Ash tapped his foot impatiently. He had been waiting inside the Pokemon Center nearest to the Celadon City Game Corner for hours now. Serena and Pikachu slept on a nearby bench. With how early in the day he and his group had gotten to the Gym and subsequently defeated it, it had left quite some time before it came time to stop whatever atrocity was being held below, and frankly, he was beyond getting impatient. The thought of all those Pokémon being slaughtered made him grit his teeth in frustration at his own helplessness. Every time he closed his eyes he could practically see flashes of…

  “Calm yourself,” Said the Aura Guardian Riley who, too, leaned against a nearby wall in the Pokemon Center they were waiting in, with his hat draped over his face. “There’s no use beating yourself up over something you don’t yet have any control over. Besides, your Hawlucha and, especially, Serena’s Braixen need this time to rest anyways. We can certainly expect resistance once we make our way down there, so we’ll need every capable hand we can get.”

  Ash let out an impatient sigh, “I know that, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Every time I close my eyes, I can almost see them!”

  Riley closed his eyes, “That just means your auric powers are developing faster than anticipated. Let me tell you something, Ash.”

  Riley raised his gaze, “I can feel them. I can hear their screams, I can see their cold cages they’re locked in as they wait helplessly for the end, ...and I can feel their agony.”

  Ash stared at Riley in silent horror.

  “It’s one of the drawbacks of being an Aura Guardian,” Riley continued, “You can feel all the suffering around you, but it is often that you are powerless to stop it. You must steel yourself, Ash, for one day your level of auric power will reach a point where you, too, will feel what I do.”

  Ash gaped at Riley, “You can’t be serious! You mean you always feel everyone’s suffering?!”

  Riley shook his head, “No, and I should feel so lucky that I don’t. It only extends to the immediate area around you, but it will always be nigh insufferable. This is your first lesson as an Aura Guardian, Ash. You must be able to embrace the suffering of others.”

  Ash looked down and paused wordlessly, unable to formulate some kind of response. Seeing this, Riley walked over to his young new pupil and placed a hand onto his shoulder.

  “It is a terrible thing, yes Ash, but it is something we, as Guardians of Aura, must do. But know that you will never be alone. I will walk the path of an Aura Guardian alongside you, as both mentor and friend. Should you ever need guidance, or simply someone to talk to to sort out your thoughts and emotions, I will always be here for you, as will all of your other friends. Remember that.”

  Riley gave the budding Aura Guardian a smile and patted him on the shoulder before walking back to the wall and leaning against it once more, staring down so that his hat shadowed his face.

  “...Riley?” Ash started.

  “Hm?”

  “...Thanks.”

  Riley smiled, not that anyone else could see it, “Not a problem at all, Ash.”

  …

  Ash and co. exited the Pokemon Center now that midnight had passed. A storm had broken out, much to Serena’s chagrin.

  “So,” Ash asked, “What’s the plan?”

  Riley nodded and turned to face the rest of the group, “Pikachu, I will need your assistance first.”

  “Pi!” Pikachu chirped.

  Riley continued, “First, we have Pikachu sneak over to the side of the building, running through bushes and whatever else he can use to get close. Once there, you need to try and find some kind of power grid and fry it with your electricity. That should take care of the outside cameras and security system. Pikachu is the smallest and fastest of us, not to mention he’s a Pokemon, so even if he’s caught on camera, he’ll probably be ignored.”

  “Sounds good,” Agreed Ash, “You up for it?”

  Pikachu nodded confidently and gave Ash a determined look.

  Riley motioned to his partner, “We’ll treat Pikachu electrocuting the cameras as the signal. Once he stops, we all run over quickly and Lucario will force open the doors. Once in, we need to find a way to the basement as fast as possible. We don’t know how long the security system will stay offline.”

  “And after that?” Asked Serena.

  “We’ll cross that road once we get to it. Besides the Pokemon being kept down there, I have no idea what to expect. Are you all ready?”

  The group wholeheartedly nodded.

  “Great. Then Pikachu, go quickly!”

  Pikachu grinned and bolted off of Ash’s shoulders and into the bushes nearby while the rest of the group hid in an alleyway next to the Pokemon Center. The yellow mouse slowly peeked out of the bushes at the Game Corner ahead. He counted three cameras from where he could see at the moment. Pikachu rushed out of the foliage and pressed his back up against the nearest building. Slowly, he scooted over to the corner and peaked around at his target. There was no way he’d get by undetected, so he could only hope that whoever was watching through those cameras wouldn’t deem him to be much of an issue.

  Pikachu bolted out from behind the corner and crouched down now that he had made it to the wall of the gambling building. He stared up tentatively and, to his relief, the cameras kept scrolling slowly from side to side as if Pikachu had never been seen at all. The yellow rodent quietly scooted over and around the walls of the building until he found a grey metal box on the side of the wall. Grinning mischievously, Pikachu rubbed his hands together and discharged a stream of electricity into the box, resulting in the shrill sound of sparks as the electricity box was completely fried. Now that his job had been completed, Pikachu sprinted back towards his group.

  “Now’s our chance!” Riley announced.

  The four of them charged out of the alleyway in a mad dash. Ash held out his arm so that Pikachu could jump back onto his usual place on Ash’s shoulders as they ran. Riley and Lucario slid to a halt on the muddy ground once they had reached the building, whereas Serena and Ash nearly crashed into the wall of the building, the former panting heavily.

  “You okay Serena?” Asked Ash, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  Serena inhaled deeply and nodded before turning back to Riley to await the next part of their plan. Riley nodded at her and motioned at Lucario, to which the jackal Pokemon nodded back and bolted around to the front of the building. Inhaling deeply, Lucario summoned his blue aura around himself and planted his paws into the gaps in the front doors. It didn’t take long until Lucario managed to push the sliding doors apart.

  “Lu!” Lucario signaled.

  The others soon came running around the corner to Lucario’s position and piled inside.

  “Alright,” Riley said, scanning the room, “Now, quickly, let’s try to find a door or something that leads below. We don’t know how much time we have left until the security system comes back online.”

  Ash and the others nodded hastily and turned to split up to search for anything they could find. Ash took this moment to scan the room in its entirety. It was smaller than it looked on the outside, that’s for sure. Roughly six rows of slot machines separated them from the back of the room, and there was a counter at the far end to the left. There were also some potted plants strewn about and a single framed picture of something Ash couldn’t quite make out in the darkness of the room.

