Chapter 12: Flight of a Fallen Angel
The cold chill of breaking unification gave way to increasing spurts of anxiety as soft tidewater lapped against the dock boards. Heart against heart, spirits touching, immeasurably strong, the bond, ever swiftly lashing, continued to oppose their every move with a vibrant life-force of its own.
Feyera gasped as Sanaria partially released him from her hold, causing an involuntary tremor to course throughout his frail figure, and uncomfortable nausea set in. To Feyera, it was the cruel sensation of tearing away from something once thought to have been your own; so pressed together were their hearts, minds, and bodies. It was undeniable. There was no questioning for the young man, no attributing this extraordinary event to anything besides a feeling so intense that it bended reality. Her heart shard melded tightly alongside the flat edge of his own shard in rich watery ruby gloss. They both looked down at the sight in tandem. The marvel of their connection was supernatural and amorphous. At times it seemed to be his heart shard pressed against hers on the right, but the next moment it was his on the left of their united connection. There was no telling apart their hearts, dovetailed to the point of indeterminacy.
It was all in front of him and a part of him, divinely splintering his essence with the being that stood before him caressing him in her soft hug.
Sanaria slowly lowered her arm, gliding it along the thick Team Rocket uniform he wore, as an artist's brush would grace a furrowed canvas. While she did this, the edges of their hearts finally deviated, issuing a quiet hum of resisting energy as a void filled between them. Like intimately joined magnets, Edge felt their hearts break from one to two, yet their minds remained intermingled, promoting a spontaneous and comforting interlocking of their right hands.
The amplified link from their short distance Teleport had Edge in a total rut. How was this all even possible? He wanted to act, but found that very few actions he could take coincided with his own will. It was so strange. So foreign. His volition was about as stable as the rocking moor he stood upon. Shifting thoughts brought him to the point of questioning why he was even standing against the Gardevoir in the way that he was.
Her eyes batted, rapidly concealing her own apprehension as she stared at the sliver of empty space between their heart edges. She could slip a lock of her delicate hair through the gap, but it would still feel as wide and faraway of a distance to traverse as the Giant Chasm; the millimeters became miles. This new found mutual dependency, was it permanent? She wondered how it would manifest itself in the next few moments. Would it force them both into a Feedback Fall? Prevent them from being able to leave each other's sides? Eternally bind their hearts should it happen again? Physically? Mentally? It was all as ambiguous as the earnest swirling sensations clouding their chests in rubicund warmth. No longer was the question how could such a link manifest between a human and Pokemon. It had already begun to take place.
Sanaria had no idea that it would have worked this way. How could she have? She'd never done it before, not even with Sephiteos. It was new, it was dangerous, and it was a phenomenal success. To share something like this with Edge made her heart jolt with the anticipation of interdependency. As strange as it sounded, coinciding with another to the point of limiting personal freedom was in fact a very real fantasy she held. Not out of sadistic interpretations, nor out of masochistic thoughts; instead, this fantasizing blossomed out of a deep longing for something—someone—that could not possibly leave her. For she had always been on the receiving end of loss. The desire for unity was a derivative of the security she never had, even after meeting Seph. Sanaria had faced tremendous forfeiture—and for seemingly no reason. She knew what it was like to feel distress as dreams were painfully torn away from her. It haunted her. Her psychological states were anything but stable and yet the more time she spent with Edge, the less burdensome her dark past became.
She questioned: Was it his heart? Everything biological about it reminded her of her lost love. Yet there was a new piece added into the equation, shifting with it the haze of variables, constructing a new entity, going beyond reasonable expectations. Even with his mind linked to hers, she felt Seph when their hearts blended. Was that final piece of Seph alone worth preserving? She was no longer as sure. There had to have been something more. As unusual as it sounded, Feyera was more than just a thrall to Seph's Gardevoir heart. Something special allowed them to overcome what they did. It couldn't have been mere coincidence either. After all, Sana took it upon faith that they would get out of Ein's way. For Teleporting was a skill that could not be employed without a very specific set of circumstances being met. Even then, the mental obstacles were as impeding as they were seemingly impossible to traverse whilst psychically conjoined—especially with someone as volatile as Feyera.
But somehow, against all odds, he had done it with her.
Their hands continued to grapple as the misty world steadily crawled past them at a Slugma's pace. To any onlooker, they must have appeared beyond panicked by the swiftness of their fondling hands. Nevertheless, in Sanaria and Feyera's own bizarrely slow world, it was a matter of minutes abridging each lenitive second.
Together, a unified thought of "How?" escaped both their minds. The synchronized thought ricocheted through their now folded over consciousness, delivering ecstatic resonation to both parties. There was no more mental division.
Feyera flinched, and Sanaria could not help but do the same. She had no idea if this was too much for him to experience at once, no idea how his limits worked.
Being a Gardevoir, Sanaria knew the restrictions behind Teleport better than anyone else did, however paradoxically being a Gardevoir allowed her to overcome the limits with faith. This channeled flux of energy was now obviously very much present on Feyera's face as he stumbled and tried to break from her embrace, not out of repulsion, but rather out of a sincere attempt to reestablish his own sense of self after the quick union.
The man wore an archetypal expression—one often worn by members of her own species when they first learned how to correctly Teleport without splintering their bodies or un-'valancing' their fine curtain-like clothes. However, for a human face to wear such a mollified countenance made Sana feel somewhat strange inside. He wasn't truly like her in that regard—was he?
Young Sanaria knew the expression, for she had not only seen it but also expressed it in the past—it was a combination of awe and overwhelmed eudemonia, coldly joined by the eutectic sense of responsibility—but Sana was stumped as to why the sight of it bothered her. Was it because she still saw him as the man he was? Was it Feyera's own thoughts seeping through her, blending into hers, seeding her mind with doubt? With an impromptu Teleport in done in such close proximity to one another, anything was possible. And yet this was the only way to at least ensure a few more minutes of precious life. Tied to emotion rather than reason, the Gardevoir simply did not consider the many consequences. How could she? She wasn't Mister Chris Feyera. She wasn't able to take into consideration variables and "number crunch" probability. In a pitch of feverish emotion, she had been given a choice and adamantly decided that this would have been for the best.
In a pitch of concern, Sanaria looked at his brightly glowing heart, its healthy glossy exterior throbbing soft waves of rose with the Pokemon trainer's emotions. Were they only his anymore? Was it possible that some of them were Seph's? Were they her own emotions reflecting back like sunlight off the moon's solemn face? Or could he—Edge—be a synthesis which blended them all together? She couldn't tell for certain. Nothing was black and white. And a very prominent part of her did not want to be able to tell for sure, only to feel. She respired soft and short, but it seemed to take an eternity within this altered state of time they had been surrounded by.
Feyera backed out of her clutches further and she did the same. His back arched while carefully trying to avert precisely replicating Sanaria's action, but it was all for naught. The lines dividing their physical actions were as blurred as when their hearts had connected during the Teleport. Continuing to breathe in sporadic increments, the pair were tied through a physically mimicking motion of their lungs. Unfortunately, the psychic inertia was far too difficult to overcome, and he was soon staring at the chest shard between her tiny breasts once more as he stumbled backwards. While his facial lines showed little difficulty in its forced compliance in mimicking Sana, his eyes showed just how concerned he was about what the two of them were undergoing post-Teleport.
Sana wanted to laugh at their shared connection. Although crude, auspicious, and evanescent, it had worked brilliantly. And the more her mind rapidly replayed the sequence of bonding, the more she helplessly fantasized its wildly idealistic implications. After all, it was everything she would imagine. It was magical. Transformative. A milestone. Considering the number of times she had spent thinking about what it would be like to not only teach but be a part of a mutual Teleport, it was surprising that she even managed to keep her ecstatic happiness in check.
It was like showing a young Ralts or Kirila the technique, but being sublimely present for the entire undertaking. It flooded her mind with ardent thoughts. Sana wondered what it would have been like to have a child of her own, for such things were subtlety ingrained into her feministic nature. As her mind went over various scenarios, her cheeks involuntarily flushed, forcing a dimmer yet uncannily similar reaction to take over Edge's pinched visage.
