Joy walked up a set of stairs that lay behind the door she had come through. She did her best to be quiet so anyone who might be nearby would not hear her. She could hear a quiet tapping noise from around a corner, so she knew she was not alone. Whatever happened next would depend on how she proceeded.
At last, she reached near the top of the stairs, and looked around. The room that the stairs led to was clearly a control centre, with a number of computer screens situated above and around a large window that overlooked the large space which held the stasis tanks. There were two people in the room; a guard standing a short way in front of Joy with their arms crossed, and a figure who she recognised as Ms. River, hurriedly typing away on a console underneath the observation window.
Just as Joy was trying to get a look at what she was doing, a loud electronic voice rang out from loudspeakers all around the facility.
"SELF-DESTRUCT PROTOCOL HAS BEEN INITIATED. T-MINUS TEN MINUTES UNTIL DETONATION. EVACUATE FACILITY."
That evildoer! She intended to blow up the facility, likely to prevent anyone from escaping and to ensure their work was not discovered. Joy knew that she had to do something fast, and not just for the sake of everything in it. An explosion large enough to destroy the entire facility would probably do serious damage to the surrounding towns as well.
She looked over at the guard a little ways in front of her. Their awareness seemed to be fairly uneven seeing as they hadn't even turned around to look at them. She would have to get rid of them if she wanted to stop Ms. River from enacting her scheme.
Joy thought back to how she had seen Jenny knock out that guard by hitting them hard in the back of the head. She ordinarily abhorred such violence, but she did not have many options at that moment, not when time was of the essence. Slowly, she crept up behind the guard, raised her arms and, with all her strength, hit them as hard as she could.
The impact caused the guard to hunch over in pain, but they did not go down immediately. It also got the attention of Ms. River, who turned around in surprise. Joy went to hit the guard again, but they were upon her, grabbing her arms and trying to restrain her.
Where they may have normally been able to overpower her, adrenaline that was flowing through her body, combined with rage she was feeling at this sordid affair, allowed her to prevent them from holding her steady, and she broke free of their grip before pushing them hard away from her. She watched them lose their balance and topple backward, bashing their head against a nearby surface and collapsing to the floor.
This time, they did not get back up.
Joy wasted no time in turning her attention to Ms. River, who had her arms crossed as she looked at Joy with an unimpressed air.
"What do you hope to accomplish by this?" She asked, scorn in her tone. "Nothing you do will matter in the end."
Joy walked up to her, trembling in anger. "Turn off the self-destruct and let the Pokémon go." She said in a furious whisper.
Ms. River cocked an eyebrow. "And you really think I would ever be persuaded to do that? Are you really that naïve?"
It was too much for Joy, her fury boiling over as she punched Ms. River right in the face, hard enough to break her nose. It had been complete instinct, but she felt a wave of satisfaction through having done so. The evildoer fell back against the console, her face stained red with blood. Her expression as she looked back at Joy was a mixture of surprise and indignation.
Deciding that negotiations were a waste of time, Joy grabbed Ms. River and pulled her off the console, looking over it to try and figure out how to stop the self-destruct herself.
"It won't do any good!" Ms. River yelled from behind her as she walked back towards the staircase leading out of the observation room, intending to make her escape while she still had time. "I've implemented over a dozen encryption algorithms into the software. No human could hope to decrypt them, especially not in the time you have left."
At last, she reached the stairs, but stopped on the second step and looked back one last time. "In a short time, this facility will be reduced to a smoking crater. Nothing that was done here will be known, and my employers will escape completely undetected. Your attempts to stop us will have been for nothing." And with that, she turned and walked down the stairs, leaving Joy alone.
She was right; Joy couldn't believe how well she had covered her tracks. Every attempt to enter commands into the terminals around her required various passwords and codes, none of which she had. How could she hope to stop the self-destruct on her own? She needed help!
Then, her attention turned to the PokéBall which Jenny had given her. She must have handed it over for a reason. With no other options left to try, she threw it to the floor and watched as Rotom emerged, electricity running along its body.
Of course! Jenny must have anticipated such obstacles, especially in a facility as secret as this. Thinking quickly, Joy directed the Rotom to possess the console in front of her, which it did thusly. Noticing an encryption algorithm in the computer it was inhabiting, the Rotom did not even need to be told to start, as it immediately started running its own algorithms to decode the necessary passwords. It seemed to be having a whale of a time while doing so.
Joy watched in trepidation as the Rotom did its work. An electronic bell sound rang out as it imputed a correct code, and the first encryption layer was solved. But there were still around twelve to go and there was only seven minutes left before the place was blown to kingdom come.