  As Ash began looking for clues, he started with the slot machines themselves, whereas everyone else hopped behind the counter and rummaged through all the drawers and whatnot, and didn’t find anything important at first. His face lit up for a second when he spotted some keys laid out on one of the machines, but they had simply been someone’s car keys that they had forgotten about and left behind. A few machines down, he found a stack of golden coins that were used here. The young trainer shook his head and decided against taking them.

  “Find anything?” Ash whispered over to Serena, Riley, and Lucario.

  Serena attempted to stand up, only to bump her head on one of the drawers, hissing in pain.

  “Ugh, no not yet!” Serena whispered back, rubbing her throbbing head.

  Ash growled silently in frustration and turned back around to keep up the search. There was only one place left he could think of, unless these guys buried their keys in the dirt of the potted plants. Ash made his way over to the painting at the back of the room. Even as he stood directly in front of it, he couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be. Just some odd yellow and red shapes.

  “Huh, weird,” Ash mused to himself as he reached up to take off the painting.

  Ash chuckled dryly at himself. He couldn’t believe he was actually seeing if there was some secret door or button behind this thing. Like, how cliche is that? There’s no way that there’d be-

  “...Are you kidding me?”

  Riley turned his gaze at Ash, “Did you find something?”

  Ash chuckled in disbelief, “Guys, get over here. You’re not gonna believe this.”

  Riley raised an eyebrow, but conceded and, along with Serena and Lucario, began to make his way over to the laughing trainer, “Ash, I don’t see what’s so funny; this is serio- ...you can’t be serious.”

  Behind where the picture hung, there was a large square opening with a red button in the center. The words “Push 4 Secret Entrance” was written plain above it.

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  Ash stifled a laugh with his hand, “Well, you said this place once belonged to Team Rocket, right?”

  “I said there were rumors of that,” Riley replied, “But what does that have to do with anything?”

  Serena followed suit in Ash’s laughter. “Guess it isn’t just the regular three Team Rockets that are this easy to read.”

  Riley’s face wrinkled in confusion. “I feel like I’m being left in the dark, here.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ash said. “Stick with me and you’re bound to run into those three sooner or later.”

  Meanwhile in a nearby forest, a certain three individuals were taking refuge from the storm underneath a particularly large leaf, much to their discomfort. Suddenly, one of them sneezed.

  “Getting a cold there, Jessie?” Asked a purple-haired man.

  The aforementioned Jessie wiped her nose with her glove, “Well, we’re all going to be walking away from this with colds, but for some reason I can’t help but think that one of the twerps was talking about me…”

  Ash leaned forward and pressed the red button, eliciting a dull humming noise from the button. Their attention snapped over to their right when the floor next to them began lowering into a staircase, revealing a door at the bottom.

  “For future reference,” Riley started, “It’s probably unwise to press big red buttons in areas you’re breaking and entering into.”

  Ash shrugged. “It worked out fine, didn’t it? Now let’s go before the power turns back on.”

  Lucario took it upon himself to make his way down to the door first. He coated his fingertip in his signature blue aura and tapped the door handle in order to determine if it had an electric defense system, but his fears appeared to be without merit. Tentatively, he lowered his full hand onto the doorknob and twisted the door open, quickly stepping back in case it triggered an alarm or trap, but nothing happened.

  ‘All clear,’ Lucario reported to his partner via their auric bond.

  Riley nodded affirmatively. “It seems whatever defense system this thing might’ve had was taken down by Pikachu.”

  “Nice job, bud,” Complimented Ash, rubbing his partner’s ear affectionately and earning a pleased coo from the electric mouse.

  “Speaking of the building’s power,” Serena said, stepping through the doorway, “Let’s go before it comes back on!”

  The group unanimously nodded and one by one, piled through the door and closed it behind them. Narrowly, they avoided the cameras in the building as they flickered back to life.

  Two men dressed in black suits and caps with a large red ‘R’ dominating the front side of their shirts leaned back in their chairs and let out unanimous sighs of relief. A multitude of screens showing camera feed from the outside and interior of the building flickered on, and the light from the keyboards and various other electronic devices beneath the screens lit up as well.

  “Finally!” One of them said, taking a sip of their soda beside them, “The power’s back on upstairs.”

  The other man laughed heartily, “I know, right? I was beginnin’ to think we’d have to wait in the dark ‘till mornin’! Say, don’t we got a couple extra emergency generators downstairs?”

  The first man shrugged indignantly. “Yeah, but they allocate all that crap to the labs. Sick stuff goin’ on down there, I heard.”

  The second man leaned forward to look at the first. “Really? What kinda stuff?”

  The first man in black shrugged again. “I ain’t privy to that stuff, man. Besides you, I’m the newest guy here.”

  The second man slumped back into his seat, disappointed. “Dang. Say, whaddya think caused the power t’ go out in the first place?”

  “Beats me,” Replied the other man, “Prolly just the storm. Maybe we got zapped by lightning or something.”

  “Coulda been that Pikachu we saw earlier,” The second man pointed out.

  “Yeah, that too.”

  The two men relaxed themselves in their chairs and the first man closed his eyes lazily. His partner tapped him on the shoulder, but he simply shooed his hand away.

  “Lemme catch some shut-eye,” The first man said grumpily.

  “Wait, check this out,” The second man prodded, continuing to tap on the first man’s arm.

  “If it’s that thing with me pulling your finger again, then I’m gonna kick you square in the-“

  “No, not that, Rick, look at this!”

  The second man pointed at one of the camera screens, “Is it jus’ me, ‘er does somethin’ not look right ‘bout the casino?”

  The first man lazily opened his eyes, “I swear, Dale, if you’re screwing with me, I’m gonna…”

  The first man stopped in his tracks and squinted his eyes at where Dale pointed at, leaning up in his seat.

  “Yeah,” Rick said, “Something does look off...is it..”

  Rick pointed his finger at a small, pixelated black splotch at the end of the room by the stairway...wait…

  “Uhh, Rick?” Dale started, slowly moving up from his seat, “I think someone pressed the button behind the pai-“

  Dale was cut off as a black and blue paw socked him in the cheek, making him crash onto the floor.

  “SWEET MOTHER OF ARCEUS!” Screamed Rick as he bolted out of his seat, only to be grabbed by the back of the head and slammed face-first into the floor, knocking him out.

  “Well, that takes care of that,” Riley said, clapping his hands vertically to rid his hands of dust. “Now, let’s see what this place looks like on the inside.”

