The blue skies over Ayers Island, clear and balmy for weeks before, began to grow dark with the promise of storms. The heavenly canopy blocked out the sun in the west and turned the island beneath its shadow. The small stretch of concrete in front of the Yellow Box warehouse, barely the size of a tennis court, dulled to a dim grey, an ominous sign for the two groups gathered together atop it in opposition.
On the one side, Ash stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Brock, two old friends joined by the reporters Derek and Jeanne, and the rest of their news crew, the latter hungry for a breaking news scoop. The Trainers' Pokémon were gathered in front of this motley crew, Pikachu's cheeks crackling with electricity as he stood at the helm, flanked by his fellows in Tauros and Glalie, with Brock's Sudowoodo and Marshtomp standing resolutely next to them.
Standing between them and the warehouse, barring their only passage through, was a gang of five imposing guards, each one accompanied by an equally fierce-looking Pokémon of their own. The ten Pokémon were split evenly between the two sides, but, like their owners themselves, the guards' Pokémon possessed the advantage of size and power, all five Fighting-types flexing their muscles in a dominant display.
The leader of the guards, a behemoth of a man with dark skin and cold eyes, made the first move, throwing his arm forwards with a loud cry.
"Eliminate them!" were the words that echoed in the moderate space.
His Conkeldurr rushed forwards, its concrete pillars slamming against the ground with loud thumps that cracked the surface of the makeshift battlefield. Ash's Tauros was the foe locked in the muscular Pokémon's iron gaze, and it planted both tiny feet against the ground, swinging a pillar towards the Bull Pokémon's head with an almighty heave.
"Tauros, Horn Attack!" Ash roared, throwing his arm forwards.
Pawing at the ground, Tauros' black eyes glinted with ferocity as they tracked the flight of Conkeldurr's attack, and with perfect timing it thrust its head forwards. Conkeldurr's mouth fell open in shock as it felt the jarring impact of its foe's horns against its concrete weapon, and Ash gave his counterpart a knowing smirk. With a sharp and unmistakeable crack, the Normal-type pierced the pillar with both horns, and a moment later the entire column shattered into a million pieces, falling to the ground in a shower of rubble.
Both Conkeldurr and its Trainer looked at its arm, now clutching at nothing more than a few large fragments of stone, and the man mirrored his Pokémon's stunned expression. His eyes darted to his opponents' other four Pokémon in rapid succession, wondering what kind of Trainers he'd got himself involved with, and he hastily backtracked.
"Conkeldurr, fend them off with a Stone Edge!" he ordered.
Unfortunately for the bouncer, the Fighting-type was still staring at its shattered pillar with the same gormless expression on its face. It looked paralysed with shock, as though Tauros had shattered its spirit along with the slab of concrete that was one of its main fighting tools. A brown blur raced towards Conkeldurr from the side, but it didn't even have time to register the movement before three glowing white orbs crashed against its skull. With a hefty groan, the Muscular Pokémon's eyes rolled up into the back of its head, and it collapsed sideways onto the ground.
"Great job, Sudowoodo!" Brock cheered, and the Rock-type gave its Trainer a proud salute.
The moment was short-lived, though. The head guard, stupefied and furious at how easily his most powerful Pokémon had been disarmed and dispatched, turned to his cohorts with murderous rage. "Did you not hear me? I said eliminate them!" he screamed, flecks of spit flying out of the corners of his mouth.
The four guards reacted in a panicked frenzy, sending their Pokémon forwards in an all-out attack. Ash and Brock quickly found themselves on the defensive as their opponents charged simultaneously, their brute force proving to be dangerous. Unlike their leader, these other guards seemed to have some sense of co-ordination; they attacked in pairs, each duo targeting one Pokémon and ignoring the others, not allowing for all of their foes' Pokémon to attack in kind at the same time.
As the battle unfolded before them, Derek continued his live commentary to the camera, his usual battle-ready enthusiasm somewhat subdued by an attitude that a reporter might have when reporting in the middle of a city riot. His words came quickly as usual, but he maintained a hushed half-silence, his nerves forcing him into jumping and squeaking like a frightened schoolgirl whenever he heard a Pokémon's cry in the background, or the crunching noise of an attack scraping against the concrete.