This was different though. The way she felt could not be purely defined as instructing since she herself was a crucial part of the integrated mental manifold. Her very emotions were made into physical power, conducting through Feyera, with Feyera, and in Feyera, as their skirted minds allowed for their bodies to move forth with unprecedented speed, resulting in a unified Teleport.
This wasn't just her showing him how to do something, this was them doing something together. She felt it. Maybe he had no idea how he had done it, but the fact remained that they were able to do it. That was enough to convince Sana that she was at least able to commune to a fragment of her past. Edge's heart connected her to Seph. It was a bridge. But his recent actions greatly confused her. He was becoming that bridge and more. Though Sanaria had repeatedly insisted that his heart shard was what gave him identity, she wasn't expecting this unprecedented embrace of identity of himself as Edge Feyera and more importantly: their mutual identity.
Neither was Chris Feyera.
As he toiled with his destabilized body, the idea of what he had just shared with Sanaria begun to possess him. Like an inundation of water, it flooded Edge's mind, infiltrating every crevice, maddeningly deepening in dynamism. He wanted nothing more than to dissect and analyze exactly what just happened. Yet there was a strange part of him that simply sought to accept. Or at least not argue nearly as much as he had felt the need to.
How bizarre. Some part of "him" was holding his antagonism back. It was very real. Obtrusive even. Like a mental inhibitor, a dam that had never been there before curtailed his flooding thoughts. He struggled with it initially. It did not belong after all. It was the same feeling as the Gardevoir heart on his chest. Foreign. Alien. Retaining. Most of all, tightly bound to who he was. Though not as physical, its influence over his mentality continued to wildly flourish as he looked at Sanaria's eyes. Though initially scared by these strange familiars infiltrating into his mental processes, he soon rationalized a very good reason for why he accepted the Teleport for what it was: Ein.
A sharp beat of the heart. A gulp for air. Feyera's eyes snapped out of their wayward trance the moment he heard the guard door slam close in the distance with a loud "thud!". It echoed numerous times as he heard the sound relayed at least twice, growing in volume and proximity. He peered down the narrow tunnel adjacent to the small harbor and saw a few Rockets—all undoubtedly under Cipher's control—swiftly running up the docks towards the two of them. Edge tried to take his hands out of Sana's, but she refused to let go, tugging on his arms childishly.
"We can't…" she said softly, as she brought their hands close together. Their fingers mesmerizingly interlocked. "Not yet. We're…" she murmured, unwilling to finish the thought.
Although speechless, Edge could not find a reason to debunk what was happening to him. It was all too much to process, even for his pragmatism. But despite all this flux, one thing was for certain in the young trainer's mind: they needed to be safe—there could be no other way. He knew all of this would be for naught if Cipher's Ein caught them. The scientist had made it quite clear that he did not intend on helping Chris. In fact, the ex-partner seemed adamant in antagonizing the young man's growing problem. After all, it was all too easily exploitable and all too crucial to Cipher's plans.
"Sana," he said through pure telepathy. For once it felt honed and honest. Focused. True even.
Sana seemed surprised to hear him actually transmit a focused thought to her specifically rather than spewing it out for anyone to perceive. He really was able to do things that she never expected. Granted, a side of her still fought for Seph, but another part sought out this new evolving being.
"Chris? Veh Feyera?" asked the Gardevoir as she batted her heavy lidded eyes. They were so enthralled by this precious moment.
"We need to…" Edge said helplessly whilst fidgeting next to Sanaria. Her hypnotizing scarlet eyes persisted to draw his attention only to her, and to look elsewhere was a struggle. In rebuttal of these feelings of heightened enchantment, he argued, "We have to go."
"I—I…k—know," Sanaria stuttered. A chill overtook her and spread outwards to Edge, causing him to shake as well. She knew what they needed to do. He didn't need to tell her about the danger they were in. The problem was that it was suddenly just so difficult to do anything alone. Independence seemed to be a distant dream, a withdrawn past—lost to the sands of time. Forgotten under a cascade of mental melding occurring so very recently, but paradoxically so long ago. It flowed out from her into him, through the fissures of joint consciousness.
"No….damn it!" he distraughtly belted. He felt trapped. But his imprisonment was not one of agony. Far from it.
"But we…" she began to plead.
Feyera interrupted her, "—We don't have the time!"
Time. An odd contraption connecting one instant to the next. Weaving textiles of shared moments together, providing a bridge to the future. Right now it felt as if they had all the time in the world as they shared it—their time—together. As this time slowly ticked, melting into liquid crystal, uncertainty was but a broken moment in their bravura embrace.
"Chris veh…" she sighed, exhausted. Forging such a tight unification and focusing something as potent as a Teleport in tandem with each other's minds forced a dependency whose future consequences remained to be seen.
Again, Edge directed a slight nod to the watercraft they stood next to, more insistent and less furtively. She seemed to agree with his beacon's implication, and yet her hands continued to remain in frantic clutch of his, knitting their fingers together.
"Sanaria…" Edge said silently as his lips mouthed the word.
"Don't…I mean you can't break contact," Sanaria insisted. "You have to stay…"
"Stay?!"
"Stay close…Chris. Please. Don't try and break away otherwise…"
"What?!" Feyera shouted aloud in confusion. She tightened her grip in preparation for Edge's fully predictable recoil. Sana could read his actions as if they were her own. To a degree, they were. After Teleporting, their mentality had been streamlined to correlate; mentality correlated directly to physicality. Feyera of all people knew this. And now he was stuck. Trapped. For Sanaria, this made things more manageable, and slightly more interesting since Feyera was no longer as remote and alien to her. So long as their hearts were pressed against each other, he was in between a state of closely connected and desperately attempting to individualize himself from her and the psychic well their fraught unification had brought only moments ago.
Sanaria bit her lip in response to the flooding distraught emerging from Feyera's heart and entering hers. Though they were not touching, the close proximity was enough to make for exhausting trembles of the mind. He shivered against her frail body all the more, fighting the gravitational urge to let their hearts connect fully again. She shook sporadically with him for there was no way to impede it.
"Just…trust me. Please, you…Chris, you just don't know what we've gotten into," the Gardevoir said, trying to focus her thoughts on the danger they were in. Consequently, this fed into Chris' own feelings, and he managed to accept her words for whatever they were worth.
"Fine," Edge said softly tugging on her possessive arms, "come on then. Let's get the hell out of here together."
Smiling uncontrollably, she clutched his wrist with a wounded hand and relinquished him enough to allow for his own movements. She did not dare let go of him completely, making sure to keep one of his hands fully locked in hers.
The breaking of their already fractured hug was pain ridden but short; like the tearing off of a snug bandage. However, it did not abruptly end their mutual chain of consciousness. Rather than being fully without contact, all of their shared sensations now went through a funnel of where their bodies touched—their held hands. Sana's outstretched arm was as much a conduit between the two of them as their matching hearts.
All it took was a brief semi-physical separation and Feyera was soon feeling very much on his own. There was Sana at his side, her gentle fingers in his hand, but the recent climactic interconnectivity had made it seem like she was miles removed from him.
"You…I mean, we did it…"
"Sure," he nodded, awestruck and afraid, "huhh… somehow…"
Sana gripped his hand and played her fingers against his palm, "Somehow veh Feyera…"
"I know—" Edge began to say in a more even tone, however he was cut off by a sudden cacophony of external noise pervading the bubble he and Sana had shared exclusively until now.
It started out as a screeching noise, akin to ringing of the ears, and once the pitch dwindled, he heard Ein barking obscenities from behind them. Edge strained his neck to look back. Though limping, Ein was sprinting toward them in the distance, fighting each step with a well-timed explicative.
"He's coming for us!" Sana squeaked, holding Edge's hand tighter.
"I…see…" Edge whispered in duress. He was not patronizing the facts raised by Sana. Sight for him was rather hazy. It was as though he had just gotten out of a bath and his eyes were coated in foggy, tear-like water.
"Huh?" she asked.
"It's—" Feyera could not find the words. Emotionless and scheming, Ein was shrouded in ambiguity; he was quite literally cloaked in a miasma along with his Magneton which would occasionally escape the fog in its wide orbit.
