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mischiefandspirits · 3 years

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Colony of Gotham (1/7)

Special thanks to @starlightandsunshine for helping me with this <3

The Colony of Gotham is an urban legend that is whispered about in the dangerous city. It's said the Colony is a family of demons and spirits that stalk the night, hunting for the souls of the guilty.

When Bruce became Batman, he'd never intended to be mistaken for a demon. He was happy to lean into it, though, and as he gained his partners -- as his family grew -- they all followed suit.

Next Part

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Bruce Wayne was born a vampire, one from the long-standing Kane family of vampires through his mother. This nature granted him a few abilities. He was more durable than a human and could heal faster. He was stronger and faster than a human and had better sight and hearing, though not to anywhere near the degree that some metas boasted. He could take on the form of an animal and could influence bats, corvids, canines, and felines to a certain extent. Finally, he would stop aging once he reached his thirties, a trait of those who were born or turned young instead of those like Alfred who were turned at an older age and therefore would always be that age.

However, when he set off on his path to becoming Batman, he swore to himself that he would not rely on any of this to fight the criminals that plagued Gotham. He would not be like those heroes past who relied on their powers, then were left defenseless when those abilities faltered or were ripped away. After all, only a vampire’s healing and longevity remained during the day and some spells and devices could similarly strip his nature away.

Batman stuck to his wits, tech, and martial arts training.

Even still, the criminals of Gotham could tell something was off about the Bat. Rumors flew about a demon haunting Gotham’s night, which Bruce leaned into. He hadn’t chosen a bat just because of the family significance. He wanted to strike fear. As such, he stuck to the shadows and allowed his fangs to bare. He used makeup to make himself appear paler and contortionist tricks to make his movements uncanny. He allowed Batman to become an urban legend that sent shivers down the spines of Gotham’s infamous.

When Barbara Gordon became Batgirl, she quickly realized his tricks were just that and leaned into them as well. She became a ghost following in the Bat’s footsteps. She disappeared into a mist made from special smoke pellets and spun across the ground and air in a weightless way that came from years of ballet and gymnastics training. She wore shadows like Batman’s, but violet and gold peeked through the darkness to make her stand apart.

Bruce initially didn’t want her in the field, but she eventually proved herself both competent and stubborn. In a bid to help protect her, he outfitted her with proper gear and let her in on the secret of his nature. She considered it, then a week later she asked him to turn her so she could always watch his back.

Then Dick Grayson was taken in by the billionaire and became the Bloody Robin. They called him a demon child, the son of the Bat who flew on bird’s wings. His cheerful laughs and giggles echoed and hissed eerily thanks to a voice filter. His clothes were bright colors, but were covered by the wing-like shadows that wrapped over his shoulders. Fake blood dripped from his hair and eyes and coated the tips of his gloves and cape. He chirped like a bird as he flipped and flew through the air. His mask made his eyes glow white and his body almost appeared boneless when he moved around on the ground thanks to the contortionist who’d babysat him at the circus.

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The three heard the tales when teams of heroes began to form, but they didn’t reach out. Gotham’s Colony was a myth, an urban legend. Those outside of Gotham had never heard of them and those within only spoke in whispers.

That was how the Colony preferred it.

Besides, the rest of the world wasn’t as dark as Gotham.

Their tricks and games worked fine in the shadow-filled gothic architecture that made up Gotham, the near-perpetual overcast days, and the deep darkness of Gotham’s nights, but cities like Jump, Metropolis, or Central were far brighter. They could do without, they’d proven that plenty of times against the bigger villains that were either too crazy or brave to fear the Bat, but why should they? The tricks and games had become a part of them over the years and discarding a piece of themselves just so they could work outside of Gotham with strangers felt wrong.

So the Colony stuck to their own.

On the job, at least.

Dick met Wally West at a two-week-long Jr. Forensics Summer Camp when they were eleven and thirteen respectively. Bruce had sent him to brush up on his skills while Wally’s mentor, Barry Allen, thought it would be good training. Neither boy knew about each other's secret lives, but became close friends all the same and kept in contact when they returned home. Dick didn’t reveal it to Wally when he discovered the other boy was Kid Flash, but kept a close eye on Central City just in case.

A similar situation happened two years later when the Colony discovered Green Arrow’s latest protégé, a girl named Artemis Crock, lived in Gotham and had been helped into Gotham Academy by the other billionaire. Dick decided to keep an eye on her, but his pseudo-stalking quickly turned into a genuine friendship.

He may have taken a bit too much joy in introducing Wally and Artemis to one another. Wally got back at him a few years later by introducing him to the model Kory Anders, the secret identity of his celebrity crush Starfire. Dick had to admit to having a crush on Kory as well to explain his nerves.

It turned out to be a net gain in the end, though, since he came out of it with her phone number.

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As time passed, Dick started to get too old to be the demon child. He decided to create a new story for himself. One that would let him step out from under the shadow of the bat, using a name from an alien myth in Bruce’s files that he’d loved reading growing up. He and Bruce argued, and Dick spent some time sleeping on Barbara’s couch, but with nowhere to run they were forced to come to a compromise. There was still tension, but it was smoothed over with time and a bite.

Nightwing was a nocturnal bird that had taken human shape after being taken in by Batgirl’s elegance. It chased after and raced the ghost, nothing but shadows and a blue streak flying through the air. Those who got close enough to see his face would say that his skin was like porcelain while black wings covered his eyes completely and his lips were painted with darkness.

Nightwing wasn’t the only change to the Colony, though, because as Dick was finishing up his designs for the story, a little boy was stealing the tires off the Batmobile.

Dick was furious when the kid climbed out of the car into the cave, thinking Bruce had brought the kid in as a new Robin without even consulting him, but anger’s quickly replaced by confusion.

Because Batman wasn’t with the kid.

Jason Todd had gotten grabbed by the Bat after having already nicked three tires off the batmobile. Batman caught him before he could run then replaced the tires. He’d made a mistake in leaving the boy in the car when he went to call for someone to pick him up, however. Jason, who some might generously call impulsive, proceeded to use the opportunity presented to him to hotwire the vehicle and take it for a joyride that ended when he accidentally had the autopilot bring him to the cave.

Dick was immediately taken with the small spitfire’s story, as well as his stubbornness and intellect. Meanwhile, Jason was amused by the fact that Gotham’s demon was, in his eyes, nothing more than a spectacular conman and wanted in. They teamed up to force Bruce to adopt the younger boy through underhanded -- and perhaps slightly illegal -- tactics.

As Dick started using his new story more and Robin less, Jason got his own turn under Batman’s cape.

People started to say Robin was more vicious. He’d climb walls, the claws on his feet and hands easily cutting into brick and metal. He’d give a fang-filled smirk as he hung from the ceiling like he’d forgotten he was a bird instead of a bat, only to drop down on unsuspecting shoulders. If he wasn’t clawing at opponents, he was beating them with his fists.

As one of his first acts as Robin, Jason saved a young boy who had been kidnapped for ransom. The kid had acted out of it during the rescue, but Jason put it down to trauma. He’d had no reason to realize the young detective-to-be had noticed the edge of Jason’s fake fangs through the shadows and fake blood. No one could have predicted the rabbit hole young Tim Drake had just fallen down nor that it would lead him to massive discoveries in the near future.

When Jason discovered Catherine Todd wasn’t his birth mother, he considered going alone to look for the mystery woman who’d given birth to him. He and Bruce had just had a fight about his temper that had left him benched and he wanted to prove himself, but something Dick had told him months before echoed in his mind.

“No matter how much we argue, we’re always going to be there for each other. Us birds and bats, we’re a family. We have to stick together.”

In the end, he asked Dick and Barbara for help. It was something he was thankful for when his mother sold him out to the Joker. At least he could hold out against the torment with the knowledge his true family would soon come for him.

When Batgirl and Nightwing arrived, Joker fled. Barbara got Jason out while Dick, after seeing the state of his brother, tracked down the clown. Bruce got to him just in time to stop him from beating Joker to death, but when he saw Jason’s condition he couldn’t bring himself to scold his elder son for his loss of control.

Jason was barely hanging on and Bruce, knowing there was no other choice, turned him.

The boy lived, but his injuries were too severe and he fell into a coma.

Three weeks later, Bruce and Dick came into Bruce’s study to find Tim Drake waiting for them. Both were a little more focused on “My parents are never home” than “so I’m in a perfect position to cover for Jason as Robin while he’s sleeping,” to Tim’s confusion, but he ended up in the suit all the same.

The whispers that had come after Joker’s latest incarceration had him crowing about clipping bird wings tapered off as Robin sightings flared up throughout the city. People saw him flying next to the Bat and they heard him tap-tap-tapping his claws. He tapped them against the walls as he hunted through warehouses and against the floors as he crouched in front of technology that seemed to unlock under his gaze thanks to the computer that’d been built into his gloves, the interface of which could only be seen through the lenses in the Colony’s masks and cowls.

Tim didn’t really know how to feel about being adopted by Bruce, aside from the guilt he knew was mixed in there somewhere. It felt wrong to be slipping into the family like that while Jason was right there and Dick had to talk him down when the anxiety attack eventually hit.

Tim was Tim. He wasn’t Jason and they didn’t want him to be Jason.

Dick understood though. He explained how Dick and Jason had both had similar feelings regarding Barbara and Dick respectively, though Dick could admit he’d gotten off easier all things considered. He told Tim that the Colony was a family, and adoption or not, Tim was a part of that now. Jason wasn’t going anywhere and neither was Tim.

When Jason woke, Dick had a similar conversation with him after Jay saw a news broadcast about Tim while waiting for the others to arrive. It soothed him some, and Tim soothed him more when he assured Jason he wasn’t taking Robin from him.

“There can’t be two Robins.”

“Why can’t there?”

As Jason went through physical training to get back in shape, the two worked together to develop a strategy for acting as Robin together. One part of this was Trillic.

Tim, with help from Dick and Jason, invented a secret language made up of chirps, whistles, and clicks. It started as a way for the Robins to communicate with each other without giving away there was more than one, but over time the rest of the Colony picked it up and the vocabulary expanded until it became the family’s own personal language that they’d use whenever they didn’t feel like using words.

A few days after Jason was released from the hospital, Dick found Jason down in the cave and grew worried his little brother was pushing himself too soon after his accident. Then he saw the young woman on the screen. She looked a year or two older than Jason with long red hair, olive skin, and bright green eyes.

They’d met in Ethiopia, Jason told him, while saving a woman from some men. Jason had wanted to try to track her down now that he was awake. He’d succeeded, but it turned out she was an Amazonian hero.

Combined with the fact her name was Artemis, Dick couldn’t help but laugh and make a joke about Jason following in his footsteps. Jason smacked him and told him she was really more of an anti-hero so it wasn’t the same as Dick making friends with Kid Flash and Tigress, but Dick ignored him.

Jason did end up contacting her, and even got her to take a visit to Gotham. Dick took the opportunity to introduce her to Wally and his own Artemis, who Wally began to refer to as Stripes to not get confused. When questioned, he claimed it was because of some outfit of hers that stuck in his mind. Dick and Jason, knowing it was actually based on her identity as Tigress, nodded along and picked up using the name, to her annoyance.

Surprisingly, the two women didn’t get along despite their similar attitudes. This led to them taking great offense whenever people couldn’t tell which Artemis was being talked about, something only Jason, Dick, and Alfred never managed to do.

While the teens were laughing over this, whispers were going around about how the Bloody Robin seemed to be everywhere. If you fled from a room you knew he was in, you��d find him standing right in front of you in the new room. There was no escape. And he trilled more than ever, though his voice almost seemed to echo back at him as if he was having a conversation.

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Not long after the Justice League had formed, Barbara had hacked into their security system and planted a little bug she named Mockingbird. It was designed to alert her whenever someone mentioned the Colony’s civilian or vigilante identities and copy any footage during the time. More often than not all it gave her was Wally and Bow-Artemis (as most of the family thought of her, to contrast with Axe-Artemis) discussing Dick. Every so often though, there’d be someone pining after Dick or Bruce, which could be good for a laugh depending on who it was.

On a day not long after the Robins had been set loose together, Mockingbird gave her something that was sort of new, yet at the same time not.

The video started with Wally discussing some prank he and Dick had pulled on Bruce and slowly devolved into him just bragging about how awesome Dick was. Suddenly he froze, staring off into the air.

Artemis took one look at him and asked, “Did you finally realize you’ve got a crush on your best friend?”

He immediately went to reassure his girlfriend, but she said got it and even shared his feelings.

Barbara settled in to watch the show.

Unfortunately, it took longer than she’d anticipated for Dick to catch on that the two actually wanted to date him and not just spend more time with him. He was usually pretty good at picking up on people’s feelings, yet Artemis ended up having to pull him into her lap during a movie night and kiss him flat on the lips before it sunk in.

When Barbara approached him about it, he pouted over her spying. Then he admitted that he’d known for years they all had feelings for each other, he just hadn’t wanted to risk getting in the middle of the two’s relationship since they seemed so happy together. When he’d realized how they’d started flirting with him, he’d been worried they were just after a quick thing and he couldn’t do that to himself. So he’d put on his media mask of naive ditz Dickie who wouldn’t recognize flirting if it hit him in the face.

Thankfully the two had reassured him and after talking it through, the three settled happily into their throuple.

To congratulate his brother, Jason gave him a solid week before making jokes about Dick following in Bruce’s footsteps by dating someone with a feline-themed suit.

The next hurdle was deciding how to deal with the media. Dick was Richard “Dickie” Grayson, eldest son of Bruce Wayne. The media loved to go on about him. Pretty much every second of his relationship with Kory had been recorded by the press. Neither of them had minded. He was still a performer at heart, always would be, and she was a warrior princess who had been in the spotlight all her life.

But Dick knew Wally and Artemis weren’t Kory so he talked to them about how they wanted to handle things.

In the end, they agreed only friends and family would know about Artemis, but Wally and Dick would go public. They all had practice keeping much bigger secrets so it wasn’t hard on Artemis to hide their relationship. Meanwhile, Wally didn’t mind playing around for the cameras. Plus, he knew how people treated Dick when they thought he was single and a small possessive part of him didn’t want them trying anything, even if he knew Dick would never cheat.

Things didn’t actually turn out too bad. Of course, there were always the conservatives that came around when Dick got a boyfriend, but they never stuck around long. Bruce had made his support of Dick’s sexuality very clear from the beginning and no one wanted to risk really ticking someone as rich and connected as him off by attacking his son like that.

The real problem came when their agreement to tell their families accidentally didn’t reach everyone.

Dick had been alone at the manor when it happened.

Bruce had gone on a weekend business trip, bringing Tim with him. Alfred was on a trip to England. Jason had taken the opportunity to spend the weekend hopefully not blowing things up with Artemis Grace, who had ended up getting a small flat in Gotham to act as her home base so she could visit with Jason and Dick during the rare occasions she wasn’t running across the world causing trouble with the Outlaws. Dick had been planning to spend the weekend with his partners at Stripe’s apartment, but they’d both been caught up by something (Dick assumed a mission had unexpectedly run long) so he had the night to himself.

He was watching a movie in the theater room when he felt a shift in the air. He immediately dropped to the floor, barely avoiding the sai that had been coming for his throat. Then he was over the back of the couch and engaging the assassin. He quickly realized she was with the League of Assassins as he recognized moves Bruce had picked up from them. She was good, too, but she had clearly come to the fight unprepared to face a Gotham myth. He didn’t take too many hits before pinning her and binding her hands and feet with the obijime from her dress. He then disarmed her of all her hidden weapons just in case.

