Chapter 13: Plans
Leo was close to tearing the doors down before a nurse finally opened them and led him, Chris and Grovyle to Blaze. It was a different room than the night before, not smelling quite as sterile, and in the bed, Blaze was sitting up…
"Blaze!"
The red-faced infernape turned his head, bandaged as it was, to smile weakly.
At first he was afraid to touch his friend out of fear of hurting him, but finally put his blue hand on his shoulder as lightly as he could. "You…look fine," he said, returning his smile and hoping to encourage his healing.
"I feel like I've been run over by a heard of kangaskhans," Blaze replied almost in a whisper.
"That wouldn't have hurt as much," Grovyle said in an obvious attempt at humor.
The nurse who led them in started conversing with Chris: "He continued improving through the night, so I think he's well on his way to recovery. But with his internal injuries, he'll still need to stay here at least till tomorrow. I really do marvel at how tough Pokémon are. I think in three days, he'll be fully recovered."
Chris nodded acknowledgement, thanking the nurse.
"By the way, as long as your swampert's here, we should probably check on his arm."
Leo turned, the fact she was the one who had treated him last week finally dawning on him.
"You should get it looked at," Blaze prodded.
"I'm not leaving you."
Blaze huffed almost silently. "Ha, I'm not going anywhere by the looks of it." In a more somber tone: "Leo, I'm sorry."
"Sorry? For what?" He didn't understand; if anyone should feel sorry, it should be him for not watching out for his friend better!
"I asked you to believe in me…and I failed."
"Hey, that blastoise was stronger than any we faced together. And you were trying to take him by yourself. You were overmatched and there was no way for you to beat him. If anyone should apologize it should be me for not stopping you. I knew better or should have."
Blaze closed his eyes for a moment, bowing his head. "No, I'm too stubborn to have let you."
Of course he knew his partner had a stubborn streak, but that didn't excuse him for not trying harder to stop him than he did.
"But the next time I see a blastoise I promise I'll let you talk me out of fighting him or her."
"You did get one good hit on him," Grovyle pointed out. "I'll bet he's still feeling it this morning."
"That was a good hit," Blaze said with a slight grin, sounding more like his old self.
Leo noticed Chris and the nurse now both standing directly behind him.
"OK Leo, time to get your arm x-rayed," the trainer said.
Feeling a hand on one of his sensitive head fins, the owner started tugging, forcing him to instinctively reach up and stop it.
"Don't we look like a healthy team here," Blaze continued. "Only thing remaining is for Grovyle to have a neck brace."
Grovyle jerked slightly, his pale green eyes suddenly a little more open. "I think I'm going to avoid fire-types for now on. In fact, I make that a promise."
Leo fought off his grin until after following the nurse out of the room. Of course, it really wasn't funny; getting hurt…hurt.
Well, maybe it was a little funny.
Leo Hanson pounded the button in frustration, terminating the video-phone connection just as the doorbell chimed. "I can't tell if I was followed or not, but I might have been," Sally said immediately on letting her in. "Or like I said, maybe I'm just getting paranoid."
It really wouldn't have surprised him if she had been followed as part of keeping tabs on the project members. "If it's Derganio that's following us around, why would one of them tell us what they were doing though? That's the puzzle I can't figure out."
"Maybe two different groups, and one isn't Derganio?"
Shaking his head, he hoped it was something simpler. "Maybe."
"Did you find anything out from the university?"
"Oh yeah: nothing good. Apparently in their contract to partly fund our project, they retained the right to complete access, including rights to the premises if they deemed it appropriate. And guess what they invoked. Now they're working day and night, I was told."
Sally's mouth fell open.
"Exactly. Sure feels like we've been working for them all along. Why didn't John tell us?"
"He might not have known," Sally defended. "Securing funding is something University administration handles. They could of withheld certain details about the agreement, otherwise he might not have headed the project. You know how independent the Professor likes to be. These last few weeks in having to deal with Derganio have been taking their toll on him."
He knew the feeling. If he had been told how much power Derganio Corp held over the project, he also might have had second thoughts about joining it. One of the things that attracted him to the project in the first place was that it was basically pure research headed by the university, a supposedly neutral organization, unlike a corporation that had it's own (profit) interests at heart.
Offering his coworker a cold soda from the fridge which she readily accepted, he grabbed one for himself before they moved into the living room and sat. "So the question is, what do we do? I'm getting the feeling it isn't us who'll cause the disaster, but those Derganio people since they aren't as familiar with the systems as we are. If it was them who conducted that previous dimensional gate project, then they've already screwed up once I think."
"Leo…what if by delaying or possibly cancelling the project to prevent the disaster, we are in fact causing it? If it's Derganio that causes it, and they took over because we suspended it…"
Now there was irony. "Maybe the timeline can't be altered so easily…just like the Professor alluded to. Perhaps we have to go through whatever it is, then travel back in time to prevent it?"
