Chapter 16: On the Brink - Part 3 "Resolution"
Bright sunlight glistened off the jeweled eyes of Feyera and his Gyarados alike. As a unified force, they rushed towards Evercrest's larger harbor. Harrowing determination drove their hearts. Amid all this resolve, Feyera's heart had been the most bountiful in perseverance. Like a shrill note, it vested in him a sense of insistence and unyielding faith. This was it.
Des lightly skipped over some of the shallow waves, waving her body upwards and downwards like a sail. Completely driven, she continued to accelerate, chopping through the sea as if she were in hot pursuit of prey. It was causing Feyera losing his grip on her. He continually released her with each arc she made, only to catch her seconds later as she hoisted back up. Tossing and turning, the devoted sense of responsibility was the only thing keeping his body firm enough to hold onto her.
[C'mon tad, hang on tightly! Don't let go!]
"Des!" Edge shouted from atop his Gyarados' back. He fell from his perch and clenched the Pokemon's rapidly contracting muscles. The beast wavered a slight bit, nearly tossing her rider. "Ah!—Slow down! I'm slipping off!"
[Can't do that sugar! We'll never make it in time.]
"I feel like I'm going to fall though!"
[I'd say you've been putting on some weight!] she joked.
[Hey boss!] shouted a familiar voice from right behind him. [This should be nothing for you after the last ship we were on together!]
"BRUCIE?!" Feyera exclaimed as Des flew out of the water, earning a few moments of airborne weightlessness and flipping his stomach.
Little did he realize, but the fire Pokemon had leapt onto his trainer's back the moment before they had taken off. [Yeah!] shouted the Charmeleon. [Who else did you expect to be clawing at your back?]
Feyera fought a smile at the thought of Sana doing just that earlier on. But he quickly dismissed the thought. "How did you…?!" Feyera asked, turning his head to see the Pokemon clutching onto the loose black fabric with his sharp nails. The Team Rocket uniform's top was all torn up; he considered taking it off at the next opportune moment. Whenever that presented itself.
[Sana helped me! Tossed me right in time, and I flew!]
"I didn't mean how!" he said, mildly impressed by the employment of her powers.
[Then why did you even ask?]
"Because…what about all this water?" Feyera exclaimed, pausing as Des splashed into the sea with her underbelly. "Your tail might get wet! Des, slow down!"
[I'm okay!] Brucie said padding his trainer's shoulder. [I'm not scared. You're here by my side.]
"We gotta turn around! This isn't safe for you!" Seeing the spray spraying up from each dramatic motion made him almost as frightened as Brucie should have been! Then he thought of the other thing on his mind, or rather other person on his mind. Edge growled, "You should have stayed with Sana to protect her!"
[I'm your Pokemon, not hers. And I'm not turning around! I'm staying with you.]
But to turn around would waste precious time, and that put July and Sana in further danger than they were in already. Realizing defeat, "No!" he huffed "You can't be serious buddy! What were you thinking…?"
[What's that?! I can't hear you over the sound of all that impendin' triumph, Edgie!] joked the Gyarados. [Y'all know those racketeers ain't got a clue o' what's comin' their way!]
[Yeah! We're gonna bring the muscle! Together.]
Feyera bit his lip coming to terms with just how brave his first Pokemon had grown up to be. It was pointless to argue, they were over halfway to their destination already. "All right! Hold on tight and whatever you do don't let go!"
[Yep!] The side of his flame-tipped tail tapped Feyera's waist twice. A quick acknowledgement he understood.
They were gaining speed with every second. With all the water gushing up towards them like a Politoed's Drizzle, he could not fathom the level of courage required by Brucie. He didn't need to though. He felt it. It wasn't just the galloping motion either. It was the mood itself. Promising waves of bright platinum-blonde light blew through the air like long locks of hair. Was it the sun's reflection? Or his heart making him see the world in a swirl of hues?
These thoughts were interrupted rather suddenly. [Whoa now!] Des slowed up with a sharp ninety degree turn. The stop was so abrupt, she even lapped in her own wake. There was no more bay to traverse, ahead of them was the metal portcullis guarding the massive harbor's archway. [Heh, okay chum we're here, now what?]
It was imposing, but not impervious. The wall ahead of them completely dammed the harbor's mouth. Its stainless reflection sparkled with the bay's greenness. Like dark emeralds, the flat panels were boxed into rectangles of metal I beams. The was no going under it with Brucie either. "Okay. This's got nothing on us!" he said remembering what Sana had said about staying positive.
[I'm no battering ram!] Des chuckled, ['Specially not when Brucie's riding in the saddle!]
"Haha, sure you're not!" Feyera said, grabbing Brucie with a free arm. "Ease up and relax, I'll think of something."
She frowned. [As yer 'Sworn –Floatation-Service'—of highest buoyancy, I'm feelin' a bit useless.]
[Don't worry Despie, you're always our team's 'Ace in the Hole'!]
[Daww, thanks Brucie.]
"Yeah!" Feyera said petting her rough scales. "And Brucie, I don't know what gave you the courage to come out here with us, but thanks pal."