When he questioned her, she declared that she was Artemis’s sister and had come to avenge her honor after Wally had betrayed her for Dick. She was not going to sit back and let the fool cheat on or dump her sister for the likes of a man she had believed was nothing more than an airheaded socialite.

Then, with narrowed eyes, she added that she had clearly been mistaken as not many airheaded socialites had been trained by assassins. Nor did they use moves only known by those trained by Ra’s al Ghul.

Dick ignored that and explained the trio’s situation as he untied her, having recognized her as Cheshire aka Jade Nguyen aka his girlfriend’s -- apparently protective -- assassin sister.

He took pride in the fact that he was dating someone who was only related to criminals instead of actually dating a criminal, unlike a certain father of his.

She thankfully believed him, though she did warn that should he be lying or should he hurt Artemis, she wouldn’t underestimate him a second time. She made a few more thinly veiled digs at his assassin-based fighting style as he showed her out that he cleanly sidestepped with comments about self-defense training. They both knew she didn’t believe a word of it, but she left it alone as she slipped away into the night.

So long as her sister remained unharmed, she had no desire to get involved in whatever was going on between the Wayne’s and al Ghul’s.

Before she left Gotham, though, she met Artemis and Wally on their way in and informed her sister that she approved of her new boyfriend. Both to be sure Dick was telling the truth and to mess with the speedster. The two predictably freaked out and she used their panic to slip away.

Dick answered Artemis’s call with, “Oh hey, Stripes! Your sister came by earlier to give me the shovel talk over tea. It was pretty gory, but I think the one Jason gave Wally was still probably worse so I’m not going to complain. Are we still on for tomorrow?” to their relief.

Artemis had not wanted to try to explain her assassin sister to her civilian boyfriend.

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I decided to use Stephanie's Batgirl suit for Babs because most of Babs' suits are either bright or look just like Batman's. Steph will get other suits of hers when she appears.

The Robin suit looks just like Dick's from The Batman (2004), just bloodier.

Nightwing's suit looks like the typical V one, just with the eyes of the mask being blacked out. Also, black lipstick because yes.

Vampires’ animal forms:

Bruce: Gray bat

Alfred: Common raven

Selina: Oriental shorthair cat

Barbara: Little red flying fox

Dick: Black-billed magpie

Jason: Malayan flying fox

#batman #batfam #colony of gotham #fanfiction

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bard-of-worlds · 4 years

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The Beginning in Kalos 14

Lilith sighed as she walked through the castle, ever since she had returned from her mission to Kalos she had been missing her friends. Thankful she had been able to dodge him the last few times she had attended court with Lady Camilla so there was that at least, but her cousin had picked up how she had been lately and had needled her about it but if she was honest about her feelings, then she missed those days of being with her friends, talking about fashion with Serena, teaching Bonnie how to fight and dance, debating Pokémon training tactics with Ash and helping Clemont with his inventions. But when they returned to the Lumiose City she had to go home because of the threat, yes the…wait, this is….

Snapping her eyes open she bolted upright throwing her hand across her mouth and noise and immediately activated an Aura skill to block out whatever was in the air. Looking around she saw she was in a room and she noticed four things first, one; she was in a closed room with golden pollen or…scales dropping from a rotating fan, two; there were three other girls her age with her in the room on beds like the one she was on, three; the room had no windows and only one door and four there was a one way window to let people observe what was happening in the room she was in. She reached up and caught a bit of the pollen and brought it to her hand as she caused her hand to glow blue and wasn’t surprised when she saw the pollen in her hand gained a golden glow.

Alchemy, this was created with Alchemy. I thought Nimue said Aura use had died out here in Kalos, but someone created or sold Dreamer’s Sand to these people. Probably trying to break them as their fondest dreams are destroyed and all they have lefty is what they want them to have, servants then, but domestic or other? Whatever I’m so helping Ash and the others learn that trick M’Lady taught me when they finally learn about Aura Users. Lilith thought as she tried to remember what had happened to her. She looked at the other girls and noticed a few signs that two of them had been wearing well done makeup and the other had on stylish clothing that complimented her figure, with these factors the answer was clear. She got off the bed and started to pat herself down, smiling when she that while she didn’t have her jacket and her whip, she did have her backup whip and her shoes. She took of her right shoe and opened a hidden compartment and pulled out a multi tool. Walking to the door she first unfurled her backup weapon from around her waist and started to pick the lock using her multi tool.

Hearing the bolt open she slowly opened the door and saw her main whip and her jacket in a room that had two doors across from each other and a few items that showed the girls in the room she had just left were trainers. Donning her jacket and putting her backup whip away she picked up her whip and moved and pushed down a switch next to the window, smiling when she saw the pollen that was falling had stopped and looked towards the other door.

“Okay girl, let’s take stock. You were with Nimue, Serena and Bonnie. You noticed you were being followed and Nimue got Bonnie….Serena! She’s not here, so she has to be somewhere else, was she the target, they’d never use something like that if they knew I was active so she has to have been their target. But why…question later, find her now.” Lilith said as she looked at the other door and noticed hinges on her side. Opening the door as quietly as she could, she peered out and saw that the hallway was empty, trying to hear anything but hearing only silence she moved into the hallway, activating Ghost Walker as she did so she could strike first against anyone she came across. Ready or not, here I come. Hope your ready scumbags. She thought as she moved silently through down the hallway, trying to find her friend.

Ash dropped the last Buzz Lord trainer in the hallway and looked at the trail he and his team had left behind them, moaning, paralyzed or knocked out gangers and their Pokémon littered the hallway and he gave a small sigh as he shook his head. Why, oh why do people always choose the hard way, I mean just once I’d like to do this the easy way. I mean all the times this played out before and they never went the easy option. Ash thought as he looked down the hallway, hoping to find some clue to where his friends were.

A ganger on the floor snarled as he looked up from where Ash had dropped him and smirked as he reached for a weapon to strike at him with when suddenly he felt fur? He looked at where his hand was to see Pikachu smiling cutely at him before he gained a savage grin on his face as the ganger paled.

“PIKACHU!” Pikachu exclaimed as he fried the ganger. Ash looked back and shook his head with a sigh as he saw what Pikachu had done. Froakie and Fletchling finished off their opponents and started to move back towards him, Froakie stopping at a partially open door and looked into it before it dropped back and quickly dashed to its trainer, pulling on Ash’s pants to get his attention. Ash looked down and followed Froakie’s hand pointing at the door it had found.

“What is it Froakie, did you find something?” Ash asked as he walked to the door and opened it, staring with shock before his gaze went hard. Ash’s eyes saw five girls cowling behind bars and saw three others chained up. A bloody mattress was alongside the wall the door was on and Ash noticed a few stains that he didn’t want to identify. He moved towards the girls when he saw the ones on the ground move farther away from the cell door and stopped. He looked around and saw a ring of keys on a holder next to the door and walked back into the hallway and collected a few of the weapon the gangers had used and dropped them in front of the cell and threw the keys to the cowering figures. They stared at him as he turned and walked to the doorway.

“I’ll close the door; I knocked out the gangers so you should have no visitors. If everything goes according to plan in a few hours at most the local law should be here, I would fort up in here if you don’t want to run for it. Go, stay here and barricade the door, those are your choices, I can’t make it for you.” Ash said as he closed the door and walked down the hallway, stopping to give a savage kick to one of the gangers on the floor before he quickened his pace. I have to find the girls before their put somewhere like that; I can only hope I find Serena and Lilly in time! Ash thought as he stalked through the hallways.

“Just when you think you reached the limits of the evil of humanity you seen something like that and you realize you haven’t even reached halfway down there yet, hu gang?” Ash asked softly as he led the way down the hallway. He had seen thieves, murders and people out to conquer the world, but why were the smaller groups that were always the sources of such vileness?

“Pikachu.”

“Froakie.”

“Fletchling.”

His Pokémon agreed as they followed his trainer. Ash just let his thoughts run wild as he moved, stopping when he heard a commotion ahead of him. Around the corner thundered ten gang members and 1 Heracross, 3 Pinsirs and 2 Beedrill.

“I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMETHING!! ALRIGHT BRAT! You’ve had a good run but I’d surrender if I were you and maybe we…won’t…kill?” The leader trailed off as he saw the face Ash was making and the glint in his team’s eyes when they saw them. He backed up into the squad he had lead and went white as

“Oh, hello well timed targets, shall we get to it?” Ash said as he smiled as Pikachu sparked, Froakie formed a water sphere and silvery crescents started to from by Fletchling’s wings. The gangers started to pale as Ash and his team walked towards them, moving backwards as their own Pokémon started to cower behind their trainers even though they all outnumbered Ash and his team.

“N n now just surrender and I promise we’ll let you go with no further problems, alright?” The leader asked shakily as he looked at the monster that was stalking towards him with three Pokémon as backup. Not even the boss on his worst day has this kind of presence, what did we do to make him so mad! That was the only thing going through his head as he heard his men start to whimper.

“Leave him for last; we can question him after we’re done.” Ash said before he and his team charged at the gangers.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Lilith moved down the hallway, hugging the wall as she did so that no one would bump into her, no matter who they were when people ran they usually ran down the center of the hallway to force others to the side, a lesson she had learned the hard way once or twice that her teacher had thankfully trained out of her. One thing for sure, this always made it easy to find what was important in enemy buildings, just make a distraction and follow the runners. Hearing a commotion ahead of her she saw a few trainers in green shepherding a few girls in maids outfits down the hallway.

“Come on you idiot, we gotta get these dames to their rooms before we get back to the boss, the way that intruder has been going through us we have to hold him at the throne room.” One of them snapped at the other as the girls followed obediently.

“Think this is connected to the…what happened to the boys in the monitoring room?” The other asked as he looked down the hallway for anything, not even seeing anything he moved on, Lilith moving silently behind them, just in range to hear them.

“No, the boss only gave the orders around the same time it happened; there is no way that the intruder is connected to that.” The replay caused Lilith to pause. What are you talking about boys, and can I use it? Lilith mused before she heard the next words.

“So far what the intruder is doing is knocking out and moving on, he isn’t killing anyone so I think there’s no way he has anything to do with the deaths of our guys, but maybe he destroyed the equipment.” The other nodded at what he heard and stared ahead of them. Lilith stopped dead, someone had killed people and destroyed the room they had to monitor this place, so that was why she had escaped so easily.

“To bad about it though, one of them owed me money, guess I’ll take it from his stash.” His comment caused the other to give a laugh and a look of contempt.

“He owed everyone money, I doubt you ever get paid.” The only replay this gained was a glare as they moved, Lilith meanwhile stayed where she was, thinking about what she had overheard and panicking on the inside. An intruder that’s not killing, Ash it has to be Ash. This is like when the boss destroyed that slaver base and left them alive, ‘Death is to light a sentence on such crimes, I want them to suffer before they go to judgment.’ Guess some things are a matter of blood, if I wasn’t already convinced about who he is.

The two gripped at each other as they moved down the corridor, the girls following them oddly silent as they moved down the hallway until they reached a nondescript group of doors that the girls walked to, 5 to a room and after the last one closed the two turned to each other.

“So back to the throne room or the other place?” The second one asked the first, prompting him to stare at him in a total dead look.

“The other place in the basement stupid! Didn’t you hear him say to bring the blond to him there?” The first asked exasperated with his friend.

“Oh lay off me, you know I had the night shift. Say, did they tells us where they put her Pokémon and that spear thing she had?” The second asked causing to just move on ahead. Lilith smiled, this was something she could use and maybe she could….

“Of course they didn’t need to tell us! It’s where they always put their possessions!” The first said with a snort.

“Why we don’t sell their Pokémon I don’t know.” The second said with a huff.

“Cause then we’d step on the toes of those people who deal in the black market. Why won’t you just wakeup, it’s all hands on deck sot start thinking!” The first said before he heard a thumping sound and turned to see the other one passed out on the floor. While he looked around to find what had caused it something wrapped around his neck and he was pulled forward. He stopped when a hand grabbed his neck and he saw Lilith smiling at him, her eyes dark. He tried to breath and

“How about you tell me where my friend’s Pokémon and weapon is? And maybe I won’t break your neck for being a part of this travesty?” Lilith purred as she held him off the ground. The ganger stared at her in total shock.

“How’d you get up? We take girls to Imitation and they stay asleep until we wake ‘em.” He wheezed. Lilith tightened her grip and forced his eyes to meet hers and he started too sweat as he saw the look in her eyes.

“Don’t think about that, think about what I want to know.” Lilith said as she looked at her prisoner. He gulped as he tried to think about what he could do to get her away from him.

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Lilith giggled softly as she dashed down the hallway; she had knocked out the ganger she had interrogated and had been able to make it to where he had said and was carrying Serena’s naginata on her back and Fenniken’s Pokéball on her waist. This is perfect, I have her weapon and her partner, now all I have to do is find Serena, we find Ash and break out of here and call the cops to shut this place down hard. Lilith stopped when she saw three gangers charge down the hallway and smirked, jumping and willing her hands to glow black as she used another Aura Tech, she struck two of the three as she passed over their heads and as she landed she drew and struck out with her whip, knocking out the last ganger before she moved down the hallway.

“But nothing says I can’t cause them some trouble before we escape.” Lilith said with a giggle as she tried to find Serena and cause all the problems for the Buzz Lords she could before then.

Ash stared down at the leader of the group he and his team had just curb stomped as Pikachu jumped down onto Ash’s shoulder and Froakie and Fletchling stood on either side of him as Ash stood over him. The man was trembling, Pikachu had taken out most of the enemy’s Pokémon and knocked out most his group and Ash had dealt with the rest in minutes.

“Now I know you have your reasons for doing this but really, do we have to do this?” He pleaded as he looked up at Ash and prayed for mercy. Ash looked at him flatly and decided to hurry this along. He had dealt with a lot of people like him on his journey, a show of force sometime broke people and they were quick to tell him what he asked of them.

“Two girls were brought in earlier today, one was brought to General Initiation, the other was brought to your boss, where are they?” Ash demanded flatly as he locked eyes with the person on the floor.

“The black haired one was to be sent to General Initiation, it’s up a floor and towards the back, you need an an antidote for what is used on people brought there. The other one the boss asked for, he has a room in the basement where he has people brought to him to to talk to. They’re inb both of those two places or they’re in the throne room towards the center of the building. That’s all I know so can I go now, please? And just me, you can do what you want to the others.” He begged as Ash glared down at him. The one thing Ash hated more than people who hurt others was someone who abandoned his own.

“Pikachu, knock ’em out.” Ash said flatly, causing the guy to try and escape, only for Pikachu to shock him into unconscious. Ash shook his head and moved down the corridor, Pikachu nudge the smoking body and shook his head before he followed after Ash as the others followed them. After a while they reached a wide doorway with a plaque above it saying stage access. Opening the door he looked to see what looked like the side of a stage, thankfully no one around and a large throne in the center. Ash looked at his team who nodded at him and they moved into the room, Fletchling going high and taking a circle of the whole room while Froakie stayed in the shadows and Pikachu stayed by Ash. After a few minutes they gathered back together and went towards a door that had the word stairs above it.

“Lilly’s up and towards the back, Serena might be down. Damn it, I can’t choose who to save, if I leave one of them alone then the other might get hurt.” Ash snarled as he leaned against the wall.

