Allright, here it is, kiddies...chapter two of Galaxy Gang! I was surprised at the positive feedback from last chapter...thanks to all who reviewed/alerted/fave'd! But let's get down to it, shall we?
I do not own Cyrus, Team Galactic, Veilstone City, Snowpoint City, or the Pokemon franchise in general. I do however, own this story, the characterizations protrayed within, the assorted background characters as well as the Sims Deluxe Edition. This work cannot be used without my express written permission. Please direct all questions, comments and Aggie jokes to my agent, whose link can be found at the bottom of the screen under "Submit Review". Thanks!
December 14, 2000.
Four Rockslide Avenue: Veilstone City Hall
Veilstone Ciry
3:07 PM
The Mayor exited from the limo in her motorcade and made her way up the steps to the City Hall. As expected, her staff followed her, (along with the VIPS from the Building opening) through the crowd of reporters.
"Madam Mayor! Can you comment on the opening of the center this morning?"
"Mayor! Can you tell us who bought the center?"
"Mayor Stockman! Could you tell us who exactly is moving into the center?"
At least three of them shouted at her excitedly, and she could tell that one crew was from Jubilife TV's Veilstone branch.
"Mayor! Please! One question over here!"
The Mayor smiled and waved, adjusting her back glasses over her strangely red eyes. She motioned to her press secretary to handle the affair with the reporters and ducked into the front doors of City Hall.
The cold stone of the marble floors and the high, airy lobby greeted her. The Mayor walked importantly past the front desk to the elevator, followed by a few members of her staff. Two of the men began chatting as they exited the elevator on the fifth floor: the Mayor's office.
"Well…that was interesting, to say the least." She remarked, sinking into her chair.
"Yes Ma'am." Her chief of staff agreed in his peculiar Western Sinnoh accent. He loosened his tie a bit and sank into the chair across from her, accepting a drink from one of the interns. "Sure did get cold in a hurry, dinnit?"
"It sure did." The Mayor agreed. She typed in a few commands into her personal computer that was built in behind her desk. "Funny though…Helena predicted that we wouldn't get this cold for another two weeks."
The man smiled. "Helena never gets it right. My momma always told me to look for the berries to determine the real weather. Momma says, when the Iappapa blooms, frost is comin'. And my Iapappas started bloomin' last week."
The Mayor turned from her computer screen that was displaying her next day's schedule. Adjusting her glasses, she smiled at her Chief of Staff. "Well, Tommy, your mother was a very smart woman."
"Damn straight." Tommy easily grinned back at her. The door across the way opened and a blonde secretary walked in, smiling at Tommy and the Mayor.
"Madam Mayor, the car's waiting for you. You've got an interview with Gabby from Radio Sinnoh in ten and dinner immediately afterwards with Councilwomen Kosuzaku and Jones."
The Mayor gritted her teeth. "Oh crud. It's girl's night…."
Her secretary nodded sympathetically. "I'm afraid so."
The Mayor sighed. "OK. Let's get to the studio. It's not like I haven't done enough publicity already today."
Smiling, the lavender-haired woman rose from her chair and adjusted her black horn-rims again. She paused in the small mirror set off to the side as her Chief-of-Staff and the Secretary exited, chatting about the next days' schedule. For a moment, she completely let her mind go blank, emptying it of the harsh demands of the day. As such, when she heard the faintest rustle of cloth and a small gust of wind, it didn't register to her that something was wrong.
"Jennifer…."
The voice was but a low whisper, the wind on the pavement, the rustle of Pokémon in the brush.
The Mayor stiffened. Calmly, she put down her lipstick and let her eyes dart about the room. Apart from herself, there was no one in the room.
"Jennifer Stockman…."
The Mayor continued to scan the room, ignoring the prickly feeling on the back of her neck. Who was it that had spoken? It was a rough voice, almost one that sounded unused to speaking Sinnoh Basic. And it was so soft…..so inviting…..
"I need you, Jennifer….Won't you come with me?"
"Who…who are you?" She asked in a whisper. This time, the Mayor was really scared. She dropped her lipstick and compact clumsily and tried to pick it up. As she did so, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and as she slowly rose, she tried to see what had spoken.
"Hello, Jennifer."
The Mayor let out a piercing shriek as she saw the face in the mirror hanging over her left shoulder. It was at once awful and inspiring, cold and frozen, commanding and inviting. She admired the chiseled jaw and the tongue-in-cheek smirk the face employed, in total control of everything and ultimately sure of itself. She whirled around to find that there truly was no one else in the room. Upon knowing this, she cast one final look to the beautiful face in her mirror and her knees buckled.