Feyera feared his sight of emotion was slowly commandeering actual sight—or at least heavily influencing it, he could see perfectly fine, it was just different, like when he saw Haunter through Progenitor's latent amplification of temperature. He silently hoped it was due to the Gardevoir currently at his side and not the one he had run through with purified Mercurius. The likelihood of subjugating himself from either Seph or Sana seemed to vanish like tiny pools of water in the bright sunlight. Each minute evaporated more and more of his essence, chafing away past and replacing it with freshly feathered present.
Sharply turning to the water to suppress frustration, he calculated the next move. Within the internal harbor, there were various watercraft, all neatly arranged facing northwards towards the open bay. From the large mouth of the harbor hung metal chains blotting out the sunlight with their inky tendrils. The serene sea breeze blew them about.
"Stay with me," Edge ordered. Not out of command but concern. He felt pressured, internally collapsed; if he tore away much more from her something terrible would surely happen. He could not explain it, but this impending dread had been supplanted by a combination of his Gardevoir heart's natural instincts and Sana's emotional warning. He wasn't going to try and push the envelope this time. Things were already far enough out of his control. They had been for long enough. As long as he could remember.
Rather than agree physically, the Gardevoir psychically affirmed sending waves of comforting jaundice forth. It radiated warm fluffy radiance.
Taking a step on his own took a minor delay. He felt wobbly. He felt weak. Everything had suddenly sped up. That or his mind had slowed down. The only thing left connecting the two was a tight handhold. And yet this handhold was about as significant as the synchronized beats of their respective hearts.
They ran along the narrow dock, swaying and stumbling slightly. It was difficult, but not by any means impossible. New wings of freedom gave them the strength to override shared weakness.
"There!" Edge pointed at one of the crafts near the shadowed moor's edge.
She hummed a soft, "Mmhmm," aloud and grinned.
He and Sana both leapt from the dock boards onto the nearest watercraft. It was a PWC-400-ES. Light slate blue fiberglass construction, seated up to two passengers comfortably on its charcoal nylon seat, and had a single Samson-ES engine. The "ES model" stood for "Enhanced Strength" and held in excess of two-hundred-and-forty Rapidash Power as advertised on the personal watercraft's shallow steering handlebars.
Sana moved her hand on top of Feyera's as he gripped tightly onto the steel piloting bar. She positioned herself to snugly rub her body against Edge's back. Her heart shard tingled against his backbone, tickling straight through the man's rocket uniform, essentially touching his spinal cord with its comforting delicateness.
Feyera fought a chuckle and clicked the start-up switch. Fortunately, the craft was key-less, sensing weight to initiate start-up, a convenience for villains such as Cipher and the Rockets who typically did not have to worry about their crafts being stolen. In addition, this was quite a handy safety feature, should you be thrown from the craft, the PWC would stop thanks to such a mechanism.
As the motor stridently purred to life, Sanaria jumped and clutched securely onto Feyera from behind, wrapping one arm against his chest. The craft jerked slightly, toddling in the shallow harbor. The gasoline-powered propeller whirred and then expelled water forcefully from behind in a focused Water Gun-like squirt. She squeaked and she squeezed tighter in shock.
"Sorry," Edge whispered.
"Do you know how to sail one of these things?" she asked in amazement.
"Sail? Huh? What are you talking about? I…" He looked for an instrument panel. Just a few dials and gauges. No ARMOS on one of these small fries. Everything was manual. "Um…I…" Feyera stammered.
Sana's gaze followed his confused hands. He wasn't about to ask the Gardevoir to drive though. Even if she had psychically commandeered Lorelei's body, Edge knew that action had ultimately ended up in crashing Lorelei's yacht.
"Do you?!" she squealed uncomfortably, stroking one of his hand's apprehensive white knuckles.
"Hmm…"
"Chris!"
"Um…" overwrought air breezed across the roof of Feyera's opened mouth.
"Shoot at them!" a distant raspy voice commanded. "Don't let them get away!"
Abrupt, loud footsteps combined with the turbulent shaking of the moor, gave the pursuers away. The three members of Team Rocket that witnessed Edge and Sana materialize beyond their post were now running up the dock boards, their Nihil RXBs were drawn, based on a stray silver bolt that whizzed past Feyera's right ear with a sudden "Thwip!"
"Oh no!" Sanaria gasped.
"Dammit! Hang on, Sana—!"
Frightened, he eagerly pumped the accelerator with the turn of his wrist and noticed the Reilken Mercurius was glowing wildly. He paid less attention to this detail as the PWC kicked into full power, exploiting the Samson ES's strength and spraying the Rockets with murky port water.
"Ahhh!"
The lurching motion caused Edge and Sana to hold on tightly to the craft with their legs, saddling the PWC while it zoomed out of the smaller harbor's antechamber. Her rail thin legs—protected by her fine leg sheathes and the Team Rocket uniform — closed tightly on his own and she continued to grasp his hand and the flat area above his human heart—left of the Gardevoir shard—with her delicate fingers.
"Oof!" Edge exclaimed as the craft propelled further ever quicker. The bumpy motion of the craft caused Sanaria's Gardevoir heart to press against Edge's backbone, but oddly enough, it was not painful. One would imagine the glossy metal would hurt, especially with the chaotic lurching of the small craft. Despite the hurling and tossing of the speedy vehicle, Edge continued to retain focus on getting away from a manic Ein.
Something just felt off to the young man. Nothing was making sense anymore. Feyera could not question, only act; much to Sanaria's pleasure. Little did he know, parts of her nature were rubbing off on him; not just generic Gardevoir nature either, he already had sprinklings of that.
"We can get away…! We're going to be free!"
Feyera eagerly nodded, while his Pokemon companion brushed her legs snugly against his.
As the PWC rushed out from under the roof, the brilliant afternoon sun shown down on their faces, partially blinding them. Chalky clouds dotted the horizon, and the tarry smell of seawater filled their noses. The warmth of the sun caressed their pale faces, and filled their bodies with invigorating strength. That dark place, Evercrest, where all that death had occurred, seemed so far away now.
Counting their fortune, they headed north, desperately trying to flee Evercrest once and for all.
But first, they had to escape the bay. The very same bay Feyera had fallen into two years ago. Its haunting nature did not diminish.
Seeing the two of them leave the harbor's overhanging garage, Ein finally slowed his brisk pace. He had been unable to make it to them in time. Broken pursuit opened up to frustration.
"Dammit!" shouted Ein. The scientist, still covered in wounds and blood, fought to stand. His hunched-over posture restlessly gasped for air following his sprint. "Son of a bitch…!"
The Magneton at his side vehemently revolved its master, issuing sparks in sporadic pulses. Ein placed a gaunt hand upon his bent knee and looked menacingly at his Pokemon. In response, the three Magnemite split apart, dancing insipidly all the while. They were individually spinning, occasionally joining together at various points in orbit. Despite all the dynamic motion, their three eyes remained fixated on the fleeing PWC as it tore through the pristine Chrono Island bay. The three Magnemite's eyes, illuminated with artificial light, flickered occasionally, unable to integrate appropriate action based upon all the turmoil. Evercrest's S-N-Tri going offline certainly wounded the Magnet Pokemon's capabilities; Ein's Pokemon programing forced them to now depend on local sight peripherals rather than communing with Porygon's cohesive system. While this slowed them down, fortunately for Ein, as a fail-safe Magnemite were autonomous synthetics and impervious to tutelage system failures.
Their revolution speed slackened along with their scientist master's heavy breathing as the frail man approached the stupefied Rockets. Ein's tight face expressed nothing but disappointment. His swollen eyes, bruised and in pain, glared at his subordinates with bottomless malice.
"Chief?" one of the Team Rocket grunts asked. The man wore a mixture of fear and uncertainty as he addressed the scientist. The man lowered his repeater bow; he had no idea what was happening. His raspy voice cracked, "They—"
The scientist stood up straight with a start; his mind racing with calculations. Ein took his L3 RAIL and pointed it at the rocket's elongated forehead shouting, "YOU IDIOTS!"
"Whoa hey now!" the rocket replied. His bright blue eyes squinted, "Don't shoot!"
The rocket flinched when Ein's tiny ink filled eyes traveled from the barrel of his glowing RAIL firearm to the gruff looking man's brow. Ein stroked the gun's handle and his eyes veered back to the bay.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blast you to bits for your incompetence!" Ein hollered. "ONE DAMN GOOD REASON!"
