Chapter 15
To Helheim's Gate
Alfa woke up to a sudden noise which he couldn't identify. He tried to clear his head and a few seconds later, he registered the noise as something falling down. He looked all around his room. Nothing had fallen here. He sat back down but his arm missed the mattress and he lost his balance, falling to the floor. He got up, deciding to just find out what had fallen down. He walked throughout the entire house, and finding nothing on the floor, he decided to look out the windows. He went to his room upstairs and looked out the window. Looking past the row of firm spruce trees planted along the edge of the street and saw one of the trees on the lower road had fallen down. There were no houses opposite his as the street was at a sort of ascent. A road inclined up, then making a full turn, came onto the level street where this house was.
Alfa went and got dressed, checking on his Pokemon. They were all asleep. He walked out to the door quietly, but just before he could open the door, there came a light knocking. Puzzled as to who it could be at six thirty in the morning, Alfa opened the door. The person on the other side was the last person he expected to see here at six thirty in the morning; Kellyn Alaric.
Alfa stepped out of the doorway as Kellyn walked in, a bag on his shoulder. Alfa examined him. He wasn't wearing his ranger uniform which meant he wasn't here for business, but his styler wasn't clipped to his belt either.
"Hi." Began Kellyn. "How's life?"
"Really. That's the best you can think of when you come at six in the morning!" Alfa replied, amused. "Life here's fine. If you read the news you'd know that I'm the Kalos champion at the moment. What I actually want to know is what brings you here at six in the morning."
"Let's sit down first if you don't mind." Kellyn replied. Alfa led him through the maze of a manor and took him out to the courtyard where the boys sat down.
"A lot's happened since you left." Kellyn began, settling in as though he were telling an hour long story. Who knew, maybe he was. "The union started to fall apart. The professor is trying to fix things up, but no one's operating at full capacity. He started to go mad with the stress of fixing the union. He's still sane, but he's working overtime and the stress is getting to him. We all tried to help him and fix the problems, but one day, I tried to convince him to take the day off and he lost it. He fired me during that outrage and exclaimed that anybody else who wanted to make him 'quit his job' could break there stylers there and then and leave. I tossed mine to Cranidos and Cranidos obliterated it. I had been packing my things to leave when the gas line above our room blew up and destroyed half the apartment. I finished packing and I left. And now I'm here. Is it okay if I stay with you for a while?"
"You don't even need to ask. You can stay in one of those two rooms." Said Alfa, gesturing towards the right and left balconies overlooking the courtyard. "Take your pick."
"Thanks. I have one more thing to tell you. Sven called me while I was on my way here. He sounded grim. Apparently, the professor isn't lucid. He's sane, but he isn't lucid. Since he can't be declared incompetent, he's still in charge of the ranger union, and he's planning to lay siege to your house. He thinks that if he attacks you, he can persuade you to come back." Kellyn finished, a grim expression on his face.
"If they think they can take me down, they have to think again." Alfa replied. "If you're staying here, you're going to have to learn how to operate the systems built in to the house. And we're going to have to work on our defenses. Are all our friends taking part in this siege?"
"Sven said that they're all going to fake a high priority mission so that they don't have to. So it'll just be the area rangers." Kellyn replied, getting up and heading for the stairs inside the house. "I'm going to leave my things in my room before we get started." Alfa nodded in reply heading up to his own room to get dressed before showing Kellyn around. Five minutes later Alfa had just finished getting ready and he met Kellyn at the door, when someone else knocked on the door. Alfa swung around and opened it, finding Calem on the other side, dressed in what Alfa guessed were his nightclothes.
"Why are you in your nightclothes?" Alfa asked, extremely confused. Instead of answering with words, Calem stepped back and pointed in the direction of his house. Alfa walked out on to the terrace and looked at the house next to his. An enormous tree had fallen and smashed through the center of the house.
"How bad is it?" he asked, overwhelmed by the amount of things happening.
"I can't live there anymore, the house has to either be repaired or sold. And selling it is much better for me due to the amount of damage caused. Luckily, though my room did collapse, most of my stuff was in my cupboard, which saved around seventy percent of it." Calem replied.
"You can stay with me." Alfa replied, his eyes straying to the wreckage again and again. His arm tensed, ready to fire an Ion Disc. He stepped out of the doorway as Calem entered the house. Gazing at the rising sun, he spotted something that disturbed him. It looked like a mechanical Pokemon… Alfa zoomed in on his S-Lens, confirming his fear. Somebody was spying on the house. Without hesitating, Alfa chose a disc and launched it directly above the mechanical Pokemon. The disc sliced through the air, whistling as it crossed over the mechanical bird, releasing Yveltal above it.
"YVELTAL; OBLIVION WING!" Alfa exclaimed his arm outstretched in the direction of the mechanical Pokemon. The dark type marvel let the wind blow it higher with its wings open like a parachute before closing them and letting loose a beam of pure energy at the mechanical impression of a Pokemon. The machine shattered into millions of different parts, a camera and transmitter landing in front of the house in the snow.
Alfa walked forward, picking up the camera and checking the workings. It was still on. It was a fragile model, surviving the crash only because of the snow it had landed in. Alfa looked into the camera.
"If you want to attack me, come fight me here and now. Tricks like this one don't work." Alfa spoke into the camera, crushing it under his shoe once he was done. He walked inside, directing Calem to the other free room after introducing him to Kellyn.
Alfa stepped into the courtyard, Latios trailing behind him. Kellyn was practicing use of the defensive systems and Calem was catching up on the sleep he had lost during the destruction of his house. Alfa sat down and picked up an apple, staring at it instead of eating it.