"Now, because of the delicate position that we've found ourselves in—argh!—it's absolutely crucial that we don't get in the way of these brave Pokémon Trainers as they—!" he threw himself onto all fours as a beam of orange light flew ten feet above his head, striking the brick wall of the building behind them and knocking out a couple of bricks, "—a-a-as they fight for justice against these dangerous criminals…!" he blubbered, allowing himself a quick moment of vanity to check his reflection in the camera lens and straighten his perfectly-combed hair.
"Glalie, Ice Beam!" ordered Ash, pointing towards the guards' Sawk as it jumped towards Marshtomp, readying a vicious cross-armed strike.
Like a bullet, Glalie blasted a jagged beam of blue light from the space between its black horns, and the Fighting-type was forced to abandon its attack and spin away, dodging the powerful attack by a hair. Unfettered, the Ice Beam spiked into the ground and erupted into a sunburst of solid ice, wrecked to pieces a moment later as Sudowoodo was sent flying into it by one of the Gurdurr, launching the Imitation Pokémon across the ground with a punishing swing of its iron beam.
As chaos erupted between Ash, Brock and the guards, their so-called leader had taken it upon himself to sneak around the battlefield and head towards the news crew, a hunting knife pulled from his belt and being tossed lightly from hand to hand. With the female technician closest to him, he made a powerful lunge, ready to grab her and hold her at knifepoint to bargain a forced surrender from the intruders.
A bolt of lightning shot from above and struck the knife-wielding guard squarely in the stomach, sending wave after wave of electricity through his body and sizzling him to a fine crisp. He was already unconscious before he fell backwards and smacked his head against the hard stone ground.
Jeanne stood victoriously over the bouncer's burnt body, wrapping an arm around the fluffy collar of her faithful Flaaffy. "Don't look so shocked," she quipped, unable to hide her smirk. "When a story breaks, us reporters have got to be quick as lightning. Isn't that right, my lovely Irene?" she said to the Electric-type in babying tones.
"Glad we didn't get that one on tape," groaned the computer girl, completely oblivious to the danger she had narrowly avoided. "I'll have to check the final edit, though, just to make sure nobody has to hear that atrocity…"
"Throh, forget the Pokémon!" snarled one of the remaining guards, a wiry-haired man covered in thick stubble. "Smash that hat-wearing punk with a Seismic Toss!"
The Judo Pokémon smacked his bulbous hands together and ran at Ash, his stocky physique shrugging off any attacks that were hurled at him by his opponents. Ash was focused on Tauros, ordering the Normal-type to toss one of the Gurdurr with his horns; he didn't even see the crimson figure coming.
The sounds of battle drifted through the solid walls of Yellow Box, reaching the terrified Misty and her kidnapper in the centre of the spacious and otherwise empty warehouse. Misty's head jerked towards the noise, her shock of orange hair bobbing about despite its messy look, eyes wide and pupils shrunk. Still standing over her with a painful sting in his eye, her captor barely acknowledged the tumult outside, an upward flick of the corner of his mouth the only sign that he'd heard.
"Well, well," he muttered, eyebrows arched upwards in mild surprise, "it seems your boyfriend finally found his way here."
"Ash is not my boyfriend!" she rebuked, squirming about on the ground as she tried to slip free from her bonds, but to no avail.
The man rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, girly," he sighed.
He leant forwards and, with an unceremonious tug, pulled Misty up off the ground, setting her upright and dropping chair back onto its chains with a loud clatter. Little jolts ran up through Misty's legs, all the way up to her chest, and she winced as she felt it through the large scrape on the side of her arm.
"Oh, quit your complaining," he grunted. "Try not being a pain in the arse for once."
He gritted his teeth as he turned towards the roller door, casting his mind back to the night before. The girl had been a thorn in his side even from the moment he and his men had plucked her off the street, and he would be quite glad to finally be rid of her once this was all over. 'She's almost more trouble than she's worth…' he thought darkly. 'Almost.'
