Finally the site is back. And with it so continues the story of Sonic and friends. And things are starting to get really dark.
Chapter 43; descent into darkness
Rocket executive proton picked up the cut-off tail and stuffed it in the bag along with all the already collected ones.
"Money sweet money" he thought smiling despite all the cries of pain coming from the slowpoke.
He looked around him, taking the sight. His grunts were working fast and organized in pairs, one of them holding down the slowpoke and the other using a machete to cut the tail off. No hesitation, no second thoughts.
It was not off course like they were pressured to hurry. The slowpokes were too slow to escape them.
"Archer was right" he admitted "this is the easiest money we have ever made. The boss will be back with us soon" he said as he smiled menacingly looking at the cash flowing in front of his eyes.
They had been there for over an hour and had already collected more than the required tails. And since their hideout had fridges they could store the ones they wouldn't sell right away and pretend they harvested more and sell them even more expensively.
Giovanni may had been a leader but Archer was a businessman. Perhaps it would be for the benefit of team rocket that Archer became the boss' second hand when they regained their former glory.
His communicator buzzed.
"Proton here" he barked into the communicator.
"Don't ever bark at me again" Archer's voice came through.
"Hey there bossman. Calling to check if our assets are safely collected?"
"No I'm aware of that. I'm calling to see if any trouble has appeared?"
"If by trouble you mean the hero of Kanto no he hasn't appeared yet".
"I see. Keep your eyes open though. And send someone up to stand guard or keep watch".
"Chill Archer. How will he find us? Your new M.O. of operating in the shadows for real this time has worked like a charm so far. Even after that foolish grunt was found last week by them, they won't find us so easily".
"Need I remind you he was under your command?"
"Ok. Ok. Chill. We'll collect the tails and be back soon. Just make sure to have my cut ready".
Archer signed off without answering. Proton smiled.
Archer may not like him but he had to admit that the job was getting done nicely.
Footsteps were heard coming from the entrance of the cave.
Proton turned and found the grunt he had sent to 'discuss business' with that restaurant's representative come up to him.
"Everything ok sir. The guy seemed sincere".
"Good. And what of the deal?"
"They have no choice but to wait for us. The restaurant is not performing well. We're their only chance of comeback".
"Excellent. Everything is going as planned. Now do your part and harvest those tails".
The grunt saluted proton and got to work.
Little did proton know however that the very grunt he had sent to discuss business would be his undoing.
For he had led team Sonic to the slowpoke well.
Sonic, Tails and Knuckles easily snuck to the entrance of the cave, avoiding all detection.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Sonic asked Tails.
"Yeah. Too bad we're visiting under these conditions".
"But the place is not to be visited. You were planning to sneak in regardless?" Knuckles asked.
"I mean… maybe".
"Guys focus" Sonic brought them back to their mission "plan is simple. We go in, beat the hell out them and then call the police before disappearing".
"Wait what am I going to do?" Tails asked "I don't have a good pokemon like you and Knuckles".
"Just stick with Knuckles ok?" Sonic said "don't worry about fighting them, they are morons. They only ever attacked me when Giovanni ordered them to at silph co. Just use your pokemon and we'll be fine".
Knuckles had one final question to ask.
"Is Raichu going to fight alongside us?"
"Of course. We're all in this together".
The team put hands in the middle, mentally preparing themselves. Afterwards they reached the entrance of the well and climbed down the ladder. Sonic recalled raichu during the descent and then brought it back out.
Immediately upon entering the well they were bombarded by the cries of slowpokes. But those were not regular cries. They could all tell.
"They have already started" Sonic whispered clenching his fist so much he felt it would burst.
"Then let's not waste time" Knuckles said taking the lead.
The walk to the main section of the cave took merely seconds. They peeked from behind a boulder to take in the gruesome image of suffering. It filled Sonic with extreme hatred for team rocket.
"On three we reveal ourselves. Jump over the boulder style" Sonic whispered to his friends.
"Got it" Knuckles said.
Tails also nodded.
"One. Two. Three!"
They all jumped almost at the same time over the boulder. Their sudden movement took every single rocket grunt's attention.
"Jig's up rockets!" Sonic declared loudly.
Panic ensued.
"THE HERO OF KANTO! ATTACK!" one of them dressed differently than the others screamed.
A lot of the grunts obeyed and sent out several pokemon, including koffings, zubats, ekans and rattatas. The rest however all rushed to escape. Facing down the hero of Kanto was not in their plans for today.
"Knuckles don't let them leave! Use your fists if you have to. I'm going after their leader!" Sonic called out to his friend and then sent wooper.
"Wooper mud shot!"
Wooper unleashed its attack striking a lot of the enemy pokemon. Raichu also charged forward entering a frenzy, using all of its moves to knock out not only the pokemon but also the grunts.