“You don’t need to save me Ash, I can save myself.” A female voice said causing him to turn to see Lilith walk towards him with a smirk on her face and Serena’s naginata on her back.

“Lilly, thank Arceus you’re okay! But how’d you get away from them, are you okay? The guy I talked to said you’d need an antidote do to what they used on people!” Ash said with relief that Lilly had gotten away.

“I guess I have and immunity to whatever knocked us out. I woke up before they brought me to wherever that was and I was able to find out that Serena was brought to their boss. You go first and I’ll come down after, if we find a fork in the path we’ll take them both.” Lilith said as she looked at door.

“Follow me Lilly; Clemont should be here soon with the police before too long. If we’re lucky we can save Serena and find a place to hold out until they get here.” Ash said as he led the way down, Lilith followed a moment later, not letting her thoughts show on her face. Great, just great. It’s a good think I took that one’s short term memory when I questioned him. Still I hope we can leave sooner than later after this, I so don’t want to answer any questions in an official interview. Lilith thought as she followed after Ash.

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“Why the hell did I want my armor to look like this again? I had a reason for it but I just can’t remember it.” Rex muttered as he finished setting the armor on his right shoulder as the stood before his throne and wondered why he had commissioned such large spikes to be on his shoulders. He looked around and notice that only four gangers come when he called for all members to join him in his room, he would have wanted more of them but beggars can’t be choosers, he was just about to give a speech when a commotion to the front of the room caused him to look up and saw Serena being brought into the room by two more members. He let his eyes wonder over her body and he had to admit that Ash had good taste. He thought that he had seen Serena somewhere before but dismissed it as unimportant. Serena meanwhile glared at Rex as he released two Pokémon and picked up two lances. The first he released was powerful looking dark green dragonfly Pokémon with four wings, two on each side and large red eyes. The other was menacing looking humanoid hunched-over arthropod with a light purplish inner body and a silvery exoskeleton with a bright purple antennae converge forming a mask with its two small eyes. Below the neck are three pairs of arms, the two frontal pairs of arms are thin, each one tipped with a sharp, black claw. The rearmost pair of arms is the largest, and ends with two large, purple "hands" equipped with two large claws each. Both moved to stand by their trainer and Serena choose that moment to speak up.

“So what do you want from me? And where’s Lilly?” Serena demanded as she struggled against the people holding her. She was surprised when Rex started to laugh so hard he had to plant the lances into the ground to stay upright. It actually took him a few minutes to catch his breath before he looked at her.

“You? Nothing; you’re nobody, just bait for the person who beat Viola. I was going to offer you as his own personal servant after I had you initiated but I think I’ll just beat him and force him to serve me that way instead. Maybe I could use the both of you to reinforce your Initiation. And the girl who was captured with you is having a wonderful nightmare that will end with her entering my service.” Rex said after he stopped laughing. Serena went pale when she heard why she had been captured before she went red in the face.

“He’ll never work for you, and why’d you dress up then, to try to scare him?” Serena demanded only for him to chuckle. What’s his deal? What the hell are they, the way he’s talking he’s more than a gang leader. I have to find some way to escape from them, I just have to. She thought eyed the two people holding her, trying to find a way to get her arms out of their grip.

“No I got my armor on because your boyfriend is here and making a mess of my followers. He’s already gone through at least a third of them already.” Rex said causing Serena to stare at him. She was so shocked that she stopped struggling. I knew Ash was strong but this strong? He’s doing this because I was captured; he really lives the old man’s virtues, doesn’t he? Serena thought as she looked at Rex’s two Pokémon. She knew what the Yanmega was but the other was a total unknown, it wasn’t from Kanto or Kalos, so where the hell did he get it. Rex followed her gaze and laughed at her look.

“Don’t know what that one is, do you? This is my Golisopod, my strongest partner and ace. I can’t wait to beat that punk into the ground, that’ll take all the defiance out of him.” Rex said with an evil grin on his face as Serena looked at him with a glare on her face. A commotion from the door to the room caused both of them to look as the body of one of the gangers crashed through the door, breaking it and through it stalked Ash holding his sword and shield in both hands with Pikachu on his shoulder, Froakie by his side, Fletchling flying through the door to hover above him as he looked around the room. He saw Serena being held and his glare centered on the two holding her, causing one of them to loosen his grip, something Serena noticed as she shifted a foot towards the other one.

“Serena are you okay? “ Ash demanded as he looked around the room. Rex looked at Ash with a smirk on his face. This was perfect, he was strong, forceful and brave; a perfect second in command! Now to get him to heel….

“So we finally meet Ash Ketchum! I am Rex Tristo, master of the Buzz Lords! Our strength in unrivaled among all of Kalos but one thing we were lacking is someone who could strategize! I had a basic plan for my goals, wondering where I could find someone who could shoulder this burden, and I have finally found him, you! I saw your match with that whore Viola the other day, with those skills added to the Buzz Lords, we will be unstoppable! Join me and together we will conquer this continent, bringing it under our power! Serve me well and there is nothing I won’t give to you!” Rex exclaimed as he gestured at Ash as the other gangers in the room looked at Ash, waiting for his reply. Ash only snorted and shook his head and looked at Rex with such a look of competent that Rex was taken aback.

“Man, you hear one would be conqueror, you’ve heard them all. Still you are the only one who wanted me to join him. So here’s my counter offer, surrender to the police and you’ll probably only get imprisonment for a while.” Ash said, causing Rex to stare in shock before he went red in anger. He couldn’t believe that Ash had actually refused him, more that

“You pathetic fool! This base is so secret that the local law enforcement will never find us! And if you think you can break out on your own with her, I’ll still have the other one! So surrender before I do something to your friend that you’ll regret!” Rex bellowed. Ash merely smirked at him and stepped to the side before a whip shot from the door from the hallway the striking the one still holding Serena’s arm strongly. It hit his hands and he reflexively let go of her, giving Serena the chance to grab the other one and throw him at one of the four other gangers and run towards Ash as her living missile brought both of them to the floor.

“STOP HER!” Rex bellowed, causing the gangers to start to move to grab her when an Ember attack shot from beyond the door way and hit one before another whip strike hit the other.

“Serena, catch!” A voice called before a long stick was towards Serena, she caught it without realizing it was her naginata, and she spun it around and slashed the blade down, scoring a hit on one of her pursers forcing the others back. Lilith came running into the room and stood beside Serena; Fenniken then came charging towards her trainer, stopping when she was between Serena and Rex, snarling as she stared him down. Serena looked at Lilith and smiled as Rex stared in shock at her.

“You okay Serena?” Lilith asked as she watched the gang members start to draw out their weapons as Rex’s Pokémon started to stare down Ash’s. Lilith looked at Rex and noticed that he had a look of confusion on his face at her presence but saw that while his Aura was active he wasn’t using it and seemed to have forgotten about it. Strange, why would he….oh great someone pulled off the old mind trick on him, I think Kalos just became more complicated.

“LILLY, you’re okay!” Serena exclaimed with happiness as she realized who was next to her. Lilith smirked and looked right at Rex before she replied.

“It takes more than whatever they use to knock us out to keep me down for long! And idiots like these guys always use the weak stuff.” Lilith smirked as Rex just stared.

“I’ll still beat you all and then I’ll see how much of your skills are still there when I’m done Ash! And for the police, they’ll never find this place! The people who do know where this base is are too involved with making money off of us to bother with something like justice!” Rex declared only to be met with a look from Ash that shut him up.

“Like my friend Clemont, who I told where you are and then went to tell Officer Jenny personally?” Ash asked with a smirk on his face as Rex went pale. He did what. No choice then, time to activate my contingency.

“You made me do this, I didn’t want to. Remember, this was because you forced me to do this.” Rex said as he pushed a button on his throne. Ash looked up when they heard a large and savage looking shrill and then looked at Rex with a hard look on his face.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Ash demanded with a glare as cries started to echo down the hallway. Rex only answered the glare with a smirk.

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Glasses woke up and looked around, wondering how he’d gotten there before he remembered what had happened. He paled as he looked towards the theater and started to sweet as he saw the carnage on the inside, the people on the floor and the wrecking. He was in such a state that he never even heard cars stop and people getting out of them. He never even noticed that people were walking towards him.

“That brat with that Pikachu! I can’t believe he did this. This is bad, this is so bad. If he’s strong enough to do this then the boss might do that, I gotta get outa here, the boss…Rex’ll kill me when he figures out I told that brat anything.” Glasses muttered as he got up and backed away from the broken door.

“Rex, would that be Rex Tristo, the person who disappeared when he was passed over for Leadership of the Gym?” A voice behind Glasses asked. Glasses’s was so scared he never even noticed that someone had asked a question, he just answered as he looked at the broken door.

“Yeah, you can’t go a day without hearing him talk how Viola stole it from him. But we gotta move, we can’t be here if….someone….else?” Glasses trailed off as he realized someone was there and slowly turned his head and went white when he saw Officer Jenny, Clemont, Viola and a lot of police officers who were looking around at the scene. Clemont grabbed Glasses and pulled him towards his face.

“Where are the two girls that were brought here earlier?!” He demanded as he glared at the gang member started to splutter. The others looked at Clemont and Jenny nodded at two of her officers.

“Inside! But we gotta get outa here! Rex has a contingency plan if things go belly up like this! And it’s to cause enough destruction that he could take over! A way to throw doubt on Viola’s eligibility to lead the gym and cause enough carnage that he could get away with killing her and her sister to ‘stop’ it.” Glasses said as he tried to struggle out of Clemont’s grip as the others listened to what he said as the officers started to round up the gang members on the ground.

“So Rex was responsible for the Buzz Lords, out of all the people it could have been I wouldn’t have chosen him as the one. I mean I knew he hated me for taking what he considered his but all the crimes they’ve done, he always spoke about law and order, I just can’t see him being involved.” Viola said quietly as she stood with Jenny who nodded. Some officers had come to Clemont and taken Glassess from him and was leading the ganger towards the vans.

“I thought he had just gone to take over his family’s business. But he’s been the leader of the Buzz Lords for the last few years? He wasn’t even on the radar of possibilities; no one even spoke his name as a possible. He gave no impression that he would create some kind of gang because of his being passed over. And he’s a member of the old nobility that used to rule around here two.” Jenny mused as she watched the building with a critical eye, taking note of the wide windows on the front and the gargoyles above it. If he is the boss I need to talk to a judge about a search warrant for his house in the residential section. This might be enough to put him away but if there’s any evidence there then the case would be even tighter. Jenny thought as she looked over the front of the building, trying to see if anyone was looking at them from it. Viola frowned as she looked around and turned to Jenny.

“Isn’t this the old dinner theater that went out of business a few years back, and then didn’t someone use it to run a counterfeit operation?” Viola asked as she followed Jenny’s eyes. Jenny gave the area a once over and let her memory go back and realized that Viola was right about where they were.

“Yeah, the rage they displayed when they resisted arrest, the damages it caused led to the whole neighborhood going out of business; I remember how a lot of them tried to stay open. Didn’t they all add the gargoyles on their roofs because they could open their mouths and drop things just for their going out of business party the neighborhood had to ‘really go out on a bang’ as one of them said?” Jenny asked as she started to feel like something was going to happen and looked around. Viola looked up and stared at the gargoyles, hoping the feeling she was getting was wrong. What’s bothering me about those statues? What am I seeing that I can’t register, is it something about the size of the mouth… Wait, those mouths would be big enough for…. Viola went white as she figured out what her instincts were telling her.

“Say Jenny, do you know how long a Pokémon can last in a Pokéball before they need to eat?” Viola asked shakily as she looked upwards. Jenny looked at the gargoyles and noticed that the mouth seemed particularly larger and a different color from the rest of the statues. Suddenly the mouths of the gargoyles opened and seven Pokéballs dropped from them and hit the ground. From six of them came an even mix of Pinsirs and Scythers who looked at the humans around them hungrily, but the real problem was what came from the seventh ball. The Bug Pokémon that was released would normally be a large, moth-like Pokémon with four small feet, compound eyes and small four feet on its ‘chest’ but with white fuzz on its top and red horn-like structures on each side of its face this specimen with six orange wings with black spots of them, but the appearance of this one was anything but normal. Its right eye was a pale white and the horn on its right was smashed, its fuzz had scares of pale skin in random patterns and four balls of fire appeared around it as soon as it appeared. Viola stared in shock at the creature before them and whispered a single sentence, identifying just what was before them.

“That’s a Volcarona; the sun Pokémon.” This was the only thing she could say before the Volcarona gave a savage shrill and the other Bug types charged at the people in front of them as Volcarona breathed a blast of fire at them.

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“What I did was release a few Pokémon I… prepared for this kind of situation, wild beasts that know only to kill; in fact I conditioned one especially for this. I would hate to be your friend and whoever came with him; of course if no one is there they’ll just go into the town and find people there to kill. So thank you Ash, the carnage will decide my fate one way or another!” Rex said with a dark chuckle as Ash stared in total shock before he started to glare and grit his teeth. He gripped his sword tighter and Pikachu started to look at the two Bug types and zeroed in on the white one, he would take that one down for his trainer.

“Girls, I’m sorry but could you handle the others, I need to talk to this person for a while.” Ash said as he walked towards Rex. Serena and Lilith shared a look and nodded at each other and faced the four gangers in the room as two of them were helped to their feet.

“We’ve got this Ash, you handle him!”Lilith called out as she stroke with her whip. Golisopod saw Ash move towards its trainer and tried to stop him when a bolt of electricity shot between it and Ash, causing it to turn and look at Pikachu who stared it down as Froakie and Fletchling moved to back him up, only to stop when Pikachu raised his tail.

“Pika! Pika Pikachu chu.” Pikachu ordered the others and locked eyes with Golisopod.

“Froakie!” Froakie called out as it formed a water sphere and shot it at the Yanmega. Yanmega hovered higher and fired silver crescents at Froakie, only for them to be intercepted by crescent blades of wind.

“Fletchling!” Fletchling declared as it hovered above Froakie, daring Yanmega to attack them. Yanmega flew at them like a bullet when a few small orange sparks hit its right side and forced it down to the ground, burning it as well.

“Fennekin!” Fennekin declared as it joined the other two staring down Yanmega.

Serena blocked a blow from one of the gangers with a club and spun her naginata around, slamming the blunt end of her weapon into his head, sending the ganger to the floor. She had sent Fenniken to help Froakie and Fletchling when she realized the gangers didn’t have any Pokémon, why she didn’t know but she wasn’t about to look a gift Ponyta in the mouth. One of the other three gangers charge at her with a hammer but a strike from Lilith’s whip scored a cut above his face that caused him to close his right eye and fall back with his hand over his wound. We’re a good team, she wounds em and I knock’em down. All we have to do I last long enough for Ash to finish their leader. Serena thought with a smirk as she looked at the other two gangers who still had weapons and frowned when she noticed that one of them was backing up towards a corner with a tapestry on it.

Pikachu dodge a glowing purple stab from Golisopod’s right arm and spun around and hit it with its tail glowing white and striking Golisopod’s body, the blow sent it to its knees. Pikachu barely had a second before Golisopod spat a stream of brown sludge at him forcing him to dodge to the left as he tried to get behind it.

