[Part 1]

The world exploded in a blinding light, practically searing out her poor, useless eyes. The shockwave of sounds rammed into her, nearly rupturing her eardrums, before settling into an overwhelming, deafening cacophony. Her entire body was simultaneously freezing and on fire, overtaken by quiet, impotent agony.

She still hated waking up from a Pokeball.

Honnoji only let out a small, meek, pained whimper as the feeling of the entire surrounding EVERYTHING washed over her, mind slowly acclimating to the sensory hell that she experienced. Somewhere at the edge of her consciousness, she noticed a crack and a pang of constant pain emanating from someplace within her meat shell. Something to worry about later.

Inhale…

One… Two… Three…

Exhale…

Her mind finally catching up to everything sprung upon it, she took a careful look around.

Some sort of a cave, and a relatively deep and dark one at that. Not naturally formed - she could see traces of something, or someone, digging it up recently. In fact, despite the sensory hell of the first eternity out of the Pokeball, it was actually soothingly dark, very quiet, and comfortably cool - it was just the portable piece of human technology making her absolutely miserable after leaving it.

Then again, as horrible as these moments were, the numb darkness INSIDE the Pokeball still made it preferable to sleeping outside. At least, in this darkness, she did not have any nightmares.

The not-human was in the cave, sitting on a rock a bit away from her. Looking with concern, but not saying anything, or approaching. Not without her confirming either was okay.

She appreciated this.

Honnoji nodded, taking a step forward, stumbling in another pang of pain, and only barely catching herself. Something with her front leg? Hm… Shoulder, dislocation. Not that painful, but unpleasant. And could have serious implications too. When did she?..

Ah, right.

"Honnoji! Are you okay?!" not-human rose from her seat, ready to approach

Was she okay?

Obviously not. Even on her best days, she was far from okay, and this was not her best day. She was nearly killed wasn't she?..

She looked at not-human questioningly, then to the sides, and then at not-human again.

"Uh… 'Where are we?'," was the guess. She shook her head, "'Where are the others?'"

This time she nodded.

"They're waiting somewhere outside," not-human answered, and then, seemingly catching up to her next question, showed a Realitybox.

She nodded.

The device was activated.

"SHOULDER. DISLOCATION," she lifted the offending leg slightly.

"Oh. Yeah, I've used potions on you, but it probably needed to be set into place first," not-human winced, "May I try to do that?"

"NOT MUCH CHOICE. USELESS OTHERWISE," Honnoji answered, limping towards not-human. Not that she was useful even when healthy, "YOU RESCUED ME? FROM METAGROSS."

For some reason, she saw confusion in response. Though not-human got over it relatively quickly, sitting back on the rock she limped towards.

"No, I did not," was the answer, "Uh… I'll need to touch you to set this shoulder into place"

"DO IT"

"Three… Two… One…"

She was ready. But she was not prepared.

Even glimpses of touch were bad enough. Each of those lingered, countless invisible legs crawling under her skin, blanketing her mind in static and sending her heart into her throat. But prolonged touch? It was even worse. Each second of it stretched into an eternity, those horrible immaterial little legs turning sharp like wicked claws, static in her head growing stronger and stronger, her heart beating louder and louder until she could hear nothing else.

If she was in any other situation, if the weight on her shoulders was not as incomprehensibly massive, she would've preferred to live a life of physical pain, to lose that leg, to die rather than to have to endure this horrible, horrible torture. But she did not have a choice, did she?

Somewhere at the frayed fringes of her awareness, there was a stab of pain, evoking an automatic, weak whimper out of a mouth that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be hers.

Another eternity later, just as it was becoming absolutely unbearable, she felt the lingering touch to end. The invisible legs were still there, flaying her nerves and her mind, yet slowly dying out as if they lost access to their only food source. She… Just needed to bear with the rest of it…

Inhale…

One… Two… Three…

Exhale…

Her mind finally breaking through the static, and heart quieting enough for her to hear her own thoughts, she looked at the not-human. Guilt, concern.

