Chapter 5

Considering that it would be dangerous to spend the night in the desert, especially alone, Michael rode all night long in order to reach Phenac city. In the early hours of morning, when the sun had just began to rise, and he could still see the moon, the town was a marvel of construction. Every stone and brick fit perfectly into the architecture of the city. Shining under the moonlight was especially inspiring.

Admiring the view was the last of his worries though. The local Pokemon center was closed, and when he checked for hotels, found them to all be closed down as well. It was a mystery. Luckily for him a kind older man allowed him to rest at his home in exchange for some conversation (don't try this in real life kids). The poor old guy was more than a little lonely.

Michael was extremely grateful to the old man for allowing him to rest his tired body and mind.

When he woke up again the old man was gone, probably off running some errand or another, and Michael was left alone. He got up, and started rifling through his travel bag. Only there was one problem. His bag was not where he left it. Damn did that guy steal my stuff? Why would he do that? It's not like I have anything.

Michael did his best to keep calm. He stood up and stretched the sleep out of his muscles. Then, he put his shoes back on and left the house. Outside the sun told him it was about noon, and people were out and about.

There were couples loitering about, and even a few trainers who looked to be discussing Pokemon. Though nowhere to be seen was the older man. He asked around the town but nobody seemed to know anything about the man. Finally fed up with it, Michael went to the mayor's house to complain, seeing as there was not a police force in Phenac city.

As he approached to knock on the door, he could hear some voices inside, and decided to hang around and listen in. The sound was muffled but understandable.

"This whole occupation thing is starting to get terribly drab. Pretending to be citizens of the town is downright horrible. Why did we have to get stuck under Snattle's command? This is the worst for us all." Michael could hear a very feminine voice.

"Yes, yes you have the worst job. You have to sit here and be official while everybody else gets to have fun acting. Anyway I got a cool thing today. Some kid showed up at my house near the crack of dawn, and of course being the good citizen I am, I let him. While he was sleeping I 'took care' of his supplies, in fact I have them right here," Michael heard a small shuffling sound, "but there wasn't much of value, just some traveling supplies, but the real find was that the kid had pokeballs. You know how rare they are so I did take them." It was the voice of the old man, but it sounded quite a bit younger.

Michael's eye's narrowed. He was beginning to piece together what was going on. He hadn't undressed or anything, so he still happened to have his Pokemon on him. Quietly as he could, and doing his best to not attract attention of the other town members, whom he also suspected, Michael released both his teddiursa and espeon he held up his hand in a shushing movement in order to signal to them not to make noise.

Then he whispered to his espeon, "use confusion, and bust the door in."

His loyal and faithful espeon followed his command without question. The air around the thick wooden door began to bend, and warp. Espeon was twisting the very space around the door with her power. He had difficulty watching, as the distortion was bothering his eyes, making them water up. He could see, though, that the bending of the air was consolidating at one point.

Instantly and in an unexpected display of power, the distortion disappeared. Suddenly the door exploded inward with the force of a ryhorn's take down attack. The whole world turned into chaos as Michael charged in guns blazing, teddiursa and espeon followed suit. In front of him stood two very confused people who were recovering quickly.

Then the woman said to the man, "run upstairs and grab the thing!"

The man, his true target ran, yet he couldn't focus on him yet.

Michael shouted, "espeon!" immediately the woman doubled over unconscious. The other man would have had time to prepare a Pokemon, so Michael quickly grabbed his bag which was lying on the floor. Rifling through until he found a pokeball, he loaded it into the snag machine's glove. Then, as he was running upstairs, he tapped on his headgear allowing the small glass screen for detecting shadow Pokemon to slide into place over his left eye.

His anticipation of the man was correct, a murkrow and seviper stood at the ready, or rather, the murkrow hovered. He had had espeon go in front just in case this situation happened. Her defense was powerful, even if she had a weakness to the murkrow. Two attacks came at his espeon, both of them hit, but she stood her ground enough for teddiursa to sweep in and knock the murkrow back.

Any command issued by his foe blurred into the background. It didn't matter though as his murkrow was held down by teddiursa and espeon had dealt with seviper. The man dropped a letter when Michael grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall.

"Tell me who you are. Are you a member of Cipher? You don't have to answer, but if you do I may take it easy on you." Michael forced his right hand onto the mans throat.

"I am a member of Cipher. What are you going to do? Everybody in Phenac city is a member of Cipher not a single person living as a resident is actually a citizen." the man was turning blue at that point. Michael didn't let go until he was unconscious.

There was something peculiar attached to his belt, and when Michael removed it, the uniform of a Cipher member was revealed. The object in question was about half the size of his hand and a silvery plastic color. To him the various colors, and buttons was more than a little bit confusing. Instead of investigating this obvious piece of technology, Michael decided to head back down stairs, but not before grabbing the letter the now unconscious man had been holding.

Once on the first floor of the building again, Michael placed the object into his bag and slipped it on. Only then did he open the letter, which was more of a note.

The residents have finally all been completely relocated to the gym basement. The procedure of replacing the entire town with Cipher members has been complete. Keep up the good work and you will be rewarded. Don't get found out, and if you do, you had better wish they kill you.

-Admin Snattle

It appeared that Michael's assumptions were almost entirely correct. Cipher had been slowly replacing the members of Phenac city, and hiding them in the basement of the town's gym.

Before anything happened, Michael knew he would have to stop the problem. The people who had been in the basement the longest were probably extremely uncomfortable. They were forced into prison like conditions and probably under constant surveillance.

