Chapter 44 - Blow
Ginger took a step forward, his hand on his holster. "Harding. Do I even need to ask ye to stop the storm?"
Zachary shrugged. "You could, and I won't. Satisfied?"
"I'll take that as a no," Ginger replied calmly, one hand drawing his pistol and the other signalling us to do the same. "As planned, Inkblots!"
My comrades sprang into action immediately, releasing a pokemon each. I barely managed to obey my orders.
The four pokemon there were not unfamiliar to me, since both of their trainers were right there with us. Zachary's ludicolo and rotom were standing near the mouth of the tunnel, facing outwards, while the pair of bronzong adjacent to them were unquestionably Moira's. In the event that we ran into Zachary, the plan had been for me to take out anyone else there.
Activating my gauntlets, I went for Moira Hew, trying my best to ignore the knot in my stomach. Moving faster than I'd thought her capable of, she charged towards me, drawing a collapsible impact baton. I hesitated again, and she took the chance to get within striking range.
"Stop this, Moira!" I shouted, as the baton missed my head by a hair. "I don't want to hurt you, but I will!"
Her only response was a grunt and a surprisingly fast spinning kick directed at my head. Ducking under it, I swiped at her stomach with a charged fist, hitting home with sparkling electricity. Off-balance, she fell-
-only to regain her balance as two more legs sprouted out of her back, bracing her against the fall.
"The fuck?!" I gaped, as her torso twisted up and out. Her first pair of legs rapidly shrank back into her body, and the thing that clearly was not Moira Hew straightened itself up, brandishing a baton. "Code Blue!"
"We figured!" came Ginger's shouted reply. "Hit to kill!"
Cursing, I jumped out of the way as the thing's arm swung past me, an entire meter longer than it should have been. Its baton crashed into the tunnel wall, cracking solid rock as if it had been glass. Reflexively, I punched at the unnaturally extended limb, my fist going cleanly through it with a shower of sparks.
Hissing, the thing reared back, the stump where its arm had been charred and smoking. I dashed for it, going for its head with a left hook that-
-struck thin air as its head neatly flopped over backwards as though its neck was a hinge. The dislocated head abruptly snapped up and struck my forearm, looking strangely gllassy even as it seemed to melt. In a heartbeat, it reformed itself into a gelatinous mass that wrapped around my fist like a hungry grimer.
"Fuck!" I pulled back against it, but only succeeded in pulling the entire creature towards me. Ribbons of smoke were unfurling from where it had me, and more jelly was flowing upwards around it.
Desperately, I sank a sucker punch into the thing's stomach, the tasers built into my gauntlet discharging at full capacity upon impact. The thing let out an earsplitting shriek as it took the blow, turning vaguely translucent as electricity surged through its body, its grip loosening abruptly.
Staggering as its surprisingly lightweight bulk collapsed against me, I fell onto my back. Before my eyes, it was falling apart, massive wounds opening up all over its body. Gouts of pink slime spurted out of the wounds, and a hollow-sounding rattle echoed around me just as it collapsed in on itself.
Scrambling to my feet, I saw wisps of smoke emerging from where the oozing mass dripped off my armour. With the slime gone, the alloy looked shiny, almost as if I'd just polished it-
Realisation hit home like a train wreck.
I must have nearly given my neck whiplash damage as my head snapped up to look at 'Zachary'. Sure enough, it was singlehandedly engaging all three of my fellow commandos in combat, but it hadn't bothered to remain humanoid as 'Moira' had. Ginger, Lizard, and Balrog, were busy fighting what looked like a machamp, but whose head was little more than a nozzle of some sort that was spewing streams of smoking liquid at them.
I ran towards them. Balrog saw me approaching, and sidestepped a punch from the hulking beast. "Go for the ludicolo!"
"Got it!" I snapped in reply, drawing my knife and spinning on my heel to face the four pokemon.
Sometime during the fight, Balrog had released two of his team to handle the pokemon on-site, as per the plan. Courtney was grappling with a bizarre mass that could have been the rotom from earlier, and Gandalf was ramming against a Reflect which one of the bronzong had thrown up between them.