"Depends on what the disaster is and if we survive it."
"Celebi can take us back in time…" That much was certain, thanks to her little 'demonstration'. "It's another thing to consider."
Sally took a swig of the soda and shook her head. "And here's another: the pressure Derganio's been exerting to finish the project, and in light of everything else I'm now sure they were exerting some, why?"
Leo looked at her questioningly, not quite following.
"For what reason did we have to finish it and start testing so quickly? If you think back, the pressure to work those long hours didn't really come until the previous week. That was the same day Leo…the other Leo, showed up on this planet. They have a DV detector, or so we think, so they would have known he arrived, if not quite knowing exactly who he was yet. Odd as it sounds, there's probably a connection."
Thinking back, he realized she had a point. "But if my counterpart's arrival had anything to do with it, that would mean they had to know he came here to investigate the disaster, that the gate had something to do with it, and that he would try and stop it's completion."
"Hence, the pressure to finish it quickly," Sally finished. "But if they knew all that, then they would know about the disaster. So, wouldn't they want to prevent such a thing too and not use the gate?"
Leo met Sally's eyes head on, staying locked for a few heartbeats. "That's assuming a lot of knowledge on their part," he finally said.
"But the scenario fits," she pointed out, brushing back her long red hair and taking another swig.
"So could a lot of others."
"Like?" Cocking her head slightly, she waited.
She had the best pose he thought, with her hair draped over her shoulders just so… Fighting the distraction, he tried thinking of any other explanation for the pressure to finish. In the end, he could only think of a generic "Could be some other external reason we aren't aware of."
"In other words, coincidental?"
"Unless they only knew he was coming here to stop the project and not why."
"That doesn't make logical sense. Knowing he came to stop the project pretty much would leave no reason why they wouldn't know why or at least suspect as to why."
Leo really did marvel at her deductive reasoning. She certainly surpassed anyone else he knew in that respect. "Alright, if our conjectures are true, that then leaves the question of why."
"Exactly. Why do they want this disaster to happen? Or…is there some other reason for gaining control of the gate…"
"Dialga and Palkia…"
Sally froze for a second. "What?"
"In our last vision, we saw Dialga and Palkia fighting some human in front of it."
"I forgot about that," she said almost sheepishly. "Were they trying to stop the project, prevent the disaster, or what?"
For once he wished he had been able to see more in a vision. Shaking his head, "I didn't see enough. My counterpart and I only saw a few seconds. They were just starting to face off against this human as he stood in front of the gate. I suppose he could have just been in the way…"
"Was the gate active?"
Not quite understanding what she was getting at, he still tried hard to remember that detail. The glimpse of the ring in the background, only fleeting…but…was there a dull gray glow in the middle…? "I think…it might have been."
"Two powerful, mythical Pokémon fighting a human in front of an active dimensional portal," Sally said slowly, as if trying to piece something together. "The human trying to stop them…or…is he trying to enter it?" Finally she grimaced..
"There's a major piece to this puzzle missing yet."
She sighed, finishing off the soda. "Probably more than one."
Leo sipped at his, swirling the blue fizzy liquid inside and barely paying attention to it's diffraction through the glass. "All this brings us back to our original question: what do we do?"
Setting her empty bottle down with some emphasis, her eyes focused squarely on him. "We need to stop them from playing around with our gate, Leo."
"You said they had security around the building?"
"Definitely in and around the lab. They didn't let me pass, though they were gentle about it…this time."
"Don't want to blow off the people they might need later," Leo mused.
Sally leaned back into the soft chair, wrapping her hands around her forehead and moving them back over her hair. "I'm at a loss as to how to stop a large international corporation from exercising their apparently legal right to use what they've been partly funding. Other than appealing to their CEO."
"Fat chance," Leo pointed out. "If they know about the disaster, then we can assume they won't care if we try to convince them to abort based on what we've concluded."
"Or we could try and hope our theory about them is wrong."
He could tell from her half smile she didn't pin much hope on that, but wasn't completely crossing it off either. "I think we're going to have to take some time to think carefully," he replied. "I hope we have the time."
"You're right. We'll have to plan what we do carefully, considering everything at stake. No knee-jerk reactions here." Putting her head back and staring at the ceiling, "You know, there's still a large part of me that's wants to call all of this crazy…"
"Me too. Until that other self of mine showed up, we were dealing with just normal, everyday things. You know, like building a gate that will create a portal through space; nothing out of the ordinary." He smirked when Sally focused from the ceiling back to him. Still, he knew exactly what she meant.
"Point taken," replying after a slight chuckle, then looked around the room a little. "Is everyone else at the park practicing again today?"
"Oh." That was right, he hadn't told her everything that happened yesterday yet. He quickly filled her in about Blaze. "I was going to go and visit them before you called this morning."
