Chapter 3: Moving In
Siria sat on her cot, black hair draping her shoulders as she read from a preposterously enormous textbook. A stack of similar books sat at the side of the bed, tall enough to match the one and a half feet her bed sat above the ground. I swear, there has to be something in here that I've overlooked, she thought as she flipped through the "Tactics" section.
As the frustrated Latias continued to pore through her text, another resident of the olive green dorm was equally occupied. An Ampharos, wearing a simple T-shirt and cargo pants, sat at the small table in their room. She was using an assortment of precision tools to work on what seemed to be a radio transmitter, and, as Levina used tweezers to set another resistor into a circuit board, she jumped as Siria suddenly slammed her book shut.
"Jeez, did you have to do that? I almost shorted out the board!" she huffed.
"Sorry, Levina. It's just that I don't understand this," the Latias apologized. "I've memorized every theory in this section, and there's nothing that even compares to the one Shadrach used a few days ago." Unlike with her brother, she was more lax about confidentiality with Levina simply on the basis of gender.
"You memorized the whole book, cover to cover. I'm sure you memorized all of those books, given your mental faculties. The problem is is that you're only memorizing," Levina responded, soldering another wire to the board. "What Shadrach does is improvise. He makes everything fit based on what the situation is."
"So not even reading every text published by Sun Chu can help me, huh?"
"Not if you aren't willing to analyze and apply the strategies, no. Shadrach may not have a photographic memory like you, but he can outsmart you every time because he has the ability to adjust." The Ampharos placed the circuit board in a plastic casing, finishing her new creation.
Siria looked at the device with one eye cocked. "What is that?"
"Transmitter for a bomb. I'm hoping to exact my revenge on a certain group of Air Wing jocks."
"I hope you don't mean an actual bomb."
Levina laughed, her tail light glowing merrily. "No, not one full of C4 or demo charges. A Skuntank friend of mine loaned some of that horrible liquid she always has, and I plan to make use of it."
Interested, Siria asked, "What exactly did those guys to deserve this?"
"Oh, they only tried to pick me up at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. One of them even came up to me with a terrible pick-up line. Something like-" She straightened up and intoned in the most masculine voice she could, "Hey there, are you naughty? You look like you have low Special Defense, if you know what I mean." Then she snickered. "I threw my soup at him."
After a series of giggles from both girls, Levina glanced at the clock hanged over the door. "Twenty-two hundred hours, huh? I think it's time to test this."
The Latias then peered at the remote. Lots of little buttons studded the sides, but it was impossible to miss the giant red one in the middle that screamed "press me." Levina then did exactly that.
The howls of men in the distant barracks were unmistakable.
"Oh my Arceus!"
"The pain! The agony! IT BURNS!"
"What in Arceus's name happened?"
"That smell! AAAARGH!"
After a minute, the screams were replaced with sounds of retching and puking. Levina looked immensely satisfied, a smug smile crossing her face.
Her roommate looked outside nervously, wondering if the commotion would reach their room. "Let's get to sleep before the guards come check on us."
"I agree. Night, Siria." The Ampharos could hardly contain the mirth in her voice.
"Night, Levina."
"So, Sirius, how was your last night with your buddies?" Siria sat across from him at one of the mess hall tables.
"Absolutely terrible!" he pronounced. "We were joking around and were about to go to sleep when something under my bed just exploded. Then there was some purple liquid everywhere, I mean on the walls, the windows, our clothes, everywhere! It stunk to the Distortion, too. Even after three hours of cleaning, I can't even get the stench out of my hide, much less my fatigues." The Latios sniffed his arm and gave it a look of utter disgust.
Trying to conceal her glee, his sister, with a fake expression of distress, ventured, "Who would do such a thing to you?"
Mouth half full with breakfast food, he responded, "Well, I really have no idea. It couldn't possibly have been that Ampharos girl I hit on at lunch…I don't know!" Siria's eyes widened as he said that.
"Hopefully you'll find the culprit soon." With that statement, she excused herself from the table, one hand over her mouth to conceal her nearly uncontrollable laughter.
Puzzled, the Latios tried to scan her mind. "Hey, wait…wait! You know who it is?" By that time, though, she had already walked out the door, leaving the blue dragon more confused than before.