  Riley and Lucario scanned the computer screens as Ash, Serena and Pikachu entered behind them. Serena furrowed her eyebrows as she stepped over the body of the now-unconscious Rick.

  “So,” Ash began, “Where do we start? Can you see the Pokemon?”

  Riley shook his head without looking away from the screens, “No. These only see to the outside and the casino upstairs. They must be kept on a level lower than what these cameras can see.”

  “Makes sense,” Serena pitched in, “I mean, the door was wide open. They probably have multiple security rooms lower down.”

  Riley nodded, “Good point. There’s no way that the rest of this will be that easy. Let’s move.”

  The group nodded and exited the room, unaware of the fact that after they had left, Rick raised his face off the floor and giggled madly. He put a hand on his chair to hoist himself off the ground and turned to hover his hands over the keyboard in front of the various computer screens.

  “Hyehhehhh!” Laughed the Rocket grunt as he spat out a bloody tooth onto the floor, “You people don’t know what ya jus’ up and gotten yerself into.”

  Rick leaned down and pressed a large yellow button titled “Intruder lockdown.” Suddenly, the door that had opened up from the casino slammed shut and locked itself, unbeknownst to Ash and the others. The stairs behind it then raised back up to their normal position.

  “Y’all ain’t goin’ nowhere, punks. Shouldn’t take long fer the gang to take ‘em out.”

  Riley and others behind him made their way down a silvery, metallic hallway until the Aura Guardian at the helm suddenly held up his arm to block those behind him.

  “Get down,” He ordered, crouching down and huddling up against the wall to his right, “There’s a camera to the left ahead.”

  Ash and the others crouched down and leaned their heads to the side to get a better view, and surely enough, straight ahead was a rectangular room with only a single table in the center and a small journal opened up on top of it. In the top left corner of the room, a single security camera could be seen scrolling back and forth.

  Ash frowned. “Crap. Should I have Pikachu take it out?”

  Riley shook his head, “No. Even if the people viewing it somehow missed the bolt of lightning hurtling at the camera, they’d notice that one of their cameras had shut down and would send someone to investigate. Frankly, I’d like to avoid battling every last grunt in this place.”

  Ash sighed. “I see your point, but how do we get past it then?”

  In response, Riley waited for a moment for the camera to completely turn away from them and then shot out his arm in the camera’s direction. The camera was enveloped in a blue coating and ceased movement.

  “I can use my Aura to stop it from moving. If we’re lucky, then they won’t notice one of their cameras being still.”

  “Sweet,” Ash remarked, “Now, let’s get a move on, quick!”

  The group collectively nodded and rushed ahead to the next hallway, but as Serena ran, she noticed something that caught her eye. A single, mahogany-colored journal laid open on the table in the center of the room, and she could make out the word “Project” on the paper.

  “Hey, guys wait!” She half-whispered, half-yelled to her companions, who skidded to a halt in response.

  ‘What is it?’ Lucario growled, though no one but Riley could understand. ‘We cannot idle about, you know.’

  As if Serena could fathom Lucario’s speech, she continued anyway. “There’s some kinda book or something back here! Maybe it has information on this place?”

  “With all-due respect, Serena,” Riley started, “What kind of secret organization would leave their secrets in a single book completely out in the open and on the closest floor to the surface? It’s probably just an instruction manual or something.”

  Ash shrugged, “I dunno, if Team Rocket’s involved, then it’s more than likely they would leave something that important lying about.”

  Serena motioned for the group to follow her back towards the room with the wave of her arm, “C’mon, it couldn’t hurt to check it out real quick, right? It’ll only take a few seconds, and maybe it could help us map out the place?”

  Riley let out a low sigh, but ultimately complied, “Very well. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to read a small portion of it.”

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lucario asked, ‘You would need to hold the camera still for the entire duration, and we will most certainly need your power later.’

  “I’ll be fine,” Riley replied with a reassuring smile, “Aren’t I always?”

  Lucario closed his eyes and grumbled, following Ash and Serena back towards the journal, ‘I should hope so.’

  Serena leaned over the table to get a better look at the journal’s contents and pursed her eyebrows in confusion as she read it over.

  “What’s it say?” Ash asked, peering over her shoulders.

  Serena cleared her throat, “It doesn’t make much sense, but it mentions some “Project.” The thing is, most of the book is blacked out. In fact, only the page that was open already still has anything on it.”

  “Well, you’ve already made us come back,” Riley started as he walked back into the room with Lucario at his side. “You might as well read it aloud.”

  Serena nodded, “Okay. It says, “Entry 1: Project…” She trailed off. “That part’s blotched out with ink.”

  Everyone motioned her to continue.

  “Project… “...Project —-. No results so far. The hosts procured have all been unsubstantial and —— as a result. We are currently looking for new potential hosts while ——- suggest more methods…””

  Serena looked up from the journal and back to the group, “That’s all it says. Everything after that is gone.”

  Riley crossed his arms and closed his eyes in thought, “A project... and “hosts”?”

  Ash furrowed his brows, “And what the heck does “unsubstantial” mean here?”

  Riley shook off his train of thoughts, “It doesn’t matter. What matters now is finding the Pokemon and getting them out of here.”

  “Right!” Shouted the group collectively, taking off back down the hallway. As they ran, the blue hold on the camera dispersed, letting it resume its continuous scrolling.

  Ash and the group ran down the hallway until they came upon a door labeled “1-2F” with a crude picture of a stick figure in a Team Rocket outfit walking down a flight of stairs.

  “No elevator, huh?” Serena asked dejectedly to no one in particular.

  “We should hope not,” Riley replied, tugging on the door handle to open it, “If we had to rely on an elevator, they could remotely control it and lure us into a trap.”

  The door popped open without issue as Riley tugged on the door handle. Ash took it upon himself to lean over the edge in order to see how far down the stairs went, and gaped when he couldn’t even see the bottom.

  “Oh man!” Ash cried in disbelief, “By the time we get down these, it’ll be morning!”

  “Not if we jump straight down,” Riley offered with an almost devious-looking smirk.

  “Nice joke,” Serena retorted, “But for real, how are we gonna get down?”

  Riley simply held his arms out at Serena and Ash, and the two of them suddenly found themselves, along with Pikachu, beginning to float off the ground, coated in blue auric energy.

  “W-whoa!” Serena cried, flailing her arms helplessly, “You can’t be serious!”