Two security guards broke in, followed by Tommy the chief of staff, a couple of interns and the secretary. Tommy made a beeline for her as one of the security guards caught the mayor as she slumped to the floor, utterly spent.
"What was that?" One of the guards barked. "Mayor, who was it?"
Jennifer Stockman, Mayor of Veilstone City, straightened, pretending nothing had happened. "Nothing...I...it was nothing. I'll be fine."
With that, she put on her most winning smile. "On to the interview!"
December 15, 2000.
43 Malachite Street, Apartment 12
Veilstone City
1:15 AM
An insistent beeping filled the air as a small watch alarm went off. Groggily, 'Helios' turned over in the king-sized bed and looked at the source of the noise. It was his BlukBerry, a small multipurpose phone and organizer. The blue-haired man looked at the display screen on the BlukBerry, scratching his chin thoughtfully. Helios put aside his sleepy state with a quick toss of the covers. Groaning, he shut off the shrill alarm.
His body was tense in a few spots from sleeping in the same position. Always he slept on his back, arms hanging by his side. Although this was a comfortable position for a mummy, Helios drew no attention to the fact that this was a very unnatural sleep cycle for a human. Comfort was derived from an emotion. And to him, emotion was irrelevant.
Helios made no noise as he crossed to the tiny bathroom and began to run water for a shower. He stripped off his boxers and prepared to enter the shower, feeling the hot water beat against the tense muscles of his back.
He constantly thought of his next step in his campaign. What else did he need to gain? Helios needed three people who he could completely trust with his vision. He'd already selected the first, who would be excellent to his cause. Helios had several options to consider for the second. Unfortunately, he had no idea who the third person would be, but Cresselia would present the perfect solution. She always did.
Helios heard a sudden noise from the other room, thanks to the training he had undertaken in order to prepare for such an event. He had anticipated what the noise was coming from, and as such, had been waiting for it. He finished his shower and dried off, wrapping a towel around his waist.
Walking silently, Helios entered into the bedroom. A small…entity…was floating several inches off the floor, and upon seeing the man, silently raised itself to eye level. Helios noticed this as he looked for the suit he had picked out to wear.
"Mismagius." Helios nodded in his cold monotone. The purple creature looked back at the man and nodded its pointed head.
The Magical Pokémon grinned in its perpetual creepy grin. "Mismagius….." It droned.
Helios pulled a Pokéball from the dresser beside the bed and recalled the Pokémon in a flash of red light. He didn't notice the disappointed smirk that the Ghost-Type played on its face as it was sucked away into the peculiar sphere. Without a backwards glance, Helios tossed the ball to the bed, locking it in place on a small belt that could be worn around the waist.
Helios dressed himself quickly before moving across the room to the small dining suite. An elaborate computer setup greeted him.
There were three monitors arranged in a semi-circle, with a fourth built on top of the one in the middle. Currently, two of them (the two on the outer edges) were rapidly scrolling down a list of rap sheets (Helios had patched into police chief's personal intake logs for last month), images of faces flashing by at a hectic rate. Of the others, the one on top of the middle was displaying current weather patterns, as well as a full email inbox, while the fourth displayed a direct security camera lead into the Veilstone Building.
Helios glanced at one of the rap sheets on a whim, and suddenly, an unfamiliar sensation hit him.
He scrabbled violently for the mouse, halting the progress of the rap sheets with a simple click. He calibrated the mouse on the four screens, moving it from his email to the left side monitor, which was currently sporting a man with a sullen visage. The man had teal hair done up into two elaborate points, although Helios knew that in prison, that hairdo was quite likely to be styled differently now.
He took a further moment to still his emotions again. Once he was certain that his response was under control, he carefully perused the man's rap sheet.
Gregori Ivanovich Scott. An unsual melding of names. The first two hailed from across the sea. The second was native Sinnoh. Solaceon Town, in fact, if Helios remembered correctly. Deep in the back of his mind, he vaguely wondered how the two cultures had combined, Sinnoh and….
His BlukBerry buzzed angrily at him again, and Helios gently picked it up. 2:30. It was time.
December 15, 2000.
56 Adamantium Avenue: Veilstone Penal and Correctional Facility
Veilstone City
8:34 AM
Gregori Ivanovich Scott leaned heavily against the steel wall of his cell, his breathing labored. Wincing in pain, he slumped back down against his steel-framed bed, clutching his side.
It had been a rough night.
He coughed for a bit, not amused to see that blood and mucus landed in the palm of his hand. His side flared terribly at the sudden movement, shooting icy tendrils of pain up into his shoulder.
Grimacing , through half-lidded eyes, Gregori regretted the cough and his illness in its entirety. Combined with his latest round of "questioning", it felt like he'd broke a rib. Again.