"DONE?"

"I think I've managed to set it, and then applied some Potions to speed up the recovery. It should be fine, but… Don't overexert yourself for a while?"

"WILL SEE," she nodded, "THANK YOU"

She could still feel tiny horrible legs squirming under her skin, but at least it was getting manageable.

"Going back to your question… No, I did not rescue you. You sent me out to deal with their car, remember? I kinda totalled it, and when I came back, it was all over"

"OKEHAZAMA? NAGASHINO?"

"Hm… I don't think so," not-human's gaze was puzzled at this point, "Maybe you?"

If it was her, she had no recollection of it. But she doubted it. The last thing she remembered was being at the mercy of that Metagross, before blacking out.

"HOW LONG WAS I?"

"A couple of days"

"HOW FAR?"

"We… Will be there in three or four more, I think"

"BAD. RUNNING OUT. OF TIME," she noted, "REALITYBOX?"

"About five minutes left"

She nodded. Five minutes was good enough to cover the last one they needed to recruit. At least, she hoped so, because if they made a mistake there, they could all die. And die horribly.

"NEXT ONE. BUTCHER OF ANEGAWA."


[Part 2]

You know, for all the ways Kagetora impressed him in that short period of working under the League official, he could'a cursed them all the same at the moment. Because in their heroic final moments, they decided to save Taro's miserable life by giving him a teleporter Alakazam. Which was appreciated at the time, except for one thing.

They were rare.

Merely teaching a Pokemon to Teleport to the last safe location was expensive. Teaching a Pokemon to Teleport to a number of memorised locations took too much time, effort and training. In fact, only the League could afford to do so, and even they only had a handful of these teleporters.

Which meant that not only Taro was one of the few Police officers privy to League secrets, he was also in possession of a rare and highly valuable League Pokemon. And he would'a been more than happy to throw the blasted Pokeball at the nearest official just to get rid of it, but no - of course they did not feel like making his life easier.

He became their on-site teleporter cop guy. Traveling with squads, working with evidence, the works.

Yesterday? A group of him, three League enforcers and two rangers had to ride into the neck of the woods in some nature preserve, where they lost contact with another group. And they even found the poor sods. All dead.

The place was a mess. One person frozen into a human icicle, half-melted by the time they arrived, the rest crushed to death. Like, practically crumpled, half of their bones shattered, as if axe kicked by a furious, Champion-level Hitmonlee.

And then, there were their Pokemon.

Three were frozen along with that human icicle guy, who was apparently a Mystic, for all the good it did him. One, a 101 Flygon, had a frozen leg, suggesting that same enemy got to it, except the dragon also was bloody decapitated. Another Pokemon on the scene was a pile of bones by the time they arrived - and APPARENTLY, those bones belonged to a Raikou. A Legendary! Just killed and picked to the bone, like a Magikarp at a sushi place! Ah, and can't forget about another 101, Metagross - this one had a hole THROUGH its body.

How do you even make a hole THROUGH a Metagross?!

Well, today they actually managed to find out, at least partly.

The people in this group wore trackers AND body cameras. The crushed guys did not have much useable footage on theirs, but the frozen Mystic? Got something alright, even if not much.

The enemy group was confronted by some trainer with a Glaceon, a Vespiquen, and an Absol. Given their strength, all three likely 101s, meaning they could be cross-referenced with League's files.

The Vespiquen was likely the Plague of Nagashino - the Combees' and group's movements attested to that. The Glaceon seemed to be the Glamour of Okehazama, and the Absol - the Seer of Honnoji. Which meant, that trainer was almost guaranteed to be the one responsible for the Honnoji massacre, and they were gathering unaccounted 101s at an alarming rate.

And if this deduction held true, there were not many places they could go next. He made sure to outline all three.

With a sigh, Taro glanced one more time over his report. Hopefully, the League officials were going to manage to use these findings to get SOME results out of this entire bloody fiasco.

Not that he had much hope.