"Chief, we can catch 'em for ya," said another rocket who wore his oversized hat on a slight angle.
At this, Ein then lowered the weapon; its humming subsided as the priming mechanism stalled along with Ein's clench. He could still use incompetent brutes like these. They would serve as a distraction. In a quick response, Ein tightly held onto his Magneton's Poké Ball as he returned the creature to stasis. He sternly ordered to the small group of grunts, "Fine then. Chase after them!"
Surprised, the first rocket seemed to relax slightly, but his eyes worriedly followed the Magnemite revolving Ein.
"Chief…?" said another one of the guards; he heavily built, yet still expressing fear. Who could blame him? Ein was as ruthless as he was scientific. Physically Ein was weak—much like Feyera—, but his advanced technology predating the Terminal War made him one of the most dangerous criminals to cross. That was saying a great deal since Team Rocket was collaborating with Cipher. However, the nature of such collaboration between the syndicates remained muddled in ambiguity.
"WHAT?!" Ein's temper began to pitch; though shallow on emotion, he was not tolerant of incompetence. Or inadequacy. Results were all that mattered to Ein; without results, you were nothing. "Do I need to spell it out for you, you senseless sack of meat?! Get on the other watercrafts and follow them before I rip your brains out from your earholes and feed the scant meal to my experiments!"
The balding rocket with a long forehead then spoke, "Wait, what about your aquatic Pokemon, Chief? It can catch them!"
Ein rubbed his temple, scheming. "No…My Lanturn will stay with me. Hmm…right…the electromagnetic currents…Humph, as will the rest of my Pokemon. Here's the plan: I'm going to rely entirely on you. Your mission is to hunt the two of those specimens down. One's a rouge psyonic and the other a Pokemon."
The rockets did not even question Ein's unusual bolstered confidence in their performance. A rocket with a hooked nose and a flushed set of cheeks answered rhetorically, "One looked like a human Pokemon."
"Hmm…they both looked human," the blond haired rocket commented.
"I thought they both looked like Pokemon," acknowledged the third rocket.
"Pah…it was a Gardevoir," Ein mumbled. "She's with a young trainer who's a psyonic…"
"Wait a Gardevoir? Ya mean like—"
"—Ohhh I've heard all about them types!" the first rocket said with a dirty smile. His straw-like brow quivered like old tinsel.
"Yeah," the second rocket licked his cracked lips, "Gardevoir make for fine business if you know what I mean…he he he—"
Ein snapped at the fidgeting rocket, "Keep your vile thoughts in your head or you'll wind up as twisted as Feyera! They're Pokemon. Slaves. Whatever you do to entertain your perverse fantasies, do on your own. Don't bring me into your perverted world!"
The second rocket swallowed, and his grubby lips trembled beneath his hooked nose, "All I was sayin' is they'd fetch a fair price…hell, I'd even sacrifice a bit of my salary just ta…ya know well…they're so humanlike and—"
"Do you want us to kill them boss?" asked a third rocket, interrupting his partner's dirty caprices.
"Yes," Ein lied forcefully. Raising a brow at them, he corrected, "But before you execute them, make sure that you cause them as much duress as possible with your Nihils, you need to overwhelm their minds with projectile spray, standard issue Gauntlets won't work."
Ein knew the rocket troopers wouldn't stand a chance, even with their rapid-fire weapons, but he needed to bide time and keep Feyera in the bay area. That was of upmost importance. Maybe by sheer probability alone, one of the Nihil bolts would wound Chris or his Gardevoir. But he didn't need luck; Ein's mercilessly calculating face had formulated a new plan already, a plan which mandated that he kept his Pokemon with him inside the Evercrest facility. As for the rockets, they were doomed. It was a simple calculation; his Pokemon gave him more utility than these expendable troopers from Team Rocket. If they were insurgents from Cipher however he may have reconsidered sending them on this suicide mission. Ein's loyalties, although minimal, were tied specifically to those which he could benefit from. Even then, such faithfulness was always on a countdown timer, always running out.
"And the Pokemon? The Gardevoir?" asked the first rocket, whose face had begun to relax, now that Ein was exhibiting seemingly less animosity.
"Can we keep her boss?" The second rocket's wrinkles began to grow from the prospect of a hunt. A hunt possibly ending in a warped reward. His eyes spoke volumes of malicious intentions. "Ya know…for pleasure…"
"Try and make that your goal; she's undoubtedly dampened after fighting before," Ein said with a tight mouth and a hiss. Whatever it was they sought didn't mean a thing as far as his calculus was concerned.
"You," he pointed at the rocket that had been fantasizing about Sanaria.
"Yeah?"
"Incapacitate her and I might even let you hold on to the creature's body when I'm done running my experiments."
"Aye boss," they said in forced unison, the rocket with black hair and a hooked nose smiling a fair deal more than the other two. His flushed cheeks grew redder with prospect. There was a motivator in his mind. An incredibly dark one, but a motivator nonetheless.
"Quit running your mouths and go!" Ein firmly shouted. "Don't let them leave the bay!"
They complied and hopped onto PWCs of their own. Powerful motors roared to life, and the troopers began to depart the smaller Evercrest harbor in a close triangular formation. Their wakes split the sea like Pidegeot traveling in their migratory V-pattern. The cool afternoon breeze blew forcefully into the harbor against them.
Ein's eyes, bloodshot and scheming, watched the scene unfold. As he stood in solidarity, he stared at the crafts while they left heading in hot pursuit into the bright daylight. His setback eyes squinted to compensate for the bright light reflected off the sunny bay water. Being far-sighted, he could see well distance wise. In fact, he could see even better than most, making out Chris' Gardevoir clutching at her trainer's back perfectly fine. It disgusted him.
The scientist forced a sigh that jerked his hunched body. The rockets he had just sent out were gaining fast on their prey. It would only be a matter of time before the pair of psychics fought back. Until then, he hoped the chase itself would keep the two occupied. They were weakened after all. And he had a bird's eye view of the chase from Evercrest to monitor them from.
"Damn…" Ein said through stretched breaths.
The most important thing to do was capture both Chris and his, now rather valuable, Gardevoir. Ein knew Feyera and his Pokemon team were at the end of their rope. Despite being in sight, Feyera and his Gardevoir would be difficult to capture. And Ein of all people knew he couldn't rely on Team Rocket operatives to finish the job for him. People like Feyera and Team Rocket subordinates were inherently weak due to fevered emotion and lack of logical intellect. In a world devoid of competent individuals, Ein knew he needed to resort to more dramatic measures. Although Gideon would be lying if he had said Chris' Teleport had not surprised him. Things like that had an astronomically low chance of occurring. Never before had a Pokemon escaped through Teleport from him, not even Delta-two. For a Pokemon to do so, it required an immense deal of focus to seamlessly bridge each individual "Psychic hop" occurring in states of elevated cognition. Never mind an individual Pokemon making the flight, Ein was dealing with a human and a Pokemon.
He turned around and paced towards a tall set of spiral stairs. Each step he took was taken in agony; his weakened body, in soreness, proceeded to climb to the facility's defensive control suite above and between the base's two harbors.
"Damn you Feyera…" he whispered breathlessly. "You're mine. You and your Gardevoir. Your Mercurium. You're all mine."
It was a short-lived reprieve for the two fleeing heart-bound runaways.
"CHRIS!" shouted Sanaria over the deafening ES motor.
"WHAT?!" Edge responded, unwilling to resort to further telepathic communication. To do so would slide further down dependency on his psyonic powers.
"Veh Feyera?!" Sana insisted, "Answer me!" She was having difficulty hearing his voice over the deafening roar of the propeller.
"What is it?" Edge said through their telepathic bond while he turned his head ninety degrees, his glance following the cliffs that surrounded the bay that Evercrest was built into. Once he had, he saw exactly what she was talking about. His heart rate quickened as more adrenalin influenced his already racing body.
Close on their trail, were three rockets riding PWCs of their own. Since they only had one operator on each, their crafts moved quicker, but Feyera and Sanaria's combined weight was not by any means debilitating. The two of them collectively probably did not weigh more than a highly muscular man or a Graveler. That was in part due to Gardevoir genetics, but Feyera was always frail—similar to Ein. Must have been from all of the rigorous work they undertook forcing them to skip meals.
