The moon was perched high in the starry black sky, its pale glow reflected full and large in the tropical ocean, by the time Ash stumbled home to his hotel room, lurching through the door and almost banging his shin on the spindly table standing next to the entrance. Throwing off his jacket and tossing it onto one of the stools tucked next to the kitchen counter, he blew out a deep, exhausted breath and threw himself down on the only vacant armchair in the lounge room, with Pikachu hopping up to lie across his lap.
Leoric, who was sitting in the chair next to Ash, put down his half-empty bowl of fried rice and swallowed the mouthful he was already chewing down. "So…" he muttered awkwardly, "rough day?"
"You could say something like that, yeah," said Ash with a tired chuckle, as he pressed the palms of his hands against his aching eyes until stars popped into the corners of his vision. "What about you guys?"
"Pretty uneventful," shrugged Gin, lying lengthways on the three-seater couch with his feet hanging over the edge. He looked at the remote in his hand and flicked between a few of the channels blaring away on the television, stopping when he came to the one he was looking for. "Went to a stadium, won a battle, hung around town… you know, the usual stuff," he added, sitting up a little as a stylised banner slid across the screen, the words 'Trainer Spotlight' flashing in large, red block letters.
"Good evening, and welcome to another edition of Trainer Spotlight," said the anchorman. Ash instantly recognised him as Derek; even without the small infobox bearing his name, the man's slicked-back hair and flawless teeth were a dead giveaway.
'I wonder if he got questioned by the police…' he wondered, straightening up in his chair despite unsettling a sleepy Pikachu, who mewed and readjusted his spot on his Trainer's lap.
"Well, it's certainly been a day jam-packed full of glorious action and wonderful battles here on Ayers Island! We've seen whitewashes, down-to-the-wire thrillers, upsets, and everything in between. To show you a taste of what we've experienced on Day Two of the World Pokémon Championships, let's have a look at our Pokémon Top Picks."
A brightly-coloured mess of graphics and text burst onto the screen, showing tiny snippets of battles that had taken place during previous Championships tournaments, and Leoric stifled a heady yawn before tucking back into his late dinner. Gin rolled his eyes, impatiently thudding the butt of the remote into the soft cushions underneath his back, but Ash, even though he was feeling sleepy, was waiting intently for the highlights package to show up.
"As the singles tournament entered its second day, we were treated to a multitude of Trainers eager to consolidate the claims they staked after emerging victorious from the first round of competition," Derek began, his dark eyes glittering as they gazed out of the screen, "and few could look further than the amazing show of skill that came to us courtesy of Irish challenger Chase Gasnier and his Garchomp, who utterly decimated Anthony Silva with a three-nil victory earlier today. Though Gasnier might say otherwise, his token Irish luck wasn't needed for—"
While Derek continued to talk, some footage of the battle appeared in a window on the right-hand side of the screen, showing the ferocious, blue sharklike Pokémon carving through a Sceptile's Leaf Storm attack with a series of wide slashes. As Ash watched, slightly open-mouthed by the display of power and precision, the image changed to show the same Garchomp colliding with the opponent's Machoke, knocking it into the boundary wall with a punishing head-butt.
"Kind of exciting to know that Pokémon like that are in the tournament, huh?" grunted Gin, looking over at Ash with a sideways smirk that the latter knew all too well as a thirst for competition.
"Yeah," said Ash, with a slight nod of the head. "I'd love to go up against that guy in the finals, if all his Pokémon are the same level as his Garchomp."
"—but the most exciting thing in today's series of battles was the official opening of the Tag Team Trophy! That's right, folks, the mixed doubles event began – and completed – its first round today, and one of the highlights to come out of the division was the battle between local hopes, Ari DeVarro and Leoric Reiger, and international competitors Antoine Bergen and Lorenzo Giovanni, who duked it out tonight in a well-fought contest!"
"Thank you, thank you, you're too kind," said Leoric shamelessly, bowing towards the television. "Sucks you weren't there to see it in person," he added, pointing his chopsticks at Ash.