Michael stepped out the door, or rather, archway, and quickly made his way a good distance from the mayor's house. His goal was to get to the gym while battling the least amount of people. Considering that the mayor's house was on the edge of town, and somewhat separated, he didn't think it likely for any of the other Cipher members to have heard him.

Just in case though, he recalled both of his Pokemon, and did his best to act casually. The gym was in the center of town, so there would be a thicker concentration of his enemies.

Thankfully, Michael was in luck as he was not assaulted by a single person, even though he passed by a number of people. The process was nerve wracking. He knew that he was in constant danger, yet was relatively safe. As long as he kept up appearances he knew for a fact that he would be safe. The Cipher members would not dare to risk compromising he mission unless he went first. That was the old man's fatal mistake. The old man acted, probably, against orders by interfering with him, and now Michael knew the poor guy was in for it.

Everywhere he went, it seemed that Michael ruined the lives of the Cipher members, starting with Lovrina, and by causation, Naps. Michael still, even quite some time later, shuddered at the thought of what Lovrina did to Naps. It was probably torture. Somewhere along the lines of much physical beating, perhaps the same thing he went through in the alley, but multiplied.

Eventually, Michael made it to the center of town where the gym was. Of course the gym was just a historic piece that had been renovated to fit the times. The Orre region had lost contact with the Pokemon league some years before. Trainers didn't often come to Orre in search of a journey. After all there wasn't much in the way to do. The few trainers that did visit the region were hardcore. They were the trainers worthy enough to compete in league battles and they came for the various battle resorts hosted in the far reached of the region.

The sliding doors of the gym opened when they detected his presence, giving him access to the interior of the building. Standing inside, on a painted battle field were two trainers discussing something. What they were talking about, he did not know, and also did not care. They were just members of Cipher he needed to defeat in order to free the towns citizens. He didn't know how to get to the gym's basement, because there was no obvious entrance but he would figure it out.

His first order of business would be to battle the two Cipher members. They were the largest obstacle currently in his path, and he wasn't going to stop until they were both gone.

Michael walked up the small set of steps leading to the field of battle.

"Hey I know who you are, now come battle me so I can free the citizens." As usual, Michael ran in without much thought. He always relied on his power as a trainer to win, because it was a rare occurrence for him to lose. Most of the Cipher members didn't have very strong Pokemon either. Usually the only ones that caused him any trouble whatsoever were the admins (Of which he had faced only one), and their seconds (also one).

Naps was not a particularly tough opponent, but definitely much more so than the common rabble. Lovrina herself was a skilled trainer in her own right, coupled with is attraction to her it was a deadly combination.

The two people started in shock. Michael saw the look of unspoken communication, before he was thrown to the ground as yet again, one of his quarry escaped. The one left was a pretty, young looking girl, but that was of course, a ruse. Michael assumed that the small device I had "found" was the cause of the shift in shape.

"Are you ready stranger? I'm going to stop you here, and just in case I sent my counter part to warn the boss." the woman had a very conceited look about her. Quickly she sent out her Pokemon one of which his headset recognized as a shadow roselia. It didn't appear that the woman was aware of what his snag machine was, as normally a trainer aware of his ability to steal already owned Pokemon were very defensive. The snag machine could, after all, capture more than just shadow Pokemon.

Capturing none shadow Pokemon was not his goal though. Quickly as he could, Michael activated his machine, and the charged pokeball, whose safety had been overridden came out of the gloved portion of his machine. He saw the Cipher member's eyes widen as she realized what was now happening. It was too late for her to react though. With the practiced aim of a veteran trainer, Michael sent the snag ball as the professor had named them, flying towards the roselia.

Considering the nature of snag balls and how the machine modifies the pokeball, there was no struggle of catching a trainer owned pokeball like catching wild Pokemon. Once he got the roselia in his ball it was over, and he owned yet another shadow Pokemon.

Anger, and frustration, and loss clouded this foe's eyes. Michael decided to finish the battle then. He hadn't even sent out a Pokemon yet, but now, he released his spinarak from its pokeball. The small spider Pokemon let out a shriek that was definitely not equal to its size. The fierce emotionless, of his Pokemon never failed to gift him with unease. It was a result of the torture of making them into shadow Pokemon.

While Michael could rehabilitate the shadow Pokemon they probably would not be the same, considering that for an indefinite amount of time they were turned into machines of battle.

"Spinarak bug bite," Michael commanded.

His Pokemon complied and his opponent's last Pokemon, a sunflora, was taken out of battle. None of his none shadow Pokemon would be able to do that. Shadow Pokemon were exceptionally powerful. Normal Pokemon could not compare in battle, strength wise, but there came some drawbacks. A shadow Pokemon was not very free thinking. Sometimes they wouldn't listen to their trainer, or of course, become very temperamental. Until his spinarak was rehabilitated, it would be very powerful, yet challenging to handle.

The same would go for his new roselia. Michael would do his best to fix the wrongs done to the Pokemon.

Once the woman was defeated, he didn't bother with dealing with her, and let her run away. He had to deal with figuring out how to free the citizens. Michael looked around the gym until he found what looked like a control panel. There was a small section labeled [elevator]. There was an issue though. A key hole. Very surprising considering the technology they could have.

Michael assumed that the man who had run off was the owner of the elevator key. He knew that finding him would be another challenge in this city. The Cipher members could disguise themselves as anybody with their small devices. The search would be extensive, and Michael was likely to do what he always did. He would smash through every fake citizen until he found the key.

A/N: I've been riding on a motor coach so I have so much time to write. Anyway here is another chapter for you all.