While this was happening Ash had been trading blows with Rex, catching the spear trusts with his shield and sword and trying to use his mobility against Rex reach. Rex stabbed forward with his right and Ash spun to the right and slashed down at the right lance, Rex twisting his arm upward, dodging Ash’s slash by mere centimeters. Rex laughed as he moved backwards and grinned with a crazy edge to it as he looked at Ash.

“You are strong as both a trainer and a warrior! Once I beat you and bring you to my way of thinking you’ll led my forces to conquer!” Rex said with a crazed gleam in his eyes.

“As if!” Ash snarled as he moved in and slashed at Rex as he tried to get in closer. Rex just laughed and dashed backwards and grinned savagely.

“You’d think so, but you won’t be the first trainer I beat then drafted them, FLASH!” Rex roared startling Serena, but Ash, Pikachu and Lilith closed their eyes merely a second before Yanmega took action.

“YANM!” The Yanmega cried as its eyes released a blinding flash that stunned Froakie, Fenniken, Fletchling and Serena. Rex looked on as his followers started to snicker, their boss flash strike strategy always worked.

“Get them!” Rex screamed as he moved forward, thrusting forward with his left lance as Golisopod moved to strike Pikachu as the gangers moved in. Suddenly Lilith struck out with her whip, score blows that forced the gangers back while Pikachu dodge the blow from Golisopod and struck back with an electric bolt! Ash parred the blow from the lance and pressed forward, scoring a hit on Rex’s right arm that forced him to drop his left lance and grab the wound, blood coming from between his hands. Serena blinked her vision back and moved forward, spinning her naginata as she moved in with Lilith beside her

“You don’t think you’re the first person to try and blind me, are you?” Ash asked with a smirk as Rex stared at him before he released a roar and charge at Ash. Ash dodged the blows as he moved backwards until he dashed in, blocked a blow from the remaining lance with his sword and bashed his shield against Rex’s face. Rex stumbled and grinned idiotically before he crumbled to the floor!

“Yanmega!” Rex’s Yanmega cried as it turned towards Ash, giving Froakie the chance to jump at it and slam a sphere of water against its right side the same second Fletchling sent two silver crescents of energy against its left side, the force of both attacks sent it to the floor! Pikachu parried another purple blow from Golisopod with a white glowing tail before a blast of fire hit Golisopod’s back sending it stumbling forward. Pikachu looked up and saw Fenniken glaring at Golisopod as Froakie and Fletchling surrounded the Bug-Type. The Golisopod roared but blasts from the four Pokémon caused it to faint.

Serena slammed the blunt end of her weapon down on the head of one the gangers as Lilith used her whip to pull one of them towards her to deliver a blow with her fist that knocked him out. Serena looked towards Ash and smiled when she saw that he had knocked out Rex and turned when Lilith gave a sharp cry.

“Where’s the other two!? They never got by us so where are they!?” Lilith demanded as she looked around and Serena glanced around and noticed the tapestry on the wall was fluttering. She clicked her tongue and gestured towards the tapestry when Lilith looked at her, receiving a nod and moving silently as their Pokémon and Ash moved towards them. Lilith raised her hand and held up three fingers and slowly lowered them until on the last she pulled the tapestry down, revealing a passage that slopped upwards.

“The other two must have escaped when Rex caused that flash. You two go ahead, Froakie, Flechtling back them up. Pikachu, with me, we’ll carry this one with us.” Ash said as he gathered the tapestry. Lilith shot a look at Serena and both girls nodded at each other.

“I’ll help you wrap him up, you make sure no one surprises us Serena.” Lilith said as she moved to help Ash as Serena took up a guard position with Fenniken standing next to her.

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Clemont dove behind one of the buildings as a blast of fire hit where he had been standing as his Bunnelby threw blasts of mud at the Volcarona as the officers tried to handle the Pinsirs and Scythers as Jenny’s Manectric fired bolts of electricity at the Volcarona as they all tried to survive. Clemont watched as the balls of fire intercepted the mud and electricity as the Volcarona fired streams of flame down at them, Viola and her Pokemon were doing what they could to keep it from sparking a fire on the buildings but it was a losing strategy, as soon as the inside of one of the buildings caught fire, it would be hard to stop it.

“Yeah, we’re by the old dinner theater, that’s where their base was! They’ve released a mad Volcarona with a pack of bipedal Bug Pokémon! Get the Fire brigade on standby before you get over here! It’s gone mad! I don’t like it but we might have to take it down preeminently!” Viola was hollering into her Pokégear as she hid behind a building as her Vivillon hovered protectively above her as her Surskit fired bubbles at the one of the four fireballs, but the heat caused the water to evaporate before it reached the balls. Clemont looked at the wounds on Volcarona’s body and cursed as he looked at it.

“This is insane! What did he do to that Volcarona can’t be called civilized! When I get my hands on him!” Clemont snarled as he looked at the abused Pokémon. Viola turned her ‘gear off and looked at Clemont with a dark look.

“It wasn’t but I think it’s rabid, we don’t have a choice do we?” Voila said as she looked at the Volcarona and Clemont sighed and nodded.

“No, I don’t think we do. Bunnelby, Mud Shot, aim for its left eye!” Clemont commanded. Bunnelby looked at is trainer and nodded and jumped out from behind the building, firing as it moved hoping to hit. One shot of mud hit one of the balls of fire, causing an explosion that caused a splatter of flaming mud to hit the Volcarona’s good eye and it screamed in pain, the other two balls of fire moving erratically as it fought to stay in the air.

“Vivillon, while it’s distracted, charge Solar Beam and fire at the right eye!” Viola cried, Vivillon flew upwards and started to gather sunlight in a sphere above its head when one of the balls of fire shot at it and exploded when it hit the Pokémon! Voila watched it fall to the ground and barely grabbed Vivillon’s Pokéball before Volcarona regained its barings and fired a blast of fire at the downed Bug type.

“Vivillon return!” Voila cried, the beam hitting Vivillon seconds before the fire hit where it had crashed. Clemont stared at where the fire had hit and looked at the Volcarona and realized something. He wouldn’t he couldn’t. But that’s the only thing that makes sense about this

“It was trained to kill and only to kill. A defeated opponent is only a target that can’t move to it.” Clemont said with shock before he gained a glare that caused Voila to freeze for a second. In Arceus name, what did Rex do it that thing?! What the hell was going through his head when he thought of this, did my becoming the Gym Leader really affect him or was he just good at hiding what kind of person he was? Voila stared at the Volcarona before she shook herself back to reality at the Volcarona screeched and two more balls of fire formed and started to orbit the Bug type.

Bunnelby had moved back to hide with its trainer as Clemont looked at the fireballs as and scowled. Those fireballs aren’t a normal move, what did he do to that Pokémon, how did he teach it to use them? Clemont’s thoughts ran in circles trying to figure out how he and Voila would survive when a pull on his pants from his Pokemon caused him to look down and give it an encouraging smile when he saw the worry on its face.

“We’ll survive this partner, I promise.” Clemont said right before one of the fireballs shot and hit one of the Pinsirs, barely missing the Police man who jumped backwards from trying to corral it.

Darcy looked on from the top of a building away from the commotion with a frown on her face as she looked at the chaos Rex had unleashed. She had to give him credit where it was due, he had hidden his final card very well, she hadn’t seen a single impression that he had a scorched earth policy in case things went away from him to the extent he would be captured. She looked towards her Zoroark and made a decision.

“Looks like we need to get involved like that masked idiot does in Lumiose girl. Go charge a good blast and when you’ve got a clear shot hit it in its head, than I want you to get out of there, and meet me at Rex’s place, we have to finish up dropping the last few pieces of the puzzle.” Darcy said as her Zoroark shot her a look that made her trainer chuckle at her as she reached over and scratched its right ear.

“Relax girl we’re far enough away and I’ll be heading to ground level and make for the town’s southern border. Just dart in and strike and then get back to me and we go to Rex’s place to drop the last puzzle pieces.” Darcy promised her Pokémon who nodded. Zoroark turned and moved towards the edge of the roof and jumped to the next roof, running as soon as it landed, moving ever closer to the Volcarona as it gathered power. Darcy looked on for a few seconds before she turned and ran for the fire escape, hoping to do what she said that she would be able to slip by the police.

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Serena and Lilith came out into an alleyway behind a damaged building, looking around for anything that might attack them. Ash and their Pokémon followed, Ash carrying Rex’s body wrapped in the tapestry. Ash looked up and frowned when he noticed a glow farther back towards the right. That was a long passage, we’ve probably moved from at least three miles from where the base is. That over there, that has to be his contingency plan, I can’t let the girls get hurt and Lilly doesn’t have her team with her. Froakie and Fletchling should stay here, if this scum gets away after what he did, he’ll be ever worse or have no limits on what he would do.

“You two stay here; I’ll check and try to help out if it’s as bad as I think it is. Froakie, Fletchling stay here and help keep that one locked down.” Ash said as Pikachu jumped onto Ash’s shoulder before Ash moved towards the fire.

“Ash, no you can’t go alone!” Serena said before Lilith grabbed her shoulder. When Serena looked back at her Lilith only shook her head.

“He and Pikachu have the experience to help deal with whatever this scum let loose and we have to watch him.” Lilith said as Ash ran towards the light, praying that he would be okay. Even if you not who I think you are Ash, you’re one of the good ones out here. You’d better be okay. Lilith thought as she and Serena started to guard Rex.

Ash ran and looked upwards, hoping that he wouldn’t see any fires on the buildings and that Serena and Lilly would be okay. He looked up as he came towards where the sound was and saw Policemen being attacked by Bug Types, a Volcarona that looked abused rampaging and there was Clemont and Voila.

Pikachu, get high up there and use Thunder!” Ash commanded as Pikachu jumped off his shoulder and started to climb up a nearby pipe he jumped to. As Pikachu moved upwards Ash raised his shield and moved towards Clemont.

“Clemont, what’s happening!” Ash demanded as he huddled with Clemont and Voila. They turned towards him in shock.

“Ash! Wait, where are the girls!?” Clemont demanded as soon as he saw him. Ash pointed back the way he had come and smirked.

“Back there keeping watch on the boss of these bastards. And I really can’t wait to hear about what’ll happen to him for that. Pikachu will attack from above; we just need to take this thing down.” Ash said as he looked at the Volcarona as it screeched. Ash looked as a bolt of electricity hit the Volcarona. Volcarona screeched and two of the fireballs orbiting it flew towards where the blast had come from. After the blast hit the roof another blast of electricity shot towards Volcarona but the last fireball intercepted it. It screeched and another fireball formed when suddenly a blast hit the deadeye from the side, blasting apart its good eye and sending it to the ground where it whispered for a few seconds before going still as blood poured from the wound. The other Bug types ran away, each of them running towards the outskirts.

“All officers with ID end with even numbers, after them, don’t let them make it to the center of town! All other go into the restaurant and start rounding up the Buzz Lords!” Jenny called out as

“Pikachu, find where that blast came from! The girls are over there back about three miles behind a building with a broken red sign on a post.” Ash called as he started to climb up a ladder, Jenny and Voila following him as Clemont ran towards the girls. Pikachu jumped onto the building Ash was climbing and moved towards where the blast had come from and when he got onto the roof he started to sniff the air. Ash got onto the roof and moved towards Pikachu and helped Voila and Jenny to get onto the roof. He saw Pikachu with his tail raised up and moved towards him, dropping besides him and looked at what he had found.

“What is it?” Voila asked as she and Jenny joined Ash and watched as he picked up some red fur and handed it to Jenny.

“A Pokémon with red hair that could fire a Hyper Beam, afraid that doesn’t narrow down the lists down does it, and heck it could have been wild.” Ash said as he walked back towards the roof’s edge.

Jenny looked at the fur and removed a small evidence bag and put it in it, before she looked towards the edge and saw police van’s coming towards the area, the reinforcements that she had called for cleanup, and beyond them were two fire trucks. She watched as he started to climb down, Pikachu jumping onto Ash’s shoulder as he climbed.

“You and the rest of your group are going to the hospital Mr. Ketchum, do you understand me!” Jenny called out as Voila went next. They never heard the patter of feet as something moved about the roof and jumped away.

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A large helicopter flew through the skies as clouds moved above it. In the cockpit of the helicopter a humanoid figure wearing a mask over its face and in a robe looked out the window and moved away, leaving the cockpit empty of anyone as it walked towards the hold. Finally the figure reached a door and opened it and entered. Inside 6 three foot tall humanoid forms were being held up by scaffolding descending from the ceiling of the room. At one of the humanoids a second figure in a robe and mask was finish manipulating something in the humanoid’s chest and turned to the figure that had just entered the room.

“Final data-slave to Observer installation finished. All mobile units ready for operation/LHT01.” The second figure said robotically to the first. The first looked over the figures and turned to the second.

“Observer upgrades and installation of cleanup module finished to parameters?” The first enquired as it turned back to the second.

“Affirmative, time to reach site less than 5 minutes. All know local combatants loaded into hard drives of test units. Directives if trainers or others encountered included as per last revision of operation plan. ”The second robed figure said flatly as the helicopter started to slow down as they reached their target zone. The helicopter slowed down and descended to hover above a clearing far from any human made structures. As the helicopter hovered over the area six coverings opened on the underside, from which the six humanoids were lowered to the ground. A shaft of moonlight caused the figures to be seen by anything that was watching. The figures were robots that had a single camera lens on their head behind a glass visor that covered the top of their face while their bodies were colored a uniform grey. They had normal looking arms with a box on the tops of them and four fingers in a cross formation with an opening in the center of both palms. Their legs had two wheels on both sides of them for a total of four and the front of their feet were a sharp blade. The robots dropped the last three feet to the ground and their camera lens started to pan back and forth until the six units started to charge into the woods. As the units charged off a metallic saucer detached from the side of the helicopter and flew off in the same direction as the units{[Observer]}, silently recording everything they did. In a room within the helicopter the vision of all six robots was up on six monitors as the two robbed figure watched in total silence as they recorded all the data.

“So far real world data of unit performance follows projected values. Data based on weapon performance only unknown factor.” The second said as they watched the units move through the underbrush.

“Real world combat data retrieval one of reasons for test. Local life forms will test all parameters to necessary extent to allow for design limits to be shown.” The first observed as the units came upon their first targets, a wolf pack 15 strong eating the remains of a wild pig. The monitors started to display bio data the sensor data from the Observer on the over watch.

“Life forms designation Canis lupus feeding on killed life form Sus scrofa, suggestion battle with emotional motivator.” The second said flatly to the first. The first looked at the data on the wolves and sent a command to the units in the field. The monitors cycled through the individual wolves and stopped on three pups that had been shielded from the sight of the camera by two of the wolves and the bio data on how healthy the whole pack was displayed alongside the pups. After a few minutes of looking over the data a wolf on the screen turned towards the camera and growled, causing the pack to look up from their meal and the one of them, the leader to stalk towards the units.

“Affirmative, combat incentive approved. Send directive to begin with motivational incentive on youngest target.” The first said as a targeting icon highlighted one of the pups.

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The wolf leader growled at the units as the other members of the pack started to move from the kills to the sides of their leader, backing it up. As it growled at the robots the front one raised one of its arms towards the pack. Something passes by the leader’s muzzle a second before two of the pups cry out and starts to whine as the pack turns to the noise, see the smallest pup collapsed on the ground, a red hole in its head. The leader stares as the two other pups start to nudge the third, before it bares its teeth and howled before it sprang at the units, half the pack following the leader with the rest running away, grabbing the two pups as they ran away from the battle.