[I thought it was the right thing to do, especially after the things you said! I felt you meant it, you weren't trying manipulate us.]
"Manipulate…?" The tendency to manipulate emotion rang in his mind. It was a reminder of how attached he'd become to this bizarre influence over psychological states. Like an addiction, it had slowly infiltrated his day-to-day experiences with the world around him, so smoothly he hardly noticed it.
[Heh. Sure did ring true to yer tune, Edgie,] Des agreed.
"Stop already, you're gonna make me get all misty eyed! We gotta stay on task. We've got a mission and I'm going to need you both for it to work."
[That looks like it's made of solid steel!]
"Steel is malleable when you heat it up."
[Malleable or not; heat alone won't puncha hole up'n through it!]
"Judging by the ridges—" he pointed at the bars "—it's reinforced with alloyed beams, those're the wall's skeleton."
[Huh?]
[Meaning…?]
"We only need bend the frame a bit to rip open a hole, once the metal's hot and flexible!"
[Okay!] the Pokemon responded with respective growls and roars.
Raising his left hand toward the center of two beams closest the trainer exclaimed, "Brucie use Flamethrower on the metal right above the water! Up from where water's lapping and in-between those rails!" His ebony brace wobbled with the motion.
The fire lizard gave a cough before spitting out a few embers that drifted off the side of a now stationary Des. [Okay, boss, you got it, ha ha! *Huff!*]
"Faaarrrooooom!" A searing jet of flames shot out from the small Pokemon's maw. The incredible heat pushed Feyera's hair back and made Des recoil. But the lizard's aim was true. It covered the grey metal in a cloak of scarlet. In a matter of moments, the metal bars close to the water had grown heated, a sodden gold red.
"That's it! That's it!" Edge said excitedly, holding his Pokemon's belly.
Sealing his lips, Brucie asked [Now what?] Black smoke fumed out of his flared nostrils.
Feyera stretched his hand out, and the Reilken Mercurius felt as if it had grown loose. Edge paid it no head and answered his companion with a tight half smile, "Time for a welding job!"
[Welding? What's that, Mister Feyera?]
"Wait and see," Feyera said, clambering up towards the top of Des' head. She tossed slightly as he anchored his legs on the sides of her long neck. Everything was riding on this. If he could only shift the malleable bars a little bit…
[Oi, Edgie what are you doing?]
"Gah!" he rallied himself. In a fit of shaking, Edge straightened his knees, partially standing against Desperado, digging his feet between her scales. With a huff and tug, he grappled with his right hand onto the Gyarados' pronged azure crest to support his frail figure. Brucie still hung on his back, like an oversized knapsack.
[How do ya like the view from up there?] she joked.
"Des, try to stay still. I'm going to bend the metal."
Off on the distant bobbing platform, Sanaria and July watched; their eyes aglow with hope, held open by tension.
"You can do it," Sana whispered, clutching her heart shard in Feyera's absence. She knew he could, he had recently gained an influx of positive emotion, and the bright jaundice aura surrounding him was brighter than the sun above. "Do it for all of us…do it for me…" she said breathlessly. She wanted his heart as her own. It would be so nice to have her life back. Sick from lonesomeness, she imagined how nothing could be better. Emptily, she imagined. How could she tell him?
Looking over the trident sculpting the back of Des' head, Feyera glared at the burning orange section of metal. Then down at his heart shard. It burned with a different power. It was now his mind's duty to link the two. There was no room left for frustration, only action. Pale colors around him became brighter with the shift into heated orange vigilance.
With a snap up of the wrist, a familiar sensation drenched his senses as he focused on the perseverance, hoping to make such optimism physical. Hoping to project and feed. In tooth grinding pain, small bits of black and violet energy proceeded to gather around his palm, joining and merging into slick bubbles and blooms. He could not describe it; it felt awful and pleasurable all at the same time. It was as if determination in his mind had flowed into the points of his trembling fingers. Like feathers, these feelings tickled his fingertips. Arcs of bending energy shot outwards; orbs of this lubricated material fused together, their rondures stitching tightly together in satiny threads dripping with murky ink. There, right before his eyes, they fell into themselves repeatedly, birthing larger globes.
But it had escalated too quickly. The deep indigo well of suction swelled and went beyond his control with a bright ray. It was too late to stop the reaction now. He'd messed up. Seeing the trembling well of emotion frightened him as much as its power tantalized him. He longed for Sanaria to be behind him. However he couldn't feel her comfort any longer. His hand wrapped around Des's crest had lost sensation. The only thing left was himself, but even that rapidly became lost amid projected sensation.
"Veh Feyera!"
"Wha—?" That voice. Nearing a climax, the world around him became colored in burgundy. He knew what it was; it was his body involuntary protecting itself from itself. There was nothing more he could do; everything was snatched from his control. His mind was being viciously dragged away from reality.
"Fu—AHHH!" he tried to cry out, but the hurricanes' wind swallowed his words. Tempest upon tempest of projected thought in front of his palm wanted nothing more than to consume. Nothing was stopping him from letting it either. Why should he try to impede it? It was his life-force. Perhaps he could leave his body once and for all through this well of emotion.
