Interceptor's Wish

by Masterdude21

What started as a young man's search for his abducted mother spirals out of control. Soon, he is fighting a desperate war for survival against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. The enemy is everywhere and allies are far too few. With the entire region at stake, who can prevail when fate itself seems set against you? - Novelization of Pokemon Rejuvenation.

32. Breaking Their Lines

AN: Chapter 32, Breaking Their Lines.

Or Battle of Valor Mountain Pt. I

Or Reaping the Whirlwind

All possible names, but ultimately I went with one that best summarized what I was going for with this chapter. Enjoy the little fluff at the start of the chapter. It won't last.

I always thought telling your readers what music to listen to during specific scenes was pretentious. All I can say is, pick the most badass tunes you got, and strap in.

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Chapter 8 – Those we Lose

Breaking Their Lines

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Will stood bowed over a hand-drawn replica of one of the Valor Mountain maps, courtesy of Saki. He held a pencil in his right hand, with which he plotted critical points for their infiltration. He encircled natural chokepoints, chambers and rooms, as well as spots that could have been tunnels. Next, he used a blue sharpie to encircle everything he could use to his advantage and a red one for possible threats and places to look out for.

He reached out with his left hand and found the mug of coffee Braixen had dropped by a few minutes ago. Writing down his last notes for the first floor, he swirled the coffee and took a swig.

Hmm.

Cold.

Strange. Braixen knew the water was supposed to boil, didn't she?

No matter.

He put the cup down again and continued working.

After much deliberation with Crawli, Kreiss and Melia, he'd managed to break the plan down to three essential phases, further divided into sub-phases that each had their own objective they needed to complete before they could advance to the next phase. Every individual and their Pokemon committed to stopping Team Xen when the ultimatum ran out, had their own role to play.

Phase one: breaking the Xen blockade with overwhelming firepower. Crawli's rangers had finally pinned down a single moment during which the ships blockading the path to Valor Mountain had a gap of sorts in their patrol, a place where the concentration of forces was not as evenly spread as during the other hours. Ninety minutes before the sun rose, their group would hit that section of the blockade with all of their strength, crippling and destroying as much of their transport craft as possible. At that precise moment, the rest of the forces Terajuma island had mustered would launch their own assault at the flanks, pinning them in place and keeping them from reinforcing their assault.

After that, they would establish a bridgehead and infiltrate Valor Mountain from two, possibly three separate locations depending on how well the initial assault had gone and how heavy the enemy resistance would be.

Phase two: breaching the mountain and extracting the hostages. A combination of Ghost-types and other Pokemon capable of either masking themselves or moving through solid obstacles would spread out and search the likely locations where Team Xen could have imprisoned their hostages. Then, once the hostages had been found, Will and Adam would breach the rooms through the walls using Rock and Ground-types and neutralize the Xen members before they could even react.

In an ideal world, they could swoop in, grab the Von Brandt family as well as Jenner and Nim and transition directly to the next part. If not, if Team Xen kept their hostages in separate areas, they would have to split their breachers up, try to time their attacks so that the enemy didn't even get the chance to think about executing their prisoners.

In a perfect world where everything had gone according to plan, they would move on to…

Phase three: getting the hell out of dodge. By that time, with Team Xen's forces still tied down, they would take Pidgeot and Hapi and Aerodactyl, take the hostages and put as much distance between them and the mountain as possible. They would regroup at Jynnobi Pass. If Team Xen was sufficiently tied down, they would deliver the prisoners to the nearest medics and join the assault.

If not…

They'd regroup at the ranger HQ. Hunker down beneath the ground, using Team Xen's reluctance to hurt Melia against them. Without Melia there, Team Xen would simply collapse the entire HQ and bury everybody alive. But with Melia, as she had insisted, they wouldn't dare to do that, because they had proven time and time again that getting her alive was the single most important thing to them in the world.

In the worst-case scenario, that was where Phase four started. By that point, all the planning in the world wouldn't help Will predict what would happen then.

He took another swig from his cold coffee. If everything went according to plan, they would cripple Team Xen's operations, get three more competent fighters back on their side and hold out long enough for the mainland to get reinforcements their way. There had to be an Elite Eight meeting happening. He refused to believe anything else. This region had a Champion, didn't it? People who had vowed to protect Aevium?

Will downed the rest of the stale coffee and put the mug down again. Coordinating this entire mess wasn't his task. That would be Crawli's. The head ranger had the impossible job of making sure the logistics and communications lines worked as intended and that every man and woman on the job knew their task. That included procuring medical supplies, food, water, gear and equipment, radios and every Pokemon capable of helping in those areas and distributing them across the entirety of Jynnobi Pass.

Team Xen wouldn't be sitting still, of course. They would send their forces across the entirety of the island. They would hammer Kakori Village with everything they had, raze the Weather Institute to the ground, set fire to Kristiline Town and….he didn't know, dump toxic waste over Holly's favorite beach or something.

All those horrible scenarios were for the others to think about. Will couldn't afford to get bogged down in anything less than achieving his own objectives. It required a horrible, almost mechanical detachment that he was only capable of mustering because he had already crammed every other horrible emotion and memory into a bunch of leaky boxes. There would be time to peel their lids off in the future. He would let his friends drag him everywhere they wanted, do everything they wanted to do with him if he could just have. One. Victory.

Will put down his journal, grabbed the empty cup of coffee and headed back out. The murmurs and conversations in the living room died down when he walked into view.

Much to his surprise, Valarie and Saki had returned already. But they weren't supposed to be here until another hour or two, right? They must have gotten here earlier. Hopefully Saki's project worked out.

Will nodded at them, then headed into the kitchen. He filled the empty mug with water and downed it in one go. Then, he took a moment to steady himself against the counter. They still had two more days until the assault began and all this planning was driving him insane. He had to be out there now, fighting, breaching, screaming and running through the inner paths of Valor Mountain as he tore the entire place apart to find them.

Tesla wasn't his mother, but she was. That made Amber his sister of sorts, as well as a friend he'd promised he would protect. Jenner was Melia's father and he would be damned if he lost that man on his watch. And Nim – Nim.

He didn't understand Nim, didn't understand why she had held everything from them. All those strange moments, that inclement weather and that single, burning, horrible moment where Nim hadn't been Nim but something else, something else entirely, something hungry and malicious…he didn't care about any of that. Nim was his precious friend. The only thing she wanted was to have a friend but apparently, fate had decided she couldn't even have that. Well, screw fate. He was going to get Nim back.

Losing even one of those four was already an outcome he considered defeat. It was within the realm of possibility that he could lose all four of them.

He wouldn't survive that. He wouldn't want to survive that.

Feeling the sudden urge to throw his mug at the wall, Will decided to go for the option to put it down in the sink instead. Then, he started moving back to the planning room, and the silence in the living room suddenly was too much to bear, too painful to leave alone.

He turned towards his friends. He didn't see Venam or Adam, which was strange, because only Kreiss and Crawli were supposed to be somewhere else at that moment. Yesterday, Saki had told him that she was working on her war machine and that Val was helping out, but they weren't supposed to be back for another hour or two weren't they?

Regardless. "Look…you guys don't have to tiptoe around me," he started, glancing at Val and Saki and Braixen. "Aelita's down for the count, but she's not gone. It's up to us to make the world a safer place for when she wakes up."

"That's right," Valarie said, her sapphire eyes meeting his. "You're absolutely right, but…we're just worried, is all."

"You've been kinda sitting in that office doodling over my doodles for the past three hours," Saki pointed out.

Will started arguing when his brain caught up to what she'd said. "Three? Saki, I've been in there for one hour at – "

"No, it's been three," Melia said, putting her book down and giving him a pointed look. "And that you haven't noticed is a bit spooky."

Will scratched his head, shot a glance out the window and saw that it was already dark outside. "Huh."

"Adam and Venam went off to get their beauty naps," Saki said, taking an oil-stained rag towards a piece of equipment Will didn't have the foggiest where to even use it for. "Like, one hour ago."

"You didn't notice two extra hours went by?" Val asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him.

"That does explain why my coffee was cold."

"I brought you that an hour ago!" Braixen said accusingly.

Will rolled his eyes. "I'm planning stuff."

"Yeah, so are we, but we stopped that like a couple of hours back," Val said. "I understand you want to give this your all, but…it wasn't that long ago that Angie nearly killed you, and now that Aelita's…out of commission, you have to be careful not to hurry things. We'll just have to wait until Crawli's update tomorrow before we can get things moving."

"But - "

"Will, my homie, you can't just go and copy my routine, you know?" Saki said, wiping her equipment clean and pulling out a massive, rusty wrench, She began running an oily rag across that one too. "I'm built for that, you not."

"My routine is fine," Will snapped. "I've eaten, I've taken those energy powder drinks, I'm getting enough rest to function."

"Will, deary, you just missed two hours of your life and drank stale coffee without putting things together," Braixen said, looking at him a bit sadly. "We don't call that functioning."