"I know, I wish I'd been there…!" he groaned, irritably flicking his cap off his head with the back of his hand. Replay footage of the battle flashed intermittently across the screen, showing Leoric's Tangrowth blasting its SolarBeam towards its opponent, only for the Pokémon to counter it with a Dragon Pulse that tore the battlefield in two. "I mean, look at that!" he shouted, throwing his arm towards the screen as more images came up.
"I don't see what all the fuss is about," Gin muttered, folding his arms across his chest. "Apparently, they forfeited after going one down. Only a fool would quit the moment things are tough. Winners like us, what do we do? We keep fighting until the end, am I right?"
"Right!" Ash cheered, thumping a fist down against the chair arm, but a tremendous yawn stifled whatever he was about to say next, bringing a laugh out of his roommates.
"You'd better turn in for the night, Ash," Gin suggested, jerking a thumb towards the hallway. "Tomorrow's gonna be a hard day's work, and to be honest, you look like shit. You're dead on your feet."
"Er… thanks?" said Ash, not sure whether to smile or be offended. Regardless, he took Gin's advice and scooped Pikachu up in his hands, picking his hat off the floor and hanging it on the stool that was accommodating his jacket. "I'll see you guys in the morning," he called out as he trudged down the hallway, disappearing into his bedroom a moment later.
In the deepest depths of Chernaya Tochka, Mark's howling screams had gone unnoticed for hours as he lay trapped inside his tiny, dark cell. One hand was clawing at his stomach in agony, the other scrabbling against the grime-covered wall as the pain dipped lower and lower. his teeth bit down as hard as they could on the ragged strip of cloth he'd stuffed into his mouth, but his cries still came out loud and clear.
'Just-another-minute—just-another-minute—just-another-minute,' he chanted in his mind, screwing his eyes shut as a wave of nausea rose up through his throat, and the pain in his abdomen reached a horrible crescendo. "Come on… COME ON…!" he shrieked through the cloth.
But the pain only worsened. The inside of his eyelids turned reddish-black and he began to slip towards the dark embrace of unconsciousness, but the stabbing agony in the bottom of his body remained as sharp as ever, until he heard a soft clink, followed by a dull splashing noise below him.
Mark's eyes rolled up towards the back of his head, and his mouth fell open in exhaustion, the piece of cloth tumbling out and falling onto the damp concrete floor. He wiped the sheen of cold sweat from his brow and collapsed sideways onto the ground, his legs unable to support him as they shook about. He snatched up the cloth from the ground and flattened it out before clamping it down over his face, making sure his nose and mouth were fully covered, and he half-turned where he sat to peer over the rim of the toilet seat.
The smell alone was almost enough to make him retch, forcing him to recoil in disgust, but he swallowed the wave of sickness and bravely reached forward with his free hand, plunging it down and feeling about amongst the putrid waste until his fingers brushed against something hard and metallic.
"There…!" he exclaimed, his voice muffled as he closed his hand around the object and pulled it free. In the tiny streaks of light coming through the grate in his cell door, he couldn't make it out, but he knew full well what it was.
Feeling some small shreds of strength returning to his body after the ordeal, Mark slowly pulled himself up into a kneeling position, the metal item still clutched tightly in his hand. He took several deep breaths, giving the pain in his stomach and abdomen as much time as he could to settle before continuing. This experience was nothing new to him; he'd been imprisoned many times before and been forced to resort to this kind of measure at least once before. He knew that rushing ahead with his plan, without giving his body time to catch up, would ruin any chance of him pulling it off.
Once his torso had dulled into a quiet, throbbing ache, he dropped the object in the grimy sink and tossed his mouth-rag into the toilet before flushing it away with everything else. The putrid smell was still there in the air, but it wasn't unbearable, so Mark simply held his breath as he took to washing away all the filth that was defiantly clinging to the little piece of metal. Once it was spotless, he snatched it back up and held it in the path of the beams of light, smiling as his face was reflected in the red-and-white sphere.
His brief moment of happiness was rudely interrupted. Soft, echoing footsteps could be heard from the other side of the door, steady in rhythm and growing louder by the second. Mark hastily stuffed the Poké Ball down his pants, and although he contemplated the awkwardness of having to explain the noticeable bulge, he decided to leave it there as he scrambled, half-crawling and half-rolling, onto his atrocious mattress.