He was a young man, although to look at him, one would assume that he was much older. His eyes were decidedly feline, and the once sparkling irises were dull and glassy. Yet underneath, an intense passion burned. Despite the dampening effects of his short-yet-rough-lifespan, Gregori's ocean-blue eyes were not without passion.
There came an ominous rumble from the other side of the room, and Gregori looked up in time to see the cell door creak open. As expected, his body completely seized up , his limbs refusing to obey his mental commands. Gregori winced and stifled down a moan, determined not to give up the pleasure that he had been beaten.
A figure appeared in front of him, a burly man with a short, tottering creature by his side. The man grinned wickedly at Gregori, happy to see that the creature had done his job.
"Not so tough now, are ya?" The guard enjoyed taunting him, Gregori especially. He was the one inmate who had yet to be broken. And the guards so loved to break them.
Gregori mumbled a short curse involving Darkrai and the guard's mother that was thankfully unheard, or else another rib would probably be broken out of spite. Still with the guard's leer plastered on his face, Gregori felt his body lift into the air of its own accord and float forward.
The harsh light of the hallway met him, along with the stern, yet oddly uncharacteristically grinning, expression of the creature that accompanied the guard: a Kadabra. The creature was using an Attack on him to still his body, and mind, although Gregori had always been successful at resisting the dampening effects the Guard-Kadabra used to quiet his mind. Without any sort of spoken command, the Kadabra began to shuffle forwards, the odd claws on its two feet making a faint clicking upon each step. Behind the two, the guard closed and locked the door mechanically, and followed the two down the hallway.
Gregori knew where he was going, and with a sigh, fell back on his survival training and began to erect mental barriers that would stifle probes into his brain. After all, he did carry several secrets that he did not wish to be advertised.
However, instead of turning right to go to interrogation rooms, the Kadabra forced his body to float in the opposite direction, toward a portion of the facility that he hadn't been before. Staring at the guard and his Kadabra, Gregori tried to hide his sudden apprehension. The guard took him to a specific door and typed the access code to the keypad next to it. With a muted whoosh, Gregori was thrown into the room, his body kept floating in the air by the Kadabra's Psychic power. The guard leered at him again. "I'll be back to pick up the pieces."
Barely biting back a cry of anger, he slumped next to the lone table in the center of the room, clutching his side. The door shut and locked without another word, and the Guard-Kadabra lifted the Attack. Gregori relaxed slightly and, wincing in pain, he got up into the chair facing the door. If he was going to be…"questioned"… again tonight, he at least wanted to face his attacker head-on.
He didn't have to wait long before the series of beeps and clicks came that signified that the door was being unlocked. Gregori tensed, biting his cheek to keep down the pain from his side. He would not give them the satisfaction that he'd been beaten.
Helios stepped into the room; the door shut behind him. For a moment, the two men gazed at each other coolly.
"Got any smokes?" Gregori asked finally, breaking the silence.
Helios maintained his silence as he sat down in the chair across from Gregori. Neither one was willing to break the eye-contact, and if anyone was watching, they would have sworn sparks flew between them.
Wordlessly, Helios reached into a pocket of his suit and tossed a package of cigarettes and a lighter at the other man, who immediately lighted one and inhaled deeply. He nodded in appreciation,
his gaze hard. They enjoyed another few moments of silence before Gregori leaned back in his chair and took a long drag on his cigarette.
"So what do you want?"
"I want only what you can give me." Helios replied cryptically. Gregori snorted and took another puff of the cigarette.
"Like I've never heard that before…" He mumbled.
Nicotine floated around his feline eyes in lazy circles, and the man exhaled in a long stream. He stubbed out the cigarette, nearly finished, and immediately lit a new one.
"My name is Cyrus."
The silence was finally broken by the man with the blue hair, and Gregori crossed one arm by his chest and took a long drag of the cigarette.
"Is it now? Well, Cyrus, you ain't in Kanto anymore. This ain't the Pidgey flying over the rainbow, way up high."
He exhaled directly in Cyrus' face. Surprisingly the man didn't even blink. The two resumed their staring contest
"So what do you want, Dorothy?"
Gregori stubbed out the cigarette, nearly finished, and immediately lit a new one.
Cyrus smiled. "I want you to share my world; my Team Galactic world."
Gregori smirked, taking another long puff of his cigarette. The smoke trailed around them both before climbing steadily to the vent in the corner. He flicked the butt of the cigarette expertly into the ashtray between them. "Fine. I'll ride the Milotic's Twister all the way to Oz."
Cyrus leaned forward, placing a briefcase on the table between them. A cruel smirk played on the corner of his mouth, the only sign of satisfaction anyone would ever see.
"Welcome to Oz."