Okay, if she put it like that…

It didn't matter. "Look - "

Melia slammed her book shut and placed it down on the seat next to her. "Okay, that's it Will. I'm sending you to bed."

"I'm not – wait, what?"

"I'm sending you to bed," Melia said again as if she were talking about the weather, as if he was the one not making sense. "We talked about this, remember? You made a promise."

"I did," Will said, uneasily glancing at the bedroom door. "But…"

"No but. Don't argue."

"That's how you domme someone," Saki whispered at Val, who tried and failed to stifle her giggling at the stupid joke.

Will wasn't amused. "What if something happens? What if Crawli comes back tonight with that update?"

"Then you'll account for that in the plan, tomorrow," Melia calmly said, a light blush on her cheeks that suggested she too had heard Saki's stupid joke. She smiled at him. Nothing gentle about that one. It was the kind of smile people used when they had an advantage the other guy didn't. "We'll wake you up tomorrow in the afternoon or something."

"Yeaaah," Braixen drawled. "We could all use some sleep."

"Only one person arguing."

"Give it up my man," Saki said without looking up. "You're outnumbered."

"Something like that," Melia said with a light shrug. "Go sleep, Will."

Will sighed, said, "Okay, fine. Fine," and started skulking off to the bedroom. He didn't know which one was more surprising; the part where Melia had decided that somewhere along the way, she had gained the authority to send him to bed, or the part where he just went along with it.

Under protest, of course, but still. That warranted some thinking.

Freaking Saki and her teasing. She'd smelled blood, sensed weakness and now she was prowling for the metaphorical kill. Not having Adam there to throttle her when that happened made things different, too.

Nevertheless, he kicked off his shoes, took off his clothes and crawled into the bed.

Crawli didn't return in a hurry that night. Team Xen didn't stage any surprise incursions either. All was quiet. He slept in and they woke him up around twelve in the morning.

The days went by far too swift. They planned. They talked to people. They offered advice and tactics and little tips and tricks that Will wrote down in his journal to further refine his plan of attack.

They got their logistics and communications in place. They got their equipment and battle items ready. They visited Jynnobi Pass the day before the attack would begin, where Crawli and his veteran rangers had turned the checkpoint leading onto Route 6 – the blockaded sea – into a forward command and control base.

"We're gathering as many rangers as we can," Crawli had explained. "We found Flora, Talon and Florin, too. Didn't even know they were in Terjuma. They've pledged to help us."

Saki and Val weren't around for much of those days. That the goofy Blakeori was genuinely putting together a war machine was something Will hadn't taken into account for his plans. Like that, he hadn't taken April into account, but he knew that she would be out there somewhere. He also hadn't taken the Elite Eight into account, but that one was because he had a gut feeling they wouldn't be getting any help from the rest of Aevium.

That gut feeling became even worse when the realization had hit him like a freight train that they wouldn't be seeing any reinforcements because they were the reinforcements. They were all that stood between Team Xen and the destruction of Terajuma.

No pressure.

They'd all packed their gear and equipment during the last hours. Everybody was rested and fed.

They were ready.

The clock hit 04:00. The sun wouldn't be rising for another couple of hours.

It was go time.

"Okay guys," Adam said as he got to his feet. "Let's do this."

"So we're really doing this…" Melia turned away for a second, biting her lip. "Are we even ready to fight back like this…?"

Venam shot her a look. "Don't get cold feet now! We've come too far!"

"I know," Melia said, doubt flickering in her eyes. "It's just that…we've lost so much." In a small, quivering voice, she added, "I'm scared."

Of course she was scared. Everybody was scared. People's lives were at stake, how could they not be scared?

Venam, always ahead when it came to emotions and stuff, beat Will to the punch by a mile. "It's normal to be scared, but you got me and Will! We've put endless hours into this plan thing!"

"Yeah…I wish we got to prepare more, but we're running out of time."

"Hey, come on, we got this!" Venam said. "You got your friends, and you just know Will got you! We'll bust out our friends, break our feet off in Team Xen's assholes and then throw the biggest fucking party ever!"

Melia, still wavering, turned a questioning look Will's way.

She needed his reassurance, more than Venam's?

"We'll find our people," Will told her. "And we'll all go home."

Something like hope played over her face. "Yes…yes! We will! Let's head over to Jynnobi Pass, let Crawli know that the operation can start!"

"Fuck yeah! Let's do this!"

Will watched them go. A cold feeling filled his stomach. He had the horrible, terrible feeling that he'd just lied to Melia. It was a suspicion that he hadn't been able to shake since he left Amethyst Cave. The outcome where everybody survived was the best-case scenario. Things had never played out like that before. He had zero reason to believe things would start looking up now.

Kreiss sighed wearily. "The scoundrel has no clue that she is about to step into a true life or death situation."

"Maybe she does," Will quietly replied. "And this is just her showing it."

"No, no," Kreiss adamantly said. "You can see it in her entire demeanor. The confidence and enthusiasm is true. It is legitimate. And where your enemy is concerned…it is misplaced."

"Maybe," Will conceded. Or maybe not. Perhaps not knowing how stupidly dangerous this whole assault was, would bring Venam to do things the others might not dare. "Not being afraid isn't a bad thing."

"What about you? Are you afraid?" Kreiss then keenly asked.

"Does it matter?"

The older man regarded him with a questioning look. "Well, does it?"

They both knew the answer to that. No more words were needed, so they parted ways.

"Godspeed, Mister Kreiss," Will said as he left.

"You give them hell, young man," Kreiss told him.

Both of them knew this might be the last time they saw the other. As far as parting words went, Will thought they were pretty good.

Val and Braixen were with Saki. They would hit one of the other entrances, if at all possible. Adam would team up with Will, Melia and Venam. They would hit the main entrance. From there, with the Relics in place, they would link up somewhere between the first and second floors and start clearing out the rooms and scoping out the hostages.

They sent out their Pokemon. Venam nestled herself somewhere behind Melia on Hapi. Together, they set out for Jynnobi Pass.

Adam took the lead. Melia and Venam remained in the center, while Will took up the rear guard. They moved fast and low, circling south towards Kakori Village to prevent any Team Xen scouts or infiltrators from spotting them. Then, they broke off towards the east, before finally sweeping back north.

Jynnobi Pass was a beehive of activity as rangers ran back and forth, shouting orders and commands at each other as they scrambled to fulfill their tasks.

Adam touched down first. He looked around for a moment before a pair of rangers hurried towards him. "Adam, right? I'm Mike, this is Katrina. Follow us, the Command Post is this way!"

Hapi landed next, allowing the two ladies to disembark before Melia recalled him again. Will steered Pidgeot around in a little circle, taking note of the crates, boxes and other heavy equipment scattered around the place. He saw things like radios, flare guns and even stretchers and gurneys propped up next to makeshift medical tents.

God, he hoped Team Xen hadn't noticed this racket. If they had, and they had their entire force just lying in wait…this would get bloody.

The four of them hurried past the working rangers towards the Command Post. Once a ceremonial chamber of sorts, the rangers had repurposed it and filled it with radio equipment, computer screens and laptops. Bundles of cables led from one end of the room.

"You guys!" Crawli said as they entered. "You're just in time. My scouts have reported activity on the blockade. Their people are moving around and they're up to something."

"Of course they are," Adam sighed.

"All of our forces are in position," Crawli then said. "We're just waiting for the final reports from our scouts embedded within our flanks. Shouldn't be more than a few minutes. Did you bring the Relics?"

Wordlessly, Will unslung his backpack and zipped it open. He pocketed the three stones and held them up for the head ranger to see.

"Okay," Crawli said, nodding to himself. "Alright. You know the plan. Break through, get those Relics placed down and get your people back. My rangers will give everything we got and then we'll give them some more!"

Everybody, from the resting scouts to the computer experts yelled in agreement.

Alex and Sam were there too. Melia and Venam moved towards Sam, which led to Will giving Adam a questioning look, but Adam simply closed his eyes and gave him an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Okay.

He could respect that.

But…that reminded him. He had one more loose end he needed to tie down as well. If…if everything went according to plan, they would all go home. If even a single thing went wrong, people would die. He knew that. He'd prepared himself for that as best as he could. He knew his duty, knew his objectives. He would move heaven and earth to achieve that.

However.

He harbored no illusions. "Adam," Will said.

The sand-haired man turned around. "Yeah?"

Will shot a quick look at Melia and Venam, all the way at the entrance with Sam, and allowed his hesitation to show. "Got a moment?"

Adam picked up on it. "Sure."

They walked over to one of the more empty corners. "Okay…" Will said. "If I don't make, I want you to look after Melia for me, alright?"

As he predicted, Adam scoffed and crossed his arms, radiating disapproval. "Don't talk like that. You – "

"Adam," Will insisted, cutting his friend off. This wasn't something he needed advice about, something that could be dismissed with confidence. He needed Adam to get this, it was vital, it was important – it was the most important thing in the world that Adam got this. "I mean this. Just for my peace of mind. If something happens to me…it'll break her. Promise me you'll be there for her, too."