With the grating sound of the latch being unlocked, the cell door was thrown open as the prison guard marched inside, his cold eyes sweeping the room for anything out of the ordinary. He immediately saw Mark lying on the bed, arms tucked feebly into his body as he lay curled up on top of the mattress, and a cruel smirk appeared on the man's thin lips. Clearly, the prisoner was just getting used to the rest of his new life.
"Here's your food," he grunted, tossing a plastic bowl of grey, lumpy porridge at the prisoner.
Like a snake, Mark's hand shot out and caught the bowl before hurling it back at the guard's face at full force. Caught off-guard, the man was caught cleanly in the nose and staggered backwards, growling in pain. One hand reached up to cradle his nose, feeling to see if it had been broken by the bowl. The other hand reflexively snapped towards the rifle tethered to his belt, pulling it up and taking aim at the insolent brat.
Suddenly, a sea of stars confronted the guard as powerful legs came up from below, seemingly out of nowhere, and lashed up at the bottom of his chin. The shock of the blow echoed around the man's brain as he gave a brief, muted grunt of surprise, but he was already unconscious by the time his bulky figure had dropped onto the concrete with a dull crunch.
"Thanks for the meal, bitch," said Mark, his Russian flawless as he bent down to drag the guard into his cell.
Double checking to make sure his victim was out cold, Mark set about systematically stripping the guard's uniform away until the latter was bare, save for his white briefs, a stained singlet, and his dull grey socks. Once he was finished, he slipped off his own clothes and dressed himself in the uniform, taking care to make sure that all the various attachments and accessories were in the same place as they'd been on his predecessor. He flexed his tired muscles in the uniform, relieved that the guard was a size larger than him; his torso had a little room to breathe, and that would let him keep some of his flexibility.
'Step two…' he thought, heaving and panting as he struggled to drag the unconscious man onto the mattress. He rolled the guard over, so that his back was facing the door, and tossed his own clothes over the former's body, to give the illusion that 'Mark' was still lying in bed, just in case.
"Right, time to go," he said with a nod, straightening his collar before striding out of the cell and slamming the door shut. He didn't bother to lock the door; he wouldn't be returning.
He focused on the long stretch of cold stone in front of him. Stone on both sides, stone for the floor, and a stone ceiling. The roof was dotted with electric bar lights that flickered feebly, and about half of them had fizzled out long ago, leaving strips of darkness along the dotted white line above his head.
Mark closed his eyes. A bird's-eye image of Chernaya Tochka appeared in his mind, tilted at an angle like the directory at a shopping centre so that the entire layout was visible. Mark slowly worked his way down from the top floor; he had spent hours upon hours poring over the prison's floor plans, memorising as much of the layout as was humanly possible. After his escorted trip yesterday, he'd been able to work out exactly where his cell was, in the farthest corner of the basement level.
"I'm going to need a diversion to keep the guards busy," he mused aloud, brushing over all the major facilities and rooms in the prison. "A riot should do nicely… that means I need the security override. Hmm—" he found the room he was looking for, and quickly memorised the route before opening his eyes, "electronic control room it is!"
With that, he began walking towards his destination. He was forced to be cautious, maintaining a strict march at all times to keep himself from being found out by racing footsteps or panting breath. Several times he crossed paths with other guards, but his disguise and imitations were good enough to keep them from becoming suspicious, or even to recognise his existence as he walked past, so he avoided any unnecessary squabbles.
It took nearly half an hour for him to reach the room that he was searching for; it was marked by a large, sturdy steel door with a sign that read 'AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY' in Russian. Mark hovered in front of the entrance for a few moments, calculating his options, but he quickly made up his mind and raised a hand, rapping his knuckles against the cold metal three times.
Nothing but silence greeted him from inside the room, but he kept patient and didn't knock again. Soon enough, as he had expected, the sound of locks turning could be heard on the other side of the door, and Mark let his hand fall to his side as it swung open.
"What is it?" asked the officer.
Mark ignored the man, his eyes sweeping over the room in a heartbeat. Apart from the man at the door, there was only one other person inside. It was a stuffy room, almost to the point of being unbearable; two chairs were crammed against the back wall, with the rest of the space being devoted to an extensive collection of computer screens and terminals.