Sally's green eyes told the story before she even spoke: "We should go. That poor cute infernape!"
The human on the television was hiding behind a low wall, waiting for someone else to leave a car before jumping up and releasing a Machoke from a Pokéball. His quarry jumped in surprise before releasing his own infernape.
Leo noticed that got Blaze's attention when he sat up a little in his bed.
A battle instantly ensued between the two Pokémon, and when neither was able to knock out the other after several blows from each, the two humans engaged in their own fight right along side the Pokémon. In the end with the two Pokémon collapsing from exhaustion, the two humans ended up stopping as the police arrived, catching the 'bad' human and saving the important business documents in the process. "This was all a setup!" the bad human yelled as he was being shoved into the police vehicle.
"It was a perfect trap," one of the police humans crowed.
"That infernape," Chris said after the show ended, "he didn't battle half as good as you, Blaze."
"She," Leo corrected in unison with Blaze and Grovyle. Of course, he was the only one who said it in human language.
Developing a perplexed expression, "How can you tell from just looking?" the trainer asked. "I mean, there's so many species of Pokémon where males and females look identical; we humans have to reply on scans to otherwise find out."
Leo looked at his partner and Grovyle the same time they looked at him.
"You're the one who can speak human," Grovyle said.
"Don't leave out any details," Blaze said with a wry grin.
For once, he wished he couldn't speak human. At least his blue skin hid any blushing other Pokémon were capable of exhibiting. "I'll tell you later," he finally answered, mentally adding: much later. He felt relieved when Chris had enough sense to drop the subject, instead getting up and stretching.
"Well, I should probably give Mr. Hanson a call and update him. I think I'll go back to his place for the night, too. You'll be staying with Blaze?"
Leo nodded.
"How about you Grovyle?"
The green gecko-like Pokémon started stroking one of the leaf blades on his wrist. "I should go back too," he said, then facing Blaze: "now that we know you're going to be alright."
Leo translated.
"OK. I'll still hang around a couple hours yet, so I'll be right back," and the blonde-haired human left the room.
With a little searching, Blaze found the remote for the television half buried in the sheet covering him. "Great invention," giving the remote yet another curious glance while turning it over in his hand, before using one of the large buttons to start changing channels. Eventually he settled on one depicting humans and Pokémon on some kind of 'star' ship in space.
On a different planet, the small group of humans and Pokémon were facing off against some weird creatures that certainly weren't like either of them. There was a shout, and someone fired a blue beam, making a small explosion…
"Hey," Chris said, suddenly appearing back in the doorway. "Look who I found on the way downstairs," jabbing a thumb behind him.
As Chris came into the room, Leo Hanson followed…along with Sally. Leo almost rose off the double chairs he was sitting on.
"Well, look what the meowth drug in," his counterpart said with a broad smile and he and Sally approached the bed. "But the nurses told me that you're going to be fine, just need another day here. I'm glad you're alright."
"So am I," Sally added, giving him a pat to his head.
"Thanks," Blaze replied. "But I'd be better if they would let me eat."
"They said you can eat tomorrow," Leo reminded. "Your guts are still healing." As Blaze sighed, he swore he heard his friend's stomach rumble, only serving to remind him that breakfast was a while ago. Of course it had to be far worse for his partner.
"So how are you then?" his human self asked Leo.
"I'm alright," Leo replied. "I'll be staying here until Blaze can leave."
"And his cast can come off in about three days the nurse said," Chris added. "Figures he'd forget that news. He's been so worried about Blaze."
"Chris told us what happened," Sally said. "You poor thing."
Blaze suddenly looked quite content as she started stroking her fingers through his mane, smoothing it out.
"She likes you," Leo said in Poke speech, fighting off a split moment of jealously that took him by surprise.
"I'm not complaining," Blaze returned, his eyes becoming dreamy.
He watched closely as she finished smoothing out a few long, fine red hairs on his friend, before she and his human self exchanged glances. His human self promptly went to shut the door.
"Well, we were going to tell you later," Sally started, "but since Blaze is up and doing alright," she paused to scratch lightly behind one of his ears, to which he closed his eyes in apparent enjoyment, "we probably should tell you all now."
"Oh oh, this sounds important," Chris commented.
Leo noted his human self grimacing. "Yeah, we have some problems."
"A few things happened this morning," Sally explained. "Basically…Derganio has taken over the project, and they're attempting to finish the gate. It's just like that man you battled yesterday said."
Now Leo did rise off the chairs. "You all said you were going to shut down the lab for a while!" How could someone else just walk in and take it over? One of the things he thought his other self told him was very few people could get to it!
"We don't control the Derganio Corporation," his human self defended. "We only found out this morning they apparently had an agreement with the University, basically giving them rights to come it and take it over if they saw fit. Sometime yesterday, they decided they didn't like the project being stopped, so they brought their own people in. Sally went there this morning, but they wouldn't let her in."