"Will…"

"Promise me," he insisted, "That you'll find a way to make her happy again. That you and the others will do whatever you can to keep her happy."

Adam flicked his gaze to the ground. He worked his mouth but said nothing. He set his hand on Will's shoulder and whispered, "I promise."

At that, Will felt something like hot steel settle within his bones. He grit his teeth, then stepped in to pull the man in for a hug. He watched Adam's eyes widen with surprise, before fluttering close. His big arms came up around Will to hug him just as hard, and for a single second, Will allowed himself to wonder if this was what it felt like to have a dad, or at the very least a big brother, someone as solid and dependable and always, always there for him.

Then the second passed, and Will stepped back. He steeled himself. Took his fear and hesitation and self-doubt and stuffed them deep away. They weren't useful for what they were about to do.

He headed towards the entrance. Alex saw him approach and she pushed herself off the wall. "You guys got this," she said. "I know you do. Still…if there's anything you need…?"

"Some water, please," Will politely asked.

If his request surprised her, she didn't show it. She plucked a bottle of water from a nearby crate and tossed it at him. He smiled in appreciation, then retrieved Crawli's combat stimulants from their little steel casing in his backpack. Three packages of two white pills lay neatly sorted in little plastic bags.

He zipped one of the bags open, pocketed the little white pills and then put them in his mouth. Just like gum.

Bitter, dusty-tasting gum.

Why they called this stuff Jungle Chocolate, he didn't have the foggiest…

Alex knew what he was doing. Her expression suggested she had second feelings about this whole thing.

Too late now.

Will cracked the bottle of water open and took a large gulp, quickly washing away the foul-tasting stimulants.

"Hey, watcha doing?" Venam asked.

"Taking an aspirin," he lied. He'd feel bad for lying to his friends later. If he told them the truth, they would freak out and –

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Melia would freak out. Venam would grin and tell him that shit was cool and ask if he had some to spare for her.

She lived the rocker life. Had she ever done drugs before? He hoped not. Her mother would likely kick her ass. He knew his mother would have raised hell if she caught him doing this. What would Tesla think, if she found it? He felt like her disappointment would be more painful than any asskicking she could dish out.

"What for?" Melia asked, a hint of concern coloring her tone.

Will wiped his mouth with his sleeve and shoved the bottle back in his bag. "I have two feet I need to break up in someone's ass and three Admins to break them in," he said, deciding to take a page from Venam's page to bluff his way out of what had the potential to become an awkward moment right before zero hour. "Third one's gonna hurt us both."

As expected, Venam started laughing and Melia just covered her mouth at the vulgarity of his remark. Several other of the ranges laughed and chuckled as well. Anything else they would have said fell away however when the radio right next to Crawli crackled to life and he practically flung himself at the machine. He picked up the sturdy-looking receiver, nodded a few times as a voice on the other end started reporting, then looked Will dead in the eyes.

"We are ready," Crawli said.

The nervous jitters melted off his body, replaced with a cold calm. This was it. He had a job to do, and people to save.

Time to get to work. "Zero hour," he quietly said. "We're going in."

The star-lit night reflected off of the strait separating Valor Mountain from the pass. Route Six, according to the map, was not a true strait. It didn't connect two oceans and it was too wide to count as one. It was, however, easily blockaded and littered with tiny islands and bridges. That had allowed Team Xen to easily put their blockade into place and essentially make it impossible to reach Valor Mountain.

That was a double-edged knife though. Route Six also prevented Team Xen from navigating easily, and their massive ships took an enormous amount of power and energy to get moving.

They might as well have been dead in the water.

"See you on the other side, Will!" Melia shouted as she, Hapi and Venam took to the sky. Little dots of purple and gold disappearing into the sky.

"Yeah," he whispered as he hauled himself onto Pidgeot's back. He reached for the balaclava that rested around his neck and pulled it up, covering his mouth and tucking his hair inside before he pulled it over his head. Upon hearing about the tactics he'd be employing inside, Crawli had insisted he took it with him. A good-luck charm that doubled as a tool to keep out the unhealthy shit that he'd otherwise be breathing in.

Crawli, too, was good people.

"Pidgeot! Go!"

Pidgeot kicked off and his wings caught the wind. The battlefield stretched out below them as Pidgeot's superdense muscles and enormous energy reserves propelled his body hundreds of meters into the air in seconds. The wind howled and tore at his body, but Will only had eyes for the enemy blockade below him, and the absolute hell that his allies were about to unleash upon Team Xen.

The world grew deathly quiet.

Then, Terajuma Island struck back.

No amount of words could do the scale of the ranger offensive justice. Across an axis of roughly two kilometers, spread out across Jynnobi Pass, the lighthouses and patches of ocean, several hundred Pokemon all unleashed havoc on Team Xen's blockade. Torrents of fire and jets of high-pressure water, crackling arcs of electricity and barrages of high-velocity stones, hailstorms of ice and warping twisters of psychic and ghostly energy all tore through the night. The blistering crossfire failed to catch Team Xen unaware however. In the manic, frantic seconds that Will got to see the sky tearing open with explosions and energy discharges, he saw a veritable wall of counterattacks coming from the blockade. Dark shapes scurried across the decks of the ships. Flashes of light erupted as they sent out their Pokemon and began countering the ranger offensive. Across the star-littered night, both parties set the sky ablaze with energy.

That was all Will managed to see before everything broke loose around him as well. Explosions dotted the sky, battering Pidgeot with shockwaves that nearly reverberated through the aura of wind and power he had surrounded himself with. A blast of energy slashed through the air, narrowly missing Pidgeot's wing and Will twisted around, spotting a pair of Xen grunts giving pursuit on their own Pokemon; one of them on a Fearow, the other on an Altaria.

Those guys had organized their defenses very quickly.

Pidgeot rolled to the right to avoid a frigid beam of ice spearing through the sky. Will barely made out the outlines of the center formation of the blockade – his first catch of the night.

Augustus' blueprints hadn't lied; the majority of the battleships were new and improved, with large, sophisticated bridges lined with cameras and reinforced glass panes for maximum situational awareness. They threw on their searchlights, adding more confusion into the sky. In doing so, they flung up enormous beacons of light that just begged for someone to drop by and do something violent to them.

Will would oblige. He picked his first target, locked in on it and yelled, "Faster Pidgeot! The third one, right there!"

Pidgeot dove and accelerated straight towards the Xen battleship. The sky rippled at Will's clothes and forced him to narrow his eyes to slits. The feeling was glorious. Down below, the ship's lit-up bridge was a beautiful target. Will saw the shadows of its crew running to and fro, likely coordinating with their guys out in the fray.

The meters melted away below him. Will struggled to get his hand from around Pidgeot's neck without accidentally losing his grip. He managed to reach Froslass's Poke Ball and, after two attempts fumbling with the button, managed to send her out.

Howling wind nearly ripped her away from him, but her reflexes were honed and her instincts top-notch. She turned immaterial and translucent and suddenly, silly concepts such as drag, velocity and wind lost their meaning to her. Silently, she glided through the night alongside them.

"Down below, the bridge!" Will roared, though his voice was barely more than a whisper over the screaming wind.

Froslass got him. She allowed herself to become semi-solid and suddenly the wind caught her again and ragdolled her through the night, down towards her hapless victims.

Nature abhorred straight lines. A Froslass zooming towards them from a straight angle would be a dead giveaway. A Froslass plummeting towards them in a ragtag, zigzagging pattern that barely resembled control, however, was a different story.

Will wasn't sure if they ever saw her coming, ever realized what had hit them. Froslass plummeted towards the ground at something like a hundred meters per second and then tore through the ship's bridge like a storm, trailing fist-sized chunks of nail and freezing winds in her wake. The windows shattered into a thousand pieces as she zipped through the bridge in a flash of white light, dragging a Blizzard through its interior in her wake. Will thought he saw bodies tumbling through the air. It could have been bundles of electric cables torn free by her storm. Could have been blood, he didn't know, and after two beats of his raging heart, Pidgeot had moved on to the next ship instead.

One down.

A pulse of blue energy lanced through the air, another narrow miss. Team Xen was putting more people in the sky now. Pidgeot could shake them, easily, but not with a human on his back. The G-forces would crush his body like a can.

"Second one, drop me off atop the bridge," Will ordered while preparing Blaziken's Poke Ball. "On my mark."

Pidgeot opened his beak and uttered a piercing cry in defiance of his pursuers. More lances of energy tore at them through behind, but Pidgeot did not waver. He plummeted towards the second battleship like a missile.

"Mark!"

Will pulled his hands free. At the same time, Pidgeot suddenly spread his wings and caught the wind head-on, coming to a violent and bone-lurching halt. Momentum tore Will free from his Pokemon and he found himself falling through the sky. Talon's advice rang in his mind and he forced his arms and legs open, a spread-eagle position that controlled his tumble. Pidgeot was a yellow blur as he shot overhead, closely followed by the Xen pursers, who were hopeless to intercept him.

