Members of Team Rocket were evacuating the Silph building, taking to the streets. They screamed as Onix came at them like a freight train. Some tried to send out their pokemon to stop the speeding stone serpent but were smashed and scattered like bowling pins.
But Brock and Misty weren't there to deal with any retreating Rockets. Onix reared up over their heads and slammed into the Silph building's second floor and then went up.
An onix could burrow through solid earth and rock at fifty miles per hour, but burrowing up a building was another matter entirely. His pace slowed to a crawl as he ascended.
The two humans on his back clung on tight as bits of debris fell through the openings Onix carved, people screaming when the rocky behemoth cut through the structure next to them.
"Do we even know what floor he's on?" Brock shouted to Misty.
"No, but I think he's the only one using the League frequency around here," Misty shouted back over Onix's journey. "Let me try and reach him on the radio."
She took one hand off of Onix to fiddle with her radio, fear running through her as each new bump and jostle reminded of her of the fragility of a one-handed grip. Working quickly, Misty managed to set her earpiece to broadcast to the general vicinity.
"Aaron!" Misty cried out. "Where are you? What's the situation?"
There was a pause and Misty wondered if the boy was even in the building. And then the answer came back.
"I'm…" Aaron's return transmission began and was silent for a second but for the sound of rain coming through the radio and Misty's heart caught in her throat.
"On the roof….. it's not…" The transmission continued "Not good."
"Hang on!" Misty shouted, the blood rapidly leaving her face. "We're on our way!" She took her fingers from the radio and grabbed back onto Onix. "We have to hurry!" She yelled at Brock. "He's in trouble."
"It's going to take us another three minutes to get up this thing!" Brock shouted back. "And that's if they don't send anyone to stop us! Can he last that long?"
"Let me check," Misty said and then put her hand to her earpiece once more. "Aaron! We're almost there! Can you hold out for three minutes?"
There was no response this time.
"He's not answering!" Misty shouted back, her voice high and frantic. "We need to go faster!"
"We can't go any faster, not unless you've got a pokemon that can fly!" Brock shouted angrily. "Or if you think Onix using Rock Throw to get us to the roof is a good idea?"
Misty paused for a moment as an idea struck her and then said "YES!"
"What?" Brock turned around, jaw dropping.
"If Onix can get me up high enough Staryu and Starmie can steer me!" Misty cried out as Onix continued his ascent. "If I'm lucky any anti-air emplacements won't be expecting someone to come in like that! Or maybe they'll be busy with Aaron!"
"You can't count on that!" Brock shouted. "They might vaporize you before you get close!"
"We don't have a choice if we want to get there in time!" Misty bellowed back. "And I'm a gym trainer! I know the risks!"
"No, you don't! This plan is so bad that it's worthy of Aaron!"
"Well, I've got to out-Aaron Aaron to get him out of the mess his Aaronness has landed him in!" Misty said. "Now get Onix somewhere that's got a clear shot!"
Brock grimaced, but directed Onix to alter his course. They burst through another wall and they were back in the rain. Plaster and glass shattered as Onix ripped his tail out of the building, using his center to hold onto the structure.
"If you get hurt then your sisters will draw and quarter me," Brock told Misty as she gently slid down Onix's back and to his tail.
"Oh, they'll know better!" Misty told him. "I'm sure they always thought I was going to get myself killed doing something stupid!"
"That's not helping!" Brock said before turning back to Onix. "You're sure you can get her up there from here?"
Onix nodded while letting out a rumbling cry.
"Then Rock Throw on Misty's signal!" Brock said. He looked back at Misty. "Good luck."
"Thanks," Misty nodded. She grabbed Staryu and Starmie's pokeballs and sent out Starmie first.
"Get ready for some aerial maneuvers," Misty told the water-type as she grabbed onto it's back. "Onix, fire away!"
Rain became a torrent became a waterfall as Misty hurled up towards the dark sea of the clouds, claws of cold air tearing the heat from her flesh, wind rushing, howling screaming in her ears, her teeth gritted.
And then she was at the apex of her ascent, wind whipping at her and Starmie. White light blazed as she released Staryu in midair.