Feyera swore loudly and gripped firmer onto the steering bar. The craft complied with his pressured turning and continued to accelerate.
"Feyera…" she said nodding her soft cheek on his shoulder. It was wet from the mist, but still rather warm. Warm and effeminate.
As the craft continued to gain speed, the pure water sprayed against his face, filling his nostrils with the briny scent of seawater. "Yeah?" he answered through telepathic thought.
Sanaria pressed her cartilage ear clippings upon his neck, tickling him with their firmness. "I…we might need to fight them off and…I'm scared."
The refreshing water continued to gently splash against them as they flew over the glass-like water.
"You're scared? SCARED?! I have no idea what's going on! How the hell did we get away from—" The boat hit a small wave and gained some unexpected hang-time, "Gah, never mind!"
"Veh Feyera, I thought that…" Sana whispered with a faint smile.
He nudged her with the side of his head saying, "Sanaria, I told you already, we're going to do this together."
He felt her head shake back and forth. Their Teleport meant much more to her than to him at this point. It meant everything. But he didn't know that. How could he? "But together…?"
"Yes together," Edge said, completely unaware of potential consequences. And another splash doused his straight amber hair, now flooded with autumn colors from the direct sunlight revealing its complexity. She brushed his multi-tone bangs out of his eyes with a stroke up his forehead and along his bushy scalp.
"Thanks," he murmured in response to her kind gesture.
"Are you sure?" she asked as her gentle fingers ran through his hair as he steered the craft to the left, slowing it just enough to make a turn. "How are we going to—" the boat lurched as Edge sifted into a small gust of wind "—do this if you're…"
"Haha!" "—Together," he said laughing. The powerboat continued to skip over the crystalline water. "I told you that already."
"If this then…" she started to say. But she couldn't tell him under these conditions. There was not enough time. Maybe it was best if he didn't know. The anxiety of concealing truth ate away at the Gardevoir, ravaging her from the inside out.
Despite her rapidly assumed muteness, Feyera remained fixated on the task at hand. That was one of his skills. Concentration. The cliffs of the bay were a long way off; even when considering the brisk pace they had been traveling at, they had barely made it halfway through the bay. Edge heard shouting from behind him but he could not turn around. There were taunts perhaps. Maybe even orders. The voices were becoming louder.
"They're gaining; keep going. Faster," Sana solemnly said, whilst running her hand against his flushed cheek. Her placid strokes calmed him just enough. The sensation excited him, but he maintained focus on the approaching split through a nonstop flow of adrenaline.
Chrono Island's sound had a single entranceway, between two cliff ridges. While in this sheltered bay, they were protected from the Southern Sea's more vigorous churning. It was a narrow exit through the inlet. The bay itself was wide, and the Evercrest base ran adjacent to two-thirds of the bay's sea cliff coastline. There were two separate harbors: a small one on the base of the bay's belly, the other larger one about halfway between the harbor Feyera had come out of and the overhanging bluff bordering the bay's entrance. As Feyera faced the craft's pointed nose towards those cold precipices, he could not help but shiver at the thought of what happened to him two years ago. What happened to Seph. What ultimately happened to his life.
Feyera tried to turn his head from the approaching fjord and back at the crafts chasing them, but was greeted by a sudden loss of control of the fast PWC he was driving. He swore while trying to regain command of the temperamental watercraft.
"Chris veh Feyera!" Sanaria shrieked as he struggled.
"Yeah I got it!" he yelled. The watercraft continued to disobey and veer further off course.
"You have to keep looking forward," Sanaria insisted.
"I know!" Edge hollered in frustration.
"Chris!"
"I said I know!" Edge relayed while a soft prickle of nerves stung his backside. It stung his back, making him feel temperamental and feverish as it coursed up his spine. He was angry. But such feelings were soon subjugated and channeled down various avenues of consciousness, like blood into capillaries, as fresh feelings pervaded into his backside.
The fear from behind told him that there was something worse than mere inadequate control that he had to worry about. Her heart shard essentially injected him with her fear as she held him tightly from behind.
"No, it's not the boat! They're going to try and shoot us!"
Her fear became his own as desperation set in, looking their emotions into the vise-grip of insecurity—insecurity as mutual and shared as the marriage of sea and sky ahead of them; existing perfectly in a mirage of lucid colors.
"Jaeger *gasp*," Ein quickly belted, clearly out of breath from running up to the facility's control booth.
"Jah?" a plump scientist replied as he wheeled around in a black leather armchair. He padded his potbelly with a set of porky fingers, intertwining them above his wide checkered tie imbedded in a pocketed brown suit vest. The clothing hardly fit based upon the way the bottom buttons looked ready to burst like a Numel's hump. The chubby scientist scratched his crooked and balding head, "Your clothes Chief, zey are charred, and your face has blood all over it! What happened? S-N-Tri didn't relay any information to me here at central!"
Ein looked down to see the damages from his Pokemon battle. His lab coat was ripped and tattered. The white angelic purity was all but lost amid black smudges and energy scars. His spiny hands traversed the coat's numerous tears and massive bloodstains from his beaten face in bottomless displeasure. He raised a trembling hand to his hawk nose, which spewed out fresh blood like a river. Coughing, and spitting up his own blood, the scientist bellowed, "Fire the Phaeton missile over Penta Bay!"
"Chief?" the chubby man asked as his tiny Spoink-like eyes lit up. "Zee Phaeton?"
"Yes, you heard me," Ein squabbled.
The man rubbed his protuberant stomach, "I haven't seen it tested yet, and zee Cipher research team back in Orre insist it is not ready for practical use because of zee range restrictions—"
"You idiot! It was never designed for 'practical use' by our predecessors!" Ein hollered as more blood ran down from his boney jaw and splashed onto his lapel. "It was designed for warfare! And that is what it will be used for!"
"True…" said Jaeger softly, "our base's defensive countermeasures are starting to sound more and more like new toys, jah?"
"Don't try me," Ein sighed, "my patience is nearing its end."
Jaeger continued to speak quietly, "But zee warhead…she isn't mobile enough to go much further than Penta Base's outskirts, what if there is a problem with zee reaction? Could be risky. Ah yes, very chancy. 'Chancier than encountering a Chansey,' as they say from around these parts! Hurm—ho!"
"Bah, enough of your stupid humor! I gave you an order, seal and protect all the facility's electronics, and prepare for a complete remote backup," Ein said as his narrow figure glided gracefully past the main control schematics by the large window. He paused to look at the escaping PWC closely pursued by three others. They danced about like shooting stars in the night sky, their wakes following them like shimmering white tails.
"I zought it was funny," Jaeger nervously grinned.
Ein ignored his companion, instead muttering to himself, "…They don't stand a chance against what we have lined up. Hah ha…Military grade stopping power, enough energy to break even—"
"—B—But Chief, there are our own men out there pursuing zee anomaly!" Jaeger pointed at the window at the water chase. "Zee troopers are gaining; they'll—"
"Does it look like I give a shit about some Rocket troopers, Jaeger?" Ein said as he grabbed hold of the pudgy scientist's coffee and chocolate checkered tie and pulled it threateningly. The plump man was lifted out of the chair slightly by Ein's enraged tug. "Those men are as expendable as our experiments!"
"Jah, but zee brute's genetic make-up isn't conducive to trials involving elevated cognitive mergers with Poke—"
"I'm telling you to launch the Phaeton missile, not write an equity report on experimentation! This is the task at hand!"
"W—wait, Ein, what is zee point of wasting our defensive trump card? Zee PWC is not seaworthy; she can only be used in zee bay; zee Southern Sea's churning would capsize her. You see?" Jaeger's breathing elevated as he pleaded, "There's no way for them to possibly escape, Chief."
"No way for them to possibly escape?! Has your grotesque adoration of food obscured your vision?!" Enraged, Ein pointed a stiff finger at the escaping duo. "Use your goddamn eyes! They're out there! They belong in here!"
Jaeger patted his stomach, "Why should we have to resort to zee Phaeton for such a small task?"
"You imported fool, this isn't a small task!"
