Down by the waves that rocked into the beachside, gentle enough to lull a baby away to sleep if not for the salty sprays, tourists enjoyed leisurely walks up and down the coastline, miles upon miles of calm and deep blue on one side, cafes and surf shops on the other. Hidden away behind this appealing façade, though, was a row of dilapidated and abandoned buildings. Paint peeling, glass windows shattered by hoodlums, dirt and soot and muck coating their walls, these buildings had been left to rot as the newer shops had been erected in front, in order to give Ayers Island a fresher, more modern look, full of zeal and invitation to the masses.
Fortunately for some, however, this disregard was just the thing that certain groups were looking for. From only a year or two before, shady criminals and other morally questionable organisations had taken up shop in these forgotten buildings, using them as headquarters that were out of sight and of mind, but not out of pocket. The most prominent-looking of them all, the Yellow Box Warehouse, was typically left alone even by these types, as the coloured roof which gave the building its name was thought to draw too much attention, running the risk of luring bystanders inside to accidentally peek at what occurred within its walls.
Today, no tourists were venturing near this back-alley block, which was just as well; the Yellow Box had suddenly found itself full of occupants. Two muscle-bound men in dark clothes stood at attention on either side of the iron roller door at the warehouse's front side, with more men guarding the three grime-covered doors that marked the only other ways in or out. Like the other buildings, the Yellow Box's windows had been broken to smithereens by years of decay and vandalism, but anybody trying to peer inside would find nothing but shiny, rippling darkness, having been sealed up with oversized garbage bags taped to the walls on the inside.
Inside the warehouse, bright yellow lamps hung from the ceiling, giving light to the interior. A tall, gangly-looking man paced back and forth below these lights, his silhouette stretching one way and back the other over the circles of light on the concrete floor. His head was tipped towards his feet, watching the gentle rocking of his polished shoes over the dull, grey stone, eyes half-closed as though hypnotised.
A muffled scream to his left woke the man from his trance, causing his thin lips to draw together in an angered grimace. He turned towards the source of the noise, stalking over the ground with a casual air totally at odds with his expression, until he was standing in front of the warehouse's sole other visitor.
A slight figure was seated on a rickety wooden chair beneath the light in the centre of the warehouse, ankles bound and arms fastened behind the chair back with tough rope. The man's scowl shifted into a sneer when he saw the captive's feminine features, hidden away under a hooded yellow singlet tucked below a pair of baggy blue shorts.
"I'd stop that if I were you," he muttered to her, raising a hand to her face.
She recoiled, a mixture of terror and disgust written all over her face, and a nerve in the man's eyelid twitched. In a flash, his hand whipped across her face, and she squeaked with fright, but instead of the sharp slap she was expecting, the duct tape covering her mouth was ripped away, stinging the skin around her lips. As she drew in hurried and shallow breaths, panic still running through her brain, the man grabbed her chin with his hand and wrenched it upwards, her green eyes meeting his.
"Just keep quiet for now, girly," he grunted. "Your little friends will be here soon enough, and when they do, we can get this party started."
"My—friends?" she gasped. "Is that why I'm here?"
"Oh no, whatever shall I do? A teenage girl has stumbled onto my secret plan!" he pouted, moving about on the spot in mock distress. "Of course that's why you're here!" he snarled, and the girl felt his grip tighten on her jaw. "You really must understand that you're just a means to an end in my little game here… a tasty piece of bait, as it were," he added, his eyes flickering down to the open vee of her top, and she wondered how a pair of eyes as green as hers could seem so inhumanly vile.
"What do you want with my friends?" she shrieked, orange hair thrashing about as she put up a wild struggle against the ropes that contained her.
The kidnapper tilted his head, eyes glinting with malice. "You'll just have to wait and find out for yourself," he whispered. "I doubt you'll be waiting long, though. The media is all aflutter about how you were plucked off the street… how you never made it to your night-time rendezvous with Ash. I imagine he'll be blasting the door down any minute, looking for his Gym Leader girl—"
A blast of spit struck him in the eye, and he staggered backwards, roars of pain echoing in the dank emptiness of the warehouse.
Watching her captor clutching at his face and bending double, Misty pulled forwards and rose to her feet, balancing the weight of the chair still fastened to her back, and made to charge him with a full-body tackle. As she stepped forwards, she felt a sharp tug pull her back down to earth, but the loss of balance sent her crashing to the floor on her side, the unmerciful concrete grating against the bare flesh of her arm.