  “I’m completely serious,” Riley replied as he hoisted himself onto the railings of the staircase, “If we’re going to rescue the Pokemon, we’ll need to be as fast as possible.”

  Ash pumped his fist confidently, “I hear you. Alright, I’m game.”

  “Pika!” Pikachu piped in, mimicking his trainer.

  Serena let out a hopeless whimper and clutched her purse to her chest, knowing there was no way out of this. Riley chuckled at the two of them and turned his gaze to the abyss below while Lucario hopped up next to him.

  “Alright,” Riley said as he levitated Ash and Serena above the spiraling staircase, “Here we go!”

  Serena placed one of her hands over her mouth to muffle her scream and wrenched her eyes shut as they plummeted. Ash, however, had a large grin plastered on his face the whole way down. After nearly twenty seconds of falling, Riley slowed their descent to a stop and placed the two trainers onto the metal floor. Almost immediately, Serena fell over onto her rear from the dizziness.

  “Well,” Riley started as Ash hoisted Serena to her feet, “Let’s get going, shall we?”

  “Please tell me we won’t have to do that again,” Serena whined dizzily.

  Riley snickered at Serena, clearly enjoying this more than he should be and replied, “No promises there, sorry,” Much to Serena’s chagrin.

  “So what’s next?” Asked Ash.

  Riley turned his gaze towards a branching path of hallways, “This is a good moment for your second lesson in Aura, Ash. Try to feel out where the Pokemon are and you lead us from there.”

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Lucario asked incredulously, ‘Every second matters. The longer we take, the longer the Pokemon suffer.’

  ‘I know that,’ Replied Riley, ‘But I have faith in him. He was able to sense them earlier, and I have no doubt he’ll be able to sense them now that we’re in closer proximity.’

  Ash stared down at the palm of his hand, almost expecting it to flare up with the familiar blue flames of Aura as he concentrated on it. He clenched his hand into a fist when nothing happened, but turned to face the hallways regardless, eager to test himself. He took a moment to inhale deeply, then crouched down, closed his eyes, and placed the open palm of his hand onto the floor below.

  Riley grinned at his new protege and nudged Lucario with his elbow. ‘See? He’s a natural.’

  Lucario simply grunted in response.

  At first, Ash felt nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing different from simply closing one’s eyes. It was just like before; earlier today when he, Riley and Lucario all felt the hellish torment happening far below...just like before...just like-

  “Gah!” Ash screamed, jerking backwards. He felt it again. Horrors indescribable by words. Agony untold. Ash stared, wide-eyed, down at the floor where he felt it and raised his head upward to see that he was now facing the hallway to his right.

  Serena attempted to run to his side, but was stopped by Lucario who, when given a questioning look, motioned to Riley who was already making his way over to him. Ash nearly jumped as Riley clapped a hand on Ash’s shoulder.

  “Great work,” Riley commended. “It won’t be much longer now.”

  Ash took a moment to respond, breathing deeply before turning to face Riley with a determined smile. “Yeah...let’s keep going.”

  As the group entered through the door at the end of the hallway, Riley held up an arm to block the rest of them from entering. He closed his eyes, attempting to scan the surrounding area for people or any other signs of life...but oddly, found nothing. Nothing, save for the poor tortured souls far below.

  “That’s odd,” Riley mused.

  Serena raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “What is?”

  Riley turned back to face the others. “Besides the two grunts at the camera station above, we haven’t seen a single person here.”

  Serena’s eyes lit up in realization. “So you mean you think the others are hiding in wait for an ambush?”

  Riley nodded at her. “You’re perceptive. Yes, that’s an option, but we don’t know for sure.”

  “Well, it is nighttime, after all,” offered Ash. “Maybe the rest of them are just asleep?”

  Riley shook his head. “Even if that were true, there would have to be some guards on patrol…I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “This place is nothing but bad feelings all around,” Ash replied solemnly. “The only thing we can do right now is keep moving forward, no matter what.”

  Riley and Lucario stared at Ash with a mixture of slight astonishment and respect, whereas Serena lightly giggled and said, “Only someone like you, Ash, could say something like that.”

  “Indeed,” Riley agreed. “Well said, Ash.”

  Ash sheepishly scratched the back of his head, “Uh, thanks?”

  Lucario impatiently knocked on the metal walls to get the group’s attention and motioned at the room ahead with his thumb.

  As the group entered the room, Riley quickly froze the camera in place as it scrolled over to the corner like before, allowing them to move unperturbed. The room consisted of several bookshelves that were all filled to the brim with their namesakes, two rows of fancy-looking computers, and a single metal table with yet another journal opened up in the center.

  “Spread out,” Riley ordered. “Try to see if you can find out anything useful, like a schedule of the grunts’ routines in case there really is something wrong with their absence, or a map of the security systems.”

  The group nodded and split up to search through whatever they could find, but Riley stopped Serena.

  “Serena, hold on for a sec.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Go check out that journal on the table over there and see if it has anything on what the previous one was about.”

  Serena nodded. “Gotcha.”

  The young trainer made her way over to the table and peered down, clearing her throat to read aloud as her companions scoured the bookshelves.

  “Entry No. 2: Project ——- ...Dang, that part’s still blacked out.”

  “Keep reading,” Riley ordered from across the room, to which Serena nodded and continued.

  “Entry No. 2: Project ——- The...applicants we took in have all been worthless failures. Not a single one of them so far survived the experiments and wasted my...our precious resources by perishing. Worthless, the lot of them! Only one of them currently remains living, but we’ve all but ceased experimentation with him so it is unlikely he will live much longer. Fortunately, my...our Board of Suggestions recently came up with an idea. An old scientist for Team Rocket had worked on creating artificial life from scratch on a small island facility. Though his work never came to fruition, he was able to procure a single petrified hair strand from the Legendary Pokemon Mew who is said to be the ancestor of all Pokemon. With this, yes, with THIS...our...my plans will come to fruition. The only complication... is that the facility was destroyed by unknown means. It is theorized that the head scientist became so caught up with his projects that he had forgotten to stabilize the generators with coolants, resulting in the untimely demise of those on the island and, more importantly, the documents and data recordings in the laboratory, thus making the likelihood of the single petrified hair of Mew not only still intact, but also still on the island itself and not in the seabed, slim to none...but if we manage to acquire this strand of Mew’s hair, there’s no way I’m letting him have it…”

  Serena let out a long-winded sigh of relief now that her reading was finally at an end.

  “That...was intense.”

  “No kidding,” Ash piped up. “I didn’t even catch half of that.”

