[Part 1]

Taro's eyes were glued to the camera feed, all while he could feel his very soul trying to escape his body. This was the last thing he expected from this detour of an assignment.

"Hey, detective, what's the situation out there?" Kagetora's voice sounded through the walkie-talkie.

"It's… It's the Calamity. It's attacking the compound," he answered, then blinking in surprise as all the monitors suddenly went to static, "Aaaand we've lost all of our camera feeds."

"Stay where you are for now. I'll pick you up shortly"

Sigh. Well, there were few who could override an order from Kagetora, and most of them were in the League HQ, so there was nothing detective could possibly do but sit on his ass and twiddle his thumbs. Not that he would've known what to do otherwise, with a single handgun to his name.

Well, there was one thing he COULD do - and that is, dwell on the situation.

First of all, this was the last place he expected the Calamity to show up. No, it made sense geographically, as it was not that far from where they expected it to show up - but the cryptid usually tended to lay low for months if not years, starting another rampage only when discovered, and ending it when the League was incapable of further pursuit. This though? This was different. This time, the Calamity went out of its way to attack a League facility

Second of all, why the Tedorigawa facility of all places? It was out of the way of both human cities and Pokemon migratory routes, so a Pokemon would've had no reason to attack it - unless said Pokemon knew WHAT this facility was. Combine this with the fact that the attack happened just as Fujiwara Tomohito arrived - and the picture was pretty damn clear.

Calamity was here to kill Tomohito. And it was probably not alone - its modus operandi was too different from the usual. Which meant that the Ghost was also likely here. And given that they just lost the camera feed, it was likely-

Suddenly, the door opened with a bang.

Jumping at the sound, Taro reached for his gun, only to drop the bloody thing on the floor. Feeling dread and his own heart in his throat, he dejectedly peered into the face of his demise.

"You're okay, Taro?" as they entered, Kagetora looked at the detective in confusion.

"G-ghost i-is like-likely h-here," he managed, falling back into the chair, not even bothering with picking up his gun yet, "I-it is aft-after Tomohito."

"Oh. Huh, yeah, it probably is," his current boss shrugged, picking up a bottle of water from the table, opening it, and offering Taro.

With a shaking hand, he took the bottle, and made a few powerful gulps, finally feeling at least some of his anxiety melting away.

"Thanks… Wait, you're not going to go and protect him?"

"I guess I should. Buuuut we've got a rare opportunity to see Ghost in action, and that might be slightly above League's bottom line on my list of priorities"

With a silent sigh, Taro pointed at the security screens, still showing nothing but static. At this, Kagetora pulled out their phone which, after a few taps, displayed an entire array of video feeds from somewhere within this facility.

"Bodycams?" the detective hazarded a guess. Kagetora just shrugged.

[Part 2]

The cacophonous blare of the alarm did not last long - its overwhelming presence started to grate on Hiei's nerves just a few seconds after she entered the building. Not willing to put up with this horrendous sound for much longer, she reached far into the wiring of the comms permeating this entire place, and unraveled it all into quarks. Just as she had done with the cameras before she even entered.

The complex went dead silent in an instant - save for the periodic scramble of human and Pokemon feet. She would've gone one step further and got rid of the electricity as well, but it might've still turned out to be useful. And with her gravitational tactile field remaining active, she could change her mind at any given moment.

There were two roles in this operation - one had to distract the humans on the surface, and another had to hunt down Tomohito in this building. They couldn't have stayed together for this one, on the off chance this building had another, secret exit some kilometres away. That was also the reason Hiei couldn't just raze the entire compound into fine dust - she NEEDED to make sure she put the butcher into the ground with her own two hands. She NEEDED to know there was no way he survived.

The first role was relegated to the Goodra - the dragon was perfectly capable of handling hundreds of humans armed with firearms and Pokemon. Not only that, but it was also the safer of two options. Hiei was almost certain, that Tomohito kept more capable fighters closer to himself - to say nothing of any possible security measures in this place.

A door opened to the side of the corridor, and a group of heavily armed humans and several dragons poured out, seemingly ready to intercept the enemy combatants. It took them just a few milliseconds to realise that Hiei was not one of theirs - but it was all the time she needed to unbind the atomic structure of the human in the very middle of their group.

This time, she did not bother with shielding anyone but herself, and the corridor. The rest of the group was instantly disintegrated in a blinding flash of subatomic matter expanding at near light speeds.

Without the shielding, most of this base would've followed that same fate.

This… Was not an ideal method. Shielding an entire room against subatomic particles was an energy demanding task. Plus, this was a rather indiscriminate method of killing, that did not separate Pokemon from humans. Normally, she would've made sure to kill Pokemon in more natural ways - but it was the quickest method of disposal in Hiei's arsenal, and she was in a hurry.

Tomohito's death was a far more pressing matter.

Another group, this time of solely Pokemon, with the human controlling them staying behind in the room they ran out of. Picking out the human through the gravitational tactile field, Hiei unbinded their inner forces, simultaneously once again shielding the interior, except for the wall between them and the Pokemon attempting to barrage her with attacks.