The whole scene had begun to become oddly detached. Edge felt like he was not even alive any longer. The reason why he was here didn't matter, only the feeling. Like him, it had a will of its own. A simple, objective goal to drench the world in saturated emotion. A will so real and vibrant, he could touch it with his own. Where did the two of them meet? Where did the two of them stop meeting? Could it have been that tiny space between an outstretched palm and a swirling convolution of dust?
"…!" His breaths had stopped long ago. Realizing this, fear quickly overtook him, its presence darkening color hues to shadows of black. "…!" In panic, Edge's body went into a set of spasms. Through burning eyes, his vision became cloudy, liquid rubies poured into his peripherals closing in on his center of sight like rivers of blood.
Feeling his convulsions Des bellowed from below him, [Edgie?! Y'alright?]
He couldn't answer her. He couldn't even see her. Touch was vanishing as well; his limbs felt as waiflike as phantoms. All his senses were being drawn into the maelstrom.
"Feyera no! Let it go!" he heard amid the delirium. But it couldn't be Sanaria, she was back on the PWC!
[Boss!]
A soft breath of warmth brushed his back. A beautifully warm sensation entered his heart to replace the cold shivers of breathlessness. He wondered what it was. Sanaria? It felt as comforting as her touch; as comforting as her heart pressed against his.
"ARGH!" Edge hollered as consciousness fired back into his head. He was hunched over on his Gyarados' head crest, trying to get the vicious field to leave his outstretched grasp.
The turbulent energy spiraled out of his possession, savagely riling through the air with whistling fury. Growing, swirling arms of energy blistered out towards the harbor's gate, their velvety spiral arms like dust of lavender. Though not nearly as potent as what Sanaria and he had created before, it still managed to slice through the air at an impressive speed and force.
He greedily took in air with a "Gasp!" the moment the fabrication collided into orangey metal grates.
With a crackle and groan, the metal twisted. Buckling outward towards the sphere's heart like melted wax. The fat flame-heated rails bent outwards, opening the fortress like harbor as if it were a Closter. Every second was agonizingly slow. With a blink of his eyes and a snap, the well fell in upon itself and vanished in a cloud of ethereal smoke.
"…!" he wheezed, unable to vocalize even a single syllable. It had hurt. It had hurt more than ever before. The willpower needed to control breathing was difficult to hold onto. Breaths slipped out irregularly. Flames in the heart tingled his stomach. In erratic throbbing, pressured tubes of blood reached their tendrils down into his body's deepest crevices, their steady thumping a cacophonous rhythm foreign to him, yet paradoxically completely buried within himself.
"…?" he breathlessly asked his cold outstretched hand before his stance crumpled like a house of cards atop his Pokemon.
[Nice work, Edgie-boy!] Des said in awe, completely unaware of how much her trainer had over exerted himself. [Now hang on; I'm gonna go for it!]
"Don't…" he tried to say, but he had suddenly lost the ability to communicate with his Pokemon. He was in the dark. Able to hear them, but unable to respond. He made a tight fist and pulled on Des' crest to get her attention.
[Oi, saddle up.]
[No!] Brucie squealed in protest. He pointed a paw past Feyera's knee, in line with Des' sight. [I made that metal too hot! You'll never get us through without being cooked alive!]
Feyera's eyes drooped, along with his posture. He collapsed against the back of Des' head with a light "thump!" Saved again by grace.
[Boss!]
[Are you okay?]
Edge nodded, his face pressing on something cool. Squinting open his eyes, he discovered it was the scaly hide of his Gyarados. "Mmm…nugh?" he groaned, lifting off the Pokemon with a very weak arm. Peering down at his heart and could have sworn he saw Sanaria's hand there. A double take revealed that it was his human hands possessively gripping the metal. Maybe his mind had gotten confused.
[Hey, come'on sleepyhead!] Des said shaking softly. [Ya did your thangy a'gain. Time to move!]
Edge's voice waivered, "Huh…?" He was barely able to provide an audible response. How were his Pokemon acting so normal after his violent display of psyonics? Why weren't they perturbed that he'd almost let it loose? Did they even know how close he'd come to losing control?
[Don't panic now, but looks like we've got company coming from the other harbor!]
Sure enough, there were PWCs emerging from the smaller harbor where Feyera and Sana had originally escaped from. They swarmed out, like beady black insects in the distance. Pokemon were likely in tow as well.
"More? More of those things…?" puttered Feyera. "*Wheeze*…We need to hurry…*cough* or Sana and July will be in trouble!"
Of course, the trainer did not even question why they were even working PWCs in the first place. He hadn't been able to put the pieces together yet. Phaeton was just as much a mystery to him as it was to the rest of the world. Reasonably enough, he blamed himself for the electronic interference, and his guardian angel of a friend—Fredrick Irving—for stopping Cipher's missile.
[But what can we do…?!]
"Nothing." Lethargy made his mind grind to a halt. "We're…*huff* just sitting ducks now until the gate cools."
[Boss!] Unexpectedly, the Charmeleon hurdled over Edge's shoulder and in front of him, using Des' back for support. [What did you tell me before about fire?]
"Huh…Brucie?" Edge raised a brow.
