Chapter 15: The Time Has Come

Once it got light out, I woke up early and stared to the east, where my target was hidden. "It's hard to find, but you keep going east, you'll come by a mountainside, you'll find them there." Was it that simple? I doubted it. How Snake got me out of there, I had no idea. But then again, we are talking about Solid Snake. I realized that I was going to make a rather hard decision. I couldn't have the others be involved. This was my battle.

"Chris?" I turned around saw Dawn looking at me while still wearing her night gown. "Is something wrong?"

I hesitated. This wasn't part of the plan. "I'm fine Dawn," I said, faking a smile. "Just couldn't really sleep."

But Dawn didn't buy it, which I expected and liked about her. "Come on Chris, even Pikette says you're a terrible liar."

I grimaced. "Chris, I'm sorry to tell you this but you are a horrible liar... It was true, after all. "Look, I just have to go take care of something."

"But you said you were coming with us to Sunnyshore City, to see my contest," Dawn said.

"I know Dawn, I'm so sorry, but I have to take care of some unfinished business," I said.

"What do you mean 'unfinished business?'" Dawn asked, looking at me suspiciously.

"I know where they're located," I said. "If I go east, I'll be able to find them and finally make them pay."

"Chris, you can't go there by yourself, it's suicide," Dawn said. "We'll go there together, and make them pay."

"No," I said. "I can't risk any of you getting hurt."

"Excuse me, but I personally can take care of myself!" Dawn said, starting to get angry. "I've been through worse scenarios than you could possibly imagine!"

I placed my hands on her shoulders. "Dawn, you don't know these people like I do. Just to get answers, they blew up my parents' house and killed them in the process. Just to get Pikachu, they stormed into my house and I had to kill almost ten people just to protect him and Pikette. These men are vicious."

"It doesn't matter! I don't want to lose you!" she said, tears in her eyes. "I love you more than anything possible in the world."

"And I wouldn't really be expressing the same thing if I dragged you into this," I said. "I already lost many people that I've been close to, and I couldn't handle losing you as well."

Dawn, realizing this was a losing battle, stepped away from me, tears streaming down her face. She then ran back to her tent, sobbing.

I sighed. I never wanted it to come to this. "Look after her, Pikette," I thought as I started to travel east.

Pikette's ears perked up, sensing a disturbance. She woke up as Dawn came back into the tent, crying. Dawn then placed her pillow over head, trying to muffle out her sobbing.

"Dawn, what's wrong?" Pikette said, concerned.

Dawn kept crying for a couple of seconds. "It's nothing Pikette," she said in between sobs. "I'm just having a moment."

Pikette went over to her and placed a paw on her arm. "Please Dawn, I hate to see you like this."

Dawn then took the pillow off her head and looked at Pikette, her eyes red from crying. "Chris went off on his own, heading east."

"What!? Why!?" Pikette asked, surprised. This wasn't like him at all.

"He has unfinished business to do," Dawn said bitterly. "I can't believe with what we shared he would just leave."

Pikette sighed. "Dawn, I know Chris well and trust me, he did it to protect you. You should appreciate that."

Dawn looked down in shame. She was right. How could she be so selfish? "You're right," she said. "I know that if he loved me that much he would do that for me." She then had a determined look on her face. "But I'm not going to let him fight alone."

"That's the spirit!" Pikette said, smiling.

"Dawn! What's wrong?" Dawn looked out of her tent and saw Ash and Brock looking at her.

"We have to hurry," she said. "Chris left on his own and we have to follow him."

"What?" Brock said. "We better get going now!"

(A/N: It's that time again folks. Yep and ONCE AGAIN (sorry don't blame me, blame Nintendo for music that works for anything.) we have another Zelda song. This one is called "Preparing to Ride to Kakariko." Oh yeah, this song and the one last chapter will be edited name wise so it fits the purpose more.)

I was walking through the mountainside, feeling guilt for what I did. "I didn't want to hurt her, but I had no choice." I thought. If bringing her along meant losing her, I could not accept that. I finally got to a clearing and looked saw with my very own eyes the base that stood before me. It was still about another hundred yards, but I crept along the side of one of the rocks, making sure not to be seen. I must've been crazy from what I said before.