Sonic locked eyes with the one who had ordered the attack. The one he had told Knuckles he believed was the leader of this operation.
The latter looked into Sonic's eyes and realized exactly why the rest of team rocket, including Archer himself feared the possibility of Sonic, the hero of Kanto, coming after them.
His eyes were blazing with fury.
The hedgehog was here to end them. Once and for all.
Sonic started taking slow but steady steps towards proton not taking his eyes off him.
"D-don't just stand there morons get him!" Proton screamed in doubt.
The grunts however all stepped back. No one had the balls to mess with the hero of Kanto. Especially with his two pokemon beating their pokemon almost effortlessly.
While this was taking place, Tails and Knuckles had blocked the exit and fighting off as many of the escaping grunts as possible. Tails who had no pokemon to utilize in battle, had borrowed Knuckles' bellsprout and using his intellect, utilized vine whip to its fullest extent, setting up various traps in the blink of an eye causing many of the escaping grunts to trip, fall and some even crash either on the cave wall or on Knuckles.
The first case would have been the merciful one.
Knuckles too was not messing around. His immense strength made him a nightmare to deal with. That combined with his quilava's ferocity, speed and dodging capability made them almost unrivaled. If anyone had seen Sonic's attacks on the rockets in Kanto with raichu, they would see Knuckles and quilava in the current situation as a mirror reflecting Sonic and raichu from back then.
Knuckles also did what Sonic told him. Use his fists. The grunts who didn't manage to walk past him, were slammed hard back, rolling on the ground and some of those tried to get back up.
Momentarily Knuckles' eyes fell on a slowpoke which had curled on the ground trying to reach for its severed tail end.
Anger consumed him.
A grunt tried to take advantage of his momentary lack of focus. He also managed to land a punch on Knuckles' left cheek.
All that achieved was pissing him off.
Grabbing the grunt by the throat he brought him closer.
"Have mercy please" the grunt whispered under the pressure on his throat.
"Mercy?" Knuckles asked with a menacing voice before throwing him back as hard as he could.
Tails was witnessing Knuckles' fit of fury and it scared him a bit.
But when he looked past Knuckles to see how Sonic was doing, he stepped back and gasped though no one heard.
Sonic had just knocked out a grunt. His eyes had bulged from rage. He was vicious and ravaging. Like a wild arcanine off its leash.
"Was he that vicious in Kanto too?" Tails wondered momentarily before returning to preventing the grunts from escaping as best he could though a team of 4 managed to elude him when he focus was on the ravaging Sonic.
Speaking of him, the grunts around him, either beaten or just too scared to battle, were all cowering away. It slowly dawned on Proton that he was defenseless.
"Get up you morons! Get him!"
Raichu let out an angry and threatening cry, daring any of the grunts to get up.
Sonic then got Proton's attention.
"All this pain… all this suffering you caused. You had your chance to walk away. Your boss is gone. And yet here you are pursuing his ambitions. Now you will reap the rewards of your choices!"
Proton managed to smile. Sonic was indeed a scary enemy to have but at the end of the day he was just a pokemon trainer. He didn't have any real power over team rocket like the law did. Sure he had broken the boss' hand during the invasion of silph co but back then things were way different.
"You think I'm scared of you hedgehog? Go zubat!"
Zubat appeared. Wooper went to engage, but Sonic recalled it.
Proton would learn the hard way.
"Thunder punch" he said coldly.
Raichu in the blink of an eye struck zubat so hard it made a small crater of the side of the cave. Proton was shocked but still not ready to surrender.
"Go koffing!"
He sent out a couple of koffings.
"Sludge!"
Each koffing launched one ball of sludge.
"Quick attack!"
And just like he had described to Ash, raichu moved like a bullet, knocking out both koffing by first hitting one then ricocheting and hitting the other one. At the same time Knuckles had knocked out the last grunt.
"We're clear here Sonic" he called out to his friend.
"Good. Come here".
Tails and Knuckles approached Sonic as Proton took a step back instinctively but tripped and fell down. He crawled away from them until his back was against the wall.
Sonic approached him and snapped his fingers as raichu immobilized Proton with its tail, catching Tails off guard.
"As I said at the beginning" Sonic spoke "jig's up buddy".
"Name's Proton. Executive Proton".
"Whatever. Here's how this is going to go Proton. I'm going to ask you only once. Where is Archer?"
"Hehe. If you think I'm going to talk you're even dumber than I thought, hero" he mocked Sonic.
Sonic snapped his fingers and raichu charged its punch and smacked its own tail, closing the circuit and electrocuting Proton.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAH!" the team rocket executive's scream echoed through the cave.
Tails was horrified by the scream and the scene. But even more he was horrified by Sonic's calm demeanor at what he was doing.