Too easy.
Mark flicked his wrist, bringing the rifle up in the blink of an eye. Five loud shots rang out in the cramped space, and five bullets sprayed into the two men, turning the wall behind them into a crimson painting. The guard closer to him had time for a strangled cry of surprise as three of the bullets shredded his heart and lungs, but the man behind him wasn't so lucky, his head now a gruesome wreck.
Mark didn't even wait for his welcomer to collapse onto the ground before he slid inside, locking the door behind him. Time wasn't on his side; others in the prison were sure to have heard the gunfire, so he needed to work quickly and efficiently to make sure he had options available. He stepped over the man's corpse, kicked the other man off his chair and sat down, his fingers working their magic on the terminal's ancient-looking keyboards.
An override command flashed bright red on the screen in front of him, providing a warning and asking for confirmation.
"Why do they always ask for confirmation?" he mused aloud, finger poised above the RETURN key. "Oh no, my finger slipped fifty-nine times and now I'm about to let every prisoner out of their cells!" he said in a mocking, child-like voice, before stabbing down.
"Security response enabled. Emergency response activated," said the terminal, and the ceiling lights all turned red, bathing the room in an eerie glow.
"What?!" exclaimed Mark, rising out of his chair so suddenly that it fell backwards, splashing into a pool of blood that sent droplets splattering over the bottom of his uniform. "Shit…!" he hissed, feeling his pant legs becoming damp as he stared at the overhead lights.
"Security override enabled. Emergency response activated," the voice continued to blare, over and over again.
Mark figured that the news was being repeated all throughout the prison, and he could hear the sounds of commotion erupting outside the door, almost inaudible, as the prisoners began to riot around the facility. He hadn't anticipated that triggering the override would alert the entire prison; it had to have been a recent countermeasure put in by the authorities, provoked by a prisoner trying to exact same thing as him in the past.
A wave of claustrophobia and panic began to set in, the tiny room seeming to close in on Mark from all sides, and he could feel his heart pounding away in his ribcage as the adrenaline coursed through his veins. Steeling his mind to stay in control, Mark shut his eyes and drowned out the alarm, returning to his mental map of the prison as he searched through it for the next stop on his trip to freedom.
"Storage lock-up… storage lock-up…" he chanted. He knew that the room was somewhere on his current floor, about four or five corridors away, so he scoured the part of the map closest to the security override. "There!" he exclaimed, tapping an imaginary finger on a large chamber at the intersection of three long hallways.
As the alarm continued to screech above his head, Mark rushed towards the door, but the soft splash of blood underneath his shoes reminded him of the splatter that had soaked into his pants. It was a dead giveaway, but as he turned about on the spot in vain, he couldn't find anything to try and cover it up without arousing suspicion, so he decided to simply grin and bear it. He couldn't afford to waste any more time, though, so he threw open the door and ran towards the storage room as quickly as his feet would allow.
Shouts, pounding footsteps, and the occasional burst of gunfire echoed through the endless catacomb of tunnels, but Mark managed to stay just clear of all of them. He knew that it was only a matter of time before he ran into trouble; even if, somehow, he didn't come across any guards or mobs of prisoners, scarlet boot-prints were being left in his wake like a shimmering trail of breadcrumbs.
Almost on cue, a pair of officers cut into the corridor from an intersection just ahead and started marching his way. Deciding that misdirection was the best plan of attack, Mark broke into a full sprint, rifle clasped firmly in front of his waist as he charged towards the two.
"They're dead!" he shouted as he drew closer.
The guards, startled, looked between each other before turning back to Mark. "What are you talking about?!" one of them growled, as both of them reflexively reached for their own weapons.
"The prisoner who broke in last night!" Mark elaborated, talking as loudly as he could. He needed keep their attention away from his bloodied soles for as long as possible. "He escaped and killed the guards at the override station. He went that way!" he roared, pointing past the two guards and down the seemingly endless passage.
"Let's go!" said the previously-silent officer.
"No!" Mark rebuked, jerking his head towards the stretch of stone behind himself. "We need more numbers to handle all the prisoners who were let out of their cells. I'll keep chasing the prisoner; he can't hide from us forever."