"Sergeant Siria, here are the plans you requested for the next operation." A Gardevoir handed her a thick envelope undoubtedly filled with sensitive materials, judging from the "CLASSFIED" stamp on the seal.
"Thank you," The Latias told the courier. As soon as he left the dorm's door, she sat down on her bed and opened the package with a standard issue knife. Papers, photographs, and data chips spilled out of the waxy envelope.
"Sergeant Levina Akyra, Sergeant Shadrach Chase, and Sergeant Siria Long of the 10th Special Forces Group are to report at two hundred hours to Special Forces Headquarters, where they will receive instruction on the following materials…" she voiced out loud.
"Hmm?" The Ampharos looked over Siria's shoulder, trying to peek at the mission description.
"Looks like another diversionary mission. Apparently Tamsus forces are stationed in the woods near an abandoned munitions factory east of here, and the Air Wing wants us to put them in the open for bombing practice." Siria started scanning through the rest of the papers, trying to find anything worth noting.
"So it's a few distractions and a flank to the rear? Couldn't possibly be easier."
Still going through the photos, Siria shook her head. "This looks like a fairly large force, with about a thousand troops, mobile artillery, and even a few hundred tanks. It's been a while since I saw those from Tamsus."
Levina snorted. "Large? Tamsus has at least a hundred thousand under their wing. What makes one thousand even worth the effort?"
"Look at all of the equipment they have. Before a few months ago, the most they've mustered were some automatic rifles and their own attacks."
"I really hope you're not forgetting about the Shadow factor. Maybe the Shadow Pokémon are so useful that they don't see a need for conventional weapons anymore, and they just want to give us a false sense of control." Levina returned to her own bed, flopping onto it face down. The sound of crackling permeated the room for a few seconds as she discharged her static electricity.
"Well," the Latias sighed, "The mission isn't to be executed until a few days from now, so we have lots of prep time to ensure this all goes right, unlike last time…."
"Speaking of which, where is Shadrach? I haven't seen him in a few days," Levina asked.
"He was discharged from the hospital yesterday, so I really have no idea."
As if it were on cue, someone knocked at the door, rapping in irregular beats. When Siria opened the door, the last thing she expected was to see a wasted Umbreon at the steps.
"Shadrach? Arceus, what happened?"
"Urgh…damn it all…." He tried to makes it in the room, but only succeeded in tripping and falling with a great crash. The rings on his body pulsed a sickly purple.
Levina smirked. "He got drunk, that's what happened. Out of all the 'mon I'd expect to get hammered, Shadrach is the last."
"By any rate, we need to hide this. The last thing we need is for someone to find out that someone in Special Forces found some beer on base."
As the two girls began to drag Shadrach inside, he muttered, "Give me…a gun. Pistol will do."
"So you can kill yourself? Not today, sorry." Levina forcefully set him in his bed, taking his stained shirt off. "This smells like absolute shit. I don't even know if we can get the smell out of it."
While the Ampharos mused about how many gallons of detergent she would need to clean his clothes, Siria sat down next to him. "What happened?"
"Brother…dead." He broke down into tears.
The Latias, about to wrap an arm around him, froze. "What?"
"Called my mother. She couldn't care less," he choked. "Then I drank. Feel like dying."
Siria was about to sock him in the face for that comment when someone held her arm back. "I don't think that's a good idea. We need to get him sobered up, first of all," Levina spoke.
"Hopefully you know some good hangover cures."
The Ampharos looked tickled. "Who, me? I don't drink. Why not ask your medic brother? He's moving in tonight, anyways."
Siria squeaked, "What?" The thought of a Latios going absolutely ballistic over Shadrach's drinking hung heavily in her mind. "Who said? And when?"
"If you inspected your packet further, it mentioned a "Sirius Long" moving into our quarters. I assumed he's your brother, judging from the last name. As for the time, it's twenty hundred hours right now. He's late."
Nothing but silence came from the Latias, but her expression clearly read "Oh shit."
"Why are you looking at me that way?" the Ampharos asked.
Another individual knocked at the door. However, this time, Levina, instead of Siria, went to answer it. As she did, her jaw dropped but for a fraction of a second. The Latias admired her composure.