"Let's try that again shall we?" he said almost amusedly "where's Archer?"
"Funny" Proton managed to say "you said you would only ask once and that's twice".
Sonic snapped his fingers again as Raichu electrocuted the executive again causing him to scream. Tails averted his gaze.
That was wrong.
They were supposed to be there to save the pokemon, not torture people.
"Third time's the charm" Sonic warned "Where. Is. Archer?"
"Fuck. You!" Proton smiled.
Sonic was about to snap his fingers again when Tails grabbed his shoulder claiming he had heard voices from above.
"Raichu don't let him off got it?"
"Rai"
As Raichu stood guard, Sonic followed Tails to where Knuckles was.
"Sonic this too much. The guy is obviously not going to talk. Any more of this and you will kill him!" Tails whispered in anxiety.
"He is our only lead Tails. We need to find the location of Archer".
"I know but this wrong".
"Wrong? Look around you Tails. Look at what they did!"
Tails had a hard time ignoring the sight of the crying slowpokes.
"I know. But by torturing him you're not any better".
"Not any better? Seriously? After everything you know about them you take pity on those monsters?"
Knuckles tried to change the subject to ease the tension.
"What about the grunts? Why don't we interrogate them?"
"They're the pokemon mafia Knuckles. The grunts won't talk out of fear, and the executives won't talk out of loyalty. It's the loyalty we need to break" Sonic counter-argued.
Knuckles had a hard time disagreeing.
"Look" Tails interjected "he is obviously not going to talk. Let's just call the police and get out of here".
Sonic hesitated but nodded at the end. Tails headed outside momentarily to make the call.
"You know" Proton's voice came from the corner "my higher ups have come to know of what transpired before you fought project two".
"Shut up" Sonic said calmly.
"We found out everything. About that puny Jolteon".
That was a mistake.
Sonic's eyes bulged in anger. He started shaking.
"Shut your mouth" he said still calmly.
"Did I make you angry? Is the hero of Kanto really a softie?"
"I said shut your mouth!" Sonic yelled turning to charge only to be held back by Knuckles.
"Sonic calm down he is trying to bait you".
"And you too" Proton said referring to Knuckles "you were powerful back there. Your friend was just like that when he started messing with us. And yet he was unable to save that Jolteon. I can't help but wonder which one of his pokemon you will be unable to save".
Sonic fought with all his might to escape Knuckles' grip.
"Your words are not going to work on me".
"Tough guy huh? Daddy taught you how to fight so well?"
That.
Was an even bigger mistake.
Sonic found himself shoved to the ground as Knuckles rushed to Proton and punched him so hard the back of his skull started bleeding, though only very little.
"Sonic" he said panting heavily trying to calm himself down "what are we going to do with this guy?"
Sonic wanted nothing more than to continue the interrogation but he knew they would have to leave soon. He picked up a rock from the ground.
"He took a limb from those slowpokes. I think it is only fair we return the favor" he said tossing Knuckles the rock.
"Break his legs".
Proton laughed it off.
"Break my legs? You're not capable of that".
"Do it Knuckles".
And Knuckles obeyed.
The rock came hard down twice.
The screams pierced their eardrums as raichu released the executive who grabbed both of his legs and started rolling and writhing in pain on the ground.
Sonic observed his suffering with a calm demeanor and with a little satisfaction too.
Tails of course chose that very moment to return to inform them of the police being on their way.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" he asked angry and terrified.
"Taught him a painful lesson" Sonic said still calm.
Tails felt he would vomit. His friends had just broken a person's legs and they were calm over it?
He would try to get through to them later though.
"We have to get out of here the police will be on their way".
Sonic nodded but before they went towards the exit, he remembered something. Returning to the writhing Proton he took him by the shirt.
"You didn't see us if the cops ask. Otherwise we will find you and make sure you feel the entirety of the pain you inflicted on those slowpokes and not just a fraction of it like now, got it?"
And before waiting for Proton to answer, not that you would be able to while screaming his lungs out, team Sonic headed for exit.
Reaching the stairs though they heard police sirens.
"Shit they're here!" Knuckles cursed.
"Come on we have to hurry" Tails said attempting to climb the ladder.
"No they will see us" Sonic stopped him.
"There is no other way out" Tails countered.
"That's impossible Tails. If there is no other way out where did the slowpokes come from? They weren't brought here" Knuckles interjected to ease the tension again.
"You're right" Sonic said realizing this "back inside. We need to find that other exit".
At that moment he heard cars come to a halt from the surface.
"Like now!" he said pushing his friends back inside.
The team rushed back into the main section of the cave where all the grunts and the still writhing Proton were. Sonic picked up the rock that they used to break his legs and washed it off in a small pond to make sure the police wouldn't have any blood traces to follow.