The leader charge alone at the one that had fired a shot as each of the other units found themselves under attack from two wolves each. The Leader barreled into the unit that fired and pushed it to the ground, snapping at the face of the unit. It moved its arms and grabbed the wolf, the wolf struggling to get at the head. The unit tried to get the leader off it but the wolf used it front legs to keep the units arms down and kept trying to bit through the arm that had fired the shot that had killed one of its own. The unit’s self-diagnostic showed that the arm was near the point of being torn off and choose an action that might have saved it. A micro explosion went off in its shoulder and was pushed off the main body, the wolf overextended itself and went lopsided, freeing the unit’s remaining arm and with a swift motion it grabbed the wolf’s head amd fired a point blank shot, killing the pack’s leader and looked toward the other units. Two of the other units were down, one of them had its head torn off the body, and the other had its legs torn off and the last three the units were back to back, firing shots at the wolves as they circled the units, one of them was missing its right arm and all three had scratches and gorges on their bodies that sparked, showing internal circuits in places. The unit raised its remaining arm and shot three quick shots, killing two of the wolves and wounding two more. The wolves saw their leader was dead and dashed off in different directions disappearing from the sight of the units. The other three units converged on the first and waited in a diamond formation looking out into the woods as their masters conversed.

“Unit strength at 60%. Action choice limited to either continuing the test or retrieve units and return to base. Test has shown upgrades needed to design, combat has not followed projected outcome. Redesign of unit is recommended.” The second figure stated to the first as they watched on the monitors, two of them black with their data source inactive. The first robbed absorbed all the data coming in and noticed an alert from the Observer and made a decision.

“The recovery of the test units was not prioritized as critical part of test, pushing design to limits is greatest priority. Scanner data shows two high combat life forms moving towards battle site. Test units are to attack with Alpha Strike and Observer unit is to fall back to medium range of data slave and return when unit strength drops to below 16%.” The first ordered, causing the units to leave the kills in the clearing. Orders sent the view screens on showed the units moving off into the woods, moving in the direction of what the Observer had detecting, the units preparing themselves for combat

After the sounds of the units had died down; a bush by one of the dead pigs moved as a small looking Goblin got up and looked upon the carnage. It had been hoping to grab something to bring back to its Sire and when it found the wolves feeding it had hoped just to get away alive. It looked at the dead wolves and moved towards the dead pup, looking it over and started to claw at the hole the unit’s shot had made, if it wanted to get the credit for the kills, then it {[Salvager]} needed to doctor what kills it brought back, not much but enough to make the others think that it had killed them.

Broken Sting thundered through the woods as Dark Flare guarded their back as they moved towards where they had heard the howl from. They had been looking for a place to spend the night when they had heard the howl and moved to investigate. They had begun moving when they had heard it, they had run into the pack they thought it came from and anything that could cause the pack’s leader to howl like that had to be faced while it was hurt if, if the two of them waited for it to recover then they might be the ones who would be killed next! When they came across part of the pack, they didn’t even reacting to their presence as they charged by, ignoring the wolves as they barreled past them. Dark Flare saw something ahead of them and dodged to the left, an instant telling it to dodge something that hit a tree behind it, creating a circular indentation in the tree. Four grey figures were revealed to the Chimera, one only had one arm and it was raised in a line with the damaged tree. Dark Flare wasted no time and fired a blast of flame from its mouth at the figures, but the one with only one arm lunged to the side and aimed at Broken Sting, the others stopped moving after the flames hit. Broken Sting wasted no time and fired two blasts of water from its claws at the grey figure and Dark Flare fired its own flames, joining the blast form Broken Sting, after they stopped firing they saw the figure was now nothing more than a mass of melted something that smelt unappetizing. The two Chimera looked at the other three figures still not moving and Broken Sting poked the closest one, sending it backwards into the others, all of them falling to the ground. Dark Flare looked at Broken Sting and both sent a feeling of confusion towards the other before they moved on.

They finally reached a clearing with a dead pig and the corpses of two wolves. Dark Flare looked at the ground and saw blood splatter on the ground and showed two sources of blood were dragged away into the woods away from where they had battled the grey figures. Dark Flare sent a feeling of confusion to Broken Sting, where was the leader, it hadn’t been with the others and it wasn’t here, so where was it? They looked around and turned Dark Flare motioned towards the wolves and Broken Sting sent a feeling of ‘no’ towards it, they would leave the wolves where they were, they had stayed behind to either avenge the source of the source of the blood on the ground so they would leave them where they had fallen. As the two of them moved out of the clearing, Broken Sting grabbed the pig’s corpse as they passed, waste not wants not after all.

After they had left the area Deadeye walked into the clearing from the direction of where it had been watching the battle the two Chimera had with the grey things. The Flame Horn that its sire wanted dead had a good leader, but it was as weak as the fool Protector. But the grey things had caused a hole to form in a tree far away, another kind of those things the grey creatures where it had eaten the fruit had, something to look into. Deadeye looked over the corpses and grinned, they had left such good food behind and it could use them, it walked towards the remaining wolf bodies and spat some of the black liquid onto one and took a bit from it, it sensed what the wolf could give it but choose to not change at all quickly consumed both corpses before it started to walk back towards its sire’s cave. It would lose all the chances to kill its sire if it changed now but it would hunt down the rest of the wolves in the area in the future, it would take what it sensed from them latter. Deadeye walked away from the clearing, never noticing while it had been eating that the Observer had been watching it before the Observer had left.

The large helicopter moved off from where it had been hovering and started to move backwards on the course it had flown. The Observer flew towards it and docked, within the craft the two figure were moving cataloging all the data.

“Test unit current configuration is inefficient in current configuration. Critical weakness identified, internal circuitry need to be protected from damage that breaches unit-armor. Secondary weakness identified; close combat ability below projected values. Tertiary weakness, armor two weak to handle combat. Possible improvements; increase in movement abilities, increase in reaction time, close combat weapon, increase in armor strength or change material used. ” The second robbed figure said as the first stopped and looked over the data collected on the wolves. It looked at the wolf pack leader as it charged at the camera and went over the combat data and made a decision.

“Possible weapon platform identified. Test results to be logged and possible improvements to be planned on test unit for next live test. We shall return to base to begin.” The first robbed figure said as the helicopter traveled silently through the sky.

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Riley lead the way with his Lucario as the five of them moved down the mountain, Cameron was watching their back and Brock and Rosette were in the middle of the party as they moved as fast and as safely as they could. So far they hadn’t been attacked by anything but so the mountain was silent so either the animals detected danger or they were all dead.

“We’ve got to find them soon!” Brock snarled as he looked over his shoulder as he followed the people who had saved him down the mountain. The Chimera that had retreated still left a bitter taste in his mouth but he had to find Yuji, Kunz might have killed him by now. And he was still feeling weak from whatever had happened to him earlier. Looking at his waist he cursed that he had only brought three Pokémon with him, if he had only brought Crobat or Ludicolo with him, then he might be able to do more!

“Don’t worry Brock, we’ll find them and get off this mountain, or at least we’ll set up camp somewhere where we can defend ourselves.” Riley’s words caused him to look up and sigh. When the four of them had left the campsite they had heard a few cries farther up the mountain,

“It’s not just that, a hurricane is due to hit soon, within the next few days if we’re lucky, tomorrow if we’re not.” Brock said as he navigated down the path, not noticing that Cameron had stopped and paled in horror.

“A hurricane, you went up here knowing something was wrong when a hurricane was coming?!” He demanded as Brock nodded at him. The other two were looking at him, waiting to hear why Brock had taken such a risk.

“The number of Chimera was a surprise I admit; I thought at most it would be a small group of them. But the hurricane was why I’m here in the first place.” Brock said as they walked towards a small forest on the mountain plateau.

“How so, what caused you to come up here?” Rosette asked as she looked around for any sign of the Chimera that had attacked them had returned.

“A spore is causing an outbreak among the Pokémon in Viridian City, wind patterns showed the source was up here. I dealt with something like that before and the source was a Chimera that used them to hunt, so I thought it might have been something like that. The wind was the only thing that could account for the wide spread infection and the fact that it was the worst near the mountains was the final point to it. If we didn’t have a cure or eliminated the source before the hurricane hit the area, I don’t want to guess what could happen.” Brock said grimly as they moved towards the trees.

“How bad is the outbreak?” Rosette asked in worry her sister was in Viridian damn it!

“It’s been debilitating so far, but so far it doesn’t seem to be terminal thankfully. The symptoms are different for each species of Pokémon, but the one thing is that they can’t move because of how weak they are. We found a Chimera that looked like it came from the same source as those things that attacked my camp before you arrived, and the same as what attacked your cabin Ms. Zargo.” Brock explained before they heard something ahead of them.

“Incoming! Everyone get off the path!” Riley bellowed as he grabbed Rosette and Cameron grabbed Brock and they jumped to the side out of view of anything coming at them while Lucario jumped into a tree and was ready to strike at anything. After a few moments a rider on a Rapidash came into view that caused Brock to stiffen.

“That’s Kunz, why is he alone?” Brock asked with worry. Cameron pulled out a Local Gear and pressed a button before he passed it to Brock gestured to him to speak into it. Brock shot him a look and Cameron swiftly explained.

“Master Riley has a throw away one set to broadcast; he just threw it to a bush near him. This is and old trick we’ve used before to handle wild animals that we had to hunt, this way we can test just why he’s alone, trust us with this Brock.” Cameron whispered at him, Brock looked down at the Gear and made a decision.

Kunz rode his Rapidash through the woods with no care to what might get in their way. Already since he had left Yuji to his fate they had run down a few Pokémon, no doubt trying to escape the Chimera, now that had been pleasant. Hopefully that Gym brat put up a long enough fight to buy me enough time to get away or those wild things will be enough to feed them. If everything is working perfectly then she will be around here to get out of this nightmare mountain!

“KUNZ, Where’s Yuji!” Brock’s voice came from a bush ahead and that brought a savage grin to his face. So maybe I could handle Brock after all. I always like it when I could finish them and watch their flesh burn to ashes.

“Rapidash, Fire Blast! Full power at that bush; let’s roast him!” He commanded with a cruel tone. His Rapidash breathed a full stream of fire that had only just hit the bush before a ball of blue energy missed them by inches from above as a trainer glowing blue burst out of cover from the opposite direction and aimed an open hand at him and fired a blue sphere at him. He hugged Rapidash’s neck, dodging the sphere and wincing when he felt something pass by his head, hearing the sound of a bullet hitting a tree to his side. An ambush! They must have been with that failed Gym Leader! And that one’s a wilder, I gotta get out of here and tell the others! He thought with worry as he looked and noticed a Lucario in a tree lining up on him and his Pokémon.

“Flame Charge, we’re out of here!” Kun roared before flames envelope him and his Rapidash as they increased speed and blew past the area, dodging bullets and blasts of energy as they went. Kunz let the flames die out before he looked back and snarled as he realized that Agalia had failed, and that a wilder was with Brock! He had to get back and worn report what had happened, the ability to use Aura can’t become basic knowledge, that would led to the downfall of humanity, that was against all that the Order had fought against for years, he wouldn’t fail!

Brock looked where Kunz and Rapidash had speed off to and shook his head. I had hoped they were wrong, but if I had called out to him he would had had his Pokémon attack me with lethal intent, and it obeyed without a thought! Just who the hell did Karin send up with us? Once was a surprise, but twice is enemy action. I’m going to be looking over my shoulder for months.

“So they were working together, and here I was hoping she was alone.” Brock said as Cameron patted his shoulder. Riley and Rosette came towards them. Riley had a frown on his face and a resolute look on his face.

“I’m sorry Brock, but I need to ask where those two came from and how they joined you’re expedition.” Riley said with a hard solemn voice. Brock just sighed and looked at him, wondering if Riley and the others would believe who had sent them.

“They came on the recommendation of Karin of the Elite Four. I know how hard that might be to believe….” Brock said only to stop when Riley started to shake his head with a scowl.

“Not as hard as you’d believe Brock. I’ll tell you why when we reach safety. We need to find this Yuji is, but we can’t risk our safety we’ll keep looking but we have to get out of here alive, I’m sorry.” Riley said with a hard look on his face. Brock looked like he wanted to argue but he could only nodded at Riley’s words.

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Yuji looked behind them as he and his Rhydon ran through the woods, they had left the clearing and he had been worried that some other group of those things would attack them. So far they hadn’t been yet but he was had seen enough of them back at the cave that he was concerned that they might have sent another party after him. He was worried about the way that explosion had happened after whatever or whoever had happened to kill the Chimera’s leader. All he had to do was make it back to Brock and get off the mountain and tell the League to send in the Calvary. All I have to do get this information and sample to back to the League, and then I’ll stay in Viridian and help defend the town against the Chimera up here. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a connection to the outbreak with the Chimera here, I’ve seen at least four different variants of them so it’s not too far out there for the source to have been another strain we haven’t seen yet. And then there’s that bastard Kunz, why the hell did he do that!? Who the hell does he work for that he had to kill me! And how long will it be before they send more of themselves after us, are they trying to get that larger one somewhere safe first then they’ll come at use? What is that thing to them; listen to me, as if they can plan of all things! ‘Chimera are nothing more than mad beasts waiting to be put down’ yeah right! The way they fought in that clearing casts a lot of doubt on that fact! Yuji thought with a snarl on his face as he led the way through the forest, hoping that any stray sound he heard wasn’t one of those things leading a group against them.

Sounds ahead of them to the right caused him to signal his Rhydon to stop moving. He moved as quietly as possible and stopped at a tree to sneak a look at and saw an unknown man in blue with a Lucario and gritted his teeth. Is he one of Kunz’s friends? We haven’t seen anyone since we came up these mountains. So who the hell is he? Yuji gripped his mace and wondered if he should attack him when the bushes behind him moved and Brock led two more people out of it. Yuji sighed with relief and cleared his throat loudly, causing Brock and the others to turn and see him. Brock seemed to decompress a bit and looked relieved at seeing him

“Yuji, thank Arceus your safe! When we ran into Kunz I feared he’d killed you!” Brock exclaimed in happiness.

“All he did was have his Combusken fire a blast above a cave and bring the mountain down on a group of Chimera that looked a lot like that corpse we found at the Cabin farther down the mountain! We’ve got problems boss, these things have at least four variants, and one of them explodes when they die!” Yuji said as he waved back towards

“The campsite we were setting up was hit by a pack of them, made up of two variants, a few of those exploding ones leading at least five each of another variant. After the last exploder was killed the others retreated and then Agalia tried to kill me. She would’ve gotten away with it if these people hadn’t come across the campsite!” Brock said as he kept just why she had wanted him dead from Yuji. He starred when Yuji’s Rhydon came into view, carrying its cargo. Yuji saw what they were looking at and grinned at them.

“Yeah, I got away but not before five of them started to chase us. Fought our way to this clearing and the exploder held back and let the others attack us. Something killed it while we were dealing with the other four. This one was the most intact so we brought it back with us, figured that maybe you could learn from this like the other one.” Yuji explained as he shrugged his shoulders with a smirk. A loud explosion sounded father back in the woods caused them all to tense and group back to back, after a few seconds Riley move in the direction of the path Brock and Yuji had gone up to come onto the mountain’s plateau.

“Whatever that was we should move, if we have a sample of the other attacker strain then we have to get back to Viridian, we have to at least get the head back; I assume the brain is still ‘good’?” Riley asked Yuji as the other started to follow behind him.