[Back before we hopped a ride on Des' back!]
"I don't…?" With a loose sleeve, he wiped a sweaty portion of his hair from his eyes. Everything had been jumbled up inside his head. What was his Pokemon talking about?
['It doesn't matter how hot a fire burns, with enough water you can quell any firestorm. You just gotta know the weakness. And you gotta keep fighting.']
Suddenly it made sense. "—And with water…got it!" Edge said triumphantly. Clutching his first Pokemon in his arms, the young man cleared his throat, lowering his Alterieno boot heel into one of the fissures between Des' scales. It was so rigid and chaliced that he doubted she could even feel the makeshift fastening onto her body. "Give it an Aqua Tail attack, Des!"
[Here't goes!] With a resounding roar, the Pokemon raised her back tail. This shifted the weight a lot, shaking Feyera and Brucie since there was hardly that much space for them to share to begin with. But he held fast, holding his breath and clenching every muscle in his body as the creature below him snapped her entire lower body like a whip.
"Pwwwsshhhhh!" It only took a split second for the cascade of water to envelope Des' tail fins as they sliced into the pristine bay water. Clouds of frothy bubbles heralded the ensuing wave of water. In a devastating crackle, the ensuing wave affronted the harbor gate with enough force to turn a ship. The aquatic barrage splashed against the metal sheet and hot steam quickly concealed the gap with a hiss.
"Alright! Great job, Des, take us through!"
[We can't even see!] protested Brucie.
To be honest, it wasn't even something Edge had considered. Everything was becoming so wrapped up in his present emotions. Reality felt like a distant form of prose, a long forgotten mystery novel. He had difficulty making the differentiation between feeling and fact.
"I…It's a risk we need to take, we have to get Lorelei's boat back! That's our only chance."
[Are you sure—?]
"I've never been surer—" he gave Brucie a small wink "—this is going to get us out of here. This is going to get you better, friend." Buckling close to the scaly hides of his Gyarados as she reeled her head back he insisted, "It has to!"
A gracefully tall woman, with snowy blonde hair balled behind her petite face, pensively addressed the situation to her companions with a glare. Hollowly, her voice broke the steady rhythm of blips from her blank computer screen. "…He's gone dark."
The nearby men in the dim room peered over at her. Her thin jawline was a sharp chiseled diamond, her eyes an icy blue, and her lips red as a wild rose.
One of the higher-ranking men rushed over to her, his tie flapping from his black business suit as he sprinted. Hovering next to her, his height barely equal to hers he asked, "Off the map completely?"
"Mmhmm." She nodded, pawing her chin with a petite finger. "Exactly as I expected."
"Huh?" The young man scratched the base of his neck, brushing his dark brown hair stubs. "What the hell is he doing out there in the islands? That place is a DBC ecological conservation!"
"I don't know." She crossed her hands, intertwining her sallow fingers into a tiny nest. "Not yet."
"Celestia, do you want us to intervene?"
Her knuckles chilled with excitement. "…" Hatred of the obscure gave her all the motivation she needed.
"—With your command," a nearby man chimed in, "we'll have SENI troops outfitted for deployment in under an hour."
"No," she hushed. "Give him his space. The less he thinks we know the better."
The man at her side rebuked her with a scoff, "A disappearing act is hardly something to be ignored!"
"That's an order." Her piercing glare did not waiver in the slightest. It was seductive, entrancing. It was the type of stare that took command with imperturbable indifference, sapping any dissenting thoughts out from the air itself. "We're not going to risk discovery that we're onto him."
Shot down by her cold leer, he apathetically tucked his tie back behind his jacket's buttons. Feeling aloof, his mind knotted as he answered in detached English, "Affirmative. Commander Celestia."
Her azure eyes sparkled like Sableye crystals in a forlorn cave.
"Gah!" Edge belted, water splashing down from his soaked light brown hair. "Cough! Ah! Ack!"
[Everyone okay?]
Edge looked down. He made sure Brucie's tail was kept alit during their plunge through the hole by protecting him with his body. "We made it!"
No doubt they had, but the ensuing sight was anything but promising. The harbor was filled with hallow grey light from overhead fluorescents. Countless beams, suspended like tree branches, danced, twinkling with harsh light over the murky harbor water. The harbor itself had been filled with ships, a myriad of all sizes, about thirty all together spread throughout the sheltered docks.
Though there was a high ceiling, at least twenty stories high, one vessel in the harbor gave the domed roof the appearance of being somewhat restrictive or a size too small. The ship, if it could even be called that, was massive. Incased bow to stern in cold dark plated steel, its tall bladed radar tower nearly scraped the cement ceiling. Its gun projections were too many to count.
Larger than any cruise liner Feyera had ever seen, its shadow was large enough to cast the nearby boats into perpetual night. Like kneeling worshipers, these dwarfed ships bobbled in the twilight, invisibly anchored to faded moors of briny lumber.
Two sharp projections, adorned the black boat's bow giving it the appearance of an angered person's brow. From the craft's nose, the metal spines shot out in two directions, forming a cast-iron 'V'; its tips easily over twenty stories above sea level. There were a few letters written on the side of the massive ship's shiny visage, however their meaning had been obscured by the vessel's sheer size.