"I couldn't even get into the project area, let alone the lab," Sally added. "They had guards outside. And look, Leo and I," gesturing to his human self, "we've been talking this morning and we think we've connected a few dots."
"Dots?" Leo asked, confused. Dots of what?
"Figured some things outs." Sally launched into the connection between his and Blaze's arrival, the pressure to complete the project, and perhaps Derganio's desire to actually cause the disaster.
"You think they want to cause it?" Blaze asked, clearly agitated with his tail twitching under the sheet. Leo repeated his question.
Throwing up his hands, "Or they just don't care, or think they can control it, or…I don't know," his human self said. "But it seems likely they know something about it. That is, assuming our assumptions are correct."
"That makes no sense," Grovyle said. "Why would someone want to deliberately cause a disaster?"
"Maybe they know what the disaster will be?" Leo asked, throwing the idea out.
"And that it will serve a purpose of theirs," Sally said, finishing the thought.
Sitting on one of the chairs in the corner, Chris leaned forward. "I thought you guys said just about any disaster involving that thing would be bad news for everyone. How could anyone benefit?"
"I don't know," Sally admitted.
Blaze turned, somewhat painfully, to lay somewhat on his side and releasing his tail from under him. "How do we stop them?"
After Leo translated, "Well, on the way here, I think I came up with one idea," Sally answered.
His human self facing her, "Is it what you were trying to tell me on the subway?"
Sally nodded. "If we need to stop them before our two weeks are up, I don't think we're going to be able to go through official channels or risk laying out our story and hope we're believed."
"Then, what?" Chris asked.
After a deep breath: "We're going to have to get in and sabotage it."
Leo Hanson feared that was what she was going to say, only she put it more mildly than he would have. They weren't sure they were followed to the Pokécenter or not, and talking in a public place about sabotaging anything wouldn't have been the best idea anyway, so they had said little on the way. Unfortunately, he'd been thinking along the same lines. If the disaster his other self claimed would happen was anything approaching the disaster he described as happing in the other timeline after the collapse of the Temporal Tower, they had to do whatever they could to keep the gate off-line. They simply couldn't reveal what they knew to the University, risking being disbelieved and having precautions put into place to keep them away from the lab any more than they were already.
"How dangerous would that be?" his counterpart asked in a lower, swampert-accented voice.
"The actual sabotage or to us trying to do it?" Sally replied. "It will be pretty easy to disable the gate and set anyone trying to activate it back by several months or more. Just a matter of how much we want to…damage it. Getting in to do it…I have no idea.".
"However we do it, we're going to have to do it ourselves," Leo furthered. "If we're being watched, then if we get George, Naomi or Ticonamo or even Professor Werner involved, it could increase suspicion that we're up to something and make it harder to get in."
"You'd been thinking the same thing all along, haven't you?"
"Great minds think alike?" He smiled briefly to her, but quickly got serious again. "Pausing the project is one thing, but I don't like the idea of actually destroying what we've thrown so many years into." Indeed, like a knife to the heart… Like probably most the team, he considered the gate to be partly 'his baby', and he still had high hopes for continuing it.
"I know," Sally agreed, looking quite somber as she sighed. "It'll be hard."
"If it will save this planet and maybe even the Poké one, then it's a small price to pay."
The Pokémon said it too callously for his taste. "Hey, that's pretty damned easy for you to say; you used it to save the worlds – you didn't have to destroy it! In this timeline, it still means a lot to us!"
Narrowing his light green eyes, the swampert leaned forward over Blaze's bed, glaring: "Don't talk to me about sacrifices! I know all too well what it means to sacrifice something to protect our two worlds. That gate is only a tool…"
Leo was seeing red from the complete lack of understanding from his counterpart. "Look damnit, we have put our very souls into creating…" A hand grabbed his arm.
"Leo," Sally said, moving between him and his sight of his other self, "he's right. It's only a machine. If worst comes to worst, we can rebuilt it. We have all the data on each of our computers. And we do need to do whatever it takes to avoid this disaster that Dialga apparently thinks is coming."
He sighed with more than just annoyance.
Grovyle said something, to which his swampert counterpart replied back with one syllable before switching to human speak. Calmly: "Sorry. I've…forgotten how much went into building it. In the other timeline, we made it for only one purpose. The world was ending, and we had no hopes beyond using it the one time."
Feeling a sudden need for air, Leo swung around and left the room. On the way up, he'd noted what looked like an outside balcony and found it again, being greeted by a blast of warm early afternoon air as he walked out.
It was hard to relate to his counterpart at times, beyond the fact that his physical form had been completely changed. He could see the swampert had been though much rougher times than himself. It was probably that same aspect that seemed to have changed him so much. No denying there were many similarities between them, but from his prospective his other self was rougher, more hard-edged, more single-minded, more determined, more…sad. Loosing his grip a little, he moved his hand over the smooth metal railing, save for a large dent in part of it.