  Riley put down the book in his hands back into the shelf and placed a hand to his chin in deep thought.

  “There’s almost too much information to go over. Applicants perishing? Resources? I can hardly believe all that nonsense about Mew. Acquiring such a thing as one of her hairs would be more difficult to find than finding a brown-colored needle in a haystack.”

  “And who the heck is “him”?” Serena inquired. “This is getting way too confusing.”

  Riley turned away and pointed to a door behind where Serena was standing.

  “It’s probably best not to worry about it. First and foremost, what matters now is rescuing the Pokemon.”

  With that, the group collectively nodded and left the room behind, letting the security camera go back to scanning the room. As they continued onward, they came across a four-way segment. Riley’s and Lucario’s eyes suddenly widened and they pushed the others backward just in time to avoid several speeding white streaks zooming by from the right and crashing into the end of the hall.

  “What the heck was that?!” Cried a wide-eyed Ash.

  Riley narrowed his eyes without turning back to face Ash and Serena. “Some kind of automatic defense system. That explains why I couldn’t sense it.”

  “Well, now we know why there weren’t any actual guards,” Serena offered, but Riley shook his head.

  “No, not quite. If there wasn’t this kind of defense system above, then there was clearly meant to be some grunts defending the higher levels...I don’t like this at all.”

  ‘I’ll take care of this,’ Lucario offered. ‘You’ve been exerting yourself during this entire infiltration, and we both know there’s a good chance we’ll be fighting something by the end of this.”

  Riley nodded and stepped back. ‘Thank you, Lucario.’

  Lucario nodded back at him and held out his arms in front of him, summoning a blue barrier in front of himself. He motioned for the others to stay close behind him and breathed deeply before jumping out and pointing his barrier where the projectiles had come from moments before. Instantaneously, the aforementioned projectiles were fired at him from some kind of continuously-rotating metal machine and bounced off of his barrier upon contact, decorating the floor with the metal bullets that were being fired at him. Lucario winced at the sheer force these things carried. Already, his arms and legs were on the verge of buckling.

  “Go!” Riley commanded, waving his hand to motion Ash and Serena to follow him. The two trainers nodded and quickly sprinted past Lucario and into the next part of the hallway. Seeing that his comrades were now safe, Lucario dived into the hallway beside them and letting the gleaming metal projectiles sail harmlessly past where he once stood. The jackal Pokemon let out a winded sigh and leaned his head back, closing his eyes momentarily to catch his breath before standing back up and flashing the group a thumbs-up.

  “Nice work, Lucario!” Ash complimented, with Pikachu piping in a “Pika!” in agreement with his trainer.

  “Yeah, nice job!” Serena pitched in, clapping her hands together.

  Riley clapped a hand on Lucario’s shoulder and gave him a toothy grin. “A great job as always, partner.”

  Lucario smirked at all the praise and crossed his arms.

  “Rio,” He said simply, moving forward to continue.

  As the group continued forward, they soon heard odd mechanical-sounding noises and clicks behind them. Lucario turned around for a split second to be met with the sight of several similar-looking machines from the one just moments before, only now they had appeared from within the walls...and they were surrounding the group. Acting on reflex, Lucario summoned a barrier around himself and the rest of the group. Riley has noticed it as well, and he followed Lucario, summoning a barrier around the group as well and merging the two force fields together just in time to avoid the hundreds of metallic projectiles pouring from the walls like rainfall and hammering into the azure barrier. With every impact, a small ring of energy would erupt from the impact zone and disperse like a pool of water having a rock thrown into it.

  Ash and Serena, who had no such combat instinct like that of the two Aura Guardians, were taken aback at the fact that, in an instant, they were now encased in a blue orb of energy that was being pelted by deafening shots of some kind of metal that now decorated the floors.

  “What in the-?!” Ash stammered.

  “Run, now!” Riley screamed, “I don’t know how much longer Lucario and I can hold this!”

  Ash and Serena’s eyes widened like dinner plates and the two of them quickly nodded. The four of them took off like, ironically, a bullet down the hallway looking for any kind of door or exit. As they ran, more of the machines erupted from the walls and fired on the group. At this point, the ground was nearly completely coated with the metal projectiles, the group considered themselves very lucky that the barrier pushed them out of the way as they ran. Suddenly, Riley’s blood ran cold. The barrier was beginning to crack. It started as barely-noticeable at first, but before he knew it, spiderweb-like cracks began appearing all around the shield.

  ‘I see a door straight ahead!’ Lucario shouted.

  Riley nodded and turned to look at Serena and Ash over his shoulder, “Run as fast as you can right now! We’re almost to the end!”

  That affirmation was all the motivation the two young trainers needed, and collectively, the four of them yelled as they approached the endpoint.

  “YYEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

  The quadruo burst through the door and slammed it shut behind them just as the barrier finally shattered into blue dust that faded away into nothingness. Their bodies heaved for air, and they collapsed onto the floor, completely exhausted out of their minds.

  “What in...the heck...were those?!” Serena demanded between breaths.

  Riley looked over to Ash, “Hey...you don’t think those machines...were like… the guys from yesterday night, right?”

  Ash looked at him oddly until he recalled the men in black that had chased him through the forest from the night prior.

  “What...about em?”

  “Remember...those small...handheld weapons they had? They were...kinda like...those things in the room...back there...weren’t they?”

  Ash furrowed his brow in an attempt to wrack his exhausted mind for those memories, then his face lit up in realization. His mind flashed back to the prior night and he recalled the small metal objects the men carried. They attempted to shoot Riley with it, but he managed to deflect it. They also held one of them up to Ash’s head and frankly, he was too scared out of his mind at the time to question it.

  “Yeah...you’re right! They had...smaller versions...of those things in the room...back there!”

  Serena paled, “Wait...so this place...is connected...to those guys?!”

  Riley halfheartedly shrugged, “It’s...a possibility...but that would leave...more questions than answers…none of which...I am prepared...to think about right now…for now, let’s rest for a couple minutes...yeah?”

  In response, the group wholeheartedly nodded and slumped backwards, panting heavily in exhaustion. After a few minutes passed, Serena was, surprisingly, the first to get back onto her feet, albeit shakily. She took a moment to size up the room they were in and gaped. On another table in front of her, three journals laid open.

  “Guys!” She whisper-yelled, “There are three journals here!”

  “Can you read ‘em aloud for us?” Ash asked.