Wondering what had caught her, she looked towards her feet and saw two short lengths of chain, trailing from the ground to the rear legs of the chair. She held back sobs of raw emotion on the cold ground, but the man quickly recovered from her outburst. Mouth twisted with rage, he delivered a swift kick to her prone torso, the sharp point of his tailored shoe digging into her stomach.
The pain brought fresh cries from Misty, trying to curl up and turn away from the man, but the ropes held her as securely as ever. She screwed her eyes shut and waited for the next searing kick, but it never came, leaving her tears to slide down the side of her face and drip onto the concrete.
Little did she know that her torment was tame and compassionate, compared to the fate of a certain stranger locked away on the other side of the world.
It was a dank place. The walls were tinged green with moss and slime of countless years, the stench of decay and disease floating about the small, cramped room like a natural musk, leaving no inch of space free from its sickening reach. Tiny pools of water dotted an iron floor, littered with pockmarks and worn to filings by the melancholy tread of hundreds upon hundreds of people in times gone by.
Now, only one person occupied this room – a man slumped on top of the fetid ground as though unceremoniously dumped there. In fact, the man had been thrown into this reeking abode while he was unconscious, and only a moment ago had he regained control of his senses. His brain, though, was still groggy from his involuntary sleep, and a sharp spike of pain through the side of his temple told him what had caused him to faint.
"Ugggh…" the man groaned, doing his best to try and push himself into a more comfortable position. The moment he felt the side of his face lift above the frozen, damp ground, the full stench of the room hit his nostrils, and he instantly screwed his eyes shut, feeling ready to vomit at any second.
The nausea passed slowly, and it was several long, painful minutes before the man's composure had returned. Unfortunately for him, the dull throb in his head came flooding back just as quickly. Gingerly, he raised a hand to the source of the pain. His shaking palm found the peak of a nasty swelling, and a loud groan echoed through the room as he pressed a thumb into the bump.
His breath coming in husky, slurred gasps, the man slowly slid himself onto his knees, and the wall facing him swam in front of his eyes as the blood pounded inside his head. The nausea came back in a flash, and he bent over double.
Once the feeling passed, he wiped the flecks of vomit away from his mouth and, taking care not to stick a foot in the puddle of sick in front of him, clambered to his feet, eyes flickering in the gloom. The putrid smell was worse than ever now, but he tried not to think about it; even though he'd woken up a short time ago, his mind was already racing with a thousand other thoughts flashing past.
Where was he? How did he get here? Why was he here? And who was responsible?
Cruelly, the answer to his last question became all too clear as the images came back to him.
"Emily…!" he gasped, as though the sudden memory had winded his body. The corners of his eyes burned with the beginning of tears, but he kept them down; as much as he wanted to, dwelling on her would only make things worse for him.
Mark shook those unwelcome thoughts out of his head for now, turning this way and that. He immediately came to the realisation that he was in a prison cell; he'd been locked in a fair few during his time as a mercenary, and the signs were so obvious that they bordered on the cliché. Looking left, he found the bed, a hard sheet of foam on a cold and unloving steel frame. Just beyond the bed was a toilet melded with a cistern, no doubt running off the same supply of turgid water, and Mark wrinkled his nose at the thought.
'It's not like I haven't done it before…' he thought, but the attempt at reassurance did nothing to fade his grimace. He wasn't looking forward to it, no matter what justification he gave, so he busied himself by throwing a calculating gaze around the rest of the room. The walls were featureless, three stretches of darkened concrete. He moved to the nearest one and thumped a hand against it, feeling a dull echo of pain jolt up through his arm.
"Thick," he muttered. "Soundproofed, too…"
A sudden noise made him jump and whirl around in alarm, hands instinctively raised to fight after so many lessons given and lessons learnt. In the darkness, the small rectangle of light pouring in from the grate in the door was almost blinding, and Mark narrowed his eyes to a sliver. The faintest rustling of keys could be heard on the other side of the door, which swung open with a hideous, metallic creaking a few seconds later.
A mountainous-looking man entered the room, his face hidden in shadows as the light streamed out from behind. There was little doubt as to who he was, but Mark couldn't help but scoff at the irony of his entrance. From where he stood, the man looked like a heavenly emissary, but he'd been in far too many prisons to know that he was more like a fiendish hellhound.
"Hands on your head!" roared the man.
"Say what now?" Mark grunted, still squinting as he tried to make out some of the intruder's facial details.
"I said hands on your head!" he shouted again, even louder this time, and a shiny grey blur erupted out of nowhere and pummelled Mark across the cheek. As the latter spun away and smacked against the rear wall, clutching at his face, the man chased after him, jabbing the point of his rifle into the prisoner's chest. "Do it now!"