The men considered his proposition, and he waited nervously for their reply, almost feeling the beads of sweat that were gathering just above his brow. At last, mercifully, one of them nodded to the other, and the pair jogged past him with guns at the ready.
His relief was short-lived. The sound of more guards pouring through the surrounding corridors was clear as crystal, and his convenient lie would only hold up as long as the entire prison remained ignorant, something that Mark knew would unravel in a matter of minutes.
"I guess it's time to pull out the stops…" he muttered, slipping a hand into his pocket and drawing out his Poké Ball. He took a final glance at his surroundings, checking that no officers were within range, before enlarging the ball and dropping it onto the stone at his feet.
A large hound appeared from the depths of the Poké Ball in a flash of white light, and the brief glow that remained caught on the bone-like ridges that ran up its back, marked between jet-black hairs. The Pokémon's long devil-tail whipped back and forth behind its slender body, and it raised a horned head to let out a soft howl, opening its vermillion snout to reveal rows of sharp, pointed teeth.
"Hawooooon!"
"Let's go, Houndoom," Mark grunted, setting off again through the labyrinthine prison and towards the storage chamber.
Progress was excruciating, and the further he ran, the more Mark came to understand exactly why this particular layout had been put in place. The corridors were like meat grinders, meant to expose any potential escapees and providing plenty of room for the guards to cut them down with a swift dosage of bullets. The corners were just as bad; each one was an invitation to throw oneself into another inescapable hallway, easy prey for captors.
"Just a little bit more…" he chanted, as though those five words were his personal mantra.
Mark was only two pathways short of his destination when misfortune struck. As he came around the corner, he smacked straight into a solitary guard who had been running across the intersection, and the pair fell backwards onto the ground. Unfortunately for Mark, the officer saw the Houndoom and instantly put two and two together. Instead of reaching for his weapon and shooting the prisoner, he descended upon the latter like a beast, wrestling him into the ground and holding him down.
"Not again…!" Mark hissed, flashing back to a similar predicament the previous night. Then, Emily had been able to save him from being strangled to death by his enormous opponent, but such luck wasn't on his side right now.
"INTRUDER!" the guard bellowed, his vast arms like bars of iron as they pushed down on Mark's chest. "THE INTRUDER IS HERE!"
"You bastard…" growled Mark, heaving upwards into the man's chest to try and launch him backwards, but the attacker was simply too strong and heavy. Resigned to the outcome, Mark gritted his teeth and spat into the guard's face.
The officer screamed as his eyes began to water and burn, his arms involuntarily shooting up to protect his face from another spray. Mark took full advantage, tucking his body inwards and shooting his legs forward like a piston. The strike caught the man squarely in the chest, and Mark gave a savage grin as he heard the miniscule, but unmistakeable, sound of ribs cracking under the impact.
As the guard fell to his knees and roared in agony, clutching his chest, Mark sprang up and wrapped an arm around his opponent's neck. In one fluid motion, he twisted the man's neck around and let him drop onto the floor with a dull thud. Barely a moment passed before he was on the move again with Houndoom in tow, and he counted his lucky stars when he made it to the iron double doors that marked the entrance to the storage room.
"Light her up!" Mark cheered, taking a quick step backwards as Houndoom positioned itself in front of the door.
Yellow embers dribbled from the corners of Houndoom's mouth, and it blasted a spiralling torrent of orange flame at the door. Within moments, the dull grey slabs of metal were red-hot and sizzling, but the Pokémon continued its fiery assault until the doors had been reduced to nothing more than molten puddles that spat and hissed as they oozed down through the floor. Mark strode proudly through the opening, giving the Fire-type a grateful scratch behind the horns, and gave the room a sweeping gaze.
"Let's try 'L'…" he thought aloud, half-jogging through the aisles upon aisles of metal shelves that held hundreds of cardboard boxes, each one filled with the belongings that each prisoner had on their person before being admitted. He quickly came across three aisles marked 'L', and walked down the one closest to where the door had been, scanning the inmate names on all the boxes.
