Emergencies are referred to as such because you never know when they will happen nor what will happen.
The emergency this time? A siege on a scale never seen before is going to take place at Castelia City. It's on a scale so big that even the individual sieges that Team Rocket made to each and every Johto cities in their One Day War could not hold a candle to the one that will take place at Castelia soon if we were talking about the number of combatants that will be involved. If Team Rocket had opted to conquer a region through the simultaneous invasions of each and every city of a region, Team Plasma had opted to gamble an all-in and all-out assault on one of the most important cities in the region after they had assumed effective control of most of northern Unova. If they win this gamble victory is almost assured for them.
And honestly? Their odds are looking good; the Plasma Frigate, their army of Ability Holders and Reshiram under their command. People are starting to lose hope because nobody can imagine just how on earth could Team Plasma lose this war with such favourable odds on their side, especially when news of Alder's defeat had spread and that he's temporarily incapacitated from taking part in any battles in the foreseeable future. He still hasn't woken up yet.
Castelia is in a mess. Fear is a contagious plague and everybody is trying to flee the region in a mass panic so you can already imagine the chaos and mayhem taking place at their ports. We couldn't even leave if we wanted to, the ports are too congested and nobody has any pokemon that could ferry them across regions so the only way out is to board the limited number of ships that everyone is competing to get onboard.
Nobody could give an accurate estimate of refugees that were already making their way to Castelia or are already there. It could be half of the region, it could be more and it could be less, nobody could really give an accurate estimate of the numbers anymore since the Unova League is already unable to operate functionally with the loss of their headquarters and more than three-quarters of their staff fleeing for their lives, leaving only the few patriotic ones still trying to keep everything up and running. Unova is already breaking down from the inside.
To me, it felt like seeing the start of the end of the world for the very first time. It really felt like the prophecy was coming true. The Lilycove Invasion was bad, the battle at Goldenrod was an uphill one, the Battle of Olivine was terrifying but none of those felt as hopeless as what we are seeing now with our own eyes. The despair that clouded an entire region could be felt so strongly that I cannot help but wonder just what kind of miracle it would take for us to end this nightmare.
Steven and Wallace had ordered us to bail out of there. It felt wrong to just pack my bags and leave but this is no longer an issue of whether we want to escape or not, we couldn't escape even if we wanted to because Team Plasma had a very strong presence in the northern end of the region. That meant that the only way out of the region is the port at Castelia City at the southern end but it is currently heavily congested with people and ships. The congestion was so bad that everything was stuck in a jam. It was to the extent that nothing could get into the port, so there's no transport that Hoenn could arrange to even pick us up at all. There were already so many reports coming in about the number of people who lost their lives in that mad stampede at the port. People were trampling on people and people died just by being there. People were dying not from any direct attacks from Team Plasma but from the infighting between themselves and the final fight hadn't even started yet.
Norman, Flannery, and I had a very quick discussion and our thoughts were all surprisingly aligned. Since we couldn't escape anyway we might as well fight back and hope that this would give us the highest chances of survival.
Just think about it this way: if we were to pull out now we still are not able to leave the region due to the lack of transportation that could bring us out of here. If Unova were to fall we don't doubt that Ghetsis will hunt us down once he has taken over Unova. Things will be more dangerous for the three of us then.
But if we chose to fight alongside Unova right now there will be safety in numbers and Unova still has plenty of powerful trainers willing to defend the region. If we really are destined to die in foreign soil either way we might as well do so fighting. Don't get me wrong, I'm as afraid as the person next to me because never had I been subjected to a situation far beyond my means to handle and with an outlook that's so hopelessly bleak. However, I will also admit that a part of me also felt relieved that I wouldn't have to desert the friends I had made in my time here.
I know to some it would be foolish sentiments, but I don't want to "betray" my friends who I had fought alongside with for so long. The fact that I was forced to stay helped me because it did not allow me to make any decision by my own hands.
Sounds stupid, right? Why stay to fight for a foreign region if you had the option to leave? Even I think that I'm stupid, but I never claimed to be smart.