Maybe he was being unfair. Maybe being changed into a Pokémon altered his basic personality a great deal. In fact, he should be surprised if it hadn't. And here he was, being thrust into a human world of which he had few memories, and the few he had were of a world with no future.
By contrast, things apparently were pretty good in this version of the world. He never knew of any world-ending disaster (yet), and he simply continued helping to create something that would realize the dreams of a few, and revolutionize the world for billions. Dimensional gate travel…from Tokyo to Washington in a matter of seconds! Or to the moon…or even other worlds…
And he had to help destroy it, lest the world itself could be destroyed…or something lesser.
The uncertainly of that was starting to eat at him. If only they knew what the disaster was supposed to be, they might be better able to prevent it and not have to undertake the drastic actions they were being pushed to take!
Hearing the door slide open behind him, he glanced to find both Sally and Grovyle walking out to stand beside him.
"He really is sorry," his red-haired, still young-looking and pretty coworker said, looking a little sorry herself.
"Grooovyle," Grovyle added, apparently in confirmation.
"I know. It's not that, though. It's just…" He finally shrugged, lacking the word he was looking for. "I don't know. Making plans to do what we're going to try and do without complete information is… What if everything we've been told is wrong? Our project holds so much promise, and means so much to each of us, and here we're going to destroy it on the basis of guesses and assumptions. I don't know if I can do that."
Kneeling beside him, Sally rested her chin on the railing. "You know, I do wish I could talk to this Dialga directly, instead of getting information third-hand."
Her words surprised him some. "You don't trust that swampert?"
Sally herself suddenly looked surprised in looking up. "No, I trust him; he's you! But if Dialga were here, I think we could get more information. It's like trying to get details to something while waiting for old paper mail. It's slow and frustrating when you need quick answers, and it's difficult to anticipate everything you need to ask every time you sent the letter off."
"Frustrating and feeling blind: I think that about sums it up. Please tell me it'll be a worse mistake to not do anything." Facing her, he hoped she was more certain than himself.
She looked out over the city, her face unreadable. "I think it would be. If the gate has something to do with the disaster, then disabling it is the logical step, no matter how it is done. We have a responsibility to not allow it to cause harm if that's what it will do."
Of course, he knew she was right; he just didn't want it to be the correct course of action. Reluctantly: "Then, we have some planning to do," but feeling at least a little more sure.
Leo watched Grovyle and Sally leave the room, saying they'll talk to his other self.
He felt bad. At the same time, what needed to be done had to be obvious and he was having a hard time understanding his other self's reluctance. That wasn't to say he didn't comprehend it, but he couldn't recall having any particular feelings about the project in his own now erased timeline. The gate had simply been a tool, a way to save the world.
It was different for himself in this new future, apparently.
Leaning back against his stacked pillows, Blaze laid back on his back, folding his arms on his stomach and slowly twitching before facing him with…
He knew that look. "What?"
"I think he needs time."
"What if we don't have it?"
His infernape friend shrugged. "He'll come around soon; I'm sure of it. You would. And I don't think he's angry at you, but at what he has to do."
Leo hoped he was right.
"It's been two days; Celebi should be returning tonight," Chris suddenly reminded out of the blue. "Are you still planning on staying here? If not, one of my Pokémon can relay what she says."
Realization hit him that he had completely forgotten about that! She was due that evening, if she kept to her every other day schedule.
"You need to go," Blaze prodded. "I'll be fine."
"I can't leave you alone!" Leo protested.
"Are you afraid I'm going to get into trouble?" his partner replied with a wicked grin that didn't help the situation any.
"Trouble may find you," he returned, meaning it in jest, but at this point unwilling to trust someone wouldn't try and hurt his friend further, considering everything.
"Our mission may depend on at least one of us being there to talk with Celebi," Blaze reminded.
And he knew his partner had a point, as much as he didn't like it.
"So is that a yes or a no?" Chris asked, obviously unable to understand any part of the conversation.
Sitting on his rooftop patio and leaning over the laptop, Leo Hanson looked for ways to render the gate unusable in some significant way as twilight was deepening overhead. Actually there was no shortage of ways; the problem was doing it without setting the whole project back by more than a couple months. Assuming they'd be able to continue it.
After a deep breath and long sigh, he sat up, realizing he'd been hovering over the displayed schematics for far too long without a break. Taking a sip of his long-cold tea, he gazed over where his Pokémon counterpart was laying on one of the benches, Chris keeping him company. Like a good trainer, he was staying near his Pokémon, as unusual and different (and not really "his") as this Pokémon was.
"Grovyle?" Grovyle asked, pointing to his cup after he set it down.