His heart hammered in his chest as the distance between him and the Xen battleship disappeared in seconds. He released Blaziken from her ball, told her to handle the landing and then tucked his chin and his arms to his body.

In freefall, Blaziken pulled him against her body with one arm, before reaching out with a burning claw and drove it into the side of the bridge. Her razor-sharp claws sliced through the thick layer of steel and reinforced windows like hot knives through butter and she poured fire and force through the deep furrow she tore across the ship. Their combined momentum ripped them down the side of the spire even as the bridge itself erupted into flames.

At the last moment, right as they were about to pass by the ship's crowded deck, Blaziken flung Will up and away from her, towards the water, while she brought herself to a complete halt and then flipped onto the deck proper.

Before Will could slam into the freezing cold water, Pidgeot appeared out of the darkness and clutched him by his shoulders, much like Tesla's Talonflame had all those weeks ago. He flew over the deck and dropped Will off right in front of the entrance to the bridge, where Blaziken was a fiery blur as she engaged multiple Xen grunts and their Pokemon at once. She jerked a Pinsir off-balance and drove a burning Blaze Kick into the Bug-type's side. The Pokemon exhaled explosively as its outer carapace cracked and the force of Blaziken's strike sent it skidding across the deck, unconscious. Lightning-fast she punched a Xen grunt across the head and, before her body could even slump the floor, Blaziken whirled around and landed a second Blaze Kick at a Heracross's face when the blue Pokemon came in to engage her in close combat. It brought its arms up to defend itself, but the flames and the heat that washed over it still forced it back.

"Watch the poison!" Will yelled.

A Wheezing began spewing a thin, but highly corrosive stream of acid at Blaziken and she flung herself into a combat roll to avoid its noxious waste, coming to a step several meters away and in the midst of another pair of Xen grunts.

"Pidgeot, Hypno!"

As Blaziken came back to her feet, Pidgeot came down like a hammer atop a Hypno, scraping it across the deck before flinging it off into the sea.

Blaziken struck one of the Xen grunts with the flat side of her hand. His head snapped back from the sudden blow and he flapped head over tail. Before he could slam into the ground, Blaziken seized his body and flung him at the Wheezing as it opened its gaping maw for another stream of poison. It was forced to break off its attack when the unconscious grunt slammed into its round body and they crashed to the deck together.

A Beedrill zipped in from the side and Blaziken dropped to a crouch to avoid its stinger. At the same time, an oddly-colored Gastrodon began blasting a large torrent of water in her direction, forcing Blaziken to take evasive maneuvers again. She flung herself at another Xen grunt, grabbed a fistful of his uniform and pulled him off his feet as she rolled across the deck. When she spun to her feet, she used the remainder of her momentum to fling the guy into the sea as well.

Will waved his arm to signal Pidgeot and brought it down in a diagonal slash at the Gastrodon. Pidgeot came out of the darkness, stirring up a heavy windstorm in seconds. Gastrodon tucked its head tightly against its body as it held onto the steel deck for dear life, while Beedrill got swept aside by the heavy winds.

A final Xen Grunt froze in her tracks, frozen in horror. Blaziken swept at the Beedrill with a wide arc, blasting searing flames at its face before suddenly breaking off and lunging for the last Xen member. Will could barely follow Blaziken's movements, she was just that damned fast. Within a second, Blaziken had crossed the eight or so meters that separated her from her last enemy. She brought her elbow down and the woman screamed as her leg gave out - a high-pitched howl of agony. In the pale light of the stars Will saw a jagged spoke of bone burst through her fatigues.

Blaziken shoved her to the floor with an air of contempt, as if the woman simply wasn't worth more of her time or effort, and then looked up sharply when the enemy brought in reinforcements from above. Will spotted a Flygon coming in fast.

"Pidgeot, run interference! Blaziken, sink this tub!" Will shouted his orders. "Punch a hole straight to the bottom!"

Pidgeot beat his wings with such force that the simple motion swept a gale across the deck. He plummeted towards the Flygon at breakneck speed while Blaziken pulled her leg to her chest, surrounded herself with a burning corona of fire and then stomped down hard.

The deck beneath her feet crumpled and then shattered. She dug her claws into the gaping hole and widened it just enough so that she could fit through.

Will looked up into the sky. The back-and-forth between Terajuma's defenders and Team Xen's army seemed thick enough to walk across. A non stop detonation of colors across all spectrums of light across the entirety of Route Six. Blurry shapes went back and forth in the sky and the air was heavy with the screams of Pokemon, the heavy thumps of explosions and the screams of trainers. The constant exchange of projectiles and discharges of energy had turned the once-calm sea into a violent storm. Large pillars of steam erupted where errand blasts of fire and other elements scorched its surface.

Yet despite all of the violence, despite the utter chaos of the fight, Will felt strangely calm. He felt, with strange clarity, that this was where he belonged.

Secondary explosions reverberated throughout the battleship's hull as Blaziken tore several gaping holes into its hull. Will felt more than heard the sudden influx of thousands of liters of water pouring in below.

Congratulations, Xen. Another new submarine.

Blaziken leapt back out through the hole she had created and Will wanted no time in recalling her. He raised his arms to signal Pidgeot and the ship began keeling heavily to one side. Recognizing that he had overstayed his welcome, Will began sprinting to the bow - or the stern, he kept mixing those up - where the cover of the night beckoned him on.

He leapt, and with a steady beat of his wings, Pidgeot shoved his body beneath his legs and got him out of there.

Two down.

It would take Froslass some time to find him, but Will trusted that she would manage. Ghosts always returned to haunt their point of origin, didn't they?

Together, Pidgeot and Will rose above the battlefield again - and Will caught something strange. One of the larger Xen battlefields had docked with one of the islands, latching onto it with a steel bridge. This was nothing new; Crawli's scouts had noticed this days before.

However, what was new was the lone figure doing battle against Team Xen's forces, with enemy reinforcements pouring in through the open hatch below the bridge.

Intel had pointed out that this ship was an important one but so far, Will didn't see Melia and Venam diving down to promote it to submarine-status. Seeing the utter pandemonium unfolding, he'd be more surprised if he did see the girls.

More enemies for him to tear apart, then.

He ordered Pidgeot into a nosedive. They shot towards the battleship and Will caught a glimpse of a pair of armored speedboats surging towards the bridge where that lone combatant squared off against his foe. A girthy Torterra held the line, and it dropped a couple of Seed Bombs towards the speedboats. One of them managed to pick up speed and sore underneath the bridge, but in doing so it cut the other off and it caught the full blast of the Torterra's attack, which blew it open like it had been made of paper.

That was all Will got to see before the flagship was suddenly all up in his face. The massive bridge could have been a small skyscraper consisting of single chambers, easily three or four levels tall. They had artificially connected the landbridge to their ship. If he could cut those reinforcements off at the source, he'd pin them against that newcomer and then he could wipe them out in one go.

Pidgeot slowed down enough for him to leap off and he hit the ground running. He flung two Pokeballs in the air and seconds later, Nidoking slammed into the heavy steel door that separated the bridge from the rest of the deck and he barged inside, taking energy blasts on his armored skin as he flung up his scarred forearms to protect his face.

More Xen grunts. A Yanmega fluttered through the air, lifting large shards of rick and preparing to fire them like bullets. Below and to the left, another black-skinned Gastrodon loosed another Fairy-type blast and an Arbok hissed and lunged for Nidoking. It got its jaws around Nidoking's left arm and then began wrapping its thick, serpentine body around his chest, aiming to crush his spine or collapse his lungs

Blaziken got inside and threw herself into a forward roll to avoid the cloud of sharpened stones that the Yanmega blasted at her face. She rolled onto her back, put one claw to the ground and then pivoted around, dragging flames through the room with her clawed feet. Yanmega's eyes glowed blue as it erratically flickered across the room, dodging Blaziken's flames even as she rolled back to her feet.

Nidoking shoved his left arm against the wall, got his right arm free and began pulling at Aebok's neck. He tightened his muscles and razor-sharp spikes jutted up from his back, which he put against the bulkhead in an attempt to gain leverage over Arbok.

Gastrodon fired a blast of strange, pink mist at Blaziken, who deftly jumped to one side and over a railing that took her to a walkway wrapping around the room. It put her face-to-face with a wide-eyed female Xen grunt, who ordered her Yanmega to attack.

Blaziken sprang towards her and swept at her legs with one clawed hand, hooking it behind the woman's knees and tearing it sideways. A spray of blood coated the Yanmega's compound eyes, followed by screams of pain as the woman went down.

With a scream of feral rage, Nidoking managed to get his right arm around Arbok's head and he slammed it against the floor, leaving a sizable dent. The serpent's hold on his body slackened and he was able to shove some of its coils away, impaling them on his many spikes in the process.

"Blaziken, get that guy!"