I held onto my phone for a long while, deciding if I should give my family a call because it might really be the last time I could see them. I really wanted to see them and talk to them but at the same time I know all that would do is to get them to worry about me more than they are already doing since there's nothing that anybody could realistically do right now. I settled for a short recording of my last words and had Jarvis programmed it so that it would be automatically forwarded to them one month from now. That is more than enough time for the dust to settle and see if I come out from this ordeal dead or alive.
"Sorry for getting you into this mess. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me," I broke the silence when I was gearing up in my own room with Sebastian assisting me, all fully geared up as well with whatever Mary could provide us.
"Please don't say that, Ms Velda. It is my duty to serve and protect you."
"It is not your duty to die for me."
"It wasn't your grandfather's duty to save my life either. I considered myself a dead man since many years ago so I'm simply repaying back what I owed him through you."
"Grandfather? Actually, how did you meet grandpa?" I couldn't help but ask when Sebastian brought up a topic that I wasn't informed about. In fact, I have very little clue or knowledge about the grandparents on both my father's and mother's side since they so rarely talked about them. Vance and I simply assumed that it was too painful for them to talk about their losses and so we never pried.
Now that I think about it, I don't even know the names of my maternal grandparents. Mum simply never talked about them. I only knew of my paternal grandparents and their names thanks to our family tree. Azer and Elena, those are the names of my paternal grandfather and grandmother who passed away before I was born.
"We met in Petalburg. He saved my life and asked if I wanted to work for him, and I agreed."
"You are omitting details."
"Of course I am. They are not child friendly and I do not wish to stain the ears of my young lady with such unsightly stories," Sebastian jested, which is quite novel to see since he's always so serious.
"I only know of Whiskers, and then Blades after I finished my conference," I pondered over the only things I know of that had relations to my grandfather that I never met. I never even knew what grandmother did or liked, or if she even had a pokemon companion at all.
"Please don't blame Blades for not being there for a large part of your life. Blades is a very respectable pokemon that takes his duties seriously, he takes it as his duty to guard the sanctuary and was why he very rarely took a step out of it ever since Master Azer passed away," Sebastian explained when he misunderstood my words. I shook my head in answer.
"It's not about that. It's just… I just realised I know nothing about them at all. My grandparents, be it from Dad or Mum's side, I know nothing about them, which is weird. How could anyone in a normal family not know anything about their grandparents?" I could feel my brows furrowing into a frown before releasing a soft sigh. "But nevermind, let's fuss over that if we actually managed to leave this region alive in one piece."
"You will, Ms Velda. I will see to it."
"Don't die on me, I would hate to live with a life weighing on my conscience," I replied in return and we both left the room with Dolly's Shadow Sneak once we were done. Everyone was gathered and you could see how fully armed everyone was with the way they were all geared up.
"Looking good, short stack. Feeling better?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary so far," I assured Volkner. I half expected something to go wrong with the number of abilities I was forced to "devour" after my fight with Emil but it had been surprisingly peaceful thus far. Only time would tell if anything would go wrong.
"This is the time where you should give an uplifting speech. You know, raising morale and all that?" Skye piped up from where she was lazily leaning her back against a wall and her emolga perching on her shoulder.
"Forget it, he's too lazy to even do that," Nova shook her head.
"No, the question is why am I the one to give the speech?"
"Cos you are a Gym Leader?"
"Ex-Gym Leader. I'm-"
"Retired?"
"Precisely! And are they not Gym Leaders too?" Volkner gestured to the other occupants in the room. Namely his wife, Norman, and Flannery.
"Just do it," Jasmine gently nudged him with her elbow with a fond look of exasperation.
"Well, okay, fine. Let's just all make a promise that by the end of whatever shitstorm at Castelia is over-"
"Language. There are children here."
"- we will all still be fucking alive and partying here like never before for surviving this bullshit. Deal?"
Everyone had a laugh at how Norman looked as if he was suffering from an aneurysm when Volkner purposely said a swear word in front of a child (namely me). That still didn't stop us from forming a circle and stacking our hands together to validate that promise.