Shaking his head, "I'm fine, thanks. Should make some for yourself, though. The night feels like it's going to be a little cool." To emphasize the point, he pulled his light jacket off the back of his chair to wrap himself with it. "Definitely a cold front came through this evening."
"Grovyle, rrrrssss."
He gave his green skinned friend a reassuring pat on the back as he rounded the table in heading for the stairs. Only he didn't go for the stairs. Instead, he stopped behind him and… There were suddenly two two-fingered hands on his shoulders, moving in slow, rhythmic circles along his tight neck and shoulder muscles. He felt himself instantly melting under the relaxing massage. "Oooo. Grovyle, you are an angel dressed in green skin and leaves."
"Grovyle."
It was hard to resist, and he was feeling himself drift off under his friend's soothing attention when he heard the greeting from the other side of the roof. He and Grovyle were quickly over by the others to give their own to Celebi.
"Dialga and Palkia have moved closer to here," his counterpart said hurriedly after a long string of unintelligible speech from the light green floating Pokémon. "Palkia has felt a dimensional portal being opened."
Leo froze in alarm. "They're activating it already?" How could they figure out the system so quickly? Even if they had constructed their own primitive gate many years before, surely their own systems had been different. Unless…could they have had access to the project data all along? "Does Dialga have any better idea of when this disaster is supposed to happen, or even what it is?" asking Celebi directly. She replied to him again in Poke speech, making him wait impatiently for his counterpart's translation, furthered when he and Celebi went back and forth a couple times.
The swampert finally spoke in human speech: "Dialga and Palkia say there are a few outcomes in play, but it's probably..." He stopped, asking Celebi something in Poke speech again and getting a quick reply. "…dimensional in nature. They don't know when, but it will be soon; sooner then it was two days ago; less than two weeks."
"That pretty much confirms it, doesn't it," Leo asked rhetorically. "If it's dimensional in nature, then it's the gate that has to cause it." Damn! Could there be any doubt any more, assuming he believed what they told him? Feeling his green friend's hand on his shoulder in support, "Any idea how bad the disaster will be if we don't stop it?"
His blue and white skinned and finned counterpart started translating even as Celebi was speaking: "They still don't know, but Dialga is sensing…" After stopping to again go back an forth with the small, pixie-like Pokémon, "…just sensing destruction; a ruined land. He still can't see very clearly. But sensing dimensions is more Palkia's skill then Dialga's, but Palkia can't sense the future," the swampert explained, or tried to.
Leo decided to get right to the point of why he had been waiting for her to show up: "Celebi, I have to tell you, although a couple days ago we agreed to suspend the project, we no longer have control of it. The company that had been providing funding to us, Derganio Corporation, has taken over and they're attempting to finish it."
"REEBEE!"
"If Palkia is sensing a dimensional portal, then it's got to be the result of Derganio's people already starting to activate it."
"Rayabee neereeray beeanee…" Celebi spoke quickly and loudly back and forth to both of them, although only his Pokémon counterpart could understand the strange language that humans for years had tried to decipher.
"She says we need to get control back and stop them," his counterpart soon replied with a hand up to Celebi, apparently in an attempt to calm her down.
Just as he thought she would say. "Believe me we're going to try, Celebi, but it won't be easy! They have their own security in place that we might not be able to get past. If we can, we're going to try and disable…or destroy the gate."
"Rayba?"
"When?" his other self translated.
"Tomorrow night, if we can come up with a plan to get inside."
More unintelligible words from the small floating Pokémon, then: "She says she'll help," his counterpart announced.
"Give me a minute!" Chris said with some annoyance just before drinking the last of his glass of orange juice.
Leo had hurried through breakfast and was urging Chris to do the same. If he could have gone on the subway by himself, he would have and left the human behind. It'd been a restless night, being the first one he'd ever spent away from Blaze since they first met. It felt very…lonely, even though Chris had been in the same room, leaving him wondering if that was what Blaze felt in the months when his existence had been erased…
"OK already, let's go," the human finally announced, grabbing his jacket off the hook by the door and hurrying to catch up with him when he raced ahead outside. He just barely heard the "Hope Blaze is feeling better," from his human self before Chris shut the door behind them.
His human self was expecting Sally to arrive any time so they could continue to work on sabotage plans and figure out a way to get into the lab that used to be theirs. Celebi only needed a couple hours to fly to Dialga and Palkia's new location to deliver news overnight, and had already returned just as the sun was rising.
Hopefully they would get something worked out soon. Also hopefully, Blaze could return with him from the Pokécenter.
Like it had been two days prior, the subway was packed during the morning "rush hour" with humans of all smells, shapes, sizes and even colors. How one species could have so much variation escaped him, though of all Pokémon, he most of all should have been able to understand. Maybe as he regained more fragments of his memory, he would. For the moment, he was satisfied to simply be on his way back to his friend.