  Serena nodded and cleared her throat. “Entry No. 3: Project ——. They found it! The hair of Mew had been contained in a small metal orb beneath the main lab and survived all these years. With this, my project has become vastly more expansive. However, —- does not yet know that I have this item, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  Serena moved over to the next one, “Entry No.4: Project —— It worked perfectly! Like a charm! After only a few months after obtaining the petrified hair, we were able to create a human girl from scratch that far surpasses the potential of those worthless orphans we picked up. With the genetics of every Pokémon as a baseline for her potential, has skyrocketed! However, she will not gain the powers we’re looking for naturally. We have to use the same method as we did with the Pokemon. We captured as many Pokemon as we could—hundreds of thousands! Upon death, the Pokemon were converted into pure DNA using the technology given by —- and spliced with the DNA of the girl, granting her incredible powers: the power to mimic the attacks of Pokemon fused into her. Even I cannot predict where this project will go! I’m getting excited just thinking about it! This is much more exciting than working with Team Galactic!”

  Serena stared at the journal in horror and backed away from it, covering her mouth with her hands. Ash pushed himself off the ground, looking far beyond pissed off.

  “They...they killed…!” He rambled furiously.

  “Hundreds...of thousands…” Riley finished for him, his face shadowed by his hat, “Serena, what does the last one say? No, nevermind. If it’s too troubling for you, I can-“

  “No,” Serena interrupted, “I can...I can do this.”

  Serena slowly dragged herself over to read the final journal. Ash followed her and put an arm around her for comfort.

  “Entry...Entry No. 5...Project “Zero”... We named the girl and the project as a whole “Zero” as a reference to the fact that she was born from scratch. Zero was originally a project funded by — and — Corporations to be a weapon. Something about empowering humanity to take back what’s ours or something like that. Not like he’ll get his hands on her anyways, no, not when she is my most valuable toy! Though, she is still incomplete. Her —- never developed, and most Psychic Types proved to be problematic when we attempted to capture them. The idiot grunts would either get flung off a cliff normally or the Psychic Type would just up and teleport away. The only ones we ever managed to get a large number of were Slowpoke,and they weren’t exactly of much value as their Psychic powers barely made a difference. At most, Zero can levitate small rocks, and only for about five seconds at that. Though, she once managed to teleport quite a fair distance from the laboratories, outside the city even, but we quickly managed to recapture her, as it left her in a comatose state for roughly eight hours. She has yet to display this power since. I would also like to point out that —- wanting to use her as some kind of supersoldier against Pokemon was a very bad idea, since she refused to fight the damned things! For months, when Zero was introduced to a Pokemon she was meant to kill, she would only ever make friends with them and play until the guards separated them and returned Zero to her stasis pod, which is filled to the brim at all times with a paralyzing liquid so that she cannot break free. But still, for the longest time, Zero refused to harm the Pokemon she was ordered to kill. There was one incident where she defended a Pokemon from the guards! Luckily, my fellow scientists managed to...remedy that situation. Turns out, torturing someone to the point of near death using hundreds of amps of electricity, impalement of the limbs with elongated, white-hot spires, burning them in an incinerator for a week straight, healing them, and repeating the process hundreds of times with barely any breaks can turn the most peaceful of flowers into deadly monstrosities of pure malice and hatred towards everything. Who knew? Nowadays, the experiments are going off without a hitch! Any Pokemon she’s introduced to in the testing area is reduced to a beautiful crimson stain within seconds! It’s wonderful! Finally some damned progress! Hell, at this point she can overpower a fully-grown Steelix without much issue. Though, she does have one glaring weakness. Being the abomination and crime against life that she is, she is in constant pain at all times. She’s learned to cope with it over time, but she never truly got over it. Walking, eating, even breathing is painful for her, so one can imagine that shooting a Hyper Beam from her hands and enveloping herself in a fiery explosion with Overheat wouldn’t exactly be pleasant for her. Not to mention what the likes of Flare Blitz and other attacks with Recoil do to her. As far as I’m concerned, this just makes her easier to keep in line. This is just the beginning of what I have in store for her!

  -Dr. Charon, formerly a scientist for Team Galactic, now a part of something much greater.”

  Serena stepped back from the journal slowly with her hand clasped over her mouth and her eyes widened in a mixture of horror, disgust and a plethora of other emotions she couldn’t even begin to describe. Ash, meanwhile, clutched his hand into a fist, nearly drawing blood from himself and stood up. Riley continued to hide his face in the shadow of his hat, but even those in the room not sensitive to Aura could feel the silent rage emanating from him; Lucario even more so as he too took back to his feet.

  Riley slowly stepped forward past Serena towards the door ahead, his back now turned away from everyone else. “I’d say...that about does it for our break...wouldn’t you?”

  Ash nodded solemnly. “Couldn’t agree more. You ready, Pikachu? Serena?”

  Pikachu, as always, quickly nodded. Serena, however, stood silent. Her gaze was frozen stiff in a thousand-yard stare past Ash to the journal she had just read.

  “Serena?”

  Ash tentatively put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, making her jump as she was snapped back to reality.

  If it’s too hard for you, you can-“

  “No.”

  Serena stared directly into Ash’s eyes with a resolved, fiery gaze Ash never thought possible from the typically-meek girl. “No. If I were to run and cower...to curl into a useless little ball while you all battled to stop the suffering of the Pokemon ahead…” She fiercely shook her head and declared, “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself!”

  Ash was taken aback by Serena’s resolve. Never before had Ash seen this level of courage from Serena before. His look of surprise slowly curled into one of pride and he flashed her an assuring grin.

  “Couldn’t have said it better.”

  “Are you two ready yet?” Riley cut in with an impatient tone he had yet to ever show. “I can sense multiple presences ahead. Human ones.”

  Ash raised an eyebrow at his new mentor, “Human ones? You mean…?”

  Riley nodded. “Looks like they were waiting in ambush after all.”

  “How many are there?” Serena asked.

  “...Hundreds.”

  The two trainers’ mouths gaped. “Hundreds?!”

  “Yeah. And what’s worse, there aren’t any alternative pathways to the Pokemon below.”

  Ash hissed and slammed a fist into the metal wall beside him. “Dang it! They’re luring us into a trap and we can’t even do anything about it!”

  Riley turned around slowly and lifted his gaze. He now sported a fierce, determined look plastered on his face that was entirely new to the two young trainers.