"You owe me a battle with that legendary slaking of yours when we get back."
"As long as you don't get cold feet and back out from it, sure."
"I don't know about you guys but I just want a pay raise. I ain't paid enough to do this shit."
"Huh, the last pay raise we had was because of Zapmolcuno. So every time we have to deal with a legend, we get a pay raise?"
"I'm starting to see a pattern here."
"I'd rather not see such a pattern at all."
"You guys get paid for doing this?"
Castelia was in a mess when we arrived, but that's to be expected when the entire region knew that this will be where the most brutal fight we will be having with Team Plasma will be taking place. Yet, Castelia is also the only place left for the common folk to leave the region. There are many people gathered here to try their luck to leave this living hell, even if the chances of them getting what they wanted is so close to zero.
"Thank you for your assistance," Gym Leader Burgh thanked us. We could all see the exhausted look on his face that he tried very hard to conceal but I guess the stress of having to protect an entire city on top of managing the influx of refugees flooding this place is too much for him to handle.
Unova's chain of command had more or less started to break down with Alder's defeat and the removal of their physical headquarters. What's left of the Unova forces had to exercise their own judgement to continue to protect the region and there were many deserters leaving their posts in the face of fear.
The public's trust in the Unova League is at an all-time low.
"Castelia's law enforcement are trying their best to keep law and order but they are really too understaffed. There are teams from EDGE and the USF already helping out in fortifying the city's defence. We have volunteer trainers as well that we had assigned to various positions based on their specialisations, and the Elite Four are already stationed here."
"And the Gym Leaders?"
"Us Pillars came to a decision that the Gym Leaders are to stay put in their cities. If what's left of us aren't there in their own cities their people are going to start a mayhem from the growing fear. Castelia still can rely on Elesa's assistance to hopefully conduct a pincer attack due to the close proximity of our cities, but that's about it."
Burgh pointed at his city drawn on the large map pinned to the wall of the room that we were in. Seating there are all people who will have major contributions in the upcoming fight. The interpol, Elite Four, commanders hailing from different divisions and regiments of their military unit, you get the drift. The final battle will take place in probably a few hours time, depending on how soon Team Plasma consolidate their forces and start their siege. We could choose to take the preemptive strike instead, but our forces are still very scattered and we will also need time to consolidate all of the current military power we can gather before we choose to do anything else. This is very much like the calm before the storm, where both sides both came to the implicit understanding that they will use this time of temporary peace to finish their individual preparations before they decide upon the victor and loser of this conquest.
This is Castelia's final fight and everyone wants to play this safe. One mistake can spell doom for an entire city and nobody wants to be that sinner who made that one crucial mistake.
"There are largely three main threats that we have to deal with: One, the Plasma Frigate. Two, the army of pseudo Ability Holders. Three, Reshiram. I do have my own opinions but I'm open to suggestions. If you have an idea, no matter how stupid it sounds, please, speak up. Now is not the time for holding back. We need to have an open mind."
Unexpectedly, Grimsley was the one who first spoke up.
"The Dandolos are already dealing with the Plasma Frigate and have organised a rescue team to rescue the hostages held at the Plasma Castle. We should focus our attention on the remaining two problems."
"That's good news, but do we have details on how the ship is going to be dealt with?"
"I don't."
"Grimsley," Marshal said with a slight frown on his face. "This is not the time to be holding onto secrets."
"It's not that I do not want to share, but I don't have the details," Grimsley told his fellow Elite Four with his arms crossed across his chest. "Truth to be told, conducting either of such operations is supposed to be impossible since even my family had no idea about one, the location of the airship, and two, how to breach the damn castle. But my son managed to come back with the needed info to make conducting such operations possible and so we decided that we will do it on our own in the interest of time. He was the one doing all the planning, I simply gave him the go ahead and let him do his thing."
Everyone in the interpol who's in the know shared looks after hearing that. Jayce knew how to track where the Plasma Frigate had disappeared to when our collective efforts came up with nothing? How on earth did he do that?