"Let's land!" Misty shouted over the roaring winds. High pressure jets of water shot out of Staryu and Starmie, rocketing them towards the rooftop below. Misty had a single instant to survey what lay below; A small human body draped over rooftop machinery, a large purple pokemon advancing on it, another human standing back with two more pokemon.
Misty gave her commands and Staryu and Starmie obeyed. Blue-white light shone as the two water-types fired rapid bursts of icy energy. The purple pokemon jumped back towards the standing human and the other pokemon, dodging blasts that left tiny flowers of ice in their wake. More blasts rained down around the human and his other pokemon and they dove for cover.
"Landing time!" Misty cried out just before they hit the roof. More jets of water shot out from Staryu and Starmie, arresting their velocity just enough to make the impact jarring instead of deadly. Misty was knocked off of Starmie, but bled away the momentum by rolling into a crouch. Her eyes were hard as they looked over the battlefield.
She glanced at the body splayed over the machines and she instantly recognized it as Aaron. Her heart skipped, her mind blanked, and then her training took back over.
Misty whipped her head back to her opponent as he and his pokemon got out of cover.
Footsteps thumped, a challenging drumbeat, as the nidoking charged towards her and her pokemon, bellowing as the rooftop trembled. Misty's eyes were cold and focused as he bore down.
"Ice Beam and dodge!" Misty shouted, pointing at the ground, just before the behemoth was upon them. She jumped back and to the side as her pokemon covered the roof in mirror-smooth ice. The nidoking's eyes went wide as it began to slide. He tried to come to a stop, feet searching for purchase in a desperate dance, but it was too late.
"Starmie, Water Gun!" Misty ordered as the nidoking slid passed them, his arms flailing as he tried to stop himself. Another high pressure burst of water shot out from Starmie and slammed into the nidoking's back. He shot forward, tripped over the concrete ledge, and was sent flying into the void beyond the roof's edge.
"Bubblebeam!" Misty shouted, pointing at the trainer and the other pokemon. The trainer had a pokeball out and was about to recall the nidoking, but before he could, Starmie and Staryu attacked.
The Rocket trainer screamed as one of the bubbles exploded on his hand, smashing the pokeball out of his grip and leaving the appendage a twisted mangled wreck. The nidoking screamed at the same time as he began his mile long death.
The other pokemon, a tentacruel and victreebel, countered with Razor Leaf and a Bubblebeam of their own. Vines lashed out and dragged the trainer out of the crossfire.
Leaves and explosive orbs of water flew around Misty, intended to force her and her pokemon into cover. But she had other ideas. She and her pokemon dodged around the projectiles, her eyes never leaving the enemy trainer.
"Starmie, Water Gun as strong as you can! Staryu, combine that with Ice Beam!" Misty cried out as she twisted out of the way of more blasting bubbles.
Starmie unleashed an outpouring of water greater than anything else it had done that day, a blast as wide as a manhole cover rushing forward as unstoppable as an ocean current. White-blue light suffused it and the tip became a jagged block of ice, a sharp tip for a sea's spear.
With a great crack it smashed through the Rocket's cover and exploded in a hail of icicles. The human screamed as he was impaled, his pokemon screaming as they were bombarded by the cold spikes.
"Finish them off!" Misty roared. "Give it all you got!"
A pulse ran down the stream of water and was answered by a pulse in the beam of white-blue light. Water rushed and ice cracked. A chaotic crystalline flower bloomed, translucent blue and stained with vivid dripping red, impaling person and pokemon alike. They thrashed on its sharp petals and then were still.
Misty nodded, jaw tight, eyes hard. "Keep an eye on them in case they survived," she said to Staryu and Starmie. Then she whirled around. Sprinting and vaulting, she rushed over to where Aaron lay sprawled over dented machines.
"Aaron!" she shouted, jumping up on the environmental technology. His eyes were closed and Misty couldn't see if he was breathing or not. "Aaron, can you hear me?"
There was no response. The boy's pretty amber eyes remained closed. Misty felt a surge of emotion run through her but she shoved it aside. She had to act if there was any chance of-
Misty didn't finish that thought.
She forced herself to remember what she knew about first aid. She leaned over Aaron, trying to listen for the sound of his breathing. Misty patted her pockets next, trying to figure out if she had any reflective surfaces to use, and when she couldn't think of anything, she leaned in closer and put her cheek over her friend's mouth.