"I'm here only because you wanted me on your post-Progenitor research team. For Project Curatus. All tests involving humans need zee help of zee good doctor, no? Ha ha, ho hurm…"
"Cut the Tauros shit, and get off your high Ponyta. You were too good a doctor and were subsequently excommunicated from your original post. I at least manage to convey the façade of an ecological benefactor. The only shining facet you have is your ruthless devotion to obtaining results," Ein said frankly.
"Now, now, you'll hurt my feelings; ol' Jaeger has a few other good traits, I assure you."
"Not that I've seen," Ein growled, "and I don't like surprises."
"I'll be sure to write you a nice, lengthy, heartfelt memorandum zee next time I inadvertently kill a test subject. It'll give you something to muse over, since you are so concerned with finding zee answers to 'why-not?'. All you need to know is zee 'why so?'. That is zee important question, Gideon—"
Ein raised a hand and cut Jaeger off with a snarl, "This isn't about scientific reconnoitering. At least not yet. We need to stop Chris. And there is only one way to accomplish that. I need to give Feyera a reason to fear. Unhinge him. Give him a slightly more heh…permanent reason to submit to me."
"I'm pretty sure if he's running away then he fears you—" Jaeger futilely argued.
"He 'runs' on emotion now, not reason!" Ein spat, "Pah! Just as predictable as any Angelus Curator. Humph! It's all for naught. We can stall his irrational little escape by doing this; he'll have no recourse once Phaeton completely strips him down and breaks the defensive shackles his mind has grown so accustomed to. Hahaha, I cannot wait to see his reaction!"
"Jah, but it may take some time before zee next shipment of SRBMs arrives! Zee replication process of the prototype weapon is painfully slow, even with zee new caches of Mercurium rolling in from zee Rockets. Ein, is he worth putting zee whole entire base at risk?" Jaeger spat, "Is he worth making us defenseless?!"
A scratch on Ein's arm pricked him. The scientist winced, buried in his thoughts. Though somewhat in pain, he went on to say nonchalantly, "The Evercrest base will be impervious to it. Phasewalk Protocol shields us."
"I know!" the fat man sternly acknowledged. "But it is zee only prototype we have here in zee west. What if zee KNRA decides to pay us a visit? Huh?! Then what?! Then we are helpless!"
Ein rubbed his bruised temple, "It's a risk we need to take. Chris is…no longer expendable."
"Expendable?!" Jaeger wobbled in his seat, "Since when was zee young delinquent anything but? I always told you he was a loose Blastoise cannon!"
"He may have robbed us of the greatest discovery of the past, and he may have set us behind two years in terms of resources with his little self-righteous stunt, but he also became the epitome of our evolutionary project succeeding Progenitor…rather unwillingly I might add…yes, most unenthusiastically…"
"They say, 'crime never pays'. Guess it was a good thing that zee boy's friend helped him live, jah?"
"Now it's time to get him back," Ein coldly said, ignoring Jaeger's tongue-in-cheek comment about crime. Jaeger and Ein were more than mere criminals, they were completely hardened against any moral code whatsoever.
"You'll get zee boy back and then you'll find out that he's not stable enough just like zee others, Ein."
"No. Feyera has something else in his possession. Something keeping it in check. Without it, who knows what wondrous power may surface? But speculation is not enough, we need to experiment."
"So it's not zee Mercurium's natural course?"
"The pilfered Reilken Mercurius is unquestionably the reason for his current condition. It's a part of him. He would not have survived this long otherwise. I'm certain of it. There had to be a direct causation."
Jaeger wiggled his feet and put an elbow on the control panel board. He stuffed his nose with a fist of knuckles as Ein went on.
"Organic cells have a way of adhering to newer streamlined formations under Mercurium's guidance. All it takes is a touch of foreign DNA to start the runaway train of molecular reactions. This would normally create a system in which synthesis can manifest at exponential rates. However, it would appear that someone has been copiously tainting my experiments with his own formula of imposed control."
"Whatever…" Jaeger grumbled, "So he has a few psyonic abilities like zee Pokemon thanks to a total waste of precious purified Mercurium…"
"Oh but it's not the Mercurium stopping him. Oh no, quite the opposite! Jaeger, you have no idea. Until you analyze his cellular structure…until you see with your own eyes what he can do; even with the inhibitor in place it's—"
"I saw zee video footage." Jaeger animated with his hands, "He destroyed zee little tiny bridge with psyonics. Emotion based psyonics that were grafted onto him from zee missing Gardevoir Delta-two. Big deal, it wound up crippling him."
"No Jaeger," Ein grunted, "he's tapping into things going far beyond the film we have from Agent Maxwell."
"Beyond…?" Jaeger asked with concern. For Ein to speak with such gravity it must have been significant. "What do you mean Ein?"
"He's linking himself to his Pokemon," Ein said as he pawed at his flat boney chest, "One of which happens to be a Psychic type."
Jaeger made a tight fist around one of the chair's cloth arms. "And zee danger of that?"
"It—she's a Gardevoir," Ein said gravely. "And that makes it much more complicated considering Chris' predicament."
"I don't see how…" Jaeger muttered.
"I've figured it out already, it's simple enough."
"What?! Zee boy and his Gardevoir have a bond? That's cute; I've never heard a story like that before in my whole entire life!" Jaeger sneered sarcastically. "Of all the unoriginal—"
Ein fumed out of his narrow nose in disgust, "She's not strictly his Pokemon based upon their heart-bound bond, you twit!"
"What?!"
"How much Feyera knows is debatable. How much I am willing to allow him to find out is not. I know how Gardevoir work thanks to Progenitor. Poor Feyera though, he's forgotten." Ein rocked his shoulders back to relieve the aching. "He's forgotten so much of the past. He's forgotten all of his great deeds, and now only exists as a relic to his research. Our research."
"Well, then that must mean…" Jaeger trailed off in wonder. "You'll need them both."
"—Yes, it is simultaneously everything and nothing to him; his greatest asset and most exploitable weakness…but at the moment I seriously doubt he's unearthed enough relevant potential on his own."
"So he's exploitable because of what facet exactly?"
"A psyonic is universally considered to be lacking in judgment. It's common knowledge that a typical psyonic lacks the awareness of possible consequences of his acts and omissions. However—" Ein took a extended breath and peered longingly out of the booth's main window at the aquatic chase, "—this string of events is only true in human psyonics. Typically, it is debilitating, and the mind slowly folds in upon itself, as seen in Lady Sabrina's case. For Feyera, based upon what I can gather, is intellectually tearing off such restraints through a special bond he has with his Pokemon. A peculiar bond that only exists amid a certain species of Pokemon. A Gardevoir bond."
"And wh—?" Jaeger bumbled, "W—what does that have to do with anything?!"
"—I saw his heart with my own two eyes, Jaeger. When I first witnessed it on Maxwell's crude video, I did not believe it. I knew it was possible for his cells to regenerate along a new biological trajectory thanks to the dated Reilken Mercurius but the chance of such an outcome…*sigh* astronomical…"
"And are you positive it was…zee real thing?"
"It took command of him completely. Elevated CNS, focused willpower, visible tendrils of psychic control, even the typical psychic defenses shielded his eyes to compensate for the immense internal well of mental energy."
"Shields over zee eyes?" Jaeger wiggled his porky fingers over his eyes, drawing the outline of eyeglasses.
"Essentially. It's a fascinating self-defense mechanism. You see, not only are the eyes conduits of emotion, but they are also very close to the brain. Practically embedded against it. At the climax of cognitive employment, the inner strain would be enough to crush the eyeballs if they were not 'shielded' from the difference in external and internal pressure. The translucent crimson barriers mimic pressure, stopping the exterior environment from being detrimental."
"Ah." Jaeger smiled, "You know much more about zee Feeling Species than I do."
"No thanks to Mister Feyera himself," sneered Ein, "rather ironically, I might add."
He shook his head, "Jah, well what if he was just using his knowledge to trick you? Ever consider that possibility?"
"The psychological states I imposed upon him through my crafted words genuinely touched him, completely debilitated him. Even Feyera in his intellectual prime would not be clever enough to demonstrate such candid panic as a ruse to delude me. The Feyera I knew had no…*Sigh*—" Ein drove the tips of his two fingers against his vertical forehead as he looked down at the grated floors—"sentiments until he began interacting with our Progenitor candidates like Delta-two."
