Chapter Sixteen
The moment Admin Fisher heard the low, menacing growl of the gatling gun, like a lioness preparing to pounce, Fisher darted through the smoke into a hallway and blindly fired through the opening. The Rockets nearest him followed hot on his heels, while those farther away darted down their own passages. Four Knights lay on the floor in a growing pool of blood. One, grabbing at his left leg, pointed a pistol with his other hand. Fisher put a bullet through his brain. Then the Admin shot the other three corpses in the head.
"How many?" he asked.
"Six here," the nearest Grunt told him. I think the others made it, but we're separated."
Fisher looked sourly back at the smoke-filled hallway. He poked his gun out into the smoke and waved it around. Within two seconds, a stream of bullets rocketed down the corridor.
"Motion sensitive," he muttered. "Sonar based, since the smoke's killing optics." Then he barked over the radio, "Does anyone have a sonar blanket?"
"I brought one," one Grunt answered, "But it's only large enough for one."
"Are you with me?"
"No, I'm alone sir." His voice quavered slightly. "Chris is dead. I got the bastards with a frag."
"Alright. See if the blanket works on the gun, then find us. We're further down on the left. Listen for three taps on the wall. The rest of you, hold your positions. I'll come get you once I disable the gun."
Once he gave the order, Fisher periodically rapped groups of three against the metal wall, far enough from the smoke to avoid triggering the sonar. A minute later, a shrouded figure emerged from the smoke. The Grunt, hidden beneath a coarse, lumpy cotton sheet, gave Fisher a salute.
"Give it here," he said, holding out his hand. The Grunt handed him the sonar blanket. Then Fisher, tightly wrapping the blanket around himself, slipped into the smoke. Restraining the urge to lean on the walls, and in doing so expose himself to view in the side halls, he stumbled blindly in the center. He held his breath, and the farther along he got, the more he felt tempted to risk the clean air of another hallway.
Then, through the cloth, he noticed the smoke was growing thinner. Up ahead, he could make out the silhouette of the gatling gun, a steel behemoth six feet in length, with a rotating barrel a foot wide. On the left, in thick cardboard boxes, were rugged rubber belts crammed with large caliber bullets, and on its right were piles of discarded shells, those on top still smoking from gunpowder discharge.
Four Knights stood guard with their backs turned towards him. Two others tended to the gun, wrenching belt ends from the boxes and oiling the gun's rotating parts. Though their eyes were bent towards their respective tasks, Fisher strangled the urge to rush forward and instead tiptoed through the last creeping remnants of the smoke. Then, when he was within talking distance of the nearest man, he grabbed a pokéball and lobbed it from underneath his cloak.
An Aggron lumbered forward. It glanced around the hall, scraping its one good horn against the ceiling and blinking at the metal scrapings that floated onto its sky-blue, lustrous eyes. All that remained of its other horn, blown off by a tank shell, was a jagged chip the size of an apple.
At the utterance of a single word, "Smash," the creature roared and brought one of its arms, thicker than an oak's trunk, down on the barrel. The barrel squealed as it buckled in half. Gears clicked and hissed as it attempted in vain to spin and fire. One Knight, who was loading a fresh roll of bullets, had his arms crushed into the metal. The other was thrown against a wall by the Aggron's tail and slumped down, gazing in fear at arms and legs that wouldn't move.
The four Knights each called out their own Pokémon, which pummeled his Aggron with punches and wads of dirt. A Machamp wound back two of its fists, aiming a pair of punches at the Aggron's jaws. Fisher took out a thick, unwieldy high-caliber pistol, steadied his arms, and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked like a Mudsdale and roared like a thunderclap. The bullet slammed into the Machamp's gut, and it fell to the floor. Blood spurted from the wound, spraying the Aggron and the ceiling with a shower of red specks.
With numb hands, Fisher fumbled another bullet into the pistol and aimed it at a Swampert, but his Aggron dashed its brains out with a clenched metal fist. Instead, he trained his gun on a man pointing his gun at him. The bullet flew wide of his mark, hitting the Knight in the right shoulder, but the high-caliber round blew out the bone, leaving that arm a lifeless lump. The gun slipped from his fingers, and he fell to the floor, trailing a bloody smear on the wall.
Fisher's right hand, which twitched from the repeated shock, let the pistol fall. Fisher grabbed his assault rifle with his left and fired the weapon in a wide, sloppy arc. His Aggron didn't notice the bullets glancing off its metal hide, but stray rounds caught a second Knight in the knee, a third in the chest, and a Hariyama in one hand. The burly Pokémon roared in pain and pulled its hand back. Fisher's Aggron lunged forward and sank its steel razor fangs into the Hariyama's head, biting down until its skull split open like a melon.
Fisher looked around for the rest of the Knights and the last Pokémon, but they were already dead. He found a Poliwrath impaled on the aggron's horn, one Knight stomped flat beneath its foot, and a second with his head smashed to pulp.
The Aggron looked around the hall. It took one step forward and fell to the floor, gasping for breath. The metal hide on its chest was cracked in six places, and blood trickled out of them. Its jaw was dented, and its eyes stared blankly at the floor in front of its face.