'So what do you intend to do if they do attack?' Latios questioned, gazing at Alfa with a half concerned, half amused expression on his streamlined face.
'If they try to take our home, I will destroy them, no matter what it takes.' Alfa replied, his mood grim. 'They can bring all of Almia if they like, but they'll still lose.'
'I wonder what has become of Almia since the fall of the rangers...' Alfa wondered.
'It's probably gone to pieces.' Latios replied.
'I'm going to create the lightning cannon.' Alfa said as he suddenly got up, placing the apple back on the counter and striding quickly and purposefully to the control room. He found Kellyn inside, with the weapon system set on virtual practice. Working quickly, Alfa shuffled through the papers on the desk until he found the blueprint he wanted, pinning it to a wall and getting his tools out.
Blaziken followed him into the room from the den and sat down next to him, watching him intently. Alfa had taken a sheet of Carbon fiber and was hammering it out mercilessly. Each blow added to the structure of the turbine he was making. Once he had curved the sheet into shape, he realized that the blowtorch next to him wasn't going to work on Carbon fiber.
"A little help please?" Alfa asked, looking at Blaziken with a bemused smile on his face. Blaziken stepped forward, setting its left wrist on fire and running it along the structure according to Alfa's instructions. After that, Alfa had Blaziken heat up on talon and carve out the cavities necessary in the structure. Hours of hard labor later, the one turbine was ready.
Alfa sat up with a start as Kellyn tapped him on the shoulder.
"You've been sitting still for too long. You need to get up and move around. Besides, its lunch time. Calem woke up and went to the kitchen to make something." He suggested as Alfa got to his feet. The two boys went to the kitchen and sat down at the table to find Calem ready for them with three bowls of mac 'n' cheese with brisket.
"That's the one thing I actually know how to cook that isn't a simple thing like an egg." He stated as he himself sat down.
"What do you put in this stuff?! It's delicious!" Kellyn exclaimed, his face lit up with delight after tasting the mac 'n' cheese.
"Family secret." Calem replied, digging into his own bowl. Kellyn's phone started buzzing as he put his fork down in his empty bowl. His expression grew grimmer every second he was staring at the screen.
"That was Sven. Hastings received your message. The battalion is on its way here. Five hours max." Kellyn remarked, turning to Alfa.
"Well it's about time they started moving their backsides! And it's high time for us to get ready for it. I'm going to go finish the lightning canon.
Five hours later….
Alfa stepped out of his room and headed straight for the courtyard.
"They're here." He stated briefly, approaching Kellyn, Calem and the mass of Pokemon there. "I didn't have time to test out the lightning canon, Kellyn, Calem, you two are going to have to test them out while commanding your Pokemon…. Try not to take any lives though, just knock people out. If you can land a hit on Hastings, don't hesitate…. We're at war with a madman here, we can't take any chances concerning him."
All of a sudden, an explosion sounded outside the house.
"It's begun." Said Kellyn grimly, heading for the control room. Alfa walked out the back door, strapping on glider wings and gauntlet outlets for the lightning cannons. He crept into the forest, relaying a series of battle tactics to Latios for the rest of his team. He ran through the forest, using paths he had devised to get out of his lane without being seen. He reached the end of his street which was an alcove of the towering trees that lined the cliff like street.
Exiting through them, he opened his glider wings and let the wind carry him high up before he applied the short burst motor to get him behind the battalion so that he was facing his house. He looked down, recognizing many of the rangers in the crowd; Barlow, Luna, Crawford, Aria, and countless others. It saddened him that he was going to have to knock out his old companions. He folded the wings back letting himself go into a freefall, letting them out again in time to catch the updraft and throw him back into the sky as he tested out the lightning gauntlets on more than a few unfortunate victims.
He saw the canon vents in the house being entered by the rangers who dared explore them, only for Calem to fry them by firing the canon through that outlet without knowledge of their presence. The battle raged on for hours, Alfa, Calem and Kellyn knocking out more than half the battalion with their Pokémon's help.
Two Hours later, in the heat of the battle…..
Alfa closed his wings and fell behind the cliff, opening them again once he was out of sight and gliding on the low currents around to the forest and making his way back to the house. He entered through the back door and went straight to the control room.
"How's everything with you guys?" Alfa asked, looking up at the live camera feed.
"We're doing great, but we haven't managed to find Hastings in this mess yet." Kellyn replied.
"Kay. Keep up the good work, I'm going to dive from the roof this time." Alfa commented, heading for the stairs to the roof. Once he was up, he crouched behind the edge, out of sight, getting ready to make a running start. His heart was pounding and he had a feeling that he was going to come up against Hastings soon. He swallowed the knot of anxiety in his throat and ran forward, opening his wings as he leaped off the edge of the roof.
"TO HELHIEM'S GATE!" He shouted as he leaped off the roof, opening his wings, Hastings in sight.
Kellyn and Calem were having the time off their lives. They had thousands of volts of electricity at their command to fight off the enemy, and they were having a good time.
"So, how about if we survive this attack, the three of us go have dinner at that new high end restaurant in Lumiose City?" Kellyn suggested as he fired against his mark, a naïve looking blond ranger with war paint on his face.
"Deal. But let's survive this first." Calem chucked.
Lightning struck the professor even as a spear cut through Alfa's heart.
"TO HELHIEM'S GATE!" was the last thing he remembered. The world went dark, then in a brilliant flash off white he found himself standing in front of golden gates, Ice standing in front of him.