One human angrily let out a word he never heard before after accidently stepping on his foot on the way out of the car. He wanted to apologize, but Chris said it for him, saving him from speaking in public yet again. But he didn't let the incident slow him any; running as fast he as could on two legs nearly all the way from the subway station to the Pokécenter, Chris struggling to keep up, he was into the hospital portion of the large building with nearly the speed of a pikachu's thunder bolt. Only his broken arm kept him from running on all fours!
"Blaze!" he said immediately on entering his room.
The red and white-haired infernape was sitting up on the edge of his bed, a human in a white gown looking at something wrapped around his arm. "Leo!" Blaze returned, whipping his red tail around in obvious excitement and sounding quite happy.
Which was exactly how he felt to be with his friend again, though "overjoyed" probably better described it. "How are you feeling?"
"They gave me some food finally," Blaze said, jerking a thumb toward a tray that held a small, empty bowl. "But not a lot." He frowned, then grimaced as the doctor started squeezing a "bulb" on a black tube that was attached to whatever was around his arm, making a faint hissing noise with every squeeze. "He's giving me what he said was a final check-up."
"Just one moment," the doctor finally told Chris just before he stopped squeezing the bulb.
Blaze jerked once, earning a "Hold still" from him. Within a few seconds, the man twisted something, making whatever it was hiss more loudly before the wide band slackened and released. He started flexing his arm while the doctor scribbled something down on a clipboard, then faced Chris: "The healing abilities of Pokémon never ceases to amaze me. Your infernape is good to go. But I would still have him take it easy for another day or two. Hold back on the food for the rest of the day, maybe just another couple handfuls in light meals, then he can have whatever he wants tomorrow." Facing Blaze: "Understand?"
He sighed and nodded. "Is starving part of healing?"
"You aren't entered in the League tournaments starting tomorrow, would you?"
"I was thinking of officially making the entry today actually, if Blaze is healed enough and he still felt like doing it," Chris answered, with a questioning look to the infernape.
"Well, keep him out of any battles until at least Saturday, just to make sure. He'll probably still need rest tomorrow."
Leo noticed him giving a quizzical look to his left arm and it's cast before his expression quickly became a frown.
"Your Pokémon really give their all, don't they? You should consider going easier on them."
Blaze was grinning.
"They like hospitals," Chris replied, deadpan.
Leo adjusted his stance slightly to start stepping down on the blonde-haired human's foot at the same time his partner narrowed his eyes, moving his hand and arm in preparation for a chop hit.
Apparently getting the message he was about to need a hospital himself, Chris finally let out a chuckle. "Don't worry, I'll be taking good care of them," with a pat to each of their heads.
Blaze hopped several times once they finally made it outside after some "paperwork" Chris had to complete. "Ha ha!" after yet another quick leap over a crack in the sidewalk. "It's nice to be out of there finally!"
"You must really be feeling good," Chris commented. "I have to ask, are you still willing to battle for me in the tournament this weekend? I know there's a lot going on and this is assuming…" He moved his head in a quick around them, "…you won't be needed for other things."
"He means shutting down the gate," Leo told his partner in Poke speech. "They're thinking of trying tonight of sneaking in to do it."
"So they are going to sabotage it then?" Blaze asked, suddenly falling in beside him.
Leo nodded.
"See, I told you your human self would come around," he grinned, the whites of his teeth showing from behind his red lips. "I know you, therefore I know him."
"Lucky guess," he teased, just missing his friend's tail after it got tauntingly close to his face. "He just needs to figure out how to do it and how to sneak in."
Chris cleared his throat.
"Of course I will," Blaze said, answering the human's waiting question.
Leo translated, there soon being an extra spring in the human's step as they continued to the subway station.
"How about there, there, and there?" Leo Hanson pointed out the equidistant locations on the displayed diagram while leaning over Sally's shoulder, unable to not notice her faint perfume. "We remove those control boards, and the entire network for the maser wavelength control system goes down."
"There's still the backups," she replied, indicating another three points, also equidistant. "And that brings us to total of sixteen boards to remove to completely disable it, all behind their own screwed-in plates. Not exactly quick work."
He reluctantly had to agree. Completely disabling the maser system would be crippling, but with some determination was also something that could be replaced in a couple weeks or less. The boards were really off-the-shelf microcontrollers, the only unique thing about being the programming, and that was available on one of the servers. Disabling the other systems would add to the length of time to get the gate functioning again, but also require more time to perform. "Maybe if we also take out the twelve power supplies…"
"Reeree?" Floating up on the other side of Sally, Celebi moved to just in front of the laptop to point to something, the wind from her rapidly fluttering back wings ruffling Sally's long red hair in the process.
Grovyle quickly scribbled something on a notepad, holding it after Celebi settled down on the desk to stand to the side of the laptop.
Leo knew what she asked even before he read his friend's barely legible handwriting as "What's this?"