  “Ash, Serena,” He said, “Release your Pokemon now. When they try to ambush us, we’ll have our Pokémon lash out against them immediately with full force.” A wry grin managed to creep up Riley’s mouth. “They might know we’re coming, but we know they’re doing the same. The second they try to attack us, all of our Pokémon will already be upon them.”

  Ash’s eyes flashed with realization. “Oh! So it’s essentially a counter-ambush!”

  Riley chuckled. “Yeah, something like that. But now comes the most important part.” Ash and Serena leaned in attentively. “Our aim isn’t necessarily to defeat all of them. We just need to carve a path until we can get to the door on the opposite end. From there, the Pokemon will be directly below. I’ll be fighting the grunts, so one of you will have to be the one to free the Pokemon. After that, we let them rampage against the grunts and then guide them to the surface.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Serena chirped.

  Ash and Pikachu simultaneously pumped their fists skyward. “Alright, let’s do this!”

  “Pika-Pika!”

  “We’re all ready then,” Riley announced. “Let’s move!”

  “Right! Go, everyone!” Ash and Serena cried, throwing their Pokeballs to release their teams.

  As the group sprinted through the final hallway, they burst out into a massive rectangular room. The entirety of it, save for the black-tinted windows decorating the top of the walls, was covered in a shiny, silvery-colored metal. But what really unsettled the group were the various signs of battles that decorated the room. Crimson stains, burn marks and various other stains were scattered all over the floors, walls and ceiling. Suddenly, the lights flashed on and an intercom rang out through the massive room from an unseen speaker.

  “Welcome!” The voice boomed, “Congratulations on making it this far!”

  “Who is this?!” Riley demanded. “Show yourself!”

  Whoever was speaking over the intercom giggled madly. “Ehehehehehehe! Now why would I do that?! It’s so much more fun to play with my new puppets while unseen!”

  Serena stepped backwards, unnerved. “Your puppets?! Who the heck are you?!”

  “Weren’t you reading those journals I so graciously left out for you lot?” The unseen voice bequeathed. “I was so kind as to leave my name in the last one; don’t tell me you forgot it already!”

  Realization dawned on Ash. “Wait, so you’re that Team Galactic guy?!”

  Riley clenched his shaking fists, “Dr. Charon…”

  “In the flesh!” The voice replied with a cackle that echoed throughout the room, “So you did remember me!”

  “You…You…!” Ash’s hands clenched into fist as he trembled with rage uncontrollably. His blood boiled, his anger flared, it was as if his entire being was filled with pure hatred for the monster of a scientist. The boy couldn’t even properly formulate a sentence amidst his rage. “You...how could you…?!”

  “Hmm? Oh! You must be talking about my experiments! Yes, quite excellent, weren’t they? Yes, yes, I must say they were quite amusing for the short time their delicate little lives lasted, but they all died sooner or later. That’s just life though, am I right?”

  The unseen doctor continued to cackle like the madman he was. Ash trembled with uncontrollable rage that continued to bubble up inside him like magma. The young trainer clenched his fists to the point that he nearly drew blood, trembling and unaware of the cyan flames creeping down his arms and into his hand.

  The insane scientist chortled at Ash’s fury. “You might want to check that attitude of yours, boy. Let’s not do something that you will surely regret, eh?”

  Ash ignored the doctor. “How could you?! Those Pokemon...their suffering…! What kind of sick person are you?!”

  Riley and Lucario scanned the walls, waiting in case they suddenly opened. They could see the blue silhouettes of hundreds of people from inside them, but for now, they hardly moved. However, their senses told them otherwise. They could feel that these men were on the verge of attacking and got into defensive positions to ready themselves for the inevitable onslaught. Ash and Serena’s Pokemon noticed the two Aura Guardians’ composure and cautiously adopted battle positions of their own, surrounding Serena who didn’t quite know what to make of their behavior.

  “Get ready Ash,” Riley instructed. “Something feels off. These guys could attack at any moment!”

  Riley’s warning fell on deaf ears, however, as Ash’s rage only continued to grow. Seeing that his warning was ignored, Riley snapped at his pupil in order to remove him from his stupor.

  “Hey! Ash! Ignore that Charon guy for now! Trust me, I despise him just as much as you do, but we have bigger problems on our hands! We can deal with him later, but for now we need to-“

  “Oh what’s the rush, Sir Riley?” Spoke the mad doctor. “I was beginning to enjoy my conversation with the boy.”

  Riley whipped his head around to face the source of the voice, “How do you know my name?!”

  The mad doctor responded with some gargled mixture of a cackle and a giggle. “Eeeehhehe! Did you really think that little trick with your Aura stopping the cameras would work?! Those cameras are nothing more than decoys! The real cameras are embedded into the walls and camouflaged. And on another note, you and that dog of yours seem to have been slacking on your training recently.”

  Dr. Charon cackled madly yet again before wheezing, “That guard you supposedly knocked out in the camera room?! Ehehehehehe! Turns out you never knocked him out at all! Talk about a lousy punch!”

  Riley grit his teeth in a frustrated annoyance, but refused to comply with the scientist. He knew better than to reply and allow his anger to overrule his judgement. Ash, on the other hand, did not.

  “Shut up!” He roared, his Aura now flaring unbeknownst to him. “When we get those Pokémon back, I’ll make sure to pay you back for everything you’ve done to them!”

  Ash’s group stared at Ash in shock at the display of power he showcased.

  “That’s-!” Riley started.

  Lucario finished his partner’s thought process for him, ‘His Aura!’

  Serena stared at Ash with widened eyes, “What is that?!”

  “Ooh!” Shrieked the doctor in excitement. “What bright colors!”

  “Shut up and answer the question!” Bellowed Ash. “Tell me! Where are the Pokemon?!”

  “Pokemon?” The Doctor pondered. “Why, no such thing exists here...at least...not anymore…”

  “You’re lying! I read those journals of yours!I can feel them all right below here! Their suffering...their terror…! ALL CAUSED BY YOU!”

  “You can wha-? Oh! I see what’s happening. It’s that precious little Aura you’ve got isn’t it?” Dr. Charon giggled sadistically, “So, you think you can feel them below, do you?! Well, I’m sorry to say, but I think you would be sorely disappointed if you ever got to them.”

  “We will!” Ash roared, “And when we do, those Pokémon will tear this place to the ground!”

  On end, Dr. Charon devolved further into his mad laughter–a sound that grew horrid enough to threaten to drive his drag his listeners down to his own level. “EEEHAAAHAHAHAHA! IS THAT RIGHT?! Do you not comprehend the situation you’re in?!”