Would it be able to work fast enough?
…
The battle between Charizard and the deformed hybrid that had once been Professor Ence raged on, both of them firing flames at each other in an attempt to weaken the other. Jenny watched on from a safe distance, cheering on for Charizard to come out on top.
The pair were also engaged in several manoeuvres to try and knock the other off their feet or otherwise incapacitate them, but for the past few minutes they had intercepted each one at every term, leaving them constantly parrying their blows on and on, with no end in sight.
That is, until the Charizard hybrid swung its tail unexpectedly and tripped the original Charizard over, knocking her to the floor. Before she could get up, it was on top of her, pinning her down, before it let out a volley of flames directly over its head.
Jenny gasped at the brutality of the move. It seemed to go on and on, almost for twenty seconds, as the hybrid seemed determined to either overwhelm or even kill her from the strain.
As the flames died down and the hybrid finally stopped, it seemed to Jenny like it might have actually succeeded. Charizard's head was burned, and she wasn't moving. Jenny's heart was in her mouth as she expected the worst…
Then, Charizard's eyes opened, and it looked up at the hybrid with what could only be a smile, a layer of soot falling from its face to show she had barely taken any damage. The hybrid's sheer shock was enough to allow her to knock it off of her body so she could get back to her feet. She roared loudly at it, flames erupting around her.
Even with access to the same powers, the hybrid could only hope to call upon a fraction of what she, as the original, had access to.
The battle resumed, but much more one-sided. Knocked off balance by Charizard shrugging off its intended final attack, the hybrid was on the defensive, desperately trying to keep back her attacks. But it was no use, as it was continuously pushed back before she pounced forward, knocking it to the ground as she stood atop it, in the same position it had been previously.
Before it could push her off, she flew up into the air and let out a concentrated beam of fire that rained down upon the hybrid, engulfing its entire body. These flames were much brighter and powerful than what it had created, and it was so bright that Jenny was unable to look directly at it. Charizard kept it going for around ten seconds, before closing her mouth and landing back on the floor.
The hybrid wavered on its feet, barely conscious, its body almost black from the burns it had received. Jenny wondered if it too would power through the attack, but then it pitched forward and collapsed in a heap, completely unconscious.
The original had won.
Charizard stood atop its fallen foe's body, raised its head and let out a victorious roar so loud it shook the walls. Other Pokémon around the facility also joined in, letting out celebratory cries and roars of their own.
Jenny grinned widely as she carefully approached her using her good leg, extending out a hand in respect. Charizard looked down at her, a little wary at first, before giving her a smile and allowing Jenny to take her claw into her hands in appreciation.
"That was amazing." Jenny whispered. "You were amazing."
…
Two minutes were left on the self-destruct timer. Joy was pacing around the observation room agitated, fearful that the Rotom wouldn't be able to complete its job in time. There was still a couple of algorithms to decrypt, but whether it could be done was still up in the air.
She had heard the roar from the other side of the facility, which is she immediately recognised as belonging to a Charizard. She could only hope that it was not a bad sign, and Jenny was still alright out there. As long as she could stop this timer, she would know for sure…
!DING!
A final bell sound rang out as the Rotom managed to crack the final encryption algorithm, leaving the computer's command line free to be changed. Rushing over, Joy scanned the console in front of her so she could try and input commands to fix this whole mess:
-CANCEL SELF-DESTRUCT
-RELEASE ALL STASIS CHAMBERS
-CANCEL LOCKDOWN
There was a brief pause after she hit Enter, and she held her breath, before…
"SELF-DESTRUCT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. LOCKDOWN HAS BEEN CANCELLED. ALL STASIS CHAMBERS HAVE BEEN UNLOCKED."
Relief washed over her as the alarm stopped blaring and the countdown disappeared. Sweet, sweet relief! She had done it!
She HAD done it!
As the Rotom left the computer and regained its form, she grabbed it and hugged it close to her chest, dancing around the room in celebration. A short electronic shock courtesy of an annoyed Rotom led her to let it go.
"I apologise…" she said with a chuckle. "That really was incredible of you!"
The Rotom smiled a little bashfully.
As Joy walked out of the door leading to the observation room, she saw that all of the stasis pods had indeed been opened, and Pokémon were running around happy to be freed. She looked around hopefully for any sign of Jenny, fearing the worst.
Then, as she stood in the centre of the facility, she saw Charizard striding towards her, looking majestic and intensely smug following its victory. On her back was Jenny, nursing her injured leg and waving over at Joy.