“Maybe, I stabbed it in the center of its head, fast and quick and partially so maybe it’ll be okay. And he’s right, we should leave this place, if that explosion is from a leader strain then any of the other things are no more then made animals now.” Yuji said as he looked behind him, not noticing a branch high in a tree farther back moving up and down as if something had jumped off it.

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Shadow had heard the same shrill and moved towards it through the trees as the others ran down the mountain. If the Chimera had found the group he would fight them off until he was sure they could get away, if the Chimera were attacking one of the two Order members then he would kill them and let the Chimera have the corpses for a meal. He jumped from tree to tree and stopped when he reached a clearing he stopped on the branch and looked down and swore in his mind at what he saw.

A Nidorino stood in front of an Alpha with five Warriors spread out behind it. He saw a crater behind the Nidorino with body parts from an Alpha nearby and an injured Nidorina was near the hole in the ground, trying to get back to her feet with one eye closed. A Clefairy had its hands on the Nidorina, releasing multiple multicolored waves of energy into her as it watched Nidorino stare down the Chimera. He looked over the scene and saw the corpses of five other warriors and noticed at the Nidorino had a few marks on its body, taking a quick look at the Clefairy and noting the wounds on it he nodded as he realized what had happened. So at least two parties of these things were here, if there strength was the same as the one that attacked Yuji then it was a leader and four soldiers each, what was the target, the one of them or the little one. If it was the little one then these things are after a healing ability, that’s all kinds of bad for everyone around here. Shadow thought as he looked at the battle and noticed one of the Warriors was backing up, seeming to retreat but from where Shadow was he saw a path around to hit the Clefairy from behind. Time to step in. He thought as the retreating Warrior had moved then feet from the confrontation between the Nidorino and Alpha and decided to intervene.

“Noivern, Rattata GO! Noivern, Boomburst on the three Chimera near the one with the horn, Rattata Flame Charge on the one trying to escape!” Shadow barked as he released his two Pokémon and jumped upwards, throwing the Pokéballs towards the ground, releasing them and when he landed he threw two throwing knives at the Alpha. Noivern’s ears glowed white and a blast of powerful sound waves were shot at the three Warriors, blowing them away from the Alpha and the! At the same time Rattata charged at the other Warrior, its body being engulfed in flames as it charged and jumped at that the Warrior, the Warrior tried to dodge but Rattata charged through its right arm, severing it. Nidorino had hardly been ideal, as the Alpha was stunned for a second it opened its mouth and fired a purple dart that shot at the Alpha, but the Alpha moved at the last second to the right but its left eye was hit! As it looked around it noticed that the Boomburst had killed two of it subordinate and only had one arm left.

“KKKKRRR!” It shrilled and charged away from the area, the surviving Chimera following behind it. Shadow saw his two Pokémon were looking at the other Pokémon three in the clearing and saw the Nidorina moving to stand by the Nidorino as the Clefairy peaked at Shadow from behind the other two. He gestured at his Pokemon and moved towards them, dropping three Heal Balls before the wild Pokemon.

“Those three are Heal Balls, they’ll help you all heal and make it so I can carry you down the mountain easier. Once you’ve healed up I’ll let you go or you can decide if you want to go back to the wild or stay with me and my friends.” Shadow said as he stepped backwards to let them decide on their own. He saw that the Nidorina and Clefairy were on the edge of doing so while the Nidorino didn’t trust him. Nothing to do but to show them all why they can trust me. Shadow thought as he undid some of his armor, revealing his bare hands and willed a purple glow form around it to the wild Pokémon’s shock. He clasped his hands together bowed to the three before he made a small vow.

“I swear by my power and by my heart, I will release you three when you are healed once we are off this mountain range.” He said solemnly. The Nidornia nudge the Nidorino and when he turned to her she nodded at him before she walked and touch one of the balls, let it ‘capture’ her. The Clefairy jumped and dashed towards another ball and as soon as it ‘captured’ it the Nidorino sighed and nodded at Shadow before it walked to the last ball. As soon as the balls closed Shadow picked them up and put the three balls into pockets on his suit, until he held Nidorino’s ball in his hand.

“Thank you for trusting me.” Shadow said as he put Nidorino away. He recalled Rattata and gestured for Noivern to get down so he could get on its back. As Noivern took to the sky a crash to towards the mountain peak caught his attention, turning his head once Noivern started to hover he saw trees starting to fall in a line towards where he had left the expedition.

Agalia breathed a little easier as her Pyroar started to move over level ground, grass underfoot as they left the rocky terrain of the mountains. They hadn’t seen anything for the last few hours and soon they would get within range of a signal booster so she could send the signal to a Cleaner in Viridian to deal with the other members of the expedition. It was too bad that I couldn’t handle that Gym Leader but I have to let the others know that a damned GUARDIAN is still alive! I thought that the Order had killed off those heretics years ago! We lost half our leadership and still one of them is alive! Once milady Karin lets the others know her standing will rise higher than that whore and she’ll let us kill that pagan and executed her bastard spawn! And I will rise higher with her, eventual becoming one of the Lords as she rises to become the Empress!

Agalia was so drunk on the future that she never noticed an Observer was following her ever since she had used her Fire Aura abilities. As they passed the mouth of a side trail three figures in body suits on motorcycles raced after her. One of them pushed a button on one of their bikes handle bars and a blast of electricity shot at Aracanine, but it jumped over a log in the path and the shot missed, hitting the log and destroying it with a boom!

Agalia turned her head at the sound and paled as she saw the group riding after them. FUCK!! Who the hell are these bastards, a gang out for an easy score wouldn’t….what made that explosion just now? Normal bikes don’t have weapons on them and they have no Pokémon out, so how?! Agalia thought as she looked over her shoulder. She was shocked when she saw a bike fire a blast of electricity from the light on the front.

“Pyroar; dodge to the left, now!” Pyroar lunged to the left as another ball of electricity shot by them. The bikers chased after Pyroar silently, and when it tried to go onto uneven ground to escape them the bikes speed up to decrease the distant between them as Pyroar thundered on, trying to get away from their pursers. As they dashed past trees and rocks she looked back and cursed as the bikers kept pace with them. Who the hell are these scumbags!? Where’d they get their transportation, was that an Elecro-Ball launcher? Who are they to have tech like that! Agalia thought as she tried to make as small a target as possible as more balls shot by her head as they tried to escaped the bikers.

Suddenly a ball hit them from the front, shocking them and causing Pyroar’s legs to lock up and trip, throwing Agalia to the ground as the riders surrounded them,

“So you got us into a battle, we’ll I won’t be easy prey! Burn them all, Turtonator!” She roared as she released a large bipedal, turtle-like Pokémon with a spiny shell with fin-like projections on the shell and tail and had muted green skin on its head and limbs. The bikers looked at her and drew forth black balls that they threw and released two Blastoise with metal spikes around the mouths of their canons and arms that ended in metal spears and a Golduck with reversed metal legs and large claws between its fingers on both hands. Agalia looked at the Pokemon as her Pyroar tried to fight off the paralysis and while his trainer stared in shock. What the hell are these things, who are these bikers? She took a step back as she looked at the creatures facing her as one of the Blastoise aimed one of its canon and shot a blast of water at Turtonator as the other one shot a pale blast of energy at Turtonator from its arms that froze the Fire Type in a block of ice. Before she could react the Golduck was next to her and pierced her body with the claws and delivered a shock that knocked her out. The Golduck moved towards Pyroar and repeated the action it had done, knocking out the Pokémon as one of the bikers moved and pulled out a small container and drew out two syringes that it injected first the trainer, then her Pokémon. A large truck pulling a container with eight wheels came towards them and pulled up. From the truck four Machokes that seemed to be wearing armor on its limbs came and loaded up Agalia and her Pokémon into the truck and as the doors closed the bikers recalled their Pokémon and drove off, guarding the large truck as they moved into Johto.

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The party had been moving towards the pathway Brock had lead his group up the mountain earlier, moving faster as they heard crashes in the distance. Riley looked back and cursed when he saw a tree fall at the edge of their sight. If that’s another Chimera group like Kunz this situation is a lot worse than I thought. We have to get the Intel back to Viridian, it’s the closest city and the probably the swarms first target; we can’t let them face it without any warning. Riley heard another tree fall and looked back, seeing another, closer tree fall onto another and push it down and Riley forced himself to speed up.

“Brock, how far are we from the path you took to the plateau?!” Riley demanded as they ran. Brock looked around and then looked over his shoulder at Riley.

“We’re almost there, a few more minutes and we made it!” Brock called back as the sound of another tree falling reached the group. Riley looked back and thought he saw a flash of black at the edge of his vision and made a choice. He stopped and drew forth a Pokéball and released his Lucario. When he heard the others stopping he turned and looked at them.

“Keep moving, I’ll hold them off! Cameron, get them out of here and watch the skies!” Riley called and with a look of worry Cameron grabbed Brock and Yuji’s arms and pulled them towards the path. Rosetta drew her guns and released her Aracanine, moving to stand next to Riley who turned his head to shot her a questioning look, only for her to scoff.

“I might not have been high up in the guards but I know tactics, we can hold them better as two and my guns could hit the leaders of these things, might take a few out and make it easier for us.” Rosetta said as she aimed her guns into the trees and started to fire into the woods. An explosion a few seconds later a Warrior head flew through the air to land before them. Riley looked at the head before he looked up and readied himself, forming a glow around his hands and feet as 4 Warriors charged at them from the woods.

Brock looked behind him as the explosion, never stopping as Cameron pulled him along.

“Come on Brock, Master can handle a few Bugs; we’ve got to get away so when those two fall back we don’t all die!” Cameron said as he pulled Brock along, fighting to keep his face from showing how worried he was.

“What did he mean by watch the skies… tell me those things can’t fly!” Yuji demanded as he followed after the other two. Cameron gained slight winced before he replayed.

“We’ve only come across one of them when the two of us rescued Rosette, so we don’t know how many of them there are.” Cameron’s words caused Yuji to look behind him as they moved along, a feeling of worry in him as they moved. It didn’t help that with every step, fading out and fading in second by second, he could feel something above them. Yuji looked at Rhydon and noticed his Pokémon was on edge and was looking around. He snapped his head towards a feeling ahead of them and blanched at what he saw.

“Well there’s four of them ahead of us!” Yuji said, causing Brock and to stop and look forward and saw four Chimera that looked like normal Warriors with only two legs and bee like wings{[Warriorfly]} hover in front of the path downward looking towards Viridian. At Yuji’s cru]y caused them to turn and start to move towards them slowly. Cameron reacted fast and released two Pokémon as he willed a blue glow to form around his hands

“Ferrothorn, Lucario lets fight! Ferrothorn stay back and protect the guy with the hammers, Yuji, I need you to back us up!” Cameron said as his Lucario dashed and jumped at one of the Warriorfly and jumped at it, spinning as it did so to deal a devastating downward kick at its target, cracking the Winged Warrior’s head as it connected. The other three Chimera flew upwards and started to fire Poison Needle attacks at the party, with Ferrothorn forming green screen the needles bounced off. Yuji saw the Chimera start to move towards the open air and cursed as he realized what they were doing, and then he realized how they were doing it.

“There’s one of the leader strains around here, we need to find it!” Yuji called as he started looking around as Rhydon looked away from the Warriorfly and started to look for the Alpha leading the other Chimera. Brock looked around as he held his hammers and cursed Agalia for her sneak attack, if he still had his team they could have helped out more. Suddenly something crashed into him and pushed him to the ground. He looked up into the face of the Alpha and dropped his hammers to grab the Chimera’s arms to keep them from piercing his body. As he struggled he saw Cameron move towards him when Yuji stopped him.

“When those things die, they exploded, remember?! We’ve got to get it away from Brock without killing it!” Yuji said as he looked at Brock as he struggled with the Chimera. Yeah, no kidding but that’s going to be harder than it looks! I have to keep these stingers away from me and not die by killing this thing. Brock thought as he tried to keep the Chimera from biting him. None of them noticed that Brocks eyes started to release a brown glow before glowing rocks formed around his upper arms and hands, forming a hard covering around his hands and down a bit of the Chimera’s stingers. Brock’s eyes widened and as the Chimera tried to move at him closer to bit at him but the rocks covered limbs refused to move. How the hell did that… did I do this? Brock wondered as he looked at the rocks covering his arms and part of the Chimera’s stingers.

“I’ll slice, you throw Noivern!” A voice called out before something sliced through the arms of the Chimera and a black shape that flashed by over Brock’s head and grabbed the Alpha and threw it into the open air. Before the Chimera could recover a knife hit its head and as it fell away it exploded. Brock was in shock as the rocks on his arms slowly dropped off as he looked up and saw a figure in a black covered bodysuit move his arm away from a throwing position and looked at him as his vision darkened.

“Brock! Rhydon Stone Blast multiple targets, fire” Yuji cried as he and Cameron saw Brock collapse to the ground. Rhydon roared and three rings of glowing white rocks formed around its body before the rocks shot at the flying Chimera, piercing the bodies of two of them and scaring the other two off. Yuji turned to look at Brock and saw Lucario leap to land between Brock and the bodysuit wearing figure, Yuji moved to check on Brock’s health as Cameron moved to stand by his Lucario. The figure raised its hands before it spoke

“Don’t be too hasty, I’m a friend, who do you think killed the leader when they corned your friend in that clearing.” The figure said as it drew a knife and showed it to them. Yuji stared as he remembered what he found before he and his Rhydon left clearing with the remains in their possession.

“You killed it, I never saw you, were you spying on me?!” Yuji demanded as he looked at the man as the Noivern took flight and flew back towards Riley and Rosetta. The figure moved after it before looking back at them over his shoulder.

“Not on you, the one who abandoned you after he poked the Chimera, I followed you in case you needed help. It’s a long story as to why and I’ll tell your group after Brock-san wakes up. And you two stay here; he needs someone to watch him as he recovers so I’ll go help the other two. And please, call me Shadow.” The named Shadow said as he moved into the darkening gloom, Cameron and Yuji only looked at each other as Ferrothorn moved to stand by them.

Riley bashed another Warrior as he looked at the battle. Rosetta was still blast away, but has signaled that she only had a flew clips left, the first four Warriors had been dealt easily with then eight more had charged at them and then Arcanine had shot flames at one of them, but it missed and caused a wildfire to start, but thankfully that cut off anymore reinforcements but the wind would blow the smoke towards them soon. All they had to do was survive the Warriors and hoped they could make it before the fire got them. He threw himself to the sides as a Warrior jumped at where he was, missing him by inches. He looked at the battle, seeing Lucario using Bone Rush in both of its hands to bash Chimera while Rosetta shot at a Warrior tying to stab at Arcainine on the same side she was on and frowned for a second, he didn’t understand what he was seeing before he realized what the Chimera were trying to do. He looked at Rosetta and cursed as he saw her dodged away from Arcainine before he called to her.

“There’re trying to divide us! Stay with your partner! Lucario get to them!” Rily’s call caused Rosetta to look at her partner and shot at a Chimera that tried to move between her and her Pokémon, blowing off the Warrior’s right lance at the shoulder. Arcainine bit down the Warrior’s neck and threw the body at another Warrior before it fired a blast of fire at one more that was trying to charge its trainer, hitting it right in the face, destroying its eyes. As it struggled and shook itself Riley jumped and sliced down with a right, cracking one of the lance of the blinded Warrior and jumped off it, landing next to Rosetta who shot the blinded Warrior, hitting it.