A series of loud clangs against the corrugated door startled the kidnapper from his silent reflection, and he heard Misty squeaking in fright as large, circular dents appeared in the metal. The sounds of battle began to grow louder from beyond the pockmarked sheet of iron, and the pair could now hear voices peeping through the crashes and roaring Pokémon.
"What the hell is going on out there?" the kidnapper wondered aloud. He made to move towards the door in order to try for a better look, but suddenly froze in place, realising that getting closer would put him at risk of being hit by a stray attack, if it managed to break through the door.
"Ash!" Misty began to scream, her eyes brimming with tears. "Ash! Are you out there? Help—!" she was cut short by a cracking backhand by her captor, her face snapping sideways.
"Be quiet!" the man hissed, taking a Poké Ball from inside his tailored black suit.
The ball burst open as it was tossed on the ground, but the typical flash of white light was instead deepest black. The darkness pooled together on the concrete floor, shrinking and solidifying until it faded completely, but all that appeared from the depths of the Poké Ball was a simple piece of stone. Upright, it stood barely as tall as the man's knees, a rounded slab of dull brown rock covered in earthen cracks that worked their way from the stone's peak and almost split it in two.
The kidnapper twisted his mouth to one side, seemingly in disappointment, before the terrible sound of metal tearing against metal caused his head to shoot upwards. A small patch of light now shone through the metal door, which was starting to buckle and creak under the stress of so many crunching impacts. Through the hole, both Misty and her captor could see brief glimpses of the ensuing battle; as they watched on, a blue creature clad in a white uniform was sent flying by a powerful punch from a pink fist.
"A Flaaffy?" murmured the kidnapper, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Those brats don't have a Flaaffy… then what—?" he let out a callous laugh and shook his head, "oh, I see. Those reporters must be helping out."
No sooner had he come to that conclusion, that the Flaaffy was sent crashing through the door with a horrifying screech, ripping through the metal and thudding against the ground. Keeping an eye on the dent-riddled door in case any other Pokémon came hurtling through, the man leaned towards the Electric-type, and he frowned at the scrapes and bruises covering its body, and the swirls that filled its usually dark eyes.
"Dammit!" he shouted, stamping a foot. "What are those bastards doing out there? They were supposed to take out Ash's Pokémon! Bloody hell…" he muttered as an afterthought.
"What do you want with Ash, anyway?" demanded Misty.
"You'll see in a minute or two," he replied, shifting his gaze from the unconscious Flaaffy in front of his feet to the gaping hole in the roller door.
"Mega Punch!" shrieked Jeanne, throwing her arm forwards.
"Flaaa!" bleated her Flaaffy, pumping its legs over the cracked, uneven battlefield and launching forwards. One of the guard's Sawk, narrowly dodging a furious charge from Ash's Tauros that flicked the edge of his uniform, couldn't spin around fast enough, and its eyes shot wide open as the Electric-type sank its fist into his stomach. The Fighting-type was sent flying through the air by the force of the blow, its path only stopped by a brutally firm stretch of wall.
Flaaffy waved its stubby arms in glee as its opponent crashed into the wall and pitched forwards onto the ground, leaving a sizeable crack in its wake, but a large beam of rusted red came rocketing out of nowhere. In an instant, the beam smashed into Flaaffy's back with a pummelling blow, knocking it forward with such speed that the roller door of the Yellow Box warehouse could only slow it down before its body punched a hole in the sheet of steel.
"Irene?" Jeanne howled, as her Pokémon disappeared inside the depths of the warehouse. She rushed forwards, all sense of self-preservation gone as she ran for the door, and the Gurdurr that had slammed her Pokémon turned towards her instead, readying its girder for another punishing attack.
A yellow blur slammed into the side of the Gurdurr's face, knocking it completely off-balance and sending it thudding into the ground. As Jeanne came back to her senses and realised how close she'd come to injury, she looked towards the Fighting-type just in time to see it become engulfed in a harsh yellow light. Gurdurr howled in pain as electricity coursed through its body, and the damage was just too much, its body becoming limp as the girder in its arms fell with a clatter.