Blaziken leapt over the railing, ran across the wall in a blur of motion and struck another Xen grunt across the jaw, sending him spiraling to the ground, unconscious before he hit the deck.

Vicious joy at the ease with which they tore through their lines howled in the back of his thoughts. They moved without thinking, driven by instinct and purpose. His simplest gestures and orders translated to complicated maneuvers that his trusted partners pulled off to near perfection. "Nidoking, it's distracted!"

Yanmega shot through the room and began launching more shards of rock at Blaziken, who ducked and threw herself behind one of the larger consoles for cover. That allowed Nidoking to snatch the Yanmega out of the air by its tail. He slammed Yanmega against the ground twice, before tossing the dazed Bug-type into the air for Blaziken to intercept with a Blaze Kick.

They sprinted on. Instead of taking the stairs and running face-first into the inevitable ambush, Will ordered Nidoking to use Earth Power to wrench apart the ceiling - or, for the waiting squad of Xen goons, the floor.

Nidoking gladly ripped the ceiling apart and, judging by the alarmed screams and the two grunts who came tumbling down, Xen hadn't expected that.

Will met Blaziken's eyes. "Focus on the trainers."

In a wash of flames, Blaziken leapt through the jagged hole and ended up in the middle of their formation. What followed was all alarmed shouts and pain-induced screaming and the sound of snapping limbs.

With their ambush sufficiently wrecked, Will ordered Nidoking to take the stairs up. His enemy only had eyes for the furious blur of flames and bone-shattering limbs that was Blaziken, which meant that Nidoking was free to tackle the waiting Seismitoad to the ground and coat the room - some sort of computer lab or IT department - with Sludge Bombs.

Not healthy, but his ranger balaclava would help filter the worst of the crap out, and he wouldn't have to worry about the smell. As the gunk detonated like the world's most foul-smelling grenades, their shockwaves knocked a Togetic out of the air and a Miltank off its feet.

A Dragonair opened its jaws and unleashed a wide blast of draconic energy at Blaziken. With incredible reflexes, Blaziken was able to leap across the destructive blast of energy and it tore the entire wall behind her apart. The shockwave threw Blaziken off her feet and she rolled across the floor. A Rampardos took that moment to lower its head and charge her. Still on her back, Blaziken pivoted on the ground with practiced ease and slammed her heel against its neck a second before it could bash its armored skull into her torso. The Rock-type Pokemon crashed to the ground while Blaziken spun back to her feet. .

Nidoking stomped into the room and Will started running across its side. One of the remaining Team Xen members - an older woman with long, green hair - sent out a Bastiadon, hesitated and then pulled out a second Pokeball.

In the midst of the chaotic, frantic brawl, she didn't see Will coming until he was right on top of her. At the last moment, she must have caught his movement from her peripherals as she jerked away in alarm, but it didn't help her. With a shout of exertion, Will pulled one of the computer screens off its desk and brained her with it. The delicate screen shattered against the side of her face and she went slack. He didn't wait to see how she felt about that and instead, hurried towards the ladder that led to the third section.

Nidoking caught the Bastiodon in its side and he slammed into its body right below its center of balance. As heavy and armored as the Bastiodon was, Nidoking easily flipped it onto its side, struck a quick blow across its lower jaw and then used his tail to further roll the Pokemon onto its back, deftly shoving himself out of range in the process.. Bastiodon was still in the process of struggling when Blaziken came down on its exposed stomach with an axe kick.

Adrenaline howled in Will's veins as he fought his way through the remaining section of the bridge with his Pokemon. When he reached the penultimate layer - a control room just like the others, all glass windows and expensive consoles - it took him several feverish seconds to even realize that the entire room was clear.

With all the running, death-defying stunts and fighting, he should have been panting and out of breath, but he felt fine. Better than fine, he felt strong. This was the first time in ages since he'd gone on an actual offensive against the enemy. This time, unlike Helojak Island, there was no uncertainty, no doubt. They had broken through and they were capitalizing on that now, inflicting casualties and massive chaos and it felt good, it felt right.

He nearly missed the journal when he hurried towards the ladder that led to the bridge's roof. It was only because Blaziken noticed it and gave a cry to alert him.

It…seemed to be Neved's journal.

"To myself, I am writing this to remind myself to stay true to the objective. My dear Franchesca, your life is all that matters to me. You were unfairly held down by circumstances outside of your control. How I long to hold your hand and see you grow up some day. What kind of person will you fall in love with? What kind of children would you raise in this world, if you choose to? Will you remember me fondly as the father who risked everything to save you? Or will you remember me as the selfish man who hurt others for your benefit? Either case is irrelevant to me, once I know you're safe.

But to me, what world am I building for my daughter? Is it a world I would even want her to be alive in? Before me there is a crossroad. One where she lives and the world is in turmoil. And the road is where she is dead and the world is saved. There is no winning for a man like me.

I wonder what Mam would say? Would she tell me to stop? Would she be too ashamed to talk to me at all? All I know is there is no dead end at a crossroad. I must choose a path."

At that point, Will was only vaguely aware that so many of those questions were hauntingly familiar. He only distantly recognized that he had asked many of those questions for himself in the past. Neved questioning whether his…his Mam? His mother? Whether she would judge him or not should have put the man in a different light.

But it couldn't. Will couldn't afford this to affect his clarity, his purpose, so he didn't allow it. That in itself should have alarmed him, but the adrenaline spiked through his body and his blood burned in his veins and it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered except for breaking through and finding his loved ones.

That was all he could allow to matter.