Knuckles in the meantime managed to find what they were looking for; a small underwater tunnel which connected the cave to the nearby coast.
"We have an exit" Knuckles said after reemerging from the dive he took to find the tunnel "take a deep breath and follow me quick".
He then dived again after recalling quilava. Tails dived behind him and so did Sonic after recalling Raichu. He stood behind for a moment to hear an officer scream for paramedics to come quick, before diving himself.
The swim was rough through the absolute darkness but Knuckles was experienced in this regard as well, having explored several underwater ruins. Holding the flashlight on his mouth to light the way, he quickly led his friends towards the blue of the sea.
Emerging off the coast to take deep, heavy breaths after holding them for so long, the team swam to a nearby shore. Knuckles brought out Quilava again and the three friends laid on the sand besides it so the heat would take the soaking off until they found a place to shower and remove the salt as well.
After a while Tails was calm enough to talk.
"Have you lost your damn mind Sonic? Why did you do that?!"
"I couldn't just let him off like that. You saw what he did".
"I did Sonic. I did. But what you did…"
"Tails" Knuckles stopped him "he dismembered those innocent slowpokes. Their pain won't go away without a huge amount of medication and painkillers that are bound to have side effects of their own. We did nothing to him compared to all he and his grunts did".
"You do realize that now the police will come for us right?"
"No they won't" Sonic said revealing the rock "without this having Knuckles' fingerprints they can't place us there. And I doubt team rocket would be believed. Plus I did warn Proton not to snitch on us. He won't. He will not risk revealing anything in fear of it having an effect on team rocket's survival. His higher ups will surely bust him out eventually so they will know that we are serious".
Tails felt a bit of relief knowing that they had covered their tracks but still couldn't come to terms with their actions. As evil as team rocket was, what Sonic and Knuckles did was just too much.
Sonic too allowed his mind to recall Proton's suffering as he threw the rock at the water to let get lost. He tried to feel some remorse as he too didn't fully agree with that action but just couldn't. Proton was a monster. He couldn't find any sympathy for him.
Then he remembered the detail of Knuckles being triggered by the mention of his father.
"Hey Knucks. Why did Proton's insult of your father trigger you like that?"
Knuckles remained silent for a moment before answering.
"Would you just accept it if someone like Proton made fun of your family?"
"Hmph" Sonic shrugged "true".
"So now what? We just stay here?" Tails asked.
"No. We find a place to stay. Probably the pokemon center. And don't worry about the authorities. They will need more than testimonies of criminals to actually come after us".
Tails looked at his friend one more time and the lied back down. Still very conflicted.
Later than night after team Sonic was completely dried off and found a room in the pokemon center, and then proceeded to spend the entire day in there to stay off the grid for a few hours until the rounding up of the rockets was over, went to bed each lost in their thoughts and not talking to each other much.
Tails himself was wondering how long they would continue like this before this difference in their opinion on how to handle the rockets would cause a rift in their team.
As all this was taking place, team rocket was not out of the loop. After arriving in Johto, they had managed to place a mole into each police department in the region to make sure they stayed one step in front of the police at all times.
The mole in Azalea immediately went to report to Archer about the total failure of the plan to harvest the slowpoke tails. And even worse to inform him of what had transpired with Proton.
Archer of course watched the news of the arrest when he got the call.
"I hope what I am watching on the news is lies".
"I'm sorry sir but it's not. Proton's division was arrested".
"Shit. That is a major setback".
"There is… something else too sir. Something the police withheld from the public".
"What is that?"
"Proton's legs… they were broken".
"What?!"
"I managed to get some alone time with one of our guys. He said that… the hero of Kanto and his friends showed up. That it was him and one of his friends who broke Proton's legs as payback for all the slowpoke tails".
Archer was shaken by this revelation.
"Instruct as many of our people not to tell the cops a thing. Even if we direct the police towards the hedgehog we are also giving them a chance to catch us as well. We will deal with the hedgehog ourselves".
"Sir… is this wise? If he could do such a thing to Proton…"
"Proton is an idiot who can't keep his mouth shut. He must have brought this on himself somehow. As long as we play the game carefully we'll be fine. Now go do your job".
"Yes sir. Signing off".
Archer was very shaken by this development. A few days ago he had sat in that very same room, calm and confident that they would prevail over team Sonic.
But today's events showed a different way this conflict could play out.
"We will need to accelerate the plans a lot. My leadership is obviously not enough" he said as he looked on the table at the many versions of the plans he had come up with all of which involving the radio tower on Goldenrod city.
"We need our boss back. As soon as possible".
And there was also the problem of team Sonic. He couldn't possibly let them roam free any longer.
"Time to call in an old acquaintance. He has hunted for Celebi long enough" Archer thought as he reached for his phone, intending to take team rocket's assault hound of his leash and send him after team Sonic.