The resulting flash left literally nothing of the wall, the Pokemon, or anything they tried to fling at Hiei.

It's a good thing she didn't have to search this entire place. While Tiger did not have the blueprints of this facility to share, he managed to send her specifications on the longevity device that Tomohito was using. And it had a very specific energy signature, the traces of which Gardevoir could pick up via her tactile gravitational field, making it akin to tracking someone through their scent.

And combined with her tracking the movements of humans in a radius of two hundred meters - she was not about to get lost.

[Part 3]

The panic room was located at the very end of a long, winded and heavily secured path. It had enough air, food and water to last one person for two weeks, and had a sole blast proof window into the room next to it. Of course, said window could also be covered with blast shutters. There were also comms leading to that same room, as well as comms for contacting the outside world. The reason for this setup was simple: Fujiwara Tomohito had to be protected at all costs. Ah, and he was sure to always bring his most prized bodyguard with him.

Said bodyguard was already deployed and awaiting orders in that next room. Unlike the panic room, it was mostly heavily insulated against heat, and for a good reason. Regardless of how much of a threat the intruders were, there was no way they could get past the Burning Sun of Taineiji.

Magcargo was truly a fascinating Pokemon, stretching the boundaries of what could be recognised as a living creature. Its core reached 18 000 degrees Fahrenheit, and while its surface dropped to about 2 200 degrees, it was still beyond the temperatures at which organic matter could possibly exist.

Any regular Magcargo could technically raise its surface temperature to match its core for a brief moment, at the cost of burning itself out and turning into a lifeless husk - which due to heat dissipation was usually not enough to defeat any powerful opponent, only to temporarily blind them due to the light and heat emitted. Even gathering a hundred Magcargos and forcing them to consecutively self-immolate was only a decent strategy against targets that could not fight back. Or to scorch a town entirely off the maps.

But the Burning Sun - oh, it could do so much more than a regular Magcargo. True to its name, it could raise its surface temperature to and above 18 000 degrees for an indefinite amount of time, turning it into either an impenetrable barrier, or the most terrifying weapon of mass destruction, capable of destroying the Earth itself if necessary. And of course, Burning Sun could adjust its surface temperature to any necessary output between the two extremes, so using it was only as dangerous as Tomohito wanted.

It might've taken two years off his life to find a way to lobotomise a Magcargo to begin with, and then two more to perfect the process, but Burning Sun made it all worth it.

Now, according to what Kagetora told him - the Tedorigawa facility was under attack by Calamity of Inabayama. That 101 was fairly powerful, sure, but even it would've had a lot of trouble fighting off the entire garrison.

So the battle plan was simple - to wear Calamity out with their police and guard personnel, while the enforcers encircle and capture it. Tomohito already saw the reports of just how terrifyingly powerful this 101 was - not as powerful as Burning Sun, of course, but as far as its physical strength went, there were no known equals. So as long as it was captured - this operation would be worth it, no matter how many combatants they lost in the process, and no matter how much money the League would've had to sink into buying him enough Goodra specimen to practice on.

Still, it only made sense for Tomohito to hide here, in this panic room. On the mere insignificant chance that Tedorigawa garrison's forces were not enough to stop Calamity's onslaught, and the 101 had enough of a brain to somehow stumble past the security, he could always just command Burning Sun to scorch it to ashes - that's why he's been here since the alarms went off.

Suddenly, with a low groan of bending steel, the heavy blast doors leading from the outside into Burning Sun's room, were forced up, and someTHING flew in. It was no human for sure, and it looked downright skeletal. Well, whatever the hell it was, it seemingly could somehow output enough force to open those blast doors to begin with. And it also seemed unconcerned with the sheer heat of 2200 degrees emanating from Magcargo.

Whatever it was, he was NOT taking any chances. With a push of a button, he caused the blast shutters to close, and then gave a command through the comms.

"Burning Sun! Raise the temperature to 7000 degrees for one minute!"

Now, he was not able to see into that room anymore, but 7000 degrees was way above the melting point of tungsten. The only reason these blast shutters were still intact was because they were engineered specifically to withstand this kind of output, what with all the cutting edge cooling systems in them. Although they STILL had to be replaced after just one use.

All he needed to do now was to wait for the temperature outside the panic room to be liveable aga-

Suddenly, the heavy blast shutters crumpled under an invisible force, cracking the window open, then thrown aside like a paper ball - but instead of unbearable, flesh scorching heat, the panic room was overtaken by sheer, unearthly cold. Only some of it was Tomohito's terror.

"W-what?.. How?.."

Blazing Sun lied there. It lied there motionless, stony and half-crumbled and useless, like a regular burnt out Magcargo. And next to it, stood that skeletal thing, looking at Tomohito with its blood red eyes full of murder.

Then, he could feel pure, undistllled agony piercing through his skull, like a white-hot rod.

"HELLO, BUTCHER."