"Jenny!" Joy cried out as Jenny gingerly got down from Charizard's back, wincing as she put pressure on her leg. "I thought you had been lost!"
Jenny grinned. "You know me, can't keep me down for long." She looked around at all of the Pokémon running wild around them, enjoying their freedom. "Seems like you did it. You saved us all, just like I hoped you would."
Joy smiled bashfully. "No, Jenny. We saved them. I could have never done any of this if it weren't for you."
Before Jenny could reply, Joy pulled her into a silent hug, tears streaming down the nurse's face in gratitude and relief. Jenny said nothing, smiling as she returned the hug, rubbing her eyes in emotion.
"Oh jeez, something's gotten in my eye!" She said with a laugh. "Come on, Joy. We still have to get these Pokémon to their rightful owners.
…
It was quite a sight, the locals of Lavender Town claimed later, as the police officer and the nurse who had gone into the woods in search of a missing Charizard arrived back in town at dawn, not just with the Charizard… but with every single Pokémon that had gone missing in the area throughout the past year.
It was very much a tearful reunion, trainers rushing forward to embrace their lost Pokémon and apologise profusely for letting them get lost. The rest of Jenny's precinct was also there, called to the town by the Charizard's trainer like he had been instructed, though they had only begun making a token search by the time Jenny and Joy returned. Tucking their tail between their legs at being proven wrong, they quickly tried to save face by herding all of the Pokémon whose owners were not there to greet them into the town hall. There, they could begin arrangements to contact their owners and return them safe and sound.
After giving statements to the rest of the police force on what she had seen, Jenny quickly got some medical attention for her injured leg, and Joy also got looked at for some of the cuts and bruises she had sustained during their misadventure. After that though, they were discharged and almost immediately went back to their hotel room for a well-deserved rest. No one in the town could deny that they had earned it.
On Jenny's testimony, the police and several others from nearby towns and cities raided the facility that had been kidnapping all of the Pokémon and performing experiments on them. The police chief of Saffron City later called it one of the most harrowing sights he had ever seen. All of the research was seized, and the whole place was cleared of the components that were there so they could be investigated.
Most of the staff had escaped in the carnage, but a few stragglers that had either been trapped or knocked out were found and arrested, including a few guards and scientists. They were all interrogated about their roles in the experiments, and soon charged with kidnapping and torture. The mutated Professor Ence was also found, barely alive, where Charizard had defeated it, and was taken to a remote facility for observation.
It was found that while parts of Ence's mind were still intact, a lot of it had been overtaken by instinctual traits befitting of a Charizard, and he had lost the ability to speak and write, so communicating with him was difficult. Worst of all, no one knew how to reverse his mutations, so the last that Jenny and Joy knew, the prognosis was that Ence would remain a human/Charizard hybrid indefinitely.
Karma really had come knocking.
Unfortunately, the same thing could not be said for the shadowy organisation which had been funding and overseeing the experiments. Ms. River was nowhere to be found, likely having slipped out through a secret exit, and despite a substantial manhunt the authorities were unable to track her down. None of the personnel who were interrogated admitted to knowing anything about their employers, claiming that they had been working under a great level of secrecy and only knew as much as was necessary for them to do their jobs.
Similarly, the few computer systems in the facility that were still operational seemed to have been completely wiped of all data, likely from an extra algorithm that Ms. River had left behind before escaping. In short, the police were unable to get any concrete details on this organisation, so they avoided any justice for their crimes and slipped away into the shadows. Just as she had predicted.
Still, the authorities was at least aware that they existed. Jenny and Joy both had a hunch that this would not be the last that the world would see of this organisation, and they would show themselves some time in the future. And when that day came, they would need to be ready.
…
A week passed by, during which life slowly but surely returned to normal for Jenny and Joy. They remained in Lavender Town for a few more days to recuperate, enjoying the adoration and gratitude of the locals for their efforts at bringing their Pokémon home. Joy could not remember being given so many free cups of coffee before, much less a gifted import set of 12 Casteliacones all the way from Unova Region. They were both humbled by the response, though felt a little overwhelmed by all the attention and so weren't too unhappy to be making the motorcycle trip back to Saffron City before too long.
As Joy sat behind Jenny on the bike, holding on tightly to keep steady, she couldn't help but recall how good of a team they had both made in taking down those evil scientists. She had really gotten to know Jenny during that time, as well as the aftermath in Lavender Town. She really felt like they had grown closer, and she may even have started to develop feelings for her…
She blushed hard at the thought and shook her head to clear it. She had never been in a relationship before, so didn't quite know how to proceed. Once they arrived back at the Pokémon Centre on the outskirts of Saffron City Joy almost thought about speaking up, but her voice caught in her throat before she could, and she simply said goodbye to Jenny and waved her off as she drove down the street and out of sight.