About halfway down the aisle, he came to a stop and rubbed his hands together. In front of him, level with his eyes, was a blue box with the words 'Lear, Mark' scrawled across the front in black permanent marker. Wasting no time, he snatched the box up and placed it on the floor, throwing the lid away to see how much of his possessions had been left inside.
The box's only contents were his other five Poké Balls, jammed against one side of the box, and his tactical clothing. Mark wasn't surprised; it wasn't as though they were going to keep all of his tools and gadgets simply lying about in storage. The warden would no doubt have seen to it that they were destroyed, probably with an incinerator.
With no small amount of relief, Mark quickly disrobed and put on his old clothes, smiling on the inside as he enjoyed their snug, familiar feel. With Houndoom keeping a stern watch on the door, he tested the weight of each Poké Ball until he found the lightest one, and opened it with a flash of light. A small green spider popped out and clacked its red mandibles together, moving towards its Trainer on six yellow legs striped with black.
"Spinarak, go to the H aisle and bring back Emily's box," Mark told his Pokémon, who happily scuttled out of sight.
Suddenly, Houndoom broke out into a spate of loud barking, its eyes narrowed above its muzzle as it caught sight of a wave of officers advancing towards them from the far end of the tunnel. Mark whirled around, snapping his fingers once, and the Fire-type quickly trotted back to his side as he pulled a second Poké Ball from the box and tossed it forward.
The ball split open with a burst of sparkling light, but the Pokémon that appeared looked like something only dreamt of in science fiction. A small, embryonic creature sat floating in a shapely blob of green slime, two large arms of goo stretching out from what must have been its main body. Large beads of flesh were suspended inside the gelled arms, forming two dotted lines back to the Pokémon's core, and its pupil-less black eyes gave it the otherworldly look of some kind of horrible alien.
The first of the guards to see the Reuniclus almost stopped in his tracks; only the relentless pushing of his comrades behind kept him going forward. "Wh-what the hell is that thing?!" he gasped.
"Who cares?!" snarled the man now at the front of the pack, crouching down and shouldering his rifle as he aimed at the Pokémon. "Kill it!"
His disciplined teammates wasted no time as they lined up in formation, firing as quickly as their weapons would allow. The hail of bullets raced down the hallway, and only a few fell short or flew wide as round after round shot into Reuniclus before tearing through the other side. The Psychic-type was jerked about by the force of dozens, if not hundreds, of bullets as they sprayed through its body, until the cold stone beneath it was littered with tiny chunks of green gel.
A chorus of blunt clicks told the soldiers that their rifles had run out of ammunition, and they lowered their weapons to get a better view of the damage. Reuniclus had been almost torn apart by the assault; great holes littered its body, and one of its arms was lying discarded on the ground, slowly melting away like a blob of transparent butter and exposing the nodules inside.
The seconds ticked by in silence, but the Pokémon's almond-shaped eyes suddenly turned from deep black to bright red, and a hideous, wailing scream shattered the air like glass. As the men shrank back and hurried to reload their magazines, a powerful pulse of psychic energy tore over the ground and caused fragments of rock to fly up into their faces, throwing them all onto their backs. They quickly scrambled back to their feet, about to send another torrent of bullets into the stubborn Pokémon, but what they saw next made their blood run cold.
Small pieces of the Pokémon's natural gel, lying scattered on the ground around their master, began to quiver and jiggle as though they were alive. Reuniclus slowly blinked its deep eyes, and the shifting goo trickled back to reunite with the rest of its body, patching up the bullet holes and seamlessly repairing the rest. Even its arm, torn off by the iron volley, floated up to reattach itself to Reuniclus' midsection, and within moments the Pokémon was perfectly restored. Not a scratch or mark remained; it may as well have just been called out of its Poké Ball.
"Explosion," Mark ordered from his safe spot around the corner, just as he saw Spinarak's spindly body scuttle into view with a large, web-covered box dragging along behind it.
Reuniclus slowly hovered forwards, its gelatinous body pulsating as the orbs inside its arms lit up in sequence, from the tips of its hands to its bear-faced centre. The guards opened fire again, shredding slivers of jelly away from its strange figure as it crept towards them, but they were ultimately for naught as the Pokémon reformed itself over and over again. Their training had made them fearless and efficient, but that didn't stop three or four of the squad from turning tail and retreating in a hurried mess, the rest of their comrades cursing them for their cowardice and continuing to pump bullets into the beast.