"Pii pika!" growled Pikachu. He let down his Thunderbolt attack, before darting off to help Ash's Tauros, the latter locked in a fierce stalemate with the Throh whose arms were braced against his opponent's head.
"Thanks for that, Ash!" shouted Jeanne, flashing the youngster a grateful smile.
"Don't mention it!" Ash replied. He was forced to duck under a wayward Mud Shot from Brock's Marshtomp, but he quickly bounced up and surveyed the scene around him.
The ground between his companions and the warehouse was battered, scorched and cracked; to the left, a large chunk of brick wall had been completely blasted away, a small pile of crumbled mortar gathered at the base of the gaping hole. Atop the concrete were the bodies of several unconscious Pokémon, but, as he noticed with relief, none belonged to himself or Brock. The lead guard's Conkeldurr was lying in the same place where it had been clobbered by Sudowoodo, but it was joined on the ground by Sawk and Gurdurr, leaving only Throh and the other Gurdurr standing in their way.
Their Trainers themselves were backed up against the pockmarked door, cowering behind their two remaining Pokémon. One tried to make a run for it, but he quickly shrank back as Ash's Glalie tested him with a blast of frigid air, a wall of ice sprouting up from the ground a foot or so in front of the man.
"Just give up!" Ash called out to the men. "You've only got two Pokémon left! You can't win this battle, so why don't you just quit now, before you hurt these Pokémon some more?"
"You're joking, right?" snorted the dark-skinned man, taking this brief ceasefire as a chance to recall his Conkeldurr back to its Poké Ball. "Why the hell would we surrender to a brat like you? We got hired to take out any intruders, and that's exactly what we're gonna do!"
"YEAH!" chorused the others, throwing up their fists in unison.
Ash's face contorted in frustration; every second that they stayed took away precious time that he could use in getting Misty out of that warehouse. Time he didn't have the luxury of wasting. "You want to do this the hard way? Fine!" he snapped, taking another Poké Ball from his waist. He hurled it towards them with a cry. "Go, Kingler!"
The ball split open with a bright flash, and a huge vermillion claw appeared from its depths, quickly followed by the rest of Ash's Pokémon as it scuttled onto the ground with its four spindly legs. "Khoo kii!" growled Kingler, shifting from side to side and raising its gargantuan pincer, its hard carapace glinting in the afternoon sun.
"Send them blasting off with Hyper Beam!"
The Water-type aimed its pincer at the terrified guards, its eyes glowing with a pale blue light, and a small ball of orange energy appeared between the two tips of its claw. As the seconds ticked by, the glittering orb grew larger and large until it was almost touching its creator's body, and Kingler firmly planted its feet against the unsteady concrete. The quickest guard managed to leap to the side and throw his arms over his face, but the rest were left frozen where they stood as the ball suddenly burst forth into a torrent of light that seared through the air towards them.
A huge explosion rocked through the small space, shockwaves pounding against Ash and his companions, and the former was forced to shield his eyes as waves of dust and powdered stone blew past him, sending his clothes into a flapping frenzy. The hapless guards were sent high into the air, propelled upwards by the immense force of Kingler's attack, and they disappeared into the blue, lost somewhere between the sky and the deep ocean.
Derek watched the thugs fly off, slightly awed at the power of Ash's Pokémon, but nonetheless relieved that their opponents had been sent packing. "Looks like—" he slipped on a pair of sunglasses as he stared into the sky, "they're blasting off again!"
"Laaame!" groaned the cameraman, kicking a chipped piece of concrete at the back of the anchorman's head. The white rock struck Derek squarely on the ear, and he howled in pain, spinning around to march up to the crewman with his nose barely more than an inch in front of the latter's.
"I'd like to see you come up with a better line!" he wailed, arms flailing about at his sides.
"No line would be better than that one…!"
As the pair squabbled amongst themselves, and Jeanne unsuccessfully tried to break them apart, Ash and Brock rounded up their Pokémon, checking them all for the injuries to make sure that none of them were badly hurt. Tauros had several long grazes running along his flanks, and so Ash decided to recall the Normal-type to its Poké Ball. The rest of the Pokémon, save for the still unconscious Flaaffy somewhere inside the warehouse, seemed fine.