"That's…that's…" said Edge breathlessly.
[*Gasp!*]
"I can't believe it…! That thing…it's…" he said fumbling for a name for it. What could one even call that thing? A battleship? A war cruiser?
[…Enormous!]
[Bless my tangled bootstraps! That there's not like anything I've ev'ah seen before!]
"Why would Cipher need such a massive war machine?" There was only one reason for stockpiling a warship, machinery like that rarely saw use during times of peace. "They can't be seriously trying to—"
A loud crackle from above startled Edge and his companions. "Ah! Doctor Feyera, I see you've taken a liking to Cipher's war cruiser. Bet you never thought you'd see one of those outside of a museum. *Cough! Hack!* …Stand down immediately, and I might release your Pokemon instead of cooking them into feed!"
That voice in the loudspeaker was unmistakable. Feyera held on tighter to Des' crest. "EIN!" he shouted.
"Hmmhmm." There was a faint chuckle. "It's nice to see you again too! Although I hardly expected you to come back into my possession after using such—*sigh*—expensive energy to get away. Such a terrible waste, wouldn't you say? So highly irrational of you!"
Feyera knew Ein was trying to trigger a reaction. Unfortunately, he found it difficult to counter the riling urges. Directing his fevered rage into disgust, he said, "I'm going to make sure you never get away with this!"
"What are you going to do? Call the policemen on me? Proclaim the DBC's wildlife sanctuary is headed by criminals? What will you say? Who will even believe you, Doctor Feyera?"
"I—"
"—No one will believe you. No one! You're just a shade to the world around you. A world you can't even remember!"
"…"
"You're alone. A nobody who's forgotten his past. You're afraid, Doctor Feyera, you don't need to project that to me. Frightened now that you're a wanted man, a cold-blooded killer, a rouge psyonic."
Ein was right, and it was getting to him. He couldn't even muster a response, let alone think of an actual solution.
"If you have a sensible bone left in your body, you'll know that you're done; backed into a corner just like—"
"No!" He motioned to his Gyarados to pick up her pace as they rounded a wooden post. "I'm not gonna to let you go on with your maddening work."
"FEYERA! You're a product of such maddening work! Never forget that!"
"You're wrong again, Ein; I did this to myself!" Christian said peering down at his torso.
"Humph! And you know it will stay that way…worsen, unless you cooperate with me. Work with me Feyera; I'll help you stand the pain. You already have their species' naivety; you're worse than an ingénue! What's next? Where will it end if you don't make the right choice while you're still able to make a choice?"
Feyera had it. "I wouldn't dare trust you! You only have one goal, you twisted fuck!"
"Twisted?" Ein asked with a smile present in his tone. "That's a subjective term. Oh Doctor Feyera, you've grown so incredibly personal over the past two years!"
"Take the subjectivity and shove it up your ass! It's personal now, you murderer!"
"Peh…All your anger and rage can't touch me! I'm the gatekeeper. Your gatekeeper. I deal in facts, not emotion. You're a husk, a parasite on a fool's errand, whimsical as the crazed mutation that's overtaken you."
"I will; I'm coming for you!" Edge egged on, the inflammation of his heart now beginning to sting. "Mark my words; you won't get away with this! You're done! Everything you stand for! DONE!"
"You may be a loose cannon, but ironically, you're exactly where I need you to be!" Ein paused, resuming in a darkened tone, with a baseboard's volume, "Your body's biologically processed Mercurium is of importance to me, and now you're expected to share it…whether you want to…or not."
He did not like the sound of that. Not one bit. "—Mercurium?" asked Feyera, thinking about the Reilken Mercurius binding his arm. Juggling Brucie in his arm, he wiggled the Pokemon Sanctum's treasure with a grimace. Surprisingly, it had grown unfastened. He played with it, realizing it had become loose enough to remove from his wrist. "Umph!" Quickly he did so, gingerly dragging its sodden grip off. There was little stopping him. With it being inauspiciously clamped onto his wrist like a collar for the past few days, he was glad to be able to rid himself of it. Ancient relic or not, it had been agitating his skin; the lightweight metal had been causing his arm to grow pale over the past few days. The prospect of feeling glorious sensation against his skin was undeniable. However, as he pulled it past the larger portion of his palm, it suddenly stopped and he felt a sharp pinch, almost as if a bug had bitten him! The pain was almost sharp enough to make him toss Brucie.
"Yeowch!" he said, muffling his shriek in his shoulder. After the shock subsided, he padded the previously covered part of his arm. Strangely, the Reilken Mercurius was dangling from his wrist like a Banette, strings causing it to spin and dance in midair. There was only one problem. Those strings were attached to him! Like a thin pair of umbilical cords, two wire thin projections from the bangle's interior were buried right into his arm! In a mixture of agony and shock, he pawed the once hidden area. His wrist had a ring of softer paleness; a band of grey tattooed on his arm, as if it had been put to sleep by the grip of whatever was on his arm. The Reilken Mercurius began to wobble and wiggle the two cords running into his arm. "Nngh…ugh…*gasp!* Holy shit…"
[Um, boss? What's a'matter?]