“We haven’t taken out a single one of their leaders, how are they seeing this to command them?!” Rosetta snarled as she put one of her guns away to get a new clip into the other, firing as soon as it clicked in. She’s right, where are those things!? Riley wondered as he looked around. Two of the Warriors started to move towards them when two streaks flew past them and the two Warriors slumped to the ground! He looked and Riley saw two throwing knives stuck in their foreheads, dripping their blood as the bodies lay there. Riley stared as something jumped through the smoke as a Noivern suddenly appeared and sliced through two of the Warriors with white glowing wings. Two explosions behind the fire proceeded the last two Warriors to start fighting each other before two knives hit them in the back of their heads as a figure in a black bodysuit landed before Riley and Rosetta. As the Noivern made soft noises at its trainer, the figure reached over and rubbed its chin before recalling it to its Pokéball.

“Thanks for all your hard work partner, you deserve a nice rest.” The figure said as it looked at the Pokéball. He looked at Riley and waited.

“Who are you?” Rosetta demanded as the figure turned to look at her.

“I’m called Shadow, and to make a long story short since we don’t have the time since one of those things leaders got away; I was up here spying on the two people with Brock-sans group who used Fire types. I saved the other three from a leader that got by you two or was already there waiting. Currently Brock-san in unconscious and we should get out of there range, fast.” Shadow said as Riley looked at him. Rosetta looked like she would continue but Riley put a hand on her should, shaking his head when she turned to him.

“Fine, once Brock’s up you will explain.” Riley said as Shadow nodded and moved towards the trail down the mountain.

Cameron looked up as Shadow walked back towards them with Riley, Rosetta and their Pokémon following Shadow. Cameron started to speak but Riley held up a hand.

“Our friend here told us what ambushed you, you did great Cameron. Help me get Brock onto Aracinine and we can get off this mountain.” Riley said as he moved towards Brock. Cameron looked at Shadow before moving to help get Brock on the Fire type.

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“At long last we’re departing on our maiden voyage; finally our future begins right now!” Squall declared with a smile as he felt his ship move under its own power as they finally left dock. He had to wait for the blockade that Lynda had caused but he would bring that up to her the next time he saw her. He walked around his ship’s deck as he looked over the harbor; smiling as he listened to the engine’s growl as the ship sailed on. It had taken years but they were finally under way! He had chosen a small crew and everyone had to pull double shifts but it was this was all theirs! All they had to do was make it to their destination and get another cargo and the wide ocean was theirs to explore.

“You’re in a good mood Squall.” A humorous sounding voice caused him to turn to see Doubar looking at him with a small smile on his face.

“Why wouldn’t I brother, we’re finally underway, our destination isn’t too far that the time we weren’t sailing that we might still with time to spare, giving us a great reputation for our new lives!” Squall said with a laugh as he walked towards the bridge.

“We’re carrying basic building material my friend, a simple government job that we only got because the other captains want cargos that make them profit, with all our expenses at the end we’ll probably have enough to pay the docking fees for a month and keep us feed while we look for a new cargo.” Doubar said as he looked at his captain who only laughed.

“And what do we care for profit my friend? We have the ocean and our ship, all we have to do is get enough money to survive and I’ll be happy! And we’ll be free and away from everyone who wants to get us, so there’s that too my brother.” Squall said as he looked over the harbor as the ship moved towards the mouth. Doubar only shook his head before he released a sigh.

“Of course you would. Anyway, its soup tonight so make sure your there so you can have something. And your right, it’ll be good to get away from all the people we made mad when we made the money to get this ship of ours.” Doubar said as he walked towards a door into the ship. Squall looked at where he had gone for a few minutes before he walked towards the railings and looked over the harbor as he walked towards the stern. I can’t deny that I’m happy we can finally leave that town. The way lord Rodruss has been eying me ever since we caught those slavers, I just don’t like the way his eyes make me feel. Still, if I can keep sailing maybe I’ll find out who I am and where I come from. Squall thought as he stopped and looked over the water as he sighed. He saw a three young boys sitting on a peer and thought back to his youth in the orphanage and how he’d always been drawn to the sea, how he always longed to be on the ocean. He just sighed and turned towards the back towards the prow when he stopped and slowly turned and walked to the port side. He had felt something on his back and once he stopped he locked eyes with his oldest foe, Francisco El Yutra who stood on the deck of his own ship. He and Francisco had fought against each other since their first day of school, him an orphan who didn’t know his heritage and Francisco the grandson of a Lord who died fighting a Chimera. It didn’t help that Frany has a sense of entitlement that everyone is just a stepping stone if they can help him and worth nothing if they stand against him or can’t help him. The little brown nosier sure could suck up like the best of them. Squall thought as he locked eyes with Francisco until his ship moved him beyond the edge of his vision and Francisco disappeared. Squall turned and walked towards the galley.

Francisco watched as that orphan runt sailed away as he stood on his ship. That fool had always a pain in his side, and the only one who bothered him more was that pirate bitch! He snarled as he walked into his ship and saw the people working on it, when that old fool had handed him the papers for the ship he had invoked part of the insurance on it to give it a full overhaul before he took her out to sea. And he needed to get something to handle that pirate bitch and get a crew with the right sensibilities and then he will start to build his power. A cruel smirk grew on his face as he walked through the hallways; yes he just had to find the right crew members, people who weren’t like….

“Mon Capitan, there you are!” A cheerful voice came from behind him and caused him to gain a scowl on his face. Out of all of them, why did this fat orphan fool stay, why couldn’t the right short stay instead. Francisco thought as he turned and faced the speaker. A small roundish figure with blond hair and a mustache dressed in a black uniform with a black cap walked towards him with a smile on his face. Demetrio was the only member of the crew that had stayed on when the ship had changed hands, even though he had strongly hinted that he wasn’t needed. The man had stayed when all the others had left, citing loyalty to the ship and captain. The fool had been moving about, collecting reports on the progress of the repairs and observing it.

“The head says the engine should be fully installed by dusk, and the galley will be finished by tomorrow. They finished inspecting the bottom and there were no damages to repair, and the holds will be ready by the end of the current shift. Should I go and set up notices or will you be going to the sailor’s union to interview crew candidates’ sir?” Demetrio asked as he saluted Francisco as he stood at attention. Francisco merely glared at him and walked off, Demetrio following in his wake.

“So what you’re saying is that we can leave port as soon as the day after tomorrow if we only had a crew ready?” Francisco asked as he led the way towards the captain’s office. Demetrio nodded as he followed his captain, then realizing he couldn’t be seen spoke up.

“Yes Mon Capitan, but I think it might be a bit hard to find anyone who will want to go pirate hunting who haven’t signed up for service already, given the time of year.” Demetrio said, causing Francisco to stop for a second before he resumed walking as he realized it was the beginning of the school year and recent crack downs would have put the gangs into a ‘holding pattern’. Where am I going to get the kind of people I want to serve on my ship? This might be harder than I thought when I accepted this ship. Dud the old man know this, was this a part of his plan? To see how I would handle this kind of hurdle? Francisco thought as he entered a bare office and sat behind a simple desk. Demetrio stood at attention and look out the office’s only window before speaking.

“Yes that’s true. Put up a notice at the union and maybe we’ll get luck and get a large enough crew that we could leave port. While you’re there look into any cargos or rumors that might spark that witch’s interest. And get back before midnight, understand?” Francisco commanded Demetrio saluting him before he turned and walked to the door, stopping as he opened it.

“Did you see Señor Squall’s ship leave port Mon Capitan? I don’t think a lot of people will be happy he won’t be around for the next city wide tournament, a few people spoke of wanting to try him for the title.” Demetrio said with a cheerful tone of voice that caused Francisco to look up with a scowl. He had lost against Squall in the last tournament and he had to admit the chance to take him down being gone was something else to be mad about.

“Yes, yes, people won’t be happy that he won’t…..People won’t be happy. Don’t bother going to the union, I’ll tell you where to put up the posters tomorrow, go get dinner somewhere.” Francisco said as he leaned back as a grin formed on his face. That brat has a habit of making enemies and he broke a few gangs here or there, I’m sure the remnants would be happy to sign up to take their trade out to see. And there are a few individuals that escaped from him, and they could be quite a game changer if I’m able to get the right one or two. That maker or that caster, then I might just…. Francisco’s thoughts trailed off as a savage grin formed on his face as he waved off Demetrio.

Demetrio looked back at the ship and gained a savage grin on his face as he walked off. It’s like mamma always said to me, ’there’s no fool like a prideful fool’. I thought that I would have to dangle that idea for a few days before the idiota took the bait. But I never thought that he’d let me handle the recruitment, that will make step two so much easier. And now all I need to do is call on my own forces to crew and once that fool captures the sea witch and then kill them the both of them. And then I’ll be one step closer to killing the lord of this city or taking over for him before the invasion. Demetrio thought as he walked towards a bar with a spring in his step.

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“Must we put so much effort into just having supper with my father?” Nudara asked as one of her maids finished touching up her make as another one brushed her hair.

“My apology’s milady but we have our orders; your father wanted a trial run before the party.” One of the maids said as she moved away and let her see how she looked in the mirror. Her hair was free and curled, while she had on golden lipstick and eye shadow. Taken in with her golden dress she was sure she would sparkle. Beside how dad likes to dress me up, most people wouldn’t think he has nothing more than a bad sense of style, if I didn’t know about his ‘side business’ I’d think he was just an eccentric. She thought as she stood up and walked towards the dining room. As she walked she eyed the Maids, noting the marks that identified them as Homunculus as she moved by and kept her expression blank as she moved, showing none of her feelings.

She walked towards a door and two of the Maids opened the door to reveal a long room with a long rectangular table with a black tablecloth on it, she looked towards the far end and saw her father sitting at one of the only two chairs, a place set beside him for her. She walked towards him and spun around when she reached him before sitting down.

“You look marvelous my dear, I’m certain you’ll make a wonderful impression on sir Magnus at the party!” Sadri Don Rodruss said as he raised a goblet in her direction before taking a deep sip. She smiled demurely before starting to eat as well.

“Father, while I was coming into town I noticed the port was on lockdown, did something happen?” She asked absentmindedly as she ate, keeping her face blank as she watched her father scowl out of the corner of her eyes.

“Pay it no mind my dear, merely a problem with Nightsprout. One of my ships was raided again and I had the port locked down to see if we could find any of her spies. Nothing as usual, I’m at my wits end trying to find that witch!” Sadri said as he fumed as he ate.

“But did you have to invite him father, I thought after the last time Lady Camilla and her student came you wouldn’t invite him again?” Nudara asked point blank, causing her father to stare at his daughter for a few seconds before he realized who she meant.

“Oh, him, I ran into him while I was talking with one of my customers and he learned of the party and told me right in front of my associate that he and his sister would be there, quite loudly in fact and to save my business I had to replay loudly that I will mark him down as coming. Quite shrewd of him I would say.” Sadri said with a sigh. Nudara kept her poker face on as she ate and noticed one of the new maids was bringing in a teapot that she poured into her father’s cup

“I noticed a few new Homunculi around the garden; did you get a good deal on them?” She asked as she cleaned her face. Her father smiled and started to laugh a little.

“Oh yes I did and I’m currently looking into if the creator will come to my employment, the products were quite good.” He smiled, never noticing that his daughter’s eyes were locked on the maid for any kind of reaction to her father’s words.

“Will anyone else of note be coming besides Lord Magnus him and his sister?” Nudara asked as her father stood up and she followed his lead.

“An associate who is a middleman between resource gathers near the Rest might be coming with his son. I say maybe because there was an…incident a few days ago.” Sadri said with a slight frown. At Nudara’s look he waved it off.

“Pay it no mind, I’m told nothing has happened beyond the initial incident. I want you to spend the next few days getting ready, I want you to make a good impression on Sir Magnus and whoever he brings with him, the prince is the target of the game now.” Sadri said as he walked towards his office as Nudara curtsied to him and walked towards her room. As she walked she kept a graceful smile on her face as she went over what she had learned from him. New Homunculi and a possible event in the Rest, I think I might try the gossip circuit during the party and see if I can pick anything up. I hope this party is as useful to my goals as I hope it will be.

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Jenny looked over the trucks to take the last of the evidence and captives back to the station. Ash and the others had left a few hours back and Voila had gone back to the gym, leaving her to handle the cleanup. She smirked when she realized that at least she could handle Rex’s interrogation after he woke up tomorrow personally. All that was left was to handle the last few trucks and look over the base for anything else to charge And that’s not counting the other various Bug type gangs and groups around the area; but if Rex was their overall leader then it might be worse before it gets better. But if they fight each other for power or position in their ‘new’ gang then it might be better or worse for the town. Jenny let her thoughts die out as she got onto her bike and drove off, the trucks following behind her, never noticing that the last one had veered off course or the drivers weren’t members of her station.

“This is perfect Jess! We got away clean and this time they won’t try to go back to their trainers because they don’t have any!” James said as he drove the police van towards the western outskirts of the city. It had been easy to knock out the drivers of the last truck and hide them away and quickly get into their cloths. Now all they had to do was get back to where they stashed the next part of their plan and they were golden.

“Yes and now all we have to do is dump this, transfer the eggs to our truck, get it to a city where we can sell it, put the eggs into stasis and send the key for them to the boss!” Jessie said with a laugh as she leaned back as Meowth chuckled as he leaned back against the seat as he looked forward and leaned his head back.

“And the best thing was I never had to tell the cops about where the hideout was, but I’m wondering who sent in that Weavile in.” Meowth said with as Jessie looked at him as James’s eyes widened as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

“What Weavile, and you didn’t throw the rock!?” Jessie demanded as Meowth just sighed and shook his head.

“Saw a Weavile get out of a vent on the station’s roof, then saw it throw a piece of meat up and swallow it, think it was an eye and I’m thinking human with the way they all poured out of the building before blondie tweep got there with the info.” Meowth said with its arms crossed as Jessie looked at James who swallowed before forcing a smirk onto his face.

“That’s worrying, but still, over 16 eggs to send to the boss, this is quite a feather in our caps chums!” James said with a glance to Jessie and met her smirk with his own. Jessie merely bit her thumb as they drove onward, her thoughts falling back to what Meowth had said. An Ice-type as one of a Bug Gang? There’s no way in hell. Why do I have a feeling this whole region is a lot more complicated than the boss thought it was? She thought as they drove onward.

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Ash walked through the hospital towards a computer room and slipped into it and plopped himself down on an empty chair and released a sigh. Pikachu was having a snack with his other Pokémon and he had gotten away from the doctors while they were drawing blood from Serena after Lilly had kept them from getting any from her, something about how she’d never hear the end of it if her regular doctor found out. She had consented to sending a blood sample sealed back to her home and promised to tell them to contact the hospital once the tests were done. That had pacified the doctors and Ash had slipped away to contact his other friends, it was that time again to talk to his old companions. Login into the chatroom he noticed May and Dawn were already there and started to type.

WorldTraveler: Hey guys! How have you two been doing lately? Say heard from Rockdoc or Depthlover lately, know if they’re going to miss our chat?

PastSeaker: Hey WorldTraveler, everything’s great! I’m done with Unova circuit and got an internship with an archeologist! She’s incredible and I can’t talk about too much but wow! And no I haven’t heard from them since our last chat.