Ash whirled towards the warehouse as he remembered Jeanne's Flaaffy, but a moment later the thought of Misty pushed everything else away. He ran towards the roller door, lashing out time and time again with the heel of his boot, but the metal, despite being twisted and warped, refused to budge to his strikes. Stopping his barrage, Ash searched left and right for a way to open the door, but he found nothing; the lock in the centre had been fused shut, leaving no trace of a keyhole.
Finding himself with no other choice, he took a deep breath to calm himself, before turning back to Kingler. "Kingler, use Crabhammer to bust down that door—"
The Pincer Pokémon merrily clacked its claws together, hastening towards the door with its huge left claw already raised high and glowing white. It jumped backwards in surprise, though, when Ash blocked its way with his hands outstretched.
"Khoo kii koo?"
"Let me finish," he said sternly. "Use Crabhammer on the door—but!—don't send it flying. I just want you to knock it down, not catapult it through the warehouse. Okay?"
Kingler looked at its Trainer for a moment, blinking a few times, and a little confused as to its orders. Eventually, though, it nodded slowly and waited for Ash to move aside, before scuttling up to the door. It looked to its claw, then to the door, and then to Ash, before tentatively tapping the metal with its smaller pincer. It tried again, a little firmer this time, and felt the door dent inwards. The Water-type quickly grew impatient with having to feather-touch its way through, though, and cocked its large claw back, building up power as it glowed a fierce white.
"Kingler, no!" Ash barked, running forwards.
Whether Kingler heard its Trainer or not didn't seem to matter, though, as it ran the full force of its pulverising Crabhammer into the door with a tearing crack. The sheer power of the attack cut through the weakened steel like it was little more than tissue paper, shredding the door to pieces, and it collapsed to the ground in a pile of twisted metal, the Pincer Pokémon raising its prized claw towards the heavens like a sign of victory.
"I should've gone for a Metal Claw…" Ash sighed, sheepishly scratching the back of his head. Looking past Kingler's shoulder, he stared into the innards of the warehouse, which were now plain for all to see.
At first, he was taken aback by what he found; the building seemed completely bare. There were no machines, abandoned and rusted through; no rows of shelves, stacked clumsily against the walls; and no untidy messes upon the spotless floor, save for a lone piece of smooth rock left behind, a few feet in front of the crumpled mass that used to be the door. The only other object in Yellow Box was a large wooden chair, sitting underneath a bright white ceiling fixture with a young woman atop it, her orange hair falling flat around her downcast face.
Ash's eyes flew wide. 'Orange hair…' He heard the sharp intake of breath from Brock standing somewhere close by, and orders being shouted from Derek and Jeanne to their crew, but it all suddenly seemed far away, reaching his ears as though through a haze of water.
"MISTY!" he roared, sprinting towards what remained of the door and scrambling over the top of it, slipping over the scrapped metal and throwing himself down the other side.
A loud grunt in front of him drew Ash's attention, and he froze in place, teeth bared, as he finally saw the person responsible for kidnapping Misty. He was a tall, gaunt figure, dressed from head to toe in an expensive-looking black suit, a pair of pointed black shoes completing the outfit. His face, though, was in stark contrast to his attire, with a jawline covered in rough blonde stubble, and unkempt fair hair that lay in curls just above his eyes, a pair of dull green pools that somehow twinkled with danger.
"It's about time," snorted the man, folding his arms.
Ash immediately recognised the voice from the phone he'd been given at the stadium, and his hands curled into tightly-balled fists. "What do you want with Misty, you bast—?"
"Shut up!" the kidnapper interjected, and Ash fell silent. "You're new to this whole kidnapping thing, aren't you…? Well, let me run you through how this is going to go. You're going to stand there like a good boy and do everything I tell you to do, and if you do, then your little girl here—" his eyes slid sideways to Misty, who was trembling in her shackles, "gets to keep breathing. You follow me so far, huh?"
"I'm fed up playing your games!" shouted Ash, charging forwards with a fist ready to sink into the man's face, his feet pounding over the hard ground. "You're gonna pay for hurting my friend! You hear me?"