It was faint, but she could feel his breath.
Relief ran through her like lightning, sweet and debilitating, the sort that could lead a person to collapse. But Misty wasn't done yet.
Next, she examined Aaron for bleeding. There was no blood anywhere that Misty could see, but that could just mean that it was somewhere beneath the armor. She didn't dare move him to examine him in more detail; his arm was at an angle that made Misty think it was broken and she didn't know if he had any internal injuries.
His body armor was torn in several places and severely warped in others. Misty tried to look under him again, to see if there was any blood pooling under him. She gritted her teeth when she didn't find anything.
There was nothing she could do for Aaron, Misty realized. She clenched her fists and felt tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. She had never felt so helpless before, not even during the fight with the tyranitar in the Viridian Forest.
"Damnit!" she swore, slamming her fist into the machinery. Her knuckles burned from the impact; the pain felt better than helplessness.
Rumbling filtered up from the floor beneath and Misty whirled around, a snarl on her face as she searched for the new potential threat.
When she saw the grey head poke through, she did cry.
The tunnel was dim and dingy, lit by small electric lanterns hanging from the ceiling. It was rough, with portable supports set at intervals. The walls and floor were still dirt, with roots poking out. It smelled of sweat and body odor, hot and humid and cloying.
The tunnel was also crowded. Members of Team Rocket ran through it, shouting, staggering, carrying or leaning on each other, covered in mud and blood. Injured grunts curled up in alcoves, groaning and moaning, until someone managed to spot them and drag them out of their hiding spots.
"Keep moving, people!" Archer shouted, waving traffic on through. "And watch out for people on the ground, we've lost enough today, we don't need to trample anyone else!"
"Set a timer and run!" Arianna shouted into a portable radio. "Demolish the entrance before the League finds it!"
"This is the last tunnel!" Archer shouted at her. "And the teleporters are down! We need to leave it open-"
"If we leave the tunnel open then it will suffer the same fate as the other tunnels the League compromised!" Arianna shouted back. "We've done all we can!" She turned back to the radio. "Set the charges now!"
Screams answered her and Arianna's face went pale.
"I guess it's moot now," Archer said, taking a deep breath. He grabbed some pokeballs from his belt. "Come on, let's buy as much time as we can."
"Right," Arianna nodded, grabbing a pokeball of her own.
The two waded through the tide of human traffic rushing down the tunnel as more screams followed. The rout nearly turned into a stampede as humans ran in panic. Archer could see bursts of dark power erupt from up the tunnel.
"Let's hope it's just Karen's trainers and not Karen herself," he muttered, shoving through panicked grunts who had forgotten all discipline.
The duo reached a lull in the human mass. White light blazed as they sent out their pokemon, a golbat and houndoom from Archer, and a vileplume from Arianna.
Bodies in Rocket uniforms were scattered on the tunnel floor between them and a sneasel, a mightyena, and an individual dressed in a grey hoodie and pants. The humans didn't exchange any words before shouting orders.
"Sonic Blaze!" Archer shouted. His golbat and houndoom opened their mouths, fire spilling out into the air as it began to vibrate and ring with golbat's supersonic attack. The tunnel in front of them became something that resembled an oven or a microwave, glowing red hot and vibrating.
The grey-clad trainer said something that Archer didn't hear and then a freezing blast of air smashed through the tunnel. Steam hissed and rocks cracked as they underwent an extreme change in temperature. Archer let out a grunt as a fist of air slammed into his whole body and sent him flying back. His pokemon joined him, bits of ice forming on their extremities.
"Sludge Drill!" Arianna commanded next while Archer picked himself up, pointing to the mightyena. A high-pressured stream of poisonous sludge lanced out from her vileplume.
The grey trainer shouted something and a vertical slice of darkness flew off the mightyena and cut into the tip of the high-pressure sludge. Arianna's vileplume increased the volume and pressure as the slice cut through its attack, slowing the shrinking dark blade.
Archer saw the sneasel move.
"Flamethrower!" Archer shouted. His houndoom let out a stream of flame as the sneasel glowed blue and shot off a barrage of icy darts at the vileplume. Fire met ice and vileplume was splashed by globs of water instead of being pierced by spikes of ice.