PokeBaker: The same, the Pokémon Fashion tour is over for the season and I’m currently relaxing on a cruise ship bound for Kalos! A few months of traveling and quests before a show after something called the Pokémon Showcase Master Class happens.

WorldTraveler: I’m in Kalos, Santalune City Hospital to be exact. And there was another incident with a gang, again.

PokeBaker: Let me guess, they tried to recruit you, rob you or one of your current companying and got beaten down for their troubles.

WorldTraveler: Yes and no. They kidnapped a friend of mine and someone else while the girls were out shopping. They did so their leader could draw me in and recruit me to conquer this town.

PastSeaker: ‘Girls’ you say, what is there another member of the ‘My Bike was destroyed by Ash and Pikachu club?

Ash gave a chuckle as he grinned sheepishly as if they could see him; he and Pikachu weren’t that bad about destroying bikers, were they? Ash perked up when he noticed a popup saying DepthLover had loged in. Great, now if only Brock would get here then this might be a normal day after that hell with those so called Lords! Ash thought with a smirk as he read Misty’s text.

DepthLover: Hello guys, how have you all been for the last month?

PokeBaker: hey DepthLover, WorldTraveler was just telling us how a FEMALE friend of his was kidnapped and he destroyed another gang to save her, say, have you heard from RockDock, there a reason he isn’t here?

Ash just shook his head. Sometimes he had the hardest time understanding them. So what if Serena was a girl, if she had been a boy he would have done the same thing. If anyone took any of his friends then he would have destroyed them all the same. But I think she means something else for the others to pick up on, don’t know what but those three really get each other. Ash thought as he tipped out his reply.

WorldTraveler: She wasn’t kidnapped alone, someone else was taken too and they attacked my friend twice already! And yeah, where is RockDoc?

PastSeaker: Of course she wasn’t WorldTraveler, of course that makes is so much better. So why’s she traveling with you, did you destroy her bike too?

DepthLover: What are the odds something like that would happen for a third time PastSeaker, twice was enough! But I can’t believe that this happened over the last few days when at the same time what happened to me did to!

WorldTraveler: No I didn’t! She’s and old friend that lived in Pallet during the last Siege and moved to Kalos for her mom’s career after the Pokémon Racing circuit died! And what happened to you and Rockdoc DepthLover?

PastSeaker: You still there, nothing happened on you end did it?

DepthLover: Yeah, just getting my thoughts in order and I don’t mind guy. So here it what happened to me, my sisters got me a surprise makeover when I thought it was just some pampering at a spay, found a girl under attack by three others who it seems were tortured to do so, discovered she was an orphan from an rather mercantile caretaker, took a field trip with the class whose teacher is one of my oldest friends and when we were there a swarm of Chimera of at least two kinds attack the whole beach, fought them off and got home to tell Jenny what happened.

Ash had gone still as soon as he read Misty’s text before a glare appeared on his face. Chimera’s, always they turn up in the last places they should do. How the hell did a force of Chimera make landfall near Cerulean? Did anyone die or did they all escape. Misty okay so they probably did. Ash thought as his fingers moved across the keyboard even as other messages came up onto the screen.

PastSeaker: Chimera, near your city, are you okay did everyone escape alive?

PokeBaker: Two kinds, were they different colors, any of them?

WorldTraveler: A swarm attacked a beach, were you alone with the class or were others there to, I mean Chimera usually pick off loners.

DepthLover: Now that you mention they were all black and what I could see they were all black and get this, they used steel barrels and the larger one the wreck of a car as armor.

WorldTravelerPM- DepthLover: It wasn’t her was it Misty, don’t tell me that bitch was still free after all these years!

DepthloverPM- WorldTraveler: Yeah, it was her. Jenny told me they never published it because she got away, Jenny even thought she might have been in the Orange Islands, one of the smaller one with her ill-gotten profits.

PastSeaker: I don’t know how the League in Kanto is, but back home they would drag their feet a bit if Chimera attacked people away from the main cities, how much help do you expect?

Depthlover: Not much really, I’m thinking about calling the LT for help and a certain person who travels with a rather large collection whose spending some time around here. So you’re challenging the Kalos league? How’s it been there?

WorldTraveler: Complicated. The people here defer to old nobles and give them preferential treatment and a new friend said some people still rule cities as Kings. And the gang leader was one of them. Thankfully it seems that the Gym cities put that treatment to the Gym leader so I expect that he’ll go away for a long time. Escpecially given how abused that Volcarona was, scars and a dead eye not to mention its mental state. They had to kill it. And stop not telling us about Rockdock DepthLover

Depthlover: Fine I can’t keep it from you, there was an outbreak of a virus or a mold spore that he thought might be from a Chimera and he got together an expedition into the mountains to find the source, when he contacted me he said they were departing the next morning so there wasn’t enough time for me to get there.

Ash went still again as he started to pale. A viral outbreak in Kanto and it might be from a Chimera, those were always the worst. Man oh man Viridian is in so much trouble! I can’t believe….wait didn’t I hear that there’s a hurricane coming in when I left Kanto. The only reason Brock would go up if its airborne then that means…MOM! Ash thought as he fanatily started to type away.

WorldTraveler: If he went into the mountains then it must be airborne, DepthLover isn’t a hurricane due to hit the area in the next few days?

Depthlover: Yes there is.

PastSeaker: If the outbreak is airborne then it might hit Pallet! And being on a mountain during a hurricane, that’s crazy!

Depthlover: He said he’ll just do a quick survey and get down before it hits and he’s been gone a few days now. We have to trust him to come back alive and that’s all.

“Mr. Ketchum?” Ash looked towards the voice and saw a doctor looking at him with a stern look. He smiled sheepishly and gave a shaky smile.

“Hey doc, did you need something?” Ash asked as he looked at the doctor who responded with a glare of his own.

“Yes I do. You’re the only one of your party who hasn’t been examined yet and if you would sign out of whatever you’re doing and come this way, after that you can stay here tonight and can leave in the morning.” The doctor declared with a hard look, Ash only nodded and turned towards the screen and typed out a quick message.

WorldTraveler: Sorry guys, the doctor wants to look over a few injuries I’d gotten during my raid, I see you all in a weak or so back here.

Ash stepped away and followed the doctor out of the room. Ash noticed phones against the wall and cleared his throat and gave the doctor a sheepish smile.

“Mind if I stop and call home first, I learned something that I need to call home about and I don’t want my mom to see me as a mummy if you know what I mean.” Ash asked the doctor who gave him a sharp glare.

Ash walked towards one of the video-phones and smiled over his shoulder at the doctor who crossed his arms, Ash turned and moved to the phone and punched in his home number and waited for an answer. A girl with brown hair in a bun answered the phone and gave a small smile to Ash. Who the hell is this, where’s mom?! Ash thought as a glare formed on his face as he looked at the phone.

“Hello can i…” The girl began before she stopped when she saw the glare on Ash’s face.

“Who the heck are you and where’s my mom?” Ash said darkly as the girl dropped her mouth open and seemed to shake a bit as Ash glared at her. Finally the girl started to smile shakily at him and stammered out a reply.

“You’re Ash?! I’m Albia; the new worker, Delia’s been letting me crash here instead of the Pokémon Center. You want your mom, just give me a second to go get her.” Albia said as she dashed off. A few seconds later Delia came in front of the phone, a smile on her face.

“Ash!” Delia said as soon as she saw her son.

“Mom! Are you okay, I heard there was an outbreak in Viridian and with the hurricane coming in.” Ash said, causing Delia to start to giggle.

“I’m fine Ash, really! There was a general warning about what’s happening in Viridian and we’ve all begun preparing to weather the hurricane once it makes landfall but its business as usual here. Really….wait. Is that a hospital? Ash Ketchum what have you done now Mister!” Delia demanded, causing Ash to laugh sheepishly as he paled a bit.

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Albia walked into the room she had been given and dropped on to the bed, holding herself as she shook. She hadn’t been so scared ever, not even when she was being hunted! She thought she had experienced true fear then, but just a few words and a glare Ash had terrorized her completely! And Ash’s glared had been a look of murder and carnage in his eyes, as if he could reach through the phone and grab her! She had seen his battles in the Johto League Championship and with the way he had looked at her when she answered wondered if he had improved or if his opponent was just that good or if Ash’s luck was just that bad, if Ash was the same then how, just how he had lost the way he had.

“Maybe I should talk to Amanda about putting aside some money to buy a ticket or two so Delia can see Ash’s battle in Kalos Championship in person, because win or lose that will be one heck of a show.” Albia said out loud as she hugged the pillow.

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“I think that’s everything I needed to do here.” Darcy said as she clapped her gloved hands as she moved through the room and looked back over what she had added to the room; a dart board that flipped to a damaged picture of Viola there, a map of the town with notes on how to invade it here and to finish it up a doctored journal that had enough hatred and insults.

“I think that the police should be here soon, so it’s time for us to leave, and please make us look like birds.” Darcy said as she looked away from her work. Walking towards a doorway onto a balcony she slipped though and into her Zoroak’s arms and it carried her away under a cloak. They stopped on a house a mile away and looked down at two Police cruisers moving up the street and Darcy smiled, bringing a hand to her face to hide a giggle as she used her other hand to rub Hypno’s Pokéball. The only way that they got here so soon was that the few triggers I dropped into the higher grunts went off, thanks partner. Now all we have to do is report. Darcy thought as she smirked.

“If everything works out perfectly and they don’t deviate from what their orders are then I think that’s it then, now all we have to do is go back to back and get our next assignment. The Reign of Rex Tristo is ended; have a wonderful hell Rex-boy!” Darcy said as Zoroak jumped to the next building and they moved towards the edge of town.

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Arbok and ‎Weezing moved through the underbrush, ‎Weezing turning in a circle as they moved, hoping that they weren’t being hunted by any of the local Chimera. The pack had dispersed and most had moved on towards the mountains to the south while the two of them had moved towards Santalune City, hoping to use their past experiences as a way to get enough food so they could find a way back to Kanto and then Team Rocket and their trainers. As they made it into the outskirts of Arbok stopped and sighed, causing Weezing to stop and look at its comrade.

“Weez?” Weezing asked as it hovered and waited.

“Arbok bok.” Arbok said causing Weezing to sigh as well. The chance for the two of them to find a way back to their trainers was almost miniscule, but they had to try!

“Weez zing!” Weezing admonished its companying and Arbok just sighed and stuck its tongue out and then went still. It turned its head and looked towards the wind its eyes starting to water.

Weezing, weez…” Weezing trailed off when Arbok spoke next and went still as it felt hope.

“Arbok?” Arbok barely spoke before it shot off, Weezing trailing behind it as they moved between the decrepit buildings as Arbok speed up. That scent Arbok had picked up had to have been her, it had to be!

Jessie moved the mask off her face as they looked over the truck they had bought earlier. They had just finished putting a second coat on the truck and left the remains of the first coat they had put on the truck, leaving the waste from that for the police to find. A classic strategy, leave traces for the person looking for you that lead to where you weren’t, basic really. She walked outside of the abandoned warehouse and looked over the police truck James was in the middle of dismantling and walked over to him.

“Found anything useful in that thing?” She asked when she reached him. He looked up at her and just shook his head.

“The positioning system is at least a few years old, we probably did them a favor when we took it from them, might force them to upgrade. The RAM is good as is the CPU, the engine now that’s a lot better than I thought it would be. All in all a good haul, should I leave the positioning system or not?” James asked as he looked at the truck in disgust at how low tech it was. Jessie grinned as with this their next machine would be a bit under budget.

“I’ll help you put the engine between the doors and the eggs. This way if the cops stop us they’ll think we’re just people bringing tech to a salvage yard.” Jessie said before a commotion caused the two of them to look towards the noise. Jessie put her hands onto a dagger on her right leg as James raised moved his hand to his rapier before a serpentine form charge and pushed her to the floor.

Jessie blinked and saw an Arbok crying as it looked down at her. Her eyes started to tear up as she reached a trembling hand and put in on the Pokémon’s hood and started to cry as well. James moved towards her when suddenly something crashed into him and sent him to the floor next to Jessie. He looked up to see a tearing Weezing and started to sniffle as hope blossomed in his heart. Meowth meanwhile had just comeback from checking out the area and was eating a rat with his eyes closed as he walked towards them.

“The area’s still secure guys, all we need to do is get outa here in the next hour or so and I think we’ll get away clean. So how’s the truck Jamesy, anything….Arbok, Weezing, that you two?” Meowth asked as he opened his eyes and saw the two Pokémon. Once Jessie and James realized their hopes about who were in front of they continued to cry as they held them, and Meowth joined them and hugged all four of them. He moved back, tears still flowing from his eyes and looked at the two Poison types.

“Man, its great ta see the two of you, but what happened to those others you were guarding, what the heck are you doing in Kalos?” Meowth asked as he fought to get his emotions back under control.

“Arbok. Arb bok Arbok.” Arbok said as its tears dried up and started to look proud as it spoke.

“Weezing weez zing Weezing weez.” Weezing said with an eye roll that caused Arbok to glare at it.

“Really, that happened!? Who the hell were those bastards, did ya ever find out….wait, why were didn’t the rangers move ya?!” Meowth demanded as he gained a look of rage.

“What happened to them Meowth?” Jessie demanded as she looked at him as James frowned.

“Yes chum, don’t keep the two of us wondering what happened to our partners!” James cried out.

“Cool ya jets, I’ll translate, was just taking it in. It ain’t good, that’s all I’ll say first. What they told me was according ta them a few months after we split from each other the pack they were guarding was transferred by two Rangers to a swamp sanctuary that used to be nearby. For a few years they had a good run, members of the packs joined up, evolved and had kids and generally had great lives. About a year ago the packs started sensing something wrong with the water and about three months ago the prey started to taste bad.” Meowth said with a glare.

“’They tasted bad’, but their Poison types!” James said as Jessie held Arbok as she looked at it.

“Yeah, and I don’t have to tell you what that means for Poison types. Humans had apparently dropped barrels of something or other in the swamp, the locals who were running it closed it down and they just left the animals and Pokémon to themselves. After the local wildlife started to mutate the two of them called the pack together and decided that the best thing were for them all to split up. A local unified pack sent some emissary’s to them and they think at least one of the groups went after them. These two decided to find a way back to Kanto to find a way back to you.” Meowth said as James and Jessie absorb what Meowth translated and started to grow angery as well.

“Those Ranger brats never even kept an eye on you all?” Jessie snarled as James looked back towards where the two had come from.

“A unified pack? In the area?” James’s words caused him and Jessie to shot each other a look, remembering a few other packs they had meet and fought.

“Another reason to leave soon I’d say.” Meowth said as Weezing and Arbok nodded. Jessie smiled and looked the others before.

“Well the gang’s back together then! Let’s start dismantling this truck before we move out, Meowth your on overwatch. We need to get our score to safety before we can try again to get Pikachu!” Jessie said as James moved towards the truck with a smile on his face, Weezing following him as Arbok to up a guard position by Jessie as Meowth climbed the structure they were ussing. With these two back with us it’ll be a lot easier to survive here. I don’t like that a killer Pokemon infiltrated the station because of that gang, it doesn’t track with small gangs limited to a single city’s area. I have a feeling we’re going to need these two before our time in this region is done. Jessie thought as she moved towards the truck they had transferred the eggs to.

#Beginning in Kalos #Pokemon AU #pokemon fanfiction #Ash Harem

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