"But that means—"
"*Humph!* It means he behaved exactly like one would expect a miserable Gardevoir to," Ein chastised. "Efficacious, but tragically irrational. A slave to emotion, a conduit of compassion; completely helpless yet paradoxically powerful. Unable to battle such irrationality on his own, he's perfect for controlling."
"Zee young man who used to work under your wing, he's nothing more than a tool, jah?" Jaeger said, tapping the tips of his round fingers together repetitively. "An instrument?"
Ein shook his head. "No, he's a gateway. A gateway to a more powerful set of possible life forms."
"New life forms? Like crosses between people and Pokemon?"
"Perhaps."
"Haven't zee results always failed? After all, genetics have differed too greatly in our evolutionary pathways. But then again, with Progenitor experiments as the precursor to Mercurium experiments, who knows zee boundaries of zee precious life-guiding element."
Ein stroked his chin, puttering, "…He's a human, mostly. There's no questioning that, but his exploitable components are all linked to Pokemon. Mercurium causes cells to evolve, but it is rarely discriminatory in its algorithm of integration, my dear friend. Nor is it completely stable."
"But Ein," Jaeger fumbled in his seat, "can you really hope to exert control over something so volatile?"
"I already have. In more ways than he knows," Ein said short and fast. "He'll come to realize it in time."
"Oh…" Jaeger shot a shadowy look at the scientist, "…OH! …That!"
"Precisely," Ein nodded. "He's a brutally effective being which reason—and reason alone—can triumph over."
"Curbing emotion with reason…why don't you just use Pokemon though Ein? For instance, Gardevoir on their own are—"
"This isn't about Pokemon anymore. This is about improving *Sigh*…" Ein nearly fell backwards as he swung his arms into the air preaching, "—this is about improving human beings. That has all it has ever been about. We need to cut out the middleman, Jaeger!"
"Hurm…jah?"
Ein swept his arm and across like a sickle, "The age of the Pokemon Trainer is slowly dying off as our world shrinks through exploration. Soon, there will be no more room left, no way for us to exist in collaboration with Pokemon and their communities in nature!"
"Jah, well Kanto has quite a large population in comparison to where I'm from or Orre for that matter—no thanks to the Great War."
"Jaeger," Ein pointed at a picture of the globe displayed on the main terminal, "the Great War is only the beginning. Soon, people will fight over limited resources once more. Soon, they will struggle to survive. Relics predating the Terminal War are testament to this problem. It has happened before and it will happen again. That's…the nature of history. Historia est vitae magistra."
"Bah! Such conceit. Do you really believe that we're not better prepared to control this world? As far as we know, Pokemon were not even a part of zee pre-Terminal period. We have more advantages than zee collapsed world ever did!"
"Do we really? Have we outgrown the limits?" Ein shrugged, "What occurs in nature when organisms compete?"
"Natural selection," Jaeger said with a faint grin, "survival of zee fittest and Darwinian progression."
"Correct. They compete, bicker, fight, and collapse upon themselves with bloated wills to survive! Look at us! Look at nature! What if there was a way out? What if we could end the pruning cycle of life? We can. We can overcome it, Feyera is proof! Assimilation, integration, evolution, Jaeger; collaboration as opposed to competition is possible. But it must be enforced!" Ein exclaimed.
"You're talking about forcing evolution…beyond zee tests undertaken in Mahogany Town, with zee Red Gyarados," Jaeger brushed his greasy eyebrow, "most importantly, you are talking about human evolution; a process that takes millions of years!"
"Yes, if you're a naturalist," Ein dryly replied while lowering his arms, "but we know it can be sped up by splicing."
"W—We do?" Jaeger spluttered from his restrained perch.
"Of course, the ultimate question is: when we make it so people are able to directly wield the strength of Pokemon, instead of the pear-shaped weaponry of our desecrated ancestors, who will control such a marvelous contraption?"
"Us?" Jaeger asked warily.
Ein slowly nodded, "Everything has a function. My function is the same as any organism's brain. To command what is powerful, to preserve my authority over its existence; my mission is very much like a young strident Mister Feyera once put it, 'to be a guardian, an overseer, a safe keeper, a guiding hand, an…angel over life itself.'"
Jaeger peered outside at the aquatic chase, "Angelic or not, you'd do well not to lose it for a second time."
"Primum id cognosce. Deinde iudica. Post iudicandum demum age."
"You know I don't babble in that antediluvian language, Ein," Jaeger grunted.
"*Humph* so uncultured!" Ein huffed. He was always fascinated by ancient cultures and their advances, even if such advances resulted in travesties like the Terminal War. For in Ein's mind, it took a learned man to try to understand their ways along with use their innovative technology. In addition, to overcome the primitive behavior that led to such loss was paramount.
Jaeger folded his arms in silent pouting.
"'First recognize it. Then judge it. After judging, you must finally act.' This is the principle of science, Jaeger. It's our religion, it provides us with answers."
"It does?"
"Yes." Ein sighed and proceeded to glide his hand about as if it were a baton, "'Ipsa scientia potestas est.' 'Knowledge itself is power'—" his floating hand transformed into a tight fist as it reached the edge of its exaggerated sweep "—Now fire the Phaeton."
"Very well. Right, initializing zee protocol," Jaeger bumbled with the black transmitter in his palm as it slipped from his sweaty hands. Eventually he gained control of the piece and clicked the soft lever on its side. As he tapped on the microphone, he heard the testing noise echo throughout the complex's loudspeaker. He grinned at Ein and revealed his fanged teeth.
Ein refused to exhibit any response, only taking the precious seconds to calculate his next move once Phaeton was airborne. Would he be able to rely on his Pokemon at that point? Or would the fallout be too much for them to endure?
Jaeger tried to steady his watery grip on the device's glossy plastic, speaking quickly into the voice receptor, "Attention all personnel, Operation Phasewalk is in effect to protect us from the Full Stop. Prepare all our systems for zee manual override immediately. Seal all external posterns and docking bays. Ready zee launch gate."
Ein gave a cold nod of agreement.
"S-N-Tri has been offline; I can't get a visual on zee docks," Jaeger said whilst bumbling with a camera monitor. His chubby fingers prodded at the monitor's keyboard. "Black screen. Damn, she's shut down already!"
"It doesn't matter," Ein insisted with a hiss, "the Phaeton's effect will hit them so long as they are in the bay area. They may have Teleported a short distance, but I know Gardevoir: that is a skill they only employ at the end of their rope. Even then, it is taxing enough to cripple both of their bodies. Permanently if we are unlucky."
"Zee human Teleported?" Jaeger asked in awe. "Wait what?! Chris Feyera?!"
Ein rubbed his sore cheek. "Correct. No more than fifty meters."
"FIFTY METERS?!" Jaeger shouted at the top of his lungs. One of his lower buttons looked ready to burst. "How did—"
"I told you already…" Ein pressed his lab wear's bloody lapel down flat with a stroke. He then droned on, "You won't believe it until you see it for yourself."
"How did he…what did he…you mean zee Mercurius fully bound zee cellular components enough for him to—"
Ein nodded solemnly.
"So it is still active and spreading?"
"*Sigh* Yes…the same genetically corrosive substance that runs through his veins has undoubtedly …shall we say, passed beyond his body at this point. I need to find out whether or not it is possible to induce and replicate Mercurium's effect through mutual Teleportation. That would save us the time of extraction because of the 'Transitive Property'."
"But zee new caches of the unrefined material are being unearthed by our Team Rocket subordinates as we speak…"
"Mercurium…'The Mutable Resource'. Described as 'Varitatio delectat', or 'changes that please' in the pre-Terminal period. Hardly a fitting phrase for the unrefined material, and yet our ancestors knew of its potential by giving it that name, and crafting the beautifully processed Reilken Mercurius."
"Zee rockets are not collecting anything refined," Jaeger chuckled, "but a little radiation never hurt anyone right? Ha ha."
"It will break them since they don't handle it properly. So clumsy…so pathetic. Their only concern is money. They'll do anything for the right price. Even hurl themselves off cliffs. They're only criminals even when they're at their best. Their minds will bend to its will."