As his Pokémon continued to advance, Mark quickly tore open the box and stuffed as much of its contents as he could into the many pockets lining his outfit. Reuniclus gave a deep, rumbling moan from down the corridor, and he threw himself at the ground with his hands over his head, knowing exactly what it meant.
KA-BOOM!
A gigantic hole was opened up in the prison's outer wall as Reuniclus detonated, sending waves of heat and fire racing through the narrow corridors. Guards were incinerated like woodchips as the inferno swept through the building, helpless to escape as the explosion decimated anything and everything in its path. Three floors above the epicentre, the ceiling cracked and caved in, raining stone and weapons onto the levels below, and a haze of grey smoke snaked its way outside as the frozen air was sucked inside like a vacuum.
Amidst the smoke and snow was a muted flash of light, followed shortly by a giant shadow looming up from within the darkness. An icy gust of wind blew away the curtain of grey to reveal a colossal blue golem highlighted with bronze, and riding victorious on its massive shoulders was Mark, grinning fiercely from ear to ear despite being plunged into the bracing cold.
"Golurk…!" he muttered, an arm wrapped around the top of his Pokémon's diminutive head. "Let's fly!"
"Gohhhh…" hummed the Automaton Pokémon. Its huge hands retracted into its wrists, and its legs withdrew into its torso, leaving the top half of its body floating awkwardly in mid-air for a moment or two, before three broad jets of fire erupted out of the newly-formed cavities. Golurk slowly rose higher and higher, gaining more speed with each second, until it was speeding towards the blackened heavens like a rocket launched into space.
The wind whipped at Mark's face and stung his squinting eyes, but he didn't want to miss seeing a moment as he turned his head to stare down at the world below. The prison, large and foreboding as it was, simply appeared as a dot to him amongst the endless plains of white. He found himself laughing harder than he'd ever laughed in his entire life, whooping with delight as the building became smaller and smaller beneath he and his Pokémon.
"So long, losers!" he bellowed, giving Chernaya Tochka one final, mocking salute before he vanished amongst the stars.
Dawn was approaching, tickling the sky with the first pink rays of sunlight for the day, as a large helicopter flew over the vast, flawless ocean. The sound of its twin rotors whirring away could be heard for miles and miles, but there were few islands dotting the stretch of blue below, and most of them were uninhabited anyway. The sight of such a piece of aircraft would probably frighten some of the locals, but their passengers didn't care whether they were seen and heard or not.
Former Galactic Commander Mars looked out one of the helicopter's windows, chin resting on her upturned palm as she stared vacantly off into the distance. She had been flying in this ungainly brick of steel for well over an hour, rushed through a tiny airport in the dead of night to clamber aboard and be strapped to her chair as though she was still a prisoner.
It had been a sleepless night and day for her and her fellow fugitives. After being freed by their mysterious green-haired saviour, they had been whisked away south of the Russian border, flitting from country to country so many times that she had lost track of where they were, where they had been, or even where their next stop was going to be. Now, it seemed, they were close enough to their destination, and far enough away from the authorities, that it was safe to use a military-level vehicle as their transport.
"I don't like this…" Jupiter muttered into her ear, fastened to the seat next to hers.
Mars turned away from the window and peered towards the front of the helicopter. Shane and Saturn were seated in a pair of chairs in the row in front of them, and they were chatting away between themselves, so she focused her attention on Jupiter.
"Neither do I," she said, "but we have to put up with it… at least for now."
"You think we can trust this guy?" pressed Jupiter, her bob of purple hair bouncing around as she leaned in further.
"Of course not…!" Mars snorted, folding her slender arms. "If he could break into that—place—" she shivered in her seat just thinking about the prison, "and pull all three of us out in the blink of an eye, he's not gonna be the kind of guy who just lets us leave when our job is done."
Jupiter nodded, seeing the sense in her words. "I wonder what the job he wants us to do actually is," she pondered aloud, casting an eye at the back of Shane's head. A thought occurred that made her take a sharp breath. "You think it has something to do with Cyrus?"