Another command from the grey clad trainer and then the mightyena ran forward, spawning two copies of itself. Archer thought it was using Double-Team until he noticed dark fire in the mouths of all three pokemon.
"Sonic Cutter!" he ordered his golbat. A ringing screech came out of the flying/poison type's mouth as it flapped its wings forward at the same time. Blades of air flew through the tunnel. The mightyena and its copies dodged the nearly invisible blades, but when the attacks hit the edges of the tunnel they exploded in sonic bursts.
One burst caught all three of the mightyenas. Two vanished and the third was sent skidding back. It came to a stop, shook its head, and then growled.
Another Sludge Drill lanced out from Arianna's vileplume, making the grey trainer duck. The sneasel jabbed its claws into the ground, glowing blue-white, and then a burst of freezing air erupted through the tunnel.
"Flamethrower the ground!" Archer shouted to his houndoom. The dark/fire type moved to obey, but before it could do so, spikes of frozen soil blasted up, out of the tunnel floor. The houndoom yelped in pain and Archer recalled it before it could be hurt any worse.
The mightyena barked and then a blast of darkness sped from its mouth, forcing Archer to dive out of the way. An Icy Wind attack clipped Arianna's vileplume, spinning it about as ice formed on one side.
"Sonic Barrier!" Archer shouted as Arianna recalled the grass type and the enemy dark types moved closer. His golbat opened its mouth as wide as it could and Archer clapped his hands over his ears.
A painful ringing filled the tunnel, a section of the air between Team Rocket and the grey trainer vibrating so fiercely it was a physical barrier. The tunnel shook and the dark types stopped advancing.
The grey hair trainer's mouth moved, the mightyena opened its mouth and unleashed a blast of darkness half as wide as the tunnel. It hit the barrier, slowed down, the vibrating barrier expanding it and making the dark energy dissipate and dissolve.
Archer relaxed for half a second as the attack disappeared; then an icicle with veins of dark power running through it pierced through the center of Golbat's Sonic Barrier.
Golbat jerked to the side and was grazed by the projectile instead of being impaled. The barrier vanished as Archer recalled his pokemon and grabbed another pokeball. Arianna had done the same and the two prepared to go another round against the grey clad trainer.
The tunnel roof exploded.
A pillar of stone slammed down on the enemy trainer and their pokemon so fast that they couldn't even scream. The whole tunnel rumbled and then more pillars and chunks of stone filled the space in front of Archer and Arianna, cutting off the rest of the tunnel.
"Clear it out," a familiar voice said and the two Rocket executives turned around to see Giovanni wearing a full-face black mask calmly striding down the tunnel, a rhydon behind his shoulder and his persian on his other side. The rock-type grunted in acknowledgement and then moved past Archer and Arianna and punched the newly formed wall of rock. It shot away, the tunnel shaking as it went.
Archer let out a breath of relief as he put the pokeball back on his belt and turned around to look at his boss. Arianna did the same thing, only without the sigh.
"I'm sorry," all three of them said at the same time.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" Archer asked. "We're the ones who failed to hold the city while you were gone."
"I failed to complete the transfer of material and assets from Silph and the Saffron gym," Ariana said. "I am also responsible for letting the League recapture Sabrina."
"And I left the operation just before it was attacked by a League force and a foreign Elite," Giovanni said. "You two may have made errors, but you should have never been in this situation to begin with."
"You left because we urged you to," Archer protested, but Giovanni cut him off.
"And I learned, albeit too late to do anything but rush back here, that the League was attacking today," Giovanni told him. "They didn't report their plans until the attack had commenced, but that's moot. I should have been doing my best to locate and infiltrate their command and let you two supervise the initial fortifications."
"That's no excuse for our failures to properly-"Arianna began, but it was her turn to be cut off by Giovanni.
"I have received initial reports," Giovanna told her. "They didn't contain any glaring signs of incompetence. Either way, this is neither the time or place to discuss this. You two are relieved of duty until further notice. Get to the rendezvous point and then check yourselves into medical."
AN: I'd like to thank Amationary for beta reading.
Almost at the end of the arc. A time to cut loose a bit and have fun with purpler prose.
Anyway, Ash suffers the consequences of his poor decisions and then suffers the consequences of having friends!
Don't forget to review! Concrit is welcome!