"That's the input flow junction for Section Two's cooling system," Sally patiently explained to the small Pokémon's seemingly hundredth question. "Responsible for keeping the masers in Section Two cooled during operation. They'd quickly overheat otherwise."
"Reeba reera?"
Grovyle again quickly translated, although it was a series of syllables they'd heard enough times to have almost memorized.
"Yes, we could punch holes in the coolant pipes all over the place and it'd take several days to repair," Leo answered this time, "but it'd also take a while to cut or drill the pipes in enough places to make it enough of a pain to repair." Finally standing up straight again with a grimace from stiffness, "I think no matter how we look at this, we're going to have to do a massive number of things to render it inoperable for more than just a few weeks."
"We designed it well with a lot of redundancy, apparently," Sally commented while stretching her arm ups before focusing on Grovyle. "What if we use Grovyle? Those wrist leaves of his can cut through titanium, right?"
"Grovyle?" The green Pokémon visibly lurched in apparent surprise, quickly shaking his head.
"I don't think so," Leo replied, eventually figuring out she was only joking. "Maybe we're trying to be too gentle. If we simply smash most components in place, we can save a lot of time. Unscrew a plate, smash everything inside, including ducts and pipes. Grovyle can certainly help with that." He immediately noticed Sally's half smile.
"I was waiting for you to realize that. To do what we need to do in just a few minutes, there's no other way."
"No, I realized it a while ago, I was just hoping for a better option." If they didn't have to destroy everything they could reach, it would make it much easier for them to get the gate ready again. Destroying components and systems would make it costly in both time and money, neither of which they might get. "I guess we do what we have to do," sighing with resignation. The goal of creating dimensional travel never seemed so far away…
Flying up high enough over Sally's head, Celebi gently touched his forehead with her tiny hand. "Reebee."
He swore her look was one of sympathy as the front door lock clicked open, Chris, Leo and Blaze quickly walking in.
"Well hey, look who's back on his feet," Sally greeted, swinging around in the chair with a smile.
"Yeah," Chris replied. Then sounding full of pity, "Well, you know, I found this lost little infernape just sitting in the Pokécenter hospital, looking all lonely and pathetic and waiting for someone to rescue him from there."
"Blaze was dying to get out," the swampert added.
"Pokémon usually go to the Poké hospital because they're dying," Sally returned.
"Oh come on, they still had to of had at least another half dozen needles to stick him with," Leo said, unable to resist joining in.
Blaze hissed, but didn't narrow his blue eyes any, despite the annoyed-looking whip of his tail.
Celebi and Grovyle both said something to the infernape as he, the swampert and Chris all joined them around the workstation in the corner of the living room.
"How is it going?" his blue-skinned counterpart asked, gesturing to the laptop screen.
"We're making progress," Sally replied. "We kind of just decided what we're going to do. Now we just need to figure out a way in."
"How about a distraction?" Chris suggested. "We have plenty of Pokémon to help create one. Electabuzz's thunderbolt is more than enough to render someone unconscious. Believe me, I know."
"Gro…vyle?" Grovyle started fingering the edge of one of his wrist leaves with a rare glint in his eyes.
The thought of a confrontation where one (or many) people could get hurt made Leo slightly uncomfortable. "I think we're hoping to not create much of a scene. The building is alarmed and the police could show up quickly. Granted, we may not be able to be avoid that."
"There is the dock entrance," Sally suggested.
"A back door?" Chris asked.
"Sort of. All the projects in the building use the same dock when they need large pieces of equipment delivered. It won't give direct access to the lab, but it could get us inside the building."
At first, Leo didn't see the benefit as surely that door would be guarded as well. Although… "If someone rented a truck and pretended to deliver something, that could be the distraction for me and Grovyle to get past any security."
"Problem is, we would have to deliver something during the afternoon to be believable. Deliveries don't happen at night, and we need the night when there's fewer people from the other projects around. Even then, the person you talked with at Administration said Derganio is working around the clock, right?"
So much for that idea.
"But…" Shaking her finger in thought, "…maybe if I drove the truck to the front and faked engine trouble, I could distract the guards fairly…effectively, then get us inside the front door to deactivate the building's alarm before we create a commotion."
He noticed a glint in her eyes now, of a very different kind. "Hold on, are you thinking of…"
The red head was grinning wickedly. "Why not? After all, I don't get much of a chance to really show off these days, especially in tight shorts and small cut-off top. Though I should bleach my hair so they won't recognize me."
"What are you talking about?" his Pokémon counterpart asked, apparently confused.
"I think I know," Chris said, looking like he was trying very hard to not smile.
All the Pokémon were looking among themselves, giving the equivalent of shrugging, until the swampert's eyes widened just a little. "Oh," he said simply.
Leo swore he saw just the barest hint of a grin on his counterpart's face.