Forcefully sheathing my knife, I released Silas. "Aurora Beam, bronzong!"
He instantly obeyed, the beam of multicoloured energy lancing out from between his outer shells and shattering the Reflect. Gandalf fell forward, rolling underneath the bronzong with a grunt.
Almost instantly, the psychic's red eyes flashed, and the flailing piloswine was sent flying in my direction. I rolled out of its way, but it hit Silas, sending of them to the ground in a heap.
"Keep the bronzong busy!" I ordered Silas, as he threw Gandalf off by opening his outer shell. "Chill it and move on to the other one!"
"That's no bronzong!" he cried as I rolled under the rapidly-shifting mass that had been a bronzong.
"Ice Shard and Icicle Spear!" I didn't bother looking back as I dashed up to the ludicolo, whose back was to me. My knife left its sheath, there was a sound like a thunderclap, and the tunnel shook, throwing me off my feet. The mass of slime that had impersonated a bronzong fell to the ground, the remnants of Silas' icicles still embedded in it.
Jumping to my feet, I thrust my knife forward. The ludicolo turned around just in time to get nearly a foot of metal through its face.
As expected, the face merely melted and sucked my arm in like living quicksand.
"Silas, Gandalf!" I yelled, swinging my arm around and putting the creature in their line of fire. "Freeze it!"
The squirming mass almost managed to detach itself from my arm before the ice attacks hit it. It frosted over, falling to the ground and cracking open like an overripe fruit. More pink slime spewed out from its frozen remnants.
"Nicely done!" Ginger bellowed. "Get the last one!"
It took me all of a second to get what he meant. Around us, five puddles of pink slime were slowly spreading all over the floor, and I could see streaks of purple where Stryker had spat venom into them. Courtney and Stryker were heaped together, not moving. Over at the tunnel mouth, the last ditto had taken on the form of volcarona, despite the raging storm outside, and had turned to face us.
"Holy-" cried Lizard, as we dropped to the ground, avoiding the streamer of flame it sent our way. "Evelyn, hose it!"
The Hydro Pump collided with the Flamethrower in mid-air, filling the tunnel with steam. On the ground, we crawled towards the ditto, Ginger gesturing for us to blast it out of the cave.
"Now!"
Evelyn feinted out of the fire's way as we opened fire on the ditto. Our bullets all but passed through it, the jellylike creature spasming as it was thrown towards the tunnel's mouth. Silas and Gandalf, competent to a fault, didn't hesitate to fire a few Ice Shards at it, the mostly-melted projectiles sending the shape-shifter flying out into the open air.
"Not good!" yelled Balrog, as we leaped to our feet, pointing out what we'd already seen.
We had succeeded in killing the six ditto apparently charged with controlling the storm, but the last one had managed one last attack before it died. It hadn't directed the attack at us, though. From the tunnel mouth, we saw it all unfold through the dissipating storm.
All we could do was watch as the ditto's Hurricane attack gained momentum despite its user's death. Had the ditto survived, it would have been a waterlogged tornado heading for the armada, but thanks to us, there was now a seething pillar of water standing almost as tall as Sootopolis itself, a stone's throw from the retreating ships.
The ships broke formation like an opening fist, even as the water column collapsed. Waves swallowed up the smaller craft, and an aircraft carrier capsized before our eyes. Flashes of light beneath the water's surface showed us where chinchou and lanturn were discharging fatal electric attacks. Craft lacking proper insulation on their hulls were blasted apart, their armament fuelling the explosions further.
"Sweet Arceus," whispered Ginger, as the bow of Grand Admiral Aegis' flagship slid beneath the roiling water's surface. "The fleet..."
"There's some survivors," Balrog said, his voice unsteady. "But if Aegis is dead, then that means Treacher's in charge now."
Ginger laughed. "In charge of what? Half his foecking aircraft got buggered during the storm, so to Hell with that!
"Foeck it, none of our plans covered this shite. We'd be going for escape and extraction."