Feyera didn't hear Brucie. He couldn't. A warming, filling sensation had started to flow through his whole body. It was strange, like being hugged from the inside, bringing warmth out to the world. So potent was the sensation, even the trembling vibrations of the hooks anchored in his arm became pleasurable motions he could draw ecstasy from. Warm shivers and eudemonic urges blurred his sight into a pearly cream. The whole harbor had become immaculately bright and cheerful. "Ahh…ahh…huff…!" he panted in soft breaths.
"Psshhh!" Hearing a dry hiss dragged his attention back to the brace quick enough to see steam being expelled from the hoop's interior. Next, a small glass tube popped out of an internal chamber of the ebony metal, tugging him into reality again. "Ugh…*groan* …oh?" Feyera fingered the revealed vial's base, pulling it out from the Reilken Mercurius. He gasped. It was filled halfway with a bright, translucent, green liquid. On the side, a coded label with tiny blocked font read, "Serenithium T-10". Barcodes and cryptographic scientific terms clouded its meaning.
Impossible! he thought. Reilken Mercurius—what he thought was the ancient relic from the Pokemon Sanctum was not ancient at all. Uncertainty was arising from its every orifice.
Pulling again, he stopped at the knuckles; the tube like blood hooks were dug into his arm! Why had it even attached itself to him in the first place? What was going on? Whatever it was, it wasn't what he had thought. His disgusted expression winced as the wires tugged on his arm's skin, riling heightened sensation there. So sensitive was the feeling, he became unable to stop, groaning as the wrenching gave way to blood. Nauseated, he clutched his Pokemon's scales tightly and braced his gut with his partially freed hand. Why did I even put the damn thing on in the first place? "Urgh…what the—! URAGHCK!" He reeled back, spitting up bile overboard.
[AYE! Watch where you're spittin' ya seasick landlubber.]
"Cough! Ack!"
[Des, he looks really ill! —Boss, are you all right? What happened?]
He shook his hand. Dizzying anger took over. "Shit…*huff*" Lurching and swearing under his breath, he weakly asked the massive spinning room, "S—st—STOP!"
Edge's Pokemon couldn't do anything to help their trainer; his uncontrollable moans continued gained intensity, feeling riling every last one of his nerves.
"Feyera…" A few seconds passed before Ein acknowledged Edge with taciturn, "You're not going to be able to fight off what I have in store for you should you remain uncooperative. I'll assure you of that. Resistance is pointless."
"Gah!" Tearing the rest of the device off, its tubed wires snapped near the base. Thick substance poured out. Another firmer tug brought the grip off his hand. "T—this is no ancient relic…*cough*…" Edge said softly. He lurched again from the Gyarados' back.
[You gonna be alright dear?] she asked, now more concerned. Feyera didn't get seasick; Feyera wasn't one to moan.
"Urgh…ahh…"
[I think he's gonna be sick again!] exclaimed Brucie.
[Don'tcha spill any o' that belly gunk on me!]
"N—no…I need to bandage this," said the trainer. "AH!" Using his sleeve and pressure from his other hand, he quelled the initial spout of blood drops. Subsequently, the heightened sensations he was recently feeling in bouts of ecstasy ground to a halt. "Urgh. What the hell…? What the hell did Reilken Mercurius do? *Gasp!* FREDRICK! What was he doing to me?"
[What happened?!]
"This…thing." Edge coughed, putting the wired device in front of his Pokemon to see. "Guh…it wasn't just wrapped around my wrist. It frickin' bit me! It was injecting me with something—" he said clutching the half-empty vial of 'T-Serenithium -10'. He'd never heard of the compound before. It could have been anything, but intuition led him to believe it wasn't very good. And it certainly wasn't the ancient Reilken Mercurius from the Pokemon Sanctum. He bit his lip, fighting the gut-wrenching feeling of being duped. It had all been a lie.
[What?] asked the Pokemon confusedly. Edge had ordered him to stand back upon putting on the so-called-gift from Fredrick. It was looking less like a gift at all with each heated second.
"I…urgh! I don't know. Ah! Dammit! I have some serious questions for 'Fredrick'" he said snarling the man's name. He was angry; he'd been misled, tricked, deceived, fed a lie. It had to have been the case! What was Fredrick trying to do with modern tech wrapped around my arm? Control me? Or worse? I trusted him so much… "Damn…maybe he was using me after all…"
He'd have to figure it out later. Now wasn't the time; the point of the matter was the device was no longer intravenously feeding him that serum. Solemn thoughts persisted however: It could be anything he was injecting me with…I trusted him. And he lied to me.
Pocketing the increasingly bizarre piece of technology, Feyera motioned to Des to move towards the docked side of the black vessel. She silently complied, going to the craft's right. Brucie remained deathly quiet as well; Feyera nervously patted his Chameleon's leathery hide with his convalescing hand. His arm was still in pain, but the sensitivity was slowly fading away along with the elevated throbbing upon removing it. Frustrated, he continued to scan the area for any sign of Ein or his men. He felt a small draft pick up in the otherwise still port. It was coming from the docks.