"And it didn't break Feyera because of how it was processed? But then specifically how did he obtain zee traits of…?"
"I don't know…but we're going to find out." Ein shook his head, "He's not about to leave our island despite what he believes. He's done himself in by coming here. We'll test out the defensive Phaeton and capture him in the resulting aftermath."
"'Killing two Pidgey with one Rock Throw', jah? Ha ha! Is that what they say over here in Kanto?"
Ein ignored Jaeger's pitiful foreigner humor, answering with a straight face, "I will have him and his precious components."
"His components?" asked Jaeger. "You want to extract the Mercurium residue from his body? Or are you talking about zee Gardevoir traits themselves?"
"It's likely that they are one and the same in areas such as his heart. The Mercurium is now a blend of him and Delta-two rather than pure Mercurium; think of it as a mold cells follow when they regenerate."
"Ah ha!" Jaeger said in an epiphany. Mercurium binds different cellular traits together based upon the volume of the initial exposure to the element and the compatibility of the organisms in question. These small changes in physiology would be amplified through a series of localized reactions occurring to nearby areas; Mercurium was fluid enough to travel from membrane to membrane. Though how fast this whole process occurred was as much a mystery as any.
"Yes. Which will make it easier to replicate, though I don't like the idea of smearing parts of Feyera's DNA on anything if it can be helped."
"Ha, you've had enough of zee little rascal?"
"'Rascal' is not a strong enough word to describe Feyera," Ein said scowling.
"Well you can always replicate zee process through good old trial-and-error; back in med school that's all I did." Jaeger pretended he was cutting a steak with his hand motions, whispering, "First on zee cadavers, then on zee people."
"Extraction will only begin once the tests are finished." Ein said, "Markova will do a run-down of Chris Feyera's medical history to analyze a possible cellular algorithm for future experiments, which will be forwarded to you. I'll send my subordinates and rocket operatives to secure more specimens from both groups: human and Pokemon. But before I divvy up more precious Mercurium to the lucky specimens, I need to see how he responds to certain triggers in person and analyze the ramifications of Teleport."
"You would withhold experimenting just to make sure that you do it right? That doesn't sound like you at all, Chief."
Ein let out a half laugh, "I suppose I can play an odds game now that I know that the desired result is possible."
"Jah. Desirable I'm sure under the condition you survive. Ha ha!"
"It really is the same as Progenitor. The only thing that's changed since then is: now we know which species work—one of which is the human species."
"Hurm, a single human being. You cannot expect to clone his unique reaction without painstaking diligence."
"Ha…perhaps, keep in mind Chris and I have an…exploitable history. Should he remember it…*Sigh* He's so…impressionable."
"Oh he he he," Jaeger menacingly chuckled. "Seems like you want to take him apart too!"
Ein did not acknowledge the pudgy man's comment. "It's over for him. He's got everything playing against him, and now he's gallivanting about in our protected bay."
Jaeger nodded and his chin bulged. "And zee Ephemera?" he asked through swollen lips.
"Haahhhh…Now in 'Our Father's' loving care," Ein assured with a venomous smile.
"I see, he he he…you better pray zee KNRA doesn't show up," Jaeger giggled. "I will prep zee rest of Phaeton's elements."
"Good. I'm going up a flight to the observation deck; you know me, I love to see an experiment in action!" Ein barked. The frail scientist quickly proceeded to run up the nearby grated stairs. He wheezed and coughed during his arduous ascent. Each step resonated with a clang that shook the chilly silence.
Jaeger continued to look out at the brightly reflective littoral bay. It was afternoon, a perfectly clear sunny day. The wind hardly blew against the tiny black wind vane propeller shaped like a Fearow outside the main window. As the foreign scientist ran his plump fingers along the illuminated code board, he began to hum softly to himself. "Hurm hurm hurm…Zee gates are sealed good and tight—" he looked at a nearby monitor showing the metal sheets closing on all the harbor entranceways, sealing the bulkheads. They closed in on the passageways, shielding the base.
A few seconds passed and the groaning eventually stopped. Jaeger could hear the dull "thump!" from directly underneath his observational satellite. It shook his whole body, and he wobbled gauchely in his wheeled chair.
His forehead began to sweat even more from the sudden agita. "Okay. Check. Zee Evercrest electrical current, hurm hurm, sifting in preparation for zee energy surge. Hardware and zee memory discs…overriding from solid state to physical core drives."
"Safeguards are a green light." He clicked a few more switches below the monitor board. "Hurm hurm… optimal ballistic range for spread. Check." Jaeger looked up at the large digital clock reading "3:19". Its bright neon green soon faded into black obscurity. Red lights then filled the room's interior akin to when there was an emergency procedure. Jaeger did not seem alarmed however. "Hurm hurm and zee secondary generator is providing power until the Full Stop reboot…Check."
"Zee firing coordinates, Penta bay…latitude twenty-zeven due north…hurm hurm…longitude one hundred and thirty in zee east." Jaeger skillfully input the directions on a dark olive green computer terminal. It chimed in bold letters "PRIMED". Jaeger could almost hear Ein's laughter at the impending beauty. It had been too long since such a device was employed. The only thing that would be better in terms of impressiveness would be if it were stopping an invasion instead. His thoughts ran wild with the expression on anyone foolish enough to challenge them, even the military. He wiped his greasy brow saying, "Check."
A flashing screen appeared with ten blank slots for numeric code. The first three individual slots were separated by dashes. Then next part of the sequence had two blank slots between dashes and the very last part of the blank code had exactly three slots, reading: "[_]—[_]—[_]—[_][_]—[_][_][_]"
"And now for zee launching codes! Zahhh…! What was it now, Jaeger…?" he asked himself. Pawing his stomach, he contemplated. "…Hurm hurm…oh right! Zee first six Fibonacci prime numbers, haha Jaeger, you are so very smart! Let's see, two, three, five, thirteen, eighty-nine, and two-hundred-and-thirty-three! " he typed in the number sequence with a restless smirk, basking in his own cleverness for making an easy to remember password.
Stroking the final number, the computer issued a loud "click!" and "ding!" as a loud hiss came from beyond the window. Jaeger struggled to look beyond his instrumental panel to see the storage tower's cement door slide open only to find himself nearly falling out of the rolling chair.
"Drat!" he squealed as he nearly fell out of the chair. "Oof! My zpleen!" he barked at the armchair when it nudged him in the side as he reoriented his round body.
Eventually, after wiggling his shapeless body into the confines of the chair once more, he gave a long exhale. "Phew…"
The screen in front of him flashed "WARNING DETONATION IMMINANT!" in bright red flashing lights. Beyond the terminal, the bright diamonds of reflected sunlight shone off the bay's still water. Far down below, the fugitives desperately fled from the rocket operatives pursuing them on their PWCs. A soft metal mesh shield began to coil downwards, closing on the window, only partially dampening the view with its shade.
"Ah haha…!" He cracked his knuckles with a smile. "Time to enjoy zee show!"
A few flights above Jaeger, out in the warm sun, Ein stood fixated upon the spectacle about to unfold. The dazzling view of the bay was all within his transfixed surveyance. Slight breezes caused his lab coat to billow behind him like a short cape. Had it been as white as it was before, then the sunlight would undoubtedly reflect off him as much as the light from the sea. But it was not, it had been mutilated by the fight between him and his fleeing recalcitrant apprentice. Too far gone were any hopes of redemption between the two of them. It did not matter. There was no way to coerce Feyera at this point, he had been led to far adrift by emotion; the young man adamantly opposed the truth: Ein had every advantage imaginable and there was no persuading him to unfasten the Mercurius from his genetic code. In fact, every struggle Feyera made to relinquish himself from Ein's clutches—by employing his psyonics—served to clasp him tighter in the ferocity of Mercurium's mutability. Ein knew this, but he also knew more about the Reilken Mercurius than Edge could imagine. And that was the real advantage. That accompanied by the Phaeton created the perfect storm.
Ein's eagle eyes peered out from behind grey-tinted sunglasses. He wore a faint smile.
"There is a natural order to this world. And I will make it my order. To fight it would force submission, to take flight would only delay the inevitable. 'Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.' 'Either I'll find a way or make one.'"