"I don't speak Russian…!" Mark grumbled thickly, lowering a hand from his cheek. Backed up against the wall now, he could see more of the man than just a simple outline, and he quickly saw the grey garb in which he was dressed; the man was very obviously one of the guards employed at Chernaya Tochka. His eyes flicked up to the guard's face, making out the muscular jaw, dark eyes and bared teeth, and he resisted the urge to repay the man for the pain in his own jaw.
His knowledge of Russian may have been lacking, but Mark could fathom a guess as to what the guard was after, and he raised both hands to clasp them behind his head. As he thought, the guard withdrew his weapon, but not before giving it another little dig into his body and drawing out a tiny wince.
"Follow me," he hissed, grinning with vicious delight at the pinprick of pain he'd given to his prisoner, and he retreated into the hallway.
As Mark trudged behind the man, he ran his eyes over the latter's waist. His eyes swam as he passed into the bright hallway beyond his jail cell, but he could easily spot a length of cable that tethered the man's rifle to his belt. 'Just in case somebody overpowers him and knocks it away, or tries to take control of it,' Mark reasoned silently. He also saw a key-ring adorned with dozens of rusted and iron keys, clipped next to a pair of grey Poké Balls, and he wondered which key had been used to unlock the door to his dank, little room.
A twinge of pain swept through his stomach, but Mark paid little attention to it, remembering his episode back in the cell just before the guard had arrived. He was too busy trotting along in the guard's wake as he was led through the labyrinthine corridors of the prison to think of much else. The sounds of their clattering footsteps provided a steady rhythm for Mark, mouth moving wordlessly and hands twitching at his sides as he memorised the route they took.
No matter where their little trek took them, Mark knew that he would wind up in one of the prison's major facilities. The fact that he was alive now was proof enough that he wasn't going to be led towards an execution chamber any time soon.
'Just lead me where you will, you idiot lackey…' he thought, looking at the back of the guard's head with a smug smile. 'I spent months researching every detail of this place for my mission, and I know the prison's layout like the back of my hand… once I know which cell you're keeping me locked away inside, then I'll have everything I need to escape!'
Ash and Pikachu led the chase through the streets, their dark eyes set firmly on the road ahead of them. As if their determination and urgency was manifesting itself somehow, they managed to tear effortlessly through the crowds of people milling here and there. The curious onlookers only had enough time to recognise the celebrity Trainer before stepping aside, and the boy was quickly followed in stride by Brock, Derek, Jeanne and the rest of the news crew, keeping hot on Ash's heels.
"Left on Katzroy Road!" Jeanne called out, providing the party with navigation.
Up ahead, Ash saw the street sign looming much larger than its actual size, even though it was at the corner of the next block. From the right-hand footpath, he barely took a moment to glance at the asphalt before bolting across the road, not wanting to waste any time waiting for traffic lights or pedestrian crossings. He could hear Pikachu muttering in his ear like the voice of reason in this mad dash, keeping him aware of Brock and the reporters' presence just a few seconds behind.
"Don't worry, Pikachu," he replied, arms swinging back and forth as he closed in on Katzroy.
He turned his head ever so slightly to the side to get a look at his entourage. Brock was nearest behind, easily keeping pace, expression just as hardened as Ash's. Right behind him was Jeanne, right in the middle of the group so that everyone could hear her directions. Bringing up the rear were Derek and the technicians, the former providing a sort of running commentary while the latter kept recording, making sure not to miss a beat.
"—not being followed by any villainous pursuers, this will, of course be—get out of the way, please!" Derek gesticulated wildly with the hand not holding his microphone as it bounced in front of his mouth, and a trio of young boys, star-struck by Ash and chasing him for advice or an autograph, hurried away to avoid being crushed underfoot.
Like a blur, the party rounded the corner onto Katzroy Road, cutting through the confused bystanders who rushed to get out of the way. Between the bobbing heads, Ash's eyes lit up as he saw the rich blue of the ocean come into view, melting in with the clear skies on the horizon.
'I'm coming, Misty…!' he thought fiercely, clenching both fists together tightly and putting on a little burst of speed, now running flat-out towards the coastline. So focused he was with his thoughts, he didn't even hear Brock and the others calling his name out repeatedly. It took a forceful tug on the collar from Pikachu to snap him to his senses, and he spun around on the spot, nearly tripping himself up.
"What is it?" he shouted.