"It's pretty likely," replied Mars darkly, scowling at Shane from under her spiked fringe of flaming hair. "Why else would he need us?"
"Don't worry yourselves with that," Shane piped up, tilting his head back to look at the pair out of the corner of his eye. The two women jumped in fright, and he sneered. "My superiors told me to 'hire' the three of you for a specific, easy task… let's call it appropriation."
"By appropriation, you really mean theft," surmised Saturn, his eyes narrowed dangerously at the man.
Shane chuckled. "Yes, I mean theft," he confirmed, with a gentle wave of the hand. His eyes slid over to look out the window, and he straightened up from his slouched position as he saw streaks of green and brown outside. "Ah, it looks like we're here!" he said happily.
"Sirs and madams, we have reached our destination," chimed the pilot, a little unnecessarily, and the helicopter juddered as it landed on solid ground, the sound of the engines and rotors quickly fading away.
Shane was already untethering himself from his seat by the time the aircraft was silent, walking towards the door. With a brief shove, the metal door slid open to reveal a lush, seaside field on top of a large hill. The sound of ocean waves crashing against rock filled the air with a soft, rocking rhythm, and a gust of air reached into the cockpit with salty fingers.
"Pop quiz," said Shane, turning to the Commanders with a sly grin. "Anybody know where we are?"
Saturn was the first out of his seat, touching down on the grassy plateau and looking out at the landscape. "Not a clue," he muttered after a few seconds.
"Me neither," said Jupiter, with an unhelpful shrug of the shoulders as she, too, exited the helicopter.
"I know where we are," Mars muttered.
She rose to her feet and strode past Shane, hopping down to stand near Saturn, but she turned away from his seafaring gaze and pointed inland. Nestled between a semicircle of high, tree-covered mountains was a harbour town filled with houses crafted from wood and stone, sitting peacefully between the glittering blue water and the mountains' shade.
"Shamouti Island."
"Very good, Mars!" Shane cheered, with the condescending tone of voice that a teacher would use to a slow-witted student. "As I said before, I hired you three—" he ran his moss-coloured eyes over her, Jupiter and Saturn in turn, "for a very specific task… a task that requires three people."
"Is that so…?" Saturn grunted, still facing the ocean. He could see three small islands lined up in a row a long way out to sea, all with high peaks rising up in their centres.
"Now, we have a lot of work to do," Shane continued. He joined his new teammates on Shamouti's grassy slopes, slamming the door shut behind him, and the helicopter roared back into life, taking off without a moment wasted.
The four Trainers watched the helicopter soar away, disappearing behind the ring of mountains surrounding the town below, and Shane turned towards the three islands that had apparently captured Saturn's fascination, his eyes glinting with a mixture of excitement and resolve.
"So… shall we get started?"
Deepest apologies, my dear readers. It seems I'm having a lot of trouble sticking to schedules... sigh, sigh, woe and woe. Weddings, the hunt for a new computer and many, many days of work have gotten between this and myself, but still. Sorry.
But! I wasn't kidding when I said certain things would get rolling more quickly than in the previous version, was I? This chapter's, what, 40-odd early, I think! And what's more... we've capped 100,000 words! WOO~
Thanks to everybody who reviewed the last chapter, or any of the previous chapters! In particular, thanks to M3W and Grimm182 for multiple reviews. I really can't express how humble and thankful I am for all the feedback, everybody. Also, with the new changes to the site since the last time I updated, I think they're going to be called "comments" now, so maybe the review board is now a comment board? If so, by all means leave your comments!
Now that you've got no excuse to not lend your feedback, why not send me some right now? There's that fantastic button at the bottom of the page!
It's time for that big announcement I told you about at the end of last chapter! I now have a YouTube channel! It wil take care of my numerous non-story-related interests. You can find me under the username "Ozzifer92", and I've already planted the seeds of a Pokémon Let's Play, which you can see right now! I certainly hope that fans of this story will also be fans of my other content, so please head over to the channel and like, subscribe, comment and whatever, haha.
Stay tuned for the next chapter, keep up the good work and, as always...
Go for gold!