Nodding, we turned around, and saw just how our pokemon had remained so quiet during the armada's demise - Silas, Gandalf, and Evelyn were all being held immobile by an alakazam.
"Stay still and no one gets hurt," it snarled, a spiritomb flashing into existence behind it. "I mean it!"
Too late.
Mac and Slappy were already out, and the alakazam merely gurgled as one of Mac's hands flew right through its head. The psychic fell to the ground, dark fluid oozing out of its ears, even as the three pokemon it had been holding were released. Slappy was cackling madly as he barraged the spiritomb with ghostly fireballs, lighting it up from within like a demonic lantern.
Cackling madly as it glowed, the spiritomb blasted him in the face with a Dark Pulse, sending him tumbling head over heels into Ginger. A recovered Gandalf charged at it, only to get a dose of the ghost's own fireballs.
"Silas, poison it!" I snapped, as Balrog recalled his two pokemon. "Then skewer it!"
The spiritomb wheeled about, but Silas' Toxic still nailed it, along with the icicles which followed. It slid back as the Icicle Spears hit home, each successive shot pushing it further from us and causing it to flicker like a candle's flame.
Lizard released Ludwig, who hissed upon seeing the spiritomb, before directing a Flamethrower at it. The ghost neatly disappeared before the fiery attack could wash over it, though.
"Shite, we've got to move!" Ginger groaned. "All pokemon back in their pokeballs, and we'll have to make it for the coast! Back the way we came!"
Recalling our pokemon, we rushed back out to the ramshackle corridors hanging above Sootopolis. Far below us, the floods were clearly subsiding, and above the din, we could hear the unmistakable roar of approaching aircraft.
"Got to be Treacher!" cried Balrog as the aircraft drew closer. "Running out of time!"
"Shut up!" yelled Lizard, uncharacteristically loud. "We all-"
He never finished his sentence as the explosive trap he'd set off detonated, blowing apart the floor beneath his feet. The force of the explosion threw us down the corridor and blasted us with wooden debris, even as Lizard fell.
"Lizard!" Ginger screamed. "LIZARD!"
Balrog and I had been thrown a little further down the corridor than he had been, and we saw him get to his feet just as a spiritomb materialised between us and him. He whirled about to face the ghost, who shrieked with laughter as it sent him tumbling into the hole with a psychic attack. There was a flash of light through the hole, and Slappy suddenly appeared behind the spiritomb, Ginger holding his arm.
A long, rusted needle appeared in his hands, and he drove it into the spiritomb's swirling mass, cutting its laughter short.
We barely managed to catch our breath, before the spiritomb exploded, sending us all into a free fall.
For a moment, the world around me seemed to slow down. I saw the fragments of the wall-building raining down around us, along with chunks of rock the explosion had knocked loose from the volcano's wall. Far above us, the volcano's cone opened to the sky, where I could see what looked like birds flying in formation.
Treacher.
My fall was halted abruptly as I landed on what felt like a safety net, which promptly folded in around me and whisked me sideways-
-and sent me tumbling into a living room, of all places. A very familiar living room.
"Good job, Ben," said Zachary, looking every bit as haggard as the ditto had made him out to be. "Now-"
I released Silas and Newton before he could finish. Ben teleported his way past Silas' attacks, but got hit by one of Newton's Ice Beams. Zachary found himself pinned down on the floor, and fuck, he was harder to keep down than a bloody arbok.
He grunted in pain as I sucker punched him, and retaliated by grabbing my neck. With a shove, he slammed my head into the wall, and slid out from under me. Spinning about, I yanked his feet out from under him, but he deftly reverted and used me to cushion his fall.
"Stop it, Zachary!" I shouted, as the television set got destroyed by a stray icicle, and I locked down on his right arm with a submission grip.
"You crazy bastard, you attacked me!" he retorted, back arched against my grip.
"You should have let me die!" I screamed in his face, putting more pressure on his shoulder. "You let my parents die, and left me alive, why?"