Fisher called back the Aggron. Then he said into the radio, "Gun's down. Everyone, to me. Avoid the sides."
Nine Grunts remained of the thirteen he had entered with. After a quick roll call he soured at a notable absence.
"Damn it," he muttered, "Fucking rookie got him killed." Then he raised his gun and pointed down the hall.
"They'll be expecting us, and they'll have more fun surprises for us," he growled. "Stay sharp, stick to cover, and don't die without taking at least ten Knights with you. Got it?"
"Yes sir!" thundered a chorus of voices over the radio.
"Good. We better move before they have time to reorganize."
With that, Fisher sprinted down the hallway, and his men followed after. At each turn, Fisher rolled into the open space, gun trained at the unknown territory until he came up on his feet. Though he moved quickly, he kept track of every camera he saw, disarmed trip wires and claymores laid in the path, and memorized every spot of cover for a retreat. Halfway through the building, he posted two Grunts to watch the rear, and he had the rest call out their Pokémon.
"It won't be long now," he said. "Stay sharp."
With a Golem in the vanguard, Fisher and the seven Grunts advanced cautiously, investigating the three diverging hallways they found and disabling all electronics they saw.
Then they found the firing ground. Their hallway, along with two dozen others, led into a bare, open room. Fisher stopped the group well short of the room and ordered them on high alert.
"Cobalt, you have the scout?" he whispered.
In answer, the Grunt called out a Kecleon. The Grunt also took out jars of grey paint, held them up against the metal wall, and picked one that closely resembled the steel. She slathered thick dollops of the paint over the lizard's bright red stripe, leaving a vague gray splotch in its place. Then she stuck a tiny camera onto its forehead and told it to sneak out into the open.
The Kecleon vanished into the floor and silently padded into the room. The Grunt turned on a monitor, which displayed the video feed from the Kecleon's camera. As its head swiveled to survey the room, Fisher saw the second story.
On a balcony that surrounded the outer wall, thick metal barriers offered cover for the gunmen and Pokémon perched above the halls. A string of lasers hanging underneath were pointed at each opening, triggers for alarms or traps. Four Weezing patrolled the upper walls, each accompanied by a mask-wearing Knight and a Zangoose. One Zangoose scowled at the spot where the Kecleon stood, and the camera trembled beneath the gaze.
With a light shock from the camera, the Grunt signaled the Kecleon to return. The lizard stealthily crept back into the hall, darting between the lasers that sealed the entrance.
All told, there were fifty Knights, twice as many Pokémon, and unseen reinforcements waiting to pounce, against a fifth of that number.
Admin Fisher took a deep breath and reviewed the footage of the room. Then he asked around for a Crobat or a Gengar. Two Crobat were offered up, and Fisher took them both. With orders from him, the two bats darted out into the room, darted up to the second floor, and emitted a low, nausea-inducing rumble from their cavernous mouths.
The four weezing, addled by the resonant sound frequencies, went on a rampage, spewing gas everywhere and tackling anything they saw. Then, one by one, they detonated with the force of a TNT brick. The balcony, shaken by the four explosions, creaked and buckled. The screws, bolts, and welding holding it to the upper floor cracked one by one. The balcony lurched, tottered, and fell to the lower floor with a tumultuous crash.
Only one Crobat made it back through the chaos. The other, pinned beneath the wreckage, screamed and fluttered its one good wing. Most of the Knights' Pokémon were trapped as well, strangled by the toxins in the air, but many Knights leapt off the balcony and landed in the center of the room. Protected by their masks, they took advantage of the gas flooding the room to seek cover, while the Rockets stormed past the lasers, picked their own cover, and shot at any Knights disoriented by the explosions.
Thirty Knights and one Grunt fell within the first frantic minute of the fight. Anguished cries rose from a pile of corpses in the center of the room, and maimed bodies struggled towards safety, leaving trails of blood behind them. Their open wounds, taking in the airborne toxins, turned a nauseating shade of green and oozed thick, gray drops of flesh.
Fisher swore at the toxic cloud pervading the room. Then, relaying orders to his men, he had his firing line widened and any Pokémon that could withstand the poison released. The five Pokémon charged. Two were gunned down, but the other three vaulted over the cover and laid into the Knights. Following the opening, Fisher and his Grunts flanked the Knights, shooting them as they struggled against the Pokémon.
After another minute, the room fell silent. A Toxicroak and a Grunt lay dead in exchange for the remaining twenty Knights. The poison, making swift work of the wounded, settled over the battlefield. The corpses rotted with alacrity, gray fleshy porridge dripping from charred black bones. Fisher stepped back from the reeking mess to examine the rest of his team, fiveGrunts gasping for breath and looking anxiously at the corpses of their comrades.
Fisher noticed one hallway unlike the rest, much wider and unguarded, leading into the heart of the building. He pointed towards it and told his remaining companions, "Let's go. We still have work to do."
Changelog
9/4/18 - minor edits. Note: I'm kinda getting tired of coming up with twenty different ways of saying "I only tweaked it a little", so I'll be sticking with 'minor edits' if I don't do any major scene/continuity changes, m'kay?