He slammed Neved's diary shut and moved on.

~~~~~~~(II)~~~~~~~

---

"April," he addressed the woman who stepped onto the pier with him. The battle had just begun. The people of this island were ready to take fate back. "Is that what you wish to be called now?"

She - April - gave him a stern look. "For now, yes."

"Very well."

"Ryland…thank you for coming."

Ryland shook his head at her, letting her know that he did not desire her gratitude. "Why aren't you doing anything? If anyone can stop this, it's you."

"I'm only one person," April sighed. "It doesn't matter how strong one person is. They can't take an army this size."

With a scowl, Ryland turned back to the spectacle. A small group of trainers had taken to the sky mere minutes before. Already, he could no longer see them. Had they perished already? "You're just deflecting. You have no confidence. You could do this. You're just afraid."

April remained silent.

"I won't press the issue further. You have issues. As do I. But in order for me to become what I was destined to be…I must work towards those issues. Such is becoming of a Prince."

"And a Prince is someone who is flawless?" April aid sharply.

He would not rise to her bait. "There is no person who is flawless. Even a King is a mere human, but a King must be willing and prepared to make perfectly imperfect decisions. One that may cause bad things to happen, but for a good outcome."

"Is that why you're wearing that mantle?" April asked, sounding unsatisfied. "If you ask me, I don't think that suits you."

"It doesn't have to suit me," Ryland argued. "It has to serve its purpose. And her cause WILL bring an end to the Xen Initiative, eventually." He raised his hand and gestured at the magnificent violence of it all, the utter chaos and destruction these souls unleashed upon each other. "This war that's going on here? It's just a stepping stone. Regardless of the outcome, Team Xen won't be destroyed. It just means the pieces have made their move and the game will move accordingly. April, will you play accordingly as well? Or will you allow yourself to be placed in check?" He shook his head. He knew the answer already. "I cannot allow that to happen. I will not let that happen! For the people of Alamissa…this is necessary."

"So you'll continue fighting for Terajuma?" April demanded.

"Most certainly," Ryland growled back. "I'll be there for the island. No one was there for us back then. I won't let the people of Terajuma share the same fate. "

It was as he had said. April stalked off. She was nowhere to be found. Ryland, meanwhile, soon found himself in the thick of it.

Again a formation of fast-moving Xen boats zipped around from the left flank, attempting to get their troops in towards the center, where a small group of individuals was struggling valiantly to get through.

And again, someone on the mainland of Jynnobi Pass coordinated with his Pokemon to flash-freeze entire swaths of the sea, cutting those reinforcements off and dooming them to content with the violent, if reckless, counter-attack the natives of this island had strung together.

It seemed like madness to him. The combined firepower of the hundreds of gathered Pokemon coalesced into a tangerine borealis. Sheets of energy crackled through the dark sky. The once-calm sea churned and thrashed around, parts of it frozen over into an impassable field of spikes, another part constantly steaming with the amount of energy poured across and into it.

"How miserable," the man muttered to himself. An explosion tore through one of the troop transports and the shockwave blew a few loose strands of sand-colored hair in his face. He reached up and brushed them out of his eyes. "This island is no different from a warzone. But this time will be different. I will make sure of that."

To his right, more of those foolish grunts stormed across the bridge. That they had not yet torn the entire structure down yet still surprised him.

"Halt!" One of them ordered.

"What are you doing to our ships?" The other one demanded. "We won't let this go unanswered!"

The man sighed. His rage bubbled deep underneath his skin. He grasped it with both hands as he readied himself. "I agree. This won't go unanswered. By you. Come then, Team Xen! Answer for your crimes against humanity! I will make you regret everything you've ever done! Come, Torterra!"

Once more, the battle commenced. Such violence. Such horrible sights to subject their Pokemon to. But this enemy, this hated foe, could not be allowed to prosper. They had to be destroyed, pulled out of the soil by their very roots.

As he fought, however, the man saw an unusual sight. He had long ago learned to turn his situational awareness during a fight into situational understanding. As he committed to a fighting retreat, heading back to the more solid ground of the island to his back, he spotted another trainer coming their way.

He narrowed his eyes when he realized just who it was. Throughout the battle, one individual in particular had caught his attention. He had been a rapid-moving constant during the battle, constantly on the move, never resting or standing still, decommissioning two fully-equipped Xen battleships in the span of minutes.

One man, whose death-defying tactics revealed either a suicidal disregard for his own well-being or a complete lack of fear and, he believed, a not insignificant absence of sanity. He ran across the bridge, a Froslass barely visible as it trailed around him, protecting him from stray shots and cowardly attacks in the back.

He stepped into the moonlight, his brown hair whipping across his face as the wind howled across the sea. At one point, he must have taken a hit, as the remnants of a dark balaclava or shemagh clung to the lower half of his face, but everything above had been torn free.

Then, this stranger was upon them, and the man realized that this young man was many years younger than he had anticipated. His Froslass unleashed a focused cone of frigid, frostbitten air and shot one of the harrassing Golbat straight out of the sky.

Alarmed, one of the Xen thugs turned to address this new threat.

"Huh. I did not expect you to follow me up," Ryland admitted to the newcomer. "Very well then. Please, take care of this one for me."

That, his newfound ally did, violently so. The Xen filth sent out his Magneton at first, which began unleashing bolts of lightning across the sky. Thinking quickly on his feet, the young man sent out a large, vicious-looking Nidoking. It had a remarkable array of battle scars on its chestplate and two smaller scars shaped like spiderwebs across his left forearm.

That Froslass materialized on top of the Xen grunt and its Shadow Ball splashed across its steely frame, causing it to flinch.

This Nidoking took the blast of lightning head-on with no sign of stopping. He slammed his scarred forearm into the bridge and a furrow of golden energy shot towards the island, from which large mounds of knife-shaped sand and rock erupted towards the Magneton.

Purple energy erupted around the Nidoking's right arm as he clenched his claw into a trembling fist. He drew it back and the Xen grunt barely had the time to realize what was happening before the Nidoking leapt for him, landing a crushing haymaker that sent the grunt flying off the bridge and, hopefully, to a miserable death.

The second grunt barely had the time to realize his fate before the Froslass zipped up to its face, seized his head between two ghostly hands and visibly tore his heat and life force from his body. Trembling, as pale as a sheet, the Xen thug simply dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

A welcome sight for certain.

"Those Xen grunts were easy pickings," Ryland commented. He pulled his cloak tighter against his body when the freezing temperatures reached him, too. "I expected a greater show, but what we got was nothing special. Regardless, I would like to thank you for your help."

His ally-of-convenience stared at him with bright, emerald eyes. A shallow cut marred his right cheek. A little trail of blood dripped down from it. His body was tense and coiled up, as if he expected treachery.

Wise.

"I was called here by a close friend of mine. A friend who I grew up with and faced tragedy with by the hands of Team Xen. So this moment of retaliation is not only a gauge of their strength for me…but for me to feel cathartic, in a way."

"Personal grudge?" The young man asked in a hoarse tone.

The man allowed himself a little smirk. "Yes, you can call it that. This is, in fact, personal." He oversaw the devastation and the violence that had befallen this once-beautiful strait, "They brought destruction to my home quite a while ago. Everyday I think about avenging my people. It's what drives me. But do not misunderstand me. I am not filled with blind rage." That last part in particular was important to stress. He would not let his anger use him, not ever. "Justice doesn't come to those who wait, but to those who act accordingly. If I act rash in the face of the enemy, I will just be killed."

His green-eyed ally narrowed his eyes somewhat.

"And there is no use in that." He ran his eyes across the newcomer's body, taking note of the spray of blood that coated his pants and his right sleeve. Judging by his lack of visible injuries and ease of movement, it did not belong to him. Judging by the vicious way he had dispatched of their common foe, this would be an ally of more than convenience.

And…this boy. This warrior. He was the one, was he not? He was the one April had met. This was him.

That complicated matters greatly. According to April, this one was sharp and intelligent. Not a fool. What drove his tactics, then?

After some hesitation, the sand-haired man relented. "My name is Ryland. And I am the long forgotten Prince of the Sands!"

At that, his fellow warrior seemed taken aback. "The sand? Then…"

"I will not forget who you are," Ryland pledged. "I will continue my fight here on Terajuma until one side falls. What of you?"

The young man turned to regard the night as well. As he did, a truly majestic Pidgeot swept down from above. Torterra readied himself for more fighting, but there was no need. The magnificent creature landed next to his trainer, who absent-mindely caressed his long mane. "I'm heading up there," he spoke calmly. "And getting them out."

His words struck Ryland as vague, like he missed the context necessary to make sense of them. His ally's intention however was all too clear. And when the warrior took to the skies again instead of explaining his reasoning, Ryland did not see it as an insult, but as a sign of kinship. He did not know the young man's goals, but…

"Arceus be willing I hope you achieve them," he said, before turning his attention to more pressing matters.

~~~~~~~(III)~~~~~~~

---

Valor Mountain lay in the distance, no more than a kilometer ahead. It loomed from the rocky surface in the distance like a castle made of rust. Knowing Melia, she and Venam would have made use of the chaos and destruction he'd wrought to head straight for the entrance. The faster they acted, the less chance Team Xen had to redeploy their forces.

Speaking of: beneath him, Team Xen began rapidly funneling more of their troops across the route in those strange, U-shaped speedboats of theirs. Will saw several of them racing towards the left flank, but a small handful of them began veering off towards Valor Mountain. Will spotted four of the damn things in close formation, with one in the front, two behind it and the fourth one in the back, likely trusting the lead ship to navigate them safely to Valor Mountain.

As he brought Pidgeot to bear, thunder tumbled and fire flashed in the sky. Another damn Flygon plummeted towards him, pelting him with one Dragon Pulse after another. Team Xen wouldn't let him go without another fight, it appeared. And he still had one battleship to destroy before he could start tearing Valor Mountain apart.

This could get tricky.

Right, Will thought as he gripped Blaziken's Pokeball tight in his right hand. Follow me all the way to hell.

With a steady beat of his powerful wings, Pidgeot shot towards the speeding boats below them. Flygon gave chase, and Will caught the outlines of a Xen grunt riding the Dragon Pokemon into battle.

The last battleship loomed ahead at the halfway point between the mountain and his own approach. Little shapes ran back and forth across its deck. "Pidgeot, get ready to start evading!"

Pidgeot veered sharply to the right as the Xen boats sped underneath. Their velocities matched, their angles overlapped and Will sent Blaziken once more into the fray. "Blaziken, front to back, wreck these things!" He yelled as his trusted partner dropped down into the night.

Pinpricks of light erupted from the battleship.

"Now!"

There was no more time to guide Blaziken, no more time to do anything but hold on for dear life as Pidgeot tucked his wings in and rolled to his left. Up and down lost their meaning as the graceful bird weaved back and forth through a barrage of hostile firepower coming from the front and the rear.

Beneath them, his Blaze-Pokemon started wrecking shop. She landed atop the first speeding boat, shattered its canopy with a quick Fire Punch and then simply pulled the driver out and flung them out, letting their body skip a few times across the surface of the sea before he went under. She buried her claw up to her wrist into the side of the boat and leapt aside, shoving her other arm in the freezing ocean and using that as well as her own force and weight to pull the entire troop transport askew.

She steadied herself as the steerless craft began veering out of control, then leapt for the second craft.

Pidgeot veered off sharply to the left. Behind them, one Flygon became two. For a moment, Will wondered if that was Ren on his tail, before deciding it didn't matter, It wouldn't change anything. A pulse of blue energy arced over his left shoulder and he felt Pidgeot ready himself to gun it.

But Blaziken was down there, playing hopscotch with Xen's ships. Just like trusted her with his life, he knew she trusted him with hers. He wouldn't abandon her down there. "No! Slow down, let them pass and ready for a counter-attack!"

Pidgeot shrieked in frustration, but he obeyed. Will tightened his grip on his Pokemon as hard he could, then tucked his chin against his neck so that the next second wouldn't shatter his neck. Pidgeot spread his wings, caught the wind and aggressively beat his wings to slow himself down. Pidgeot went from about two-hundred kilometers per hour to a fraction of that in two seconds and the G-forces involved would have likely shattered his ribs if Pidgeot hadn't been coated in such a thick coat of flexible feathers. As it was, the two pursuing Dragon-types shot past them.

Will had Froslass out in a flash. "Hang on to us Froslass. Pidgeot, get us back to Blaziken now!"