"Hi. Is this where Siria and Shadrach live?" a voice asked. The blue wings were unmistakable, even if the Ampharos's frame blocked most of the view.
"Yes, it is. Excuse me." Levina, breaking down into hysterics, left the room.
Sirius looked confused. "What's her problem?" Then, after stepping in, he caught a very strange, albeit familiar, scent. "Who's been drinking?"
His sister, eyes downcast, didn't answer.
"Siria, who's been…." He trailed off when he saw the Umbreon in a bed. Blue vapors began to form around the dragon's muzzle. "Oh."
"No wait, I can explain-"
"SHADRACH!"
"Hrghh…?" Although he was quite drunk, Shadrach's ears turned red with embarrassment.
"What the fuck is this? I give you meds for a day straight and then you go and fucking get slammed? You're lucky I'm not kicking your ass right now, because I sure would be if you could stand up!" The Latios began to walk to the Umbreon, fists clenched in anger.
"Sirius, wait! You don't get it!" Siria moved between him and his victim, spreading her arms.
"Get what? The fact that he got utterly smashed after we spent forever taking care of him?" he roared in anger.
"His brother just died."
"So wha-" Sirius then shut his mouth. He sat down on a fourth bed allocated to him, thinking about what she just said.
"Well, shit." The Latios put his hands behind his head, laying back. "How? Arceus help me if it was an on-base exercise."
"He wouldn't say. Maybe because he was trying to drink it away, and probably because someone stormed in here and started cussing him out," Siria accused.
"Fine, fine, I apologize. Of course, I'm still incredibly angry, but I can understand."
Siria sighed. "I hope you do. It's a far better reason than what you drink for."
"Ridiculous. What I drink for is far more important than-" He lost his grin as his sister sent him a piercing glare. Sometimes his fickle nature worked against him, especially in serious situations.
After five minutes of silence, Sirius got up and tapped Shadrach on the shoulder. "Hey, buddy, about that…." He stopped when he noticed the Umbreon was already snoring. "Morning then, I guess." The Latios shrugged.
"Let him be for the night. He's probably had a really stressful day, and he'll have an even worse one tomorrow," Siria agreed. "Oh, also, I guess since it's your first night here, proper introductions should be made. That's Shadrach, as you already know." She looked at the sleeping body with somber eyes.
"Yeah, I sure do." Sirius responded derisively.
"I'm your sister, obviously," she continued, ignoring his comment. "And the third roommate is…."
At that point the Ampharos burst back into the dorm, looking as if she had spent the last twenty minutes laughing (she did). She looked at Sirius, and broke down into laughter again.
"…Levina, an Ampharos. She's another Special Forces member who helps us out on a lot of stuff, especially electronics."
As Sirius looked her over and recalled her face, he turned a variety of shades of red. "Err…nice to meet you," he said, offering a hand.
"The same," she replied, taking the hand and giving him a toothy grin. She then wrinkled her nose, stating, "You smell really bad."
"Ah, about that. Someone had the gall to detonate a bomb of Arceus-knows-what under my bed yesterday, and I haven't been able to get the scent out of my hide."
Levina, trying her best to not break out laughing again, said, "Well, I guess karma catches up to people sometimes. And, for both your sake and for mine, please don't try to hit on me again. That was incredibly rude of you"
"You realize you're asking for something that's impossible, right?"
For half a second, the room sparkled an intense bright white as a thunder clapped throughout the whole forward operations base. Heads turned as a light powerful enough to be seen from space erupted from every crack of the building.
Even though he was naturally resistant to electricity, Sirius fell from the bed, writhing in pain on the ground due to having had an uncomfortable several thousand volts run through him. His hair was singed to a crisp, and his shirt was charred a smoky black. Levina stood proudly, the orb on her head glowing as brightly as a fire.
"A…ahh…argh…" Sirius coughed.
"I hope you know who you're dealing with," the Ampharos scolded. "Of course, if you don't, I could just amp the voltage up a few thousand more…."
"Arceus no," he gasped as Levina's body began to crackle again.
"Well, then. Bathroom is in the back, knock before entering, lights out at twenty-two hundred, and…." She smirked as she said it. "…one 'mon to one bed. Enjoy your stay with members of the 10th Special Forces Group."