Des did not feel the breath of air. [What is it now?]
Someone…something else is in the harbor. "Where are you?!" Edge hollered, "Show yourself! EIN!"
Eerie silence. Then a faint bone chilling "click". "Me? I'll be joining you in no time, Feyera. Show a little patience why don't you?" Ein's voice answered over loudspeaker, grumbling at his assistant, "These inter-base elevators are dreadfully slow, especially on back-up generators."
Feyera said quietly to his Pokemon, "He's not here yet."
They nodded. [Mmm.]
Worriedly glancing at the dark corridors where dock ramps led to, his spine trembled. Was he going crazy? No, he couldn't be, that premonition felt real. "That means there's—"
"—I'm sure you'll find yourself some company, Mister Feyera," Ein said, interrupting Feyera's apprehensive thoughts. "Oh, you didn't think I would let you peruse around, did you?"
"Huh?" Feyera asked the loudspeaker. And then it dawned on him: Ein had a counter plan.
"Pathetic, your wit's been dulled by passion. Take a good look around, Doctor Feyera. Don't get too comfortable though. You don't remember our 'housed horrors' do you? I'll wager Delta-Two is the only one of our specimens you can remember; it's a part of your genes now, after all. But cheer up, young doctor! You may've surprised me, but I've some surprises for you yet!" There was a soft laugh. The transmission eerily cut off with a snap. Only a Beedrill's blur of buzzing remained in the cold, damp air.
A loud "GWROARH!" echoed from afar, its resonance rattled the nearby iron chains in bloodcurdling jingles. Quickly, he whipped his head to the left, in the direction where he had heard the eerie noise come from. "Is some—thing there?" he whispered.
Nothing was there. Just a dark corridor in-between docks leading further down into the base, its stairwell a blackish pitch into hell.
[Huh?] asked his Pokemon.
Feyera turned back to face his Pokemon, giving them a shrug. "Nothing." What had he dragged them into? We're here on a mission, Edge adamantly thought. Gonna do it; no matter what. But the thoughts persisted. Did he imagine that noise? Was he going crazy? Maybe Sana was right about the heart shard overheating his mind. He had no idea how fevers worked for Gardevoir. He had no idea how anything worked anymore. He'd been tossed into obscurity, just like Ein had said.
[Whole place is quiet now that Ein finally shut his yapper!]
Worriedly, Feyera swallowed hard. "I—hope it stays like that."
Dwarfed by the steel juggernaut above them, they pressed forward in folly uncertainty. As the group toddled through the stagnant harbor alongside the Cipher dreadnaught, the shadow of the vessel overtook them. Edge looked up and pointed at the sides of the warship. Like sharpened timber, its guns and cannons pointed outwards, a forest of metal and might alongside its face.
[My word!]
"Look at all those weapons…" he whispered. "We have to warn someone…! Shit. The whole world is in danger!" It was nerve racking; not only was it enormous, but it was armed to the teeth. The only consolation was that it did not appear to be in operation. All of its lights were out; its deck canons had all wilted. You would need an entire crew to operate a ship of this magnitude. You might even need a second crew to oversee the first crew. But the eerie thing was that the entire harbor was empty. No workers, no Cipher, no Team Rocket. Just him and this enormous ship. It was ominous. Not a sound could be heard, save for the irregular squealing of a nearby air vent's fan.
"…! Is that a massive RAIL gun on top?" Feyera pointed to the striking cannon atop the ship's main battery. Its wide round barrel had splits along the cylinder before the encased recoil absorbers. "Holy mackerel…that thing looks like it could overtake the entire southern seaboard! How is this all possible?!"
[Huh?]
"It's just…Cipher. They're just scientists collaborating with Team Rocket. Aren't they?"
[And?]
"*Sigh* I guess you'd think these guys would be gathering a whole army together with ships like these. And armies outside the KNRA are about as common as unicorns," Edge said, resorting to humor in order to offset his anxiety. Having a standing army was outlawed following the Great War; supposedly, peace existed when there was only one group holding the guns.
[An army?]
"It…doesn't make any sense!" Rationality failed him. He couldn't come up with a single reason behind what Cipher was doing! Sapped of logic, he twisted his hands into a knot, subconsciously applying pressure on his wrist. Frustrated, he had forgotten entirely about the 'Reilken Mercurius'.
[What do you mean?]
"Think about it. What's the point of using ships from the Great War era when you don't even have an army to command? Where would they find the manpower?" Edge stroked his chin to dry water off, "Huh…*sigh* Where's the connection? What's the link? Goddamn, why can't I figure it out?!"
[Beats me.]
[I'm sure glad she's sleepin' now. Would be a shame if that monster woke up. Betcha she'd be one hell of a grumpy mule to contend with.]
"True. Count our blessings. Let's just find and board the yacht before Ein gets here! He must be at the other end of the complex."
They eventually rounded the cruiser; it took a noteworthy amount of time to accomplish. The inky blackness of the hull reflected from underneath the surface of the water, bleeding into the harbor's water like slick oil. Slowly they passed under the hull's penumbra.