His companions were all hanging back, standing near the mouth of one of the side streets that he'd run past without a second thought. Although his back was to Ash, the latter could tell that Derek was talking feverishly to the camera, his hands moving about with gusto. Jeanne and Brock were both peering towards the alley with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity, and Ash ran over to join them, wondering what the reason was behind the hold-up.
Before he could open his mouth to ask, Jeanne quickly shushed him with a finger to her mouth. She saw his pleading expression and nodded her head towards the alleyway. "Look," she said.
Ash crept around behind the reporter to look into the passage, and his mouth fell open with what he saw. The alley stretched along between two buildings for about fifty feet until one of them simply stopped, leaving a large empty space behind it. From there, a large warehouse jutted out of the ground, its yellow roof unmistakeable between the blue sky and brick red of the buildings in front.
"That's the Yellow Box warehouse," said Jeanne matter-of-factly. "Yeah, it's about as subtle as a bowling ball to the face," she added, after casting an eye over and gauging Ash's reaction.
"That's where they're keeping Misty?" he exclaimed. Jeanne nodded, and he set his mouth in a firm line, instantly snatching two Poké Balls from his belt and marching towards the slim passageway. "Alright, let's go!"
"Wait!" cried Brock, lashing out and catching Ash's arm. "Look closer," he said.
Ash lowered his eyes to ground level. From the small view he had of the lower half of Yellow Box, he could make out something large and black, placed next to what had to be the edge of the roller door that opened up into the warehouse proper. He squinted to try and make out the strange object, and he jumped with fright as it suddenly moved, a pair of arms unfolding and hanging at its sides.
"That's a person?" he gasped. What'd he mistaken for a piece of decorative machinery was actually an imposing-looking man, raising a walkie-talkie to his mouth and looking at something hidden to his left.
"Of course. You didn't think that this place would be left unguarded, did you?" Jeanne snorted. "If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that our friend there—" she pointed towards the guard, and then to the stretch of brick wall next to him, "has a teammate covering the front door, to make sure that nobody can bust down the door while the first one is distracted."
Brock nodded from alongside her, chin resting on his upturned palm. "And with those walkie-talkies, if we charge in and try to take them out head-on, they'll just use them to warn whoever's inside… and that's trouble…"
"Yeah, and we don't want this story to have a bad ending," Jeanne agreed. "Got any ideas on how to get around them, Brock?"
Brock considered her question, his narrow eyes scanning the surroundings for anything that could provide an edge, some kind of way to help their needs. His gaze swept over the rooftops, before looping around and scanning the warehouse's wall. A shadowy frown crept onto his face, and he gave a tiny shake of the head, turning away from Jeanne to look down Katzroy Road.
"Jeanne," he called out softly, pointing towards the end of the lane. "That anonymous caller said that the warehouse was at the end of Lawliet Avenue, didn't he?"
"Yeah, that's right," she replied. "That side-street on the left is Lawliet," she informed him, following the line of his arm and gesturing towards a small break in the row of buildings alongside the footpath. "It curves back towards the mainland, and comes to a stop right in front of Yellow Box."
"So why don't we use that?"
"If we try and approach it from the front, we'll be stopped coming up the street from almost a block away," she answered, mouth stretched into a grim line. "Your kidnapper friend seems to know Ash, so both he and you would more than likely be recognised instantly. No—" she shook her head and turned back to the alleyway, "we have to go through this way. Somehow…"
Unbeknownst to the pair, Ash and Derek had been holding a tense conversation of their own at the same time. As the camera crew crowded around them, looking from one to the other, the two seemed to come to some kind of understanding, exchanging a firm nod and a thumbs-up. Derek took several steps backwards, microphone at the ready, and signalled to Ash with his thumb and forefinger touching in a circle.
Ash spun around and charged down the alleyway, Pikachu leaping from his Trainer's back and galloping ahead while the latter pulled the same two Poké Balls from his belt that he had earlier. Brock and Jeanne both cried out in shock and anger as they felt, and saw, him race past, but all they could do was gather their senses and chase after him. Behind the trio, Derek gave the crew a mischievous grin and ran towards the warehouse as well, shouting words into his microphone.
"Hey, you!" Ash roared, eyes locked on the dark-skinned man standing next to the roller door.
The guard clenched his jaw as he saw the youngster approach, muscles rippling beneath his pitch-black suit. He instantly recognised him as the target of his boss's interest, but the Poké Balls in his hands were a tell-tale sign that this wasn't going to be routine, and he took a ball from his own belt in response.