Meanwhile, Blaziken had landed on the second transport ship. Her landing cracked the windshield of the cockpit, but it held, so she dug her claws deep into the metallic frame surrounding it and shattered the glass with a single kick. She poured flames into the vessel and something inside exploded. Plumes of smoke and fire burst from its rear.

"Blaziken, move!" Will ordered. As he did, the two Flygon pulled sharply ahead and then came around for another pass at them. Will could almost imagine Ren nestled between the shoulders of one of the Dragons, having been pressured by Team Xen to stop his former friends at all costs.

Thinking of that, Will felt nothing but the steady pace of his breathing, the thunderous beat of his heart and the adrenaline roaring through his veins as he yelled, "Froslass, use Blizzard on my mark!"

Again the two Flygon began alternating their fire, buffeting him with Dragon Pulses that scorched Pidgeot's coat and boiled the air around them. But they were close, bunched up like fools. Almost there.

Beneath him, Blaziken landed atop the third boat, coming down hard with a double Blaze Kick that simply shattered the entirety of the craft's cockpit.

The two Flygons entered the range from which they could not possibly miss their next salvo.

Will had chosen this path knowing that it could result in his death. He could only hope that Ren had done the same. "Now!" He yelled.

And Froslass froze the very air around them, sending a hailstorm of frigid winds and razor-sharp shards of ice towards the two Dragons. If there was one thing he'd picked up from Angie besides an ugly scar, it was that sometimes, ice could be used to really hurt people.

The two Flygons had no chance to evade. They slammed headfirst into Froslass' storm and the howling cold iced over their wings, plunged their riders deep into the conditions for hypothermia. As the frozen shards and clusters of hail shredded the two Dragons, Will ordered Pidgeot down towards Blaziken. The fourth craft veered away outside of her range, which left her with nowhere else to go.

A good thing that her trainer was around, then. Will called out her name and the red glare of her Pokeballs laser washed over her body, safely recalling her back to him.

The two Flygons plunged towards the churning ocean, dragging their trainers with them. Any hope of a speedy rescue was currently sinking to the bottom with the remnants of their reinforcements.

And despite himself, Will hoped that it wasn't Ren he'd just condemned to a cold death.

The final Xen ship was right ahead of them now. Already, hostile Pokemon had lined up across the deck to take shots at him. He spotted a Gigalith and a Bibarel lining up to pelt him with high-velocity shards of rock and jets of water respectively, while a Scizor and a Machamp had taken up defensive positions to deter any would-be boarders.

Will wondered if they could swim.

According to Augustus and Valarie, these Xen ships were all outfitted with something called seacocks. With incredible patience to Saki's childish laughter and endless vulgar jokes, Val had explained that seacocks were valves within the ship that, when opened, permitted water to flow into the ship. Blow these open, she'd said, and the ship would sink within minutes.

These ships had their seacock installed on the port side of the engine room below the stern deck plate. And that meant…

"Froslass, do you remember the image we studied?" He asked as Pidgeot rolled aside to dodge a cloud of shrapnel from the Gigalith.

His Froslass hummed in agreement.

"We'll distract these guys. Head below-water, infiltrate the ship and blow them apart."

Her cry was hauntingly cheerful as she fluttered away into the darkness and vanished.

That left Will alone to face down the storm of enemy attacks coming in from the deck and man, these guys were determined to blow him out of the sky. Another Xen grunt joined the rabble on the deck and suddenly he had to deal with an Ambipon and a Frosmoth as well.

Pidgeot was fast and agile, but he had to remain close to the ship for when Froslass had done her job, which meant that he had to remain within range and put up a show, or these bastards might wisen up to the plan.

But Will had planned for that, too. He put his next Pokeball in the nape of Pidgeot's neck, held on to it with both hands and then readied himself to catch her if Pidgeot had to suddenly veer off course again. "Kirlia!"

The Emotion Pokemon flickered into existence and, just as he had feared, was pulled off her feet by the howling wind that battered Pidgeot. Will flung himself forwards, pushing Kirlia down against Pidgeot's neck with his chest while folding his right arm around her, keeping the small Psychic-type from experiencing an impromptu flying lesson.

Instead of trying to shoot them down with precise blasts of stone, the Gigalith teamed up with that Frosmoth to fill the sky with enough rocks and ice to turn the entire area into a no-flying zone. Pidgeot frantically beat his wings to get out of their kill-zone and the G-forces of his sudden movements slammed Will's head against the back of his feathery neck.

"Hang on," he said as he tightened his grip on Kirlia. The Emotion Pokemon stared at him with large, burning eyes as Pidgeot threw himself into an erratic evasive pattern. The impossible calmness and utter lack of emotion in Kirlia's expression should have alarmed him, he knew that on an instinctual level, but the uncanny intensity of her gaze only emboldened him to hang on.

Pidgeot rolled, inverted and nearly spun out of control as he soared through the skies with an acceleration and velocity that nearly caused Will to black out. His vision dimmed and he clung to his Pokemon with all of his strength, hanging on to dear life. Pidgeot tumbled and pitched, occasionally pausing to batter his foes with a windstorm.

Staying on the defensive while constantly attacking was nearly impossible. Gigalith's spray of razor-sharp, high-velocity rocks got tighter and more accurate with every pass they made. Will didn't look forward to having to stuff packing into a couple of brand-new shrapnel wounds. "Kirlia!" He forced the words out. "Use Reflect to shield us!"

With Will's right arms still tightly wrapped around her waist, Kirlia raised both of her hands. Her crimson eyes started glowing an incandescent hue and something like static energy leapt from her shattered horn into the air. She narrowed her glowing eyes and something like a translucent beehive materialized around Pidgeot. Its oscillating, purple facets shimmered and flickered as Gigalith's spray of rocks splashed across their surface. Some of them cracked, others held. Little arcs of static energy sprang from one facet to the other.

"Pidgeot, use Gust to blow them into the sea!" Will ordered.

Kirlia's body trembled as Pidgeot pulled a U-turn and began beating his wings to create a powerful storm of wind at the defenders. Her Reflect flared as another burst of rocks exploded across their frame and she grit her teeth.

Bibarel went flying. Machamp protected his body with two muscled arms and the Scizor deftly avoided the worse of Pidgeot's winds.

Gigalith kept up a steady barrage and even though Pidgeot was constantly on the move, he was an easy target, especially now that he was keeping all of these Pokemon and their Xen handlers distracted.

One of Kirlia's reflective barriers shattered with the sound of breaking glass and a burst of shards tore through the air mere inches above Will's head.

That was when something inside of the ship snapped so loudly that Will heard it from all the wau up in the air. A heavy tremble ran through the ship as it suddenly started listing. Jagged mounds of ice erupted from its sides just half a meter underwater and a secondary explosions blew another gaping hole somewhere at the stern.

What a healthy dose of Shadow Ball and some ice wasn't good for, these days.

Froslass zipped through the air as the ship began lurching to one side, trailing hail as she fluttered across the surface of the sea, shattering the mounds of jagged ice she'ed created from the inside as she passed by.

"Took your damn time!" Will yelled.

Froslass rolled her eyes.

Her handiwork though, was a sight to behold. It was like watching sped-up footage of ocean liners sinking. The Xen grunts simply stopped doing anything combat-related and began frantically recalling their Pokemon, screaming commands and questions at each other as thousands of liters of water began flooding their battleship.

Something told Will there would be no salvaging that one. His final obstacle to Valor Mountain had been effectively neutralized.

"Outstanding work, all of you!" Will yelled, straining to make his words audible over the wind and the clamoring noise of the raging battle. "Outstanding! Pidgeot, onward!"

With the third battleship about to become a navigational hazard for divers, Team Xen had nothing left in the field to keep him from landing.

Seconds later, Pidgeot touched down atop the wooden pier and Will stepped off. His legs felt wobbly for a moment and had to take a moment to steady himself against Pidgeot. A combination of sea water and blood had soaked his sleeves and parts of his trousers. The death-defying stunts and near-misses from the enemy's forces had rendered his balaclava almost useless in the process, but he didn't feel any injuries or pain. A quick look-over confirmed that he still had all of his limbs as well as his Pokeballs, so he was good to go.

He turned around and looked at the devastation he'd wrought. Three rapidly sinking Xen battleships, a dozen smaller boats so thoroughly smashed that they were rendered completely useless and dozens of Xen personnel taken out of commission.

Beyond that, the battle raged on. Explosions and energy blasts continued to tear through the starry night. The screams of men and women alike were only barely audible over the sheer violence and noise of the conflict. Dozens of smaller-scale Pokemon battles raged across the entire front. Helicopters navigated around, carrying troops and Pokemon from one location to the other. Occasionally one of them would take fire and spiral out of control, careening into an unsuspecting Xen ship or simply disappearing below the dark waves.

How many people would be dead at the end of this one hour of violence and fire? How many more wounded and missing? How many people did the Xen Initiative have, even? And how many trainers were even left to face them down?