"I have a real bad feeling about this." However, he couldn't explain why. Perhaps too many thoughts were going through his head. First the flash of light, then Fredrick's claimed "recovered artifact" turning out to have clamps and wires running through it. Serenithium. What did it all mean? Had he been injected with drugs this whole time? Why would Fredrick want to do that?
Silently, he hoped that he worst wouldn't happen. He couldn't imagine confronting him. Cowardice took hold of his thoughts.
[Hey dear,] Des whispered, catching wind of his tepidness, [you're gonna make sure it's all okay in the end.]
[Yeah, cheer up boss, at least nothing's moving.]
[We're alone, c'mon this is gonna work, Cipher wasn't ex'pectin' company!]
Feyera didn't feel that way, and his thoughts were elsewhere. "The second I get my radio back, I'm getting into contact with Fredrick…"
[Yeah…?]
Feyera nodded as they passed the warship, eager to regain his possessions. Suddenly out of the dark shadows, a bright white ship appeared. "Hey! That's her boat right there! The Prima!" he said reading the cyan colored name.
Indeed, a large yacht lay ahead of them, pure and snowy, but dwarfed against the cruiser. Its bow was badly damaged, but patched in multiple places. The nose of the ship had been sharpened into a point. Or perhaps that was just the exposed skeleton of the ship.
Des' grin widened. [That's exactly what I'd reckon a fancy, schmancy yacht would look like!]
"Okay, we'll get aboard and figure out how to start it up before Ein gets here! Get us close to the docks."
With a quick leap, Edge lunged onto the dock boards. He helped his Charmeleon climb down from his back.
[Thank ya for ridin' the 'Des-press Express'. Here's to the next time I gotta save your hinny!]
But Feyera was feeling too detached to listen to Des' rambling. His eyes stared emptily at the area where the bracelet had previously him. It was so sallow it reminded him of Sana in a way.
[Boss?] Brucie asked, as he regained his footing on the chipped wooden boards covered with velvety anti-slip material.
Feyera replied in a daze, "Huh?"
[Don't we need to hurry?]
"Oh!" Realizing his trance, he jumped. "Sorry!"
[C'mon, what's gotten into you, boss? Let's move! Miss Sana and July are waiting for us to return with the bigger boat!]
"Right! Okay Des, stay at the front of the yacht and we'll toss you a line to help you get up…"
But the sea serpent wasted no time. [I got this on my own, busta!] She leapt from the water with a loud splash and landed on the bow of the vessel, wetting the dock boards with a mighty splash. The entire vessel shook.
"Haha!" Edge laughed. "Looks like you got it taken care of already, Des!"
She poked her head out over the bow. [Always do!]
Edge smiled, "Okay Brucie, I'll race you to the boat's gangway!"
[You're on!] Now that they were back on land, his tail was no longer in as much danger.
But Feyera managed to keep up with his swift partner, breaking a sweaty pace in the process. "Let's *pant* get on through the deck ramp and then figure out how to hotwire the y—oh…!"
He froze. The sheer surprise stopped him from swearing aloud.
A shadowed figure stood in front of them, blocking off the florescent lights from behind him as he approached the metal ramp. His broad shoulders and exaggeratedly tall collar cut out his stiff outline. A glistening golden badge adorned his right breast, reflecting aquarium-like light from the aquamarine water below the gangway. Imbedded on the brooch's face was an emboldened five-pointed cross, trapped within a gilded, diamond-shaped border. Two lines met at right angles, forming a lowercase "t" and the fifth line intersected at forty-five degrees between the top right-side points. Feyera knew symbol. It was the IPF.
Next to his shield-like badge, a gossamer tie, sinuous with a spiraling navy design, puffed out from his ebony vest. Ebulliently unraveling, it blew up against his chiseled face when he reached the landing. With a dark gloved-covered hand, he tucked it back into his vest with a growl. "Always hated these uniforms," he desultorily grumbled. White light from behind him revealed a shining silver metal beam that ran on his back parallel to the shoulders, splitting into razor-edged aileron fangs on one end.
With a firm first step onto the gangway, he proceeded to walk in a stiff path towards Feyera. His split coattail followed him in symmetric bounces. The mounted RAIL gun on his back clinked with each stride. However, it did not loosen its position; it did not shift. No, it was worn with an over-the-shoulder leather strap and supported by a back-mounted metal support. It retained his shadowy form—a shadow of a crucifix. Eventually his rigid advance placed him only a few paces in front of Edge.
Feyera's eyes widened in surprise. But there was little acknowledgement on the other man's behalf save for a modest grin, barely recognizable in the shadowy murk cast on his visage from behind.
With a cough, he adjusted his posture, towering even higher on the dry dock boards. His chatoyant eyes, despite being shielded under a dark veil, were piercing.
Feyera opened his mouth, unsure of what to say, he wasn't expecting this confrontation to happen so soon. What would he say? What would he do? The young man's thoughts scrambled as he stood idly facing Fredrick.
For better or for worse, there was no need for Edge to utter a syllable since the man's newly materialized lips formed swift words, their meaning frosted in ambiguity.
"Ahem! Well, if it isn't Mister Christian F. West. It's about time you showed up again to save the day."