"Intruder alert!" he thundered, his deep voice echoing over the concrete and brick. A chorus of footsteps and hurried grunts sounded from both sides of Yellow Box, and soon the roller door was protected by a group of no less than five enforcers, all powerfully built and exuding a threatening aura.
Undeterred, Ash and his cohorts burst from the narrow alley, rushing into the modestly-sized stretch of white concrete that sat between the warehouse and the street-side building behind them. The dark-skinned man who alerted the others seemed to act as their leader, standing in the centre of the quintet, whilst Ash stood across from him, the two Trainers staring daggers at each other at the head of their teams.
"You've got Misty in there, haven't you?" shouted Ash.
The head guard laughed. "Maybe we do… maybe we don't," he teased. "But you're never going to find out, so you best be turning tail and crying back to your mothers. You hear me?"
"We're not going anywhere until we've rescued our friend!" Brock retorted, Poké Balls at the ready.
"Rescue?" repeated the man, throwing his head back with another rumbling laugh. "Who's going to be rescuing, hmm? You kids and these reporters? You may have superior numbers, but that don't mean squat. All of us here—" he tilted his head left and right, and his fellows cracked their knuckles, "have experience with Pokémon, and I only see two of you who can pose a threat. So I'll say it again. Run away, before you get crushed."
"We're the ones who are gonna crush you!" Ash fired, throwing his Poké Balls onto the ground.
The first ball burst open in a flash, the white light pooling together to reveal his Glalie, its crystalline body glinting in the sunlight. It was joined a second later by his Tauros, who levelled his horns at the guards and stamped a cloven hoof against the ground with amazing force, cracking the concrete underfoot and turning it to powdered dust. Ash's Pokémon were quickly supported by Brock's, as he opened the balls in his hand to release his Sudowoodo, its green-clubbed arms swinging around like windmills, and Marshtomp, flicking its dark head- and tail-fins to and fro.
The dark-skinned man tightened his jaw again as he surveyed the Pokémon lined up in front of him, unable to help a little surprise at how powerful they looked. He gave a quick hand signal to his cohorts, who all drew dull red balls from their belts, and looked to Ash one more time, a hint of pity mixing with the exhilaration of the impending clash they were about to experience.
"Don't say you weren't warned," he grunted, his voice like sliding gravel, and the five Poké Balls were tossed into the space between the Trainers, splitting open with a burst of light.
A formidable pack of Pokémon emerged from the light as it faded away. The Pokémon on the left and right fringe were identical, their hulking, grey bodies covered in throbbing veins of purple blood, and each carried a large girder of red iron in their bulging arms. Their small, black eyes swept over the scene from behind large, circular red noses, and their veins swelled outwards as they focused their power.
Standing either side of the leader's Pokémon, in between this first pair, were a duo of unusual-looking creatures. One was red, short and stout; the other was blue, tall and athletic. Both, however, were dressed in similar-looking garbs, akin to the outfits worn by martial artists, and both were covered in criss-crossing black lines that extended from their shining foreheads to their three-fingered hands and feet.
The Pokémon belonging to the dark-skinned man, though, was the most frightening of all. Like the Gurdurr at the ends of the pack, its limbs were defined with large purple veins, but they seemed to stretch over its torso into more complex shapes, meeting in the centre of its back in a large pustule. Its brow was sunken, almost touching its clown-like nose, but its face disappeared for a moment behind two thick pillars of reinforced concrete, their immense weight held almost effortlessly by its enormous hands.
"Conk… conk…" it rumbled.
The dark-skinned man smirked at the stunned looks that appeared on his opponents' faces, and he patted his Conkeldurr across its broad back. "Eliminate them!" he roared, and the Fighting-type made a beeline towards Ash's Tauros at once, lumbering over the ground and launching itself forwards, swinging one of its stone pillars straight at the Pokémon's head.
I hope everybody had a good Christmas/New Year's break... I certainly did! And what better way to kick off 2012 than by presenting this chapter? Well, alright, winning the lottery would be a heck of a better way to start the year, but I like to think that this isn't too far off that level of awesome.
To misquote Mark Twain, the reports of character death were greatly exaggerated. Surprise!
If you've got comments, questions and so on, send in some reviews! Special thanks to "OmegaEscaflowneZero", "princess Piplup" and "Fus Ro Dahmer" for their multiple reviews since last update. Special mentions should go to "AbilityDestroyer" for some hilariously odd reviews. They got a giggle out of me, so thank you.
Chapter 15, "Pseudo", will build for the climax of this particular mini-arc, and it will be released on January 10th. Be sure to come back, or you'll miss out!
So, until next time... Be sure to review and, as always...
Live long and prosper!