*There were soldiers patrolling the area all around the base. They were armed, but not to the teeth at least. "Dawn, I think I made a mistake."

"Oh, now you're willing to admit it?" I didn't need to look back to know I was followed. I looked back to Dawn, but instead of an angry look on her face, she only had a smirk.

"Yeah, I guess I am," I said, smiling sheepishly.

"Look, we said it before, we're a team," Ash said.

"You never have to go in alone," Brock said.

"So pretty much, stop going all Rambo on this!" Pikette said, smiling.

I sighed. I knew I couldn't win this one. "Alright, I give," I said. "We're going to need a plan here. The place looks heavily guarded."

"Oh, I think we can take care of that," Dawn said, taking out one of her Pokeballs.

"You can count us in as well," Ash said, while he and Brock took out their Pokeballs. "Hey wait, I know." Ash then threw out one of his Pokeballs. "Come on out Staraptor!" Staraptor then appeared. "Staraptor, check out the top of the base and see how many people are there."

Staraptor then took off, trying to blend in with the environment. It looked down, seeing that the top wasn't nearly as guarded, and there appeared to be some open spots. It then returned to where we were and told us what it found.

"Interesting," I said. "Okay, I think I now have an idea..."

(A/N: Okay, now I have another Pokemon song. It's called Team Galactic Battle, although this isn't Team Galactic. OH WELL! This is the best song I could find for this part.)

Some of the men standing guard were rather bored. It was warm, and honestly they had been out for almost four hours straight. Although it wouldn't be long before something interesting happened.

All of a sudden, they noticed what looked like a whirlpool heading towards them. Truth was, it was a whirlpool which ended up knocking them out.

*"Alright! Ambipom use Swift, Buneary use Ice Beam, and Pachirisu, use Discharge!" Dawn commanded. They attacked at once, either knocking out, freezing, or electrocuting the other soldiers nearby.

"Sudowoodo, use Double-edge, and Croagunk, use poison sting!" Brock said.

"Chimchar, use Flamethrower, Turtwig, use Razor Leaf, Buizel, use Water Pulse, and Staraptor use Whirlwind!" Ash said. He then looked to me. "You ready for this?"

"Always," I said. "Thunderbolt!" we both said. Pikachu and Pikette then used thunderbolt amidst the chaos.

Once the dust and dirt cleared away, about every soldier was knocked out for at least a couple of hours.

"Wow, that was easier than I thought," Dawn said, surprised.

"Almost too easy," I thought. "Well, we had better hurry. Those Pokemon will need our help."

After most of the Pokemon had been called back, we then hurried towards the base. It seemed that the base was larger than I thought. Once we got to the entrance, we checked to see if there was anyone around, but saw no one.

We crept in quietly, making sure not to attract any attention. We went alongside one of the walls, looking for the laboratories. All of a sudden I heard voices and motioned everyone to stop. I closed my eyes and put my enhanced senses to use to hear what they were saying.

"So, how much more time do you think it will take?" a voice said, a man's.

"The boss says we'll be able to start our operations in about a week," another voice said. "The Pokemon are already ready to go, just have to await further orders."

I then heard footsteps walking away from us. They had left the room. "Operations? What do they mean by that?" Brock said.

"Whatever they mean, it doesn't sound good," Ash said. "We better hurry."

We then went into the next room and saw the Pokemon before us. Seems we found the lab quicker than we thought.

"Oh, the poor things!" Dawn cried.

"Wait a minute, there's no controls here to free them!" Brock said.

"They must be on another floor," I said. I then noticed an elevator nearby. "Might as well go up. Just be careful everyone."

We then got into the elevator, not having any idea what could be in store for us.

(A/N: Sorry that this is shorter but once again I'm trying to divide this evenly. Anyway, the next chapter will hopefully be one of the best chapters I've ever written if I stay on track. Hope you enjoyed this and trust me, you're going to like this next chapter. Oh yeah, I've decided that the name for the one song will be renamed "Preparing to Attack the Base" (LOZ song) and the one last chapter "Adler Wants Chris To Join Him." We'll keep the Pokemon song the same :D.)

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