She sighed, saddened that their adventure was now over, and hoped that this would not be the last time they would see each other…
The next day, she was back at work at the Pokémon Centre as a nurse, helping to heal people's Pokémon as she had done so many times before. Despite her melancholy from the previous night, she really did feel happy to be back. This really was her calling in life, without a doubt.
A few days passed, during which she got settled back into her normal routine, when one afternoon the front doors opened and Jenny strolled inside, still in her officer uniform, smiling widely as she saw Joy.
"Hey, there's my brave heroine!" She grinned, walking up to the counter. "And here I thought a trip out in the sticks would have made the old grind a little mundane for your liking."
Joy giggled. "You know me, can't keep me away from here!" She handed back a healed Togepi to a young trainer. "Tell me, has anything interesting happened since I last heard from you?"
Jenny shrugged. "Mostly just the same, stopping petty thefts and such. I will say, the station's been pretty up in arms over the discovery of everything that was going on in that facility. I imagine there might well be a scandal for us all since it happened under our noses."
Joy made a face. "Well, they can hardly blame you! You helped put a stop to it!"
Jenny raised her arms in agreement. "Maybe so, but it might be tricky getting the public's trust in us back for a little while. Good news is, the chief gave me a pay raise for a job well done, and I might even end up getting a promotion at some point!"
Joy gave a joyful clap of her hands. "Congratulations! You definitely deserve it!" Then, her face took on a sassier edge. "I do hope they won't just stick you in an office doing paperwork."
Jenny scoffed. "Are you kidding?! I love doing street level work, they couldn't pull me away from my rounds if they tried!"
Both of them gave a laugh, before Jenny blushed a little and her voice lowered.
"Listen, I… wanted to tell you something." She said bashfully.
Joy moved closer. "Go on."
"Well, to tell you the truth… I really enjoyed working alongside you during this investigation. I think you and I have some really good energy together. And I was wondering if you would like to do something together again sometime. Could be solving another crime, or simply going out for a meal of taking a walk somewhere. What do you say?"
Joy thought on this in silence, her heart fluttering that Jenny had been feeling the same way that she had before. Her tongue very nearly silenced her from replying, but this time she found her voice.
"Of course, Jenny. I would love to."
Jenny looked shocked, like she had not been expecting her to say yes. "You would?" Then, she cleared her throat and gave a smile. "I mean, great! Happy to hear it! I'll arrange something for us to do soon, I've been thinking of visiting Celadon City for some time now!"
At this, she turned to leave, but suddenly stopped and reached into her pocket. "Oh, I almost forgot…" Taking out a PokéBall and putting it on the countertop, it opened to reveal Rotom, smiling up at Joy.
Joy looked surprised. "Your… Rotom…?"
Jenny elaborated. "The other day we finally managed to track down the original owner that this Rotom was stolen from, but it turns out she's gotten a new one to replace it, meaning it would usually go up for adoption. However, from what you told me, you and it worked together to stop the facility from blowing up and saved me and all the Pokémon in there. Sounds like you made a pretty good team."
Joy smiled warmly. "Yes, it really did an amazing job."
"Well, in that case, I want you to have it. I've got plenty of Pokémon already, and it only feels right that it stays in your care."
The Rotom flew up into Joy's hands, trilling happily at its new owner. Joy was intensely moved by the gesture, nearly starting to cry from happiness as she pulled Jenny into a hug.
Jenny blushed hard as she looked around to see various staff and customers looking at them, but she didn't care and returned the hug. Something about Joy's affection made her just want to reciprocate it as best she could.
After they held the hug for a short time, Jenny finally pulled away and cleared her throat. "Ahem, anyway, I'd best let you get back to work then."
Joy nodded, calling back to Jenny as the officer began to leave. "I'll see you soon, I hope!"
Jenny winked back at her. "You betcha! Pretty soon you won't be able to get me out of your hair!" She gave a loud laugh and walked out the door.
Joy couldn't help but smile. The last week of her life really had been eventful. She had solved a mystery, stopped the machinations of an evil organisation, and saved countless Pokémon and bought them home. And she had made a new friend that may even be something more than that. Her world had changed in subtle ways, her eyes now open to new opportunities and possibilities for herself that she had not thought possible before.
All in all, a pretty good week. A very good week indeed.
She really had to do this more often.
THE END
