"I'll think of something, don't worry," Gary deflected the question, looking around. He may have blocked their exit, but he kept the enemy from getting down there, giving them some time. Se he saw Nidoqueen recover from the high energy attack, he got an idea. The prison was actually part of a long corridor with their cell right by the stairway. "Nidoqueen, do you have the strength to do one more Hyper Beam at the end of the hall there?"

Nodiqueen indicated that she could, even though she was visibly panting, sweat trickling down her thick armored scales. She planted her feet once again and she did another Hyper beam attack. The beam flew down the hall in a flash and punched through the hall. A sudden breeze whipped through, snuffing out a couple of torches in the process. By a miracle, the attack led directly outside and freedom.

"We have a way out!" Gary yelled jubilantly. His ears pricked up more sounds from the blocked staircase and the sound of stone moving along stone; apparently, they were going to move the stones to get to them. The quartet, Mrs. Ketchum leaning on Gary still, quickly half ran, half jogged to the exit, where they were confronted by a sheer drop into the sea. Stars shone overhead, faint light for the fugitives. Gary let out an exasperated sigh. It just wasn't going to be easy for him. He returned Nidoqueen back into her ball and he stashed the pokeball back to its original home, closing the pendent. He pulled another ball from his belt, wondering for a moment if the pokemon could support their weight.

"Mrs. Ketchum, does Mr. Mime have a pokeball?"

"He does, but it's back at the house."

Dawn held out a ball from her bag. "We can use this one. I'll put Piplup in a ball for now." she glanced down at the pokemon, who shot his trainer an indignant look; after being imprisoned, he did not want to go through it again. "I'm sorry Piplup," she apologized. Mrs. Ketchum returned Mr. Mime to the ball Dawn gave her as Gary returned Umbreon to his ball as well as he flung the other ball up in the air. A skarmory appeared in white, the starlight reflecting off the organic metal feathers. Gary mounted first, followed by Mrs. Ketchum and Dawn. He prayed that the steel winged pokemon could hold the three's weight. Skarmory, as if to reply, flew up a few feet in the air, holding their weight with ease.

"Okay Skarmory!" He commanded. "Fly home!" While Gary didn't know where they were, Skarmory, as with other bird pokemon, knew instinctively where 'home' was. He launched himself into the air, the organic metal wings cleaving through the night air like a hot knife through butter. The fled off into the night, freedom given to them by steel wings.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The eastern sun started to peak over the horizon just as Skarmory landed in the lawn of Professor Oak's lab, exhausted. Gary thanked the pokemon and returned him to his ball. Professor Oak and Tracey ran out into the lawn, worry etched on their faces. "What happened?" Professor Oak began, hugging his grandson. As Gary's feet hit the land, his knees collapsed from under him. Even though he had been imprisoned for a short time, the experience took its toll on him. Dawn helped him up.

"A very long story," Gary replied, shaky. "One that I'll tell you on a much later date. I need to warn Ash about something big, really big. Does he still have any of his flying pokemon here?"

Professor Oak started to shake his head no until Tracey interjected. "Charizard just arrived here a day or two ago, I can't exactly remember, but you can use him. That way your Skarmory can rest."

"Thanks Tracey," Gary started to run to the back of the lab, where most of the pokemon stayed, until Dawn grabbed his wrist.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"I have to go warn Ash about this 'Captain Archer' person and his invasion of Rota."

"I know that! Do you honestly think I'm going to let you do this alone?"

" But Dawn..." he trailed off, protesting meekly.

"Don't you 'but Dawn' me. I can handle myself just fine, as I've done before. I'm not letting you do this alone. What if you get hurt or even worse?" Gary started to protest, but she cut him off again. "We work as a team, remember? Just like in Hoenn and in the prison. So you either leave with me, or you don't go not all, got it?"

Tracey and Professor exchanged looks. "Prison?" Tracey asked, baffled.

Professor Oak only shrugged.

Surprisingly, Gary nodded. "Guess you're right Dawn. Now, let's go see Charizard."

Gary and Dawn found Charizard, sitting in the grass, without a care in the world, chatting with Ash's Bulbasaur. Dawn watched the dragon with wide eyes. "He's big," she finally said. Gary nodded; the last time he saw Charizard was a few years ago. Now, Charizard must have been at least ten feet tall. The pokemon noticed them and gave the pair a funny look.

"It's me Charizard, remember?" Gary called to him. Charizard watched Gary for a moment, then his eye lit with recognition. Gary let out a breath that he didn't realize that he was holding. "Charizard, we need your help." he mover closer to Charizard, Dawn following behind him. As they approached, Charizard suddenly craned his neck over Gary's head, examining Dawn. Dawn froze as Charizard gave her a look over, nostrils flaring, taking in her scent. He then blasted hot air in her hair, voicing his approval. He brought his head back to peer down at Gary, the draconian eyes gleaming with a bestial intelligence.

Gary fought off the urge to panic; even though he had studied pokemon and been around many who were many times bigger than Charizard, there was something about Charizards and dragon types in general that made him nervous. Maybe it was the intelligence that seemed to lurk in the depths of their eyes, or just the fact that if he so chose to, he could rip Gary and Dawn to shreds. "Ash is in trouble," Gary finally spoke. That got Charizard's attention. He snorted in alarm, head reared back, the whites of his eyes exposed. He could sense the tone in Gary's voice and was able to recognize his trainer's name.

"Ash needs us. We need to go to a place called Rota and my pokemon are too weak to go any further. Can we ride you? You're much stronger than mine. Ash needs you."

Gary couldn't tell if Charizard understood him but by the look on his reptilian snout, he seemed to get the gist of it. He nodded, rumbling.

"Thank you Charizard," Gary thanked him. Gary faced Dawn. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," Dawn responded. Charizard bent his neck down, to allow the pair to get on, but as Gary had one leg over the beast's neck, his grandfather interrupted him.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Professor Oak demanded. As a look of confusion passed over Gary's face, Professor Oak supplied. "A map to Rota, perhaps?"

Gary flushed red, chagrined, but Dawn saved him. "We have the Pokenav. It'll have a map to Rota in it." She gave Gary a smug look. "You're welcome."

Gary glared at her and finished mounting Charizard. Dawn got on behind him and she wrapped her arms around Gary's waist, her knees firm around the dragon's middle. Charizard did a quick look over, to see if everyone was on. Once everything seemed in order for the dragon, he shot into the air at a record speed, forcing Dawn and Gary to cling on tightly. As Charizard disappeared into the sky, Tracey turned to Professor Oak.

"I wonder what's going on," he mused.

"Many gears are in motion, things we cannot stop," Professor Oak answered. "I have a feeling that something very big is going to happen, and we are only the pawns to speed everything along."