"How confident is he in stopping the frigate?" Caitlin inquired from the side.
"I trust him," Grimsley's answer was unwavering and void of hesitance. "He said that he will bring it down before it reaches Castelia. That's enough assurance to me."
"We cannot bet Castelia's survival on such a baseless vow-"
"He took down Team Rocket and is the reason why motherfucking Indigo is still around today. Is that enough cred to you, Caitlin?" Grimsley all but snarled at her and she looked away with a barely concealed look of irritation on her face. Guess Grimsley doesn't get along all that well with his colleagues.
"I met Grimsley's son before. Well, most of us from the interpol here do at some point in time and some of us also had the chance to see him in action too. He's highly professional in what he does and can be trusted to do what needs to get done," Looker stood up and vouched for Jayce's capabilities, having arrived here on his own from wherever he was previously and managed to join us in time for this briefing. "His assistance is a welcomed one and since he already is on the case, let us take Grimsley's suggestion and focus our attention to the other two problems at hand."
"Highly professional… Don't we know it all," I could hear Skye whispering sarcastically under her breath which I chose to pretend not to hear.
"I second Looker's opinion," Volkner made his stand on this issue known as well with a lazily half-raised hand to catch people's attention. "He's a powerful trainer that is Pillar level in skill and he's quite reliable in this sort of thing. Let's trust him to bring down the frigate before it arrives to nuke us."
"In the worst case where he really failed, I can still defend the city from a shot or two," Jasmine spoke up and all disagreements on this matter finally ceased. Nobody would doubt the capability of the trainer who defended an entire city from Zapmolcuno through her own power.
"To deal with the pseudo Ability Holders and prevent them invoking Resonance is to incapacitate or kill them, preferably before they can use Resonance at all. We tested that at Striaton," Norman helpfully informed. "We should brief our combatants to focus on killing the trainers instead of their pokemon in the upcoming fight. That is the only way to neutralise their superior firepower."
That useful tidbit of knowledge was swiftly soaked up by all as the leaders in this final fight hashed out the manpower staffing based on what we currently have. The interpol will be fighting together as a group since it was agreed that it will be easier to fight alongside people who you are familiar with to avoid unnecessary accidents or friendly fire that could be avoided.
The Elite Four were left in charge of guarding the northern and southern ends of the city. The interpol was delegated to the eastern side of the city. Team Plasma will be sieging the western side as well but for them to do so they will have to rely on a powerful naval force. None of us here are particularly good at naval battles except for maybe Volkner and Jasmine, so we were all delegated to the eastern side. The person leading the defense at the western side is apparently a very powerful Water Specialist that goes by the name of Marlon, a well known Unovan trainer in his region who came all the way down south from his hometown at Humilau just to volunteer his services for this battle once he learnt of the crisis that Unova suddenly found herself in.
No matter how things turn out in the end you still got to respect his patriotism and courage.
"Man, once this entire show's over Cynthia better give me a whole lot of money for clearing this mess for her on behalf of the Sinnoh League," Volkner loudly sighed as we stood in position at the eastern end of the city in preparation of the battle that will occur soon. We all understood that it's all an act on his part to ease the tension in the atmosphere around us, which was kind of sweet of him.
"You can take a picture of that and show it to her, pricing your services for a thousand dollars for one Plasma. See how much you can actually earn from that," Skye pointed ahead. We could see the terrifying size of our opposition from where we were, positioned just out of reach of our attacks but still too large to miss with our eyes.
"I will be swimming in money if I could really do that," Volkner agreed with a grin before turning to his wife. "Hey Jas, how much do you think we will profit off that?"
"Think Steven will give us a pay raise too when we get back?" Flannery joked and used her elbow to give Norman a light nudge. Norman simply shook his head with an exasperated smile.
"I just want to go back home as soon as possible. I miss my wife and daughter."
"Awww, what a family man."
"I think they are making their move," Looker stated and lowered the binoculars that he had been using to observe the movements of the opposing army. We turned our heads to look and true enough, it does seem that they are starting to make their move.