Time stopped right then. Or seemed to.
Zachary's eyes were closed and his face was scrunched up in what looked like pain. A lone tear trickled down from his left eye.
"I had no choice."
"Liar!"
"Ben!"
Once again, I felt myself being teleported, and this time, we materialised in mid-air. As we fell, Zachary broke out of my grip, and drove two stiffened fingers into my throat. I choked, and we crashed into the solid wood of a Sootopolis wall-building, tumbling about in opposite directions.
I coughed, shaking my head and trying to clear it, only to feel my helmet being yanked off. Combat training took over, and I dished out an uppercut that caught him square on his jaw. He fell onto his back, and I pounced on him, still gasping for air.
"You!" I tried to pin him down, my throat feeling as though I'd swallowed sandpaper. "You!"
Faster than I thought he could move, he headbutted me. Hard. My vision all but blacked out, even as Ben appeared, Silas clamped on to his skirt and Newton likewise biting down on one of his arms. Zachary, seizing the moment, grabbed hold and pinned me with a choke-hold.
"Call them off!" Ben shrieked, eyes glowing blood-red. "Now!"
I reached for my knife, but it flew out of its sheath and stuck itself in the wall. Likewise, my other weapons flew out of the wall-building we were in.
"Let me go!" I wheezed, already seeing spots.
There were two flashes of light, and my pokemon got vanished as Zachary worked around the choke-hold to recall them. As it was, I was feeling faint, and my ears were ringing.
Somewhere beyond me, there was an explosion.
"Ben- what?" Zachary's voice, slurred and indistinct.
"- madness!" Ben.
Air! Finally, I gulped it down, my neck having been freed. I collapsed onto all fours, gasping and wheezing.
Another explosion.
Through my swimming vision, I saw Ben grappling with a lucario, and Zachary being pinned against the wall by another commando. He was fighting back, but I'd clearly softened him up for the commando - the commando was holding him up against the wall by his neck.
I saw red. Zachary Harding was mine.
Staggering to my feet, I walked drunkenly over to where Ben had stuck my knife in the wall, and yanked it out, nearly falling over in the process. I made my way over to the commando, who didn't seem to notice me.
Ariados silk for armour joints. Not bad.
Zachary's eyes widened as the tip of my blade emerged from the commando's throat, mere inches from him. Blood spurted out in jets, even as the commando was wracked by a spasm and dropped him. Kicking the dying commando aside, I grabbed Zachary by his collar, and yanked him to his feet.
"Why?" what I had meant to be a shout came out as a choked sob. "Why didn't you just let me die with them?"
He looked me in the eye, and answered, sounding every bit as broken as I felt. "I had to choose between us.
"I chose you."
Confused, I barely noticed the lucario's corpse thudding to the floor, and Ben pulling me off his trainer. I stumbled back, my mind struggling to understand what he had just told me. Ben's eyes glowed a brilliant shade of red, as he placed a hand on my forehead.
Suddenly, it was as if a bomb had gone off in my head. Adrian's prophecy. The night at the oil rig with the generals. Doctor Esther and her hypno. Memories came surging back into my mind's eye like water from a burst dam.
For a moment, we remained still, Ben standing next to him, one arm holding him back, and the other held ready to deal with me if need be. I was slumped against the wall, and Zachary was barely managing to stay standing.
"I-," I croaked, "I remember."
He nodded warily. "Good. Then you'll know why..."
Trailing off, he looked up at the ceiling. "Does that sound like a downed jet to you?"
It did sound familiar, but the pitch was off... "Not a jet. What-"
Ben's eyes widened. "It's a bomber! Hold on!"
He grabbed us both by the hand, and we vanished. The three of us reappeared smack in the middle of the volcano, in mid-air, and disappeared again-
-only to appear at the volcano's rim. A glance down gave me the smallest glimpse of the bomb as it fell straight towards the city.
Numbly, I watched as Zachary released his jellicent, which took all of a second to Shadow Sneak us away.
The Shadow Sneak brought us to safety, but we still heard the bomb detonating.