Will took those thoughts and crammed them into the same dark corner of his mind that currently housed everything else he couldn't use. The combat stimulants made that easier to do. The connection between him and his feelings felt larger, more distant. Easier to sever.

For him, the first phase of this fight was over. That had been the easy part. It was time to link up with his friends and continue onwards.

He turned his back to the raging conflicts and marched up Valor Shore, his boots crunching across the sand as he passed by row after row of colorful totems.

Up ahead, Venam's Seviper and a massive, but friendly-looking Snorlax held the guard. They glanced at Will as he walked up the stairs and finally made it to the altar, where Melia and Venam were already waiting for him on a plateau of sorts, with all kinds of totems jutting out from the ground at regular intervals. They were in the process of removing their jackets and stuffing them in their bags. A handful of water bottles and ration bars lay scattered around their feet, much to Will's approval. He didn't think Melia and Venam were used to this level of physicality.

Keep your chin up, Aelita had told him after every workout. Put your chest out. Like it was nothing to us. Like we're indestructible.

"Will!" Melia called out to him, waving him over. Her arm dropped to her side when she actually laid eyes on him. Her mouth dropped, but she recovered very quickly. "Are you hurt? We lost sight of you at times, but the things you did - together with your Pokemon - I have no words!"

"You? At a loss for words?" Will said. He noted that Venam was gaping at him with a mixture of awe and…something he couldn't quite place. "I think that's a first."

Despite the urgency and severity of the situation, despite all of the violence and the things that could still go wrong, he still made Melia crack a smile.

"I got some words!" Venam said, visibly shaking herself out of her thoughts. "How about un-fucking-believable? How did you not break your freaking neck out there!"

"Luck, and the most dependable partners I could hope for," Will answered. He met their smiles with a half-smile of his own, before taking his backpack off and pulling out the Earth Relic. "Do you still have yours?"

Venam showed him the Ocean Relic and Melia fished out the Sky Relic. "We broke through, just like you and Crawli had planned," Melia said in a quiet note, as if she still couldn't believe it. "But…that's only half of the mission."

"What now? Do we place these things on that thing?" Venam said, nodding at the altar at the far end of the plateau.

"I think?" Melia wondered. "Here, let's just…do this."

They placed down the Relics on the altar and the entire mountain seemed to resonate in response. Ahead, up the hill, what Will had first taken for a massive set of doors painted in red, blue and green, simply flickered out of existence.

He swore, if this turned out to be another Garufa Temple he would -

"That did it!" Melia said excitedly. "The door to Valor Mountain is open!"

"Then let's get this done," Venam growled.

"Wait, what about Adam!" Melia gasped. "He was meant to use this entrance too, right? If Venam and I couldn't find our way in, do you think he - "

"We need to move," Will interrupted her, and the shaken look on her face made him hate this situation even more. "We can't afford to wait, we have to do this."

Pain flickered across her expression. "I think you're right…" she said. "And I hate it."

"The big guy will make it!" Venam told her. "He's just late or something. Shit, maybe he's already kicking ass without us. We gotta go, right? For your dad, for Tesla and the others too?"

Melia hesitated, which was something Will simply couldn't allow.

Will put his hand on her shoulder and locked eyes with her. "Melia, Adam would want us to go on. You know this."

Her expression scrunched up in agony, but she nodded. "Yes. Yes, I know. We have to move. For everyone's sake! We…are you two ready, then?"

"More ready than I'll ever be!" Venam exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air.

"Mm…let's make a difference, then," Melia said. Venam and she recalled their Pokemon, then they moved into the mountain. Melia first, Venam second. The mountain did something weird where it rumbled heavily each time one of them entered, but Will chalked that up to Xen screwing around.

Before he followed them in, he took one final moment to scan the shore. No sight of Adam. No sight of enemy reinforcements, either. Either could change in a minute. Time was not on their side.

With a heavy sigh, Will turned back and entered Valor Mountain.

Once inside however, it became immediately obvious that things had completely gone to hell. Instead of joining up with his friends, ready and willing to bust out the hostages, Will found himself all alone in a massive, sprawling cave system. Melia was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Venam, and with all the rusty brown rocks and clear water it would have been impossible to miss his purple friend.

Except…he wasn't alone.

Someone waited for him right around the corner and when Will walked inside, this weird-looking guy with a red visor and a white bodysuit stepped towards him, laughing.

Despite the adrenaline and the haze of the ranger stimulants and the sheer desire to push onwards, Will's body just moved without any input of his own and took two large steps back. The movement was completely alien to him, went against every fiber of his being, and that didn't seem to escape this stranger either.

"Well, it looks like the famous, famous Will finally made it to Valor Mountain," he said in a tone that couldn't be described as anything but nasty. Everything about this man felt wrong, wrong wrong wrong. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Who are you?" Will demanded. More importantly, where the hell had Melia and Venam gone?

The dark-haired man laughed. "Who I am doesn't matter, Kitty Cat. It's all about who you are, and what you're doing here."

Will, who didn't take kindly to some stranger calling him something people usually reserved for their lovers, was about to inform this asshole that he had to step aside when the guy suddenly thrust a small leather bag towards him.

"Here, you're gonna need this," he said, still smirking. "This is Emotion Powder. it's made up of ground-up crystals found throughout this area. Valor Mountain has an interesting…quirk. Like the seasons, and life itself, it's ever-changing. Sprinkle a bit of this on some of the crystals in the mountain and you're in for a surprise. But in order for that to work, you'll need to find the Source Crystal."

This…was what Crawli had told him. About the mountain being attuned to certain emotions, certain stages of being. He hadn't gotten it very well back then, but somehow this stranger's words resonated with him in a way that made sense.

Who was this guy? "Do I know you?" Will demanded.

"Perhaps once, a long time ago. But these are under different circumstances.

And what the hell did that even mean?

"Sounds weird, but you'll understand in due time," the stranger continued. "Without this little gift, you won't be able to reunite with your friends."

Will straightened in alarm. "Where is Melia?" He demanded.

And the bastard laughed again. "Melia? If that's what you want to call her, sure."

Will bristled. Confusion and uncertainty were the last things he needed right now and this guy was not part of the plan. "Look - "

The guy wagged a disapproving finger at him. "Ah-ah-ah!" He chastised Will. "Not the right path. You have many paths laid out before you. Saving Amber, reaching the pinnacle, saving Nim. Will you successfully complete all these tasks? I'm curious to see?"

"How about you stop talking and start helping, if you know so much," Will growled.

The guy threw his head back and uttered a loud, barking laugh. "Oh. I will never get tired of seeing you stumble in the dark. Now, Kitty Cat, let me give you some friendly guidance. Amber's two floors below us. You can get there by taking the ladder located' cross the bridge.. You'll need to find a way to calm down the mountain. I've charged one Calming Crystal for you to do this somewhere on this floor. But…just so you know, you don't have to save Amber. If you wanted - "

"Yes I do," Will snapped.

Again, the man wagged his finger at him. "Tut-tut. Silly Kitty Cat. Playing the hero? You could forsake her. I wonder what consequences that would lead to? Aren't you curious to know?"

Will glared at the man.

"Oooh, scary," the stranger said, miming a dramatic flinch back. "Haha. Well, it's up to you. I've already directed the cat with purple hair down that way. I'll be heading out now, but I'm interested to see how this all turns out. Ciao, Will."

The man laughed and started moving past him. Will was about to protest, demand he explain himself, when something like a boiling knife lanced across his mind. His vision turned white in the center and red around the edges and he let out a short, agonized scream. The mother of all headaches washed across his mind for a horrible, confusing moment, but it was gone just as suddenly as it had arrived.

That…couldn't be good.

Something about that stranger made him feel…not uneasy. Worse than that. Frightened? Maybe. Very uncomfortable at the least. That wasn't supposed to be something he ought to feel at the moment. Damnit, he couldn't deal with this many emotions in such a short time span - dread and rage and confusion and a looming sense of existential loss - he needed that to be noise, something he could wipe from his mind if only for another hour longer.

He needed focus and clarity, more of it.

Alright…Will thought, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and taking out the second of Crawli's three stimulants. "New plan." He unscrewed the water bottle. Link up with Venam…bust out Amber and Tesla…find Nim and Jenner…

He swallowed the pill and emptied the rest of the bottle for good measure. His thoughts felt scattered and bloody and chaotic, but they still felt loose. Detached. He could work with that.

Save them all. Link up with Melia…and destroy everything that gets in the path.

Whatever would happen next would happen. In the meantime, he wasn't done. Far from it.

~~~~~~~(IV)~~~~~~~

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AN: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, expanding on the battle in a way that made it feel like a pitched and desperate clash between two massive forces instead of MC cruising past three ships and casually strolling up Valor Shore. Again, if something feels like a game limitation to me I will take it and I WILL make it as dramatic and cool as possible.

Anyway, don't forget to drop by and leave a review and fave/follow if you haven't already! I'm really looking forward to the next update and I can only hope all of you feel the same way. Until then!