The kidnapper's eyes never wavered from his captive, even as he heard Ash's thumping footsteps grow closer, but a dark smile crept onto his thin lips. "I warned you…" he whispered triumphantly, before turning to face the youngster.
Just as Ash pulled his arm backwards, a dark shape appeared from below the ground, a shadowy tendril that twisted and undulated through the air before whipping towards him. In the blink of an eye, Ash was yanked off his feet, hat dropping from his head and fluttering away, as the tendril wrapped itself around his midsection and pulled up high into the air.
"Ash!" cried Brock in alarm, running forwards to help his friend, but he quickly met the same fate, another tentacle oozing out from the ground and ensnaring him. He struggled against the strange coil, clawing at it with his hands and kicking his feet about, but it held fast and tightened around his waist, and he gasped in pain as it pressed down on his lungs.
"The reporters, too, if you wouldn't mind," said the kidnapper, seemingly talking to himself, and Derek, Jeanne, and the technicians were wrapped up by even more tentacles a moment later. He placed his hands on his hips and surveyed his new victims, all flailing in the air in front of him in the grip of the dark vines, and his cunning grin spread from ear to ear.
"What are you doing?" shrieked Misty, thrashing in her chair with such ferocity that the ropes began to slice through her skin. "Let them go!"
"I said shut up!" he snapped, whirling to the side and cracking her across the cheek with the back of his hand. "I'm beginning to think that you've brought far too much trouble for what I wanted to accomplish… this whole mess has bloody well gone on long enough. Spiritomb!"
The large stone on the warehouse floor began to shake violently, its peak almost tipping over and looking as though the cracks running through it might tear the whole thing apart at any moment. However, a pair of circular marks in the stone lit up with an eerie glow, and thick purple smoke began to form within its cracks, seeping out on all sides and twisting upwards. As the smoke pooled together, small green orbs of light began glittering in its depths before shifting to the smoke's edge, which flared out into five flowing spikes of energy. A flash of green light erupted from the stone, and a jagged smile appeared in the centre of the purple haze, along with two black spirals encased within green markings.
"Tooomb…" hummed the Pokémon, its hideous smile deforming within the smoke as it looked towards the people bound above.
"A Spiritomb…" Brock gasped, a chill of dread rising in his chest that had nothing to do with the tendril squeezing down on it. "Urgh…! This isn't good…"
"Keep up that Shadow Sneak and make sure our guests stay out of the way, Spiritomb," said the kidnapper with a smile, as he pulled a second Poké Ball from his jacket and enlarged it in his hand. "Their Pokémon need to be eliminated."
With a gentle flick of the wrist, he tossed the ball onto the ground in front of the hapless captives, and it opened with a burst of light. As the creature within the Poké Ball rose from the ground and formed from the fading light, Ash's heart leapt into his mouth, his heart racing wildly and his eyes wide open.
"What the heck is that…?"
Dun dun dun. Hopefully not everybody picked the ending... if you did, you should apply for a detective job. Or maybe I'm not as good at being subtle as I used to think. Either way, I hope I surprised a couple of you. Surprises are a good thing for stories, I reckon, haha.
Send a review my way if you'd like to give me your two cents on what you've just read! This story just passed a massive milestone in the last week - it reached the big 250 reviews! Unfortunately, Shanrock (you may know him as my beta) managed to shark the actual 250th review, but many, many thanks to everybody who has contributed to the count. Props to "Jenny LongLegs" for sending in multiple reviews over the last seven days.
Alright, time for an announcement!
This story will be accepting OCs for a limited time. Send in any character, give them whatever Pokémon you want, hand them in however you want, and I'll see if I can fit them in. Even if it's something as small as a cameo appearance, they'll get a spot. I reckon that's all that needs to be said; the rest is up to you and your imagination!
Okay, announcement over.
Chapter 16, "Dungeons and Dragons", will be released on January 17th. It's more than likely the biggest chapter yet in terms of WHAM potential, so be sure to read it when it comes out.
So, until next time... Be sure to review and, just this once (since Jesse Williams is an Aussie),
ROLL TIDE!