"All stations to your post! Inform everyone else that the battle on the eastern side has started!" A commander from the USF barked out in his booming voice that immediately had everyone explode into a flurry of motions. They will do their job while the interpol will do ours.
"I will soften them up for us," Volkner volunteered as he released his team out for battle, still slouching a little in his usual lazy posture but the look in his eyes was one that spelt demise for his foes. "McWings? You joining?"
"You think?" Skye quipped back from where she was already riding on the back of her pidgeot. Volkner and Skye shot off into the air with their pokemon seconds later and a storm immediately came rolling in above the Plasma army. That's obviously Volkner's work and I spared a few seconds to marvel at how swift his pokemon were able to initiate a Rain Dance on such a large scale.
"I will handle the defence," Jasmine volunteered.
"Nova, there will be some who get past Volkner's and Skye's initial salvo. Get your ground types to slow them down. Shannon, we need your telepathy. Flannery, Norman, I will have to trouble you both to dish out AOE and firepower when they are finally within range." Looker quickly assigned us our respective roles for this defence battle. "Vel, both of us will pick off what was filtered out from Volkner's and Skye's attacks- Yes, your help will be very much welcomed as well," Looker quickly added when he saw the hint that Sebastian was glaring his way. We had already discussed what our respective roles in this battle would be. My stronger pokemon who could dish out a lot of flashy destruction will draw aggro to themselves, allowing Looker and my ghost types to sneak in and kill Team Plasma's Ability Holders. After all, the only way we could turn this battle into our favour was if we could prevent their pokemon from receiving a boost from Resonance or if possible, make it such that Team Plasma are unable to tap into Resonance at all.
The deciding factor to win this battle will be to kill their trainers faster than they can kill us.
A flash of lightning was the only precursor to the booming thunder that fell a split second later. Destruction was wrought upon Team Plasma's army and the shot to signal the start of this battle was officially fired.
"Earth Power," I heard Nova commanding her ground types when more and more enemies managed to brave through Volkner's and Skye's initial assaults with a variety of tricks. Some relied on their pokemon, some used their abilities, and there were also obviously some who were just plain lucky.
For some of our enemies the ground began to soften beneath their feet, sinking and trapping them in place. For others the ground simply exploded beneath them. That forced our enemies to take a brief pause because none of them were too keen on crossing the piece of land that Nova and her pokemon had effectively turned into a field of landmines.
"Flamethrower!"
With Nova slowing the enemies down it allowed Flannery's fire types to torch their targets with relative ease. Norman and his team also contributed to sniping our enemies down from afar before they could reach us. Despite their best efforts there were still a sizable number who survived what they threw at them and are reaching the city soon. There were simply too many of them and they know where their advantages lie: their numerical superiority. They were obviously planning to simply flood and overwhelm us with their sheer numbers.
"Guess it's our turn now," Looker commented with a smirk as his shadows warped and blossomed. My shadow was the same as well and I could feel the mental link that I share with my ghosts growing exponentially stronger in intensity as the seconds passed. They are eager for blood.
I primed a select few of my pokeballs, already prepared to unleash my strongest fighters out to bring about indiscriminate destruction upon our enemies. I don't know how many of us will be walking out of this alive nor what the outcome of this battle will be once everything has settled down, but I do know that I'm not feeling merciful today.
I cannot afford to be if I want to survive.
Character and pokemon list:
Velda Vera, Age: 14, Female, Pokemon Trainer, Member of the International Police
Pokemon on hand:
1) Rapidash (Flamel), male
2) Swampert (Bigblue), male
3) Banette (Dolly), female
4) Flygon (Snap), male
5) Absol (Kelsa), female
6) Charizard (Toothless), male
7) Cradily (Lily), female
8) Espeon (Rena), female
9) Pachirisu (Fuzzy), male
10) Tyranitar (Kratos), male
11) Clefairy (Joy), female
12) Nidoqueen (Ness), female
13) Pangoro (Hulk), male
14) Porygon-Z (Jarvis), genderless
15) Scizor (Archer), male
16) Lapras (Chill), female
17) Gengar (Wacky), male