  The door the group entered from suddenly slammed shut and was encompassed by the same metal substance as the walls of the massive room, leaving the group trapped in Dr. Charon’s twisted little game.

  “To tell you the truth, Ash Ketchum, a certain...business partner of mine has recently had his eye on you. Something about you having close ties to the Legendary Pokemon or something like that. So, I made plans to lure you all here, but to my surprise, you all came to me!”

  “Business Partner?!” Ash demanded. “What are you talking about?!”

  The former Team Galactic scientist chortled, “It’s a long story. However, you met some of his men already last night, did you not? He has been monitoring you for quite some time now, in fact.

  “Wait a minute,” Riley started. “You mean-“

  The insane scientist interrupted him, “Indeed! You have been walking directly into my hands ever since you arrived here in Celadon City. You have all been acting just as I...no, you’ve been acting better than I could ever dream of! I never even had to lure you to the Game Corner; you all just waltzed right on in!” He paused for a moment to let out a wheezy cackle. “You fools willingly walked into the palm of my hands!”

  “Yeah, we know,” Riley replied nonchalantly. “We knew there was likely a trap lying towards the end of all of this when we didn’t see any guards roaming around.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Inquired the doctor. “Then, pray tell, why did you walk straight into that trap?”

  Riley smirked up at the voice’s source and shrugged, “Well, you didn’t exactly leave us much of an option.” The Aura Guardian motioned at the Pokemon behind him. “That’s why we have our Pokémon out. After all, this room would have prohibited the use of our Pokeballs...right?”

  “Well played!” The doctor responded, clapping over the intercom. “However, you are mistaken about the room nullifying your Pokeballs.”

  Riley’s smirk disappeared at that. “What? Why?”

  In the darkest depths beneath Celadon City, hidden from the touch of light, the old scientist slowly grinned from ear to ear. “That one’s quite simple, really. It’s because I want a show. No, a game! One that includes your Pokemon!”

  “A game?!” Riley demanded. “You’re more insane than I thought if you think we’re going to-“

  “No, no, you’ll like this one! It’s simple!”

  A small entryway at the far end of the hallway opened up, splitting from the metallic walls, revealing a staircase downwards. However, the surrounding walls opened as well to reveal hundreds of men in Team Rocket uniforms. As soon as they realized that this was their cue, the grunts poured from the walls and surrounded Ash’s group with cruel sneers and sadistic grins as they each pulled out a Pokeball from their pockets.

  “All you have to do is get to that door and release the Pokemon, and you win! However, if you lose ...well, since you’ve already read my journals, I’ll just leave it to your imagination...and one last teensy-weensy little thing…” Dr. Charon began attempting to stifle a laugh unsuccessfully??, much to Ash’s frustration.

  “Just spit it out already!”

  “You see...for every minute you take to get to the end...ANOTHER POKéMON DIES! AAAAHAHAHAAAAAAAH! TA-TA!”

  Ash’s eyes snapped open in horror. “NO!” He bellowed. “DON’T YOU DARE!” His pure rage now boiling over far beyond its breaking point, Ash roared and instinctively forced the surrounding Aura on his body into the palm of his hand and hurled the ball of auric flames sailing into the wall where the voice once emanated from, only for a green barrier to appear in the ball’s path and completely absorb the blow.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Ash collapsed onto his knees, but Riley quickly caught the young boy to keep him from falling over. “Hey, you okay?!”

  The young trainer leaned his head to the side coughed violently. “What….did I just…?”

  Riley sighed and leaned the young Aura wielder to his feet, clapping him on the shoulder and sending a small blue pulse throughout his body, revitalizing the boy. Ash was about to ask his mentor what he just did, but Riley cut him off. “We’ll talk about this later. For now, look alive. You too, Serena!”

  Serena blinked and snapped out of her stupor. “Oh, um, right!”

  She turned to her four Pokémon. “You ready?”

  Braixen, Pancham, Sylveon and Clefable all nodded and turned to face the surrounding grunts, awaiting orders from their trainer.

  Pikachu hopped up onto Ash’s shoulder and gave him a light tap.

  “Chu, Pika, Pi!”’Encouraged the Electric Mouse Pokemon, motioning to the five of Ash’s other Pokemon who all gave their trainer encouraging, confident grins. Ash chuckled at his loyal friends, “Pikachu, I don’t understand a word you say, but I can take a wild guess, and I gotta say, I agree. Let’s do this!”

  Ash’s Pokemon collectively let out cheers and rushed in front of their trainer, who now eyed the sea of grunts standing in the way of the staircase that led to the trapped Pokémon below.

  “Hang in there,” Ash whispered, “It won’t be long now.”

  “Pah!” One of the grunts spat, “I’m already sick of all this friendship trash these kids are spittin’ out. Let’s get em, boys!”

  The sea of Team Rocket grunts roared and hurled their Pokeballs skyward, releasing a plethora of Muk, Golbats, Arbok, Houndour, a few Houndoom, Ariados and even a few Nidokings onto the battlefield.

  “Listen up, guys,” Riley commanded, “I’m only going to get to say this once. Ash, I want your Pokemon at the front curved around us in a half-circle formation. We’ll need them to spearhead our way through the crowd. Serena, you and your Pokemon will be in the center. Your job is to attack anything that attacks us from above. Meanwhile, Lucario and I will attack from the rear so that nothing can flank us. Got it?”

  The two trainers and their Pokémon nodded in response and attempted to move into position, but the grunts has other plans.

  “Like ‘ell we lettin’ ya do somethin’ like that!” Shouted one of the grunts, “All Muks, use Sludge Bomb above ‘em! Then all Houndor and Houndoom, use Flamethrower on the Sludge Bombs!”

  Almost immediately after the order was issued, hundreds of blackish-green balls of sludge were shot out by the Muks in the crowd directly above Ash’s group and several streaks of flame soon followed, crashing into the Sludge Bombs and creating a massive explosion. Thinking quickly, Riley and Lucario summoned a barrier around the group and while they were able to prevent themselves from being consumed by the explosion, the entire group was sent careening in different directions.

  Serena screamed as she was sent flying to the side. She dared to open her eyes only to see that she was hurtling straight towards a wall. She clenched her eyes shut, preparing for the worst...only to feel something squishy instead. The young girl tentatively opened one of her eyes and saw that Ash’s Goodra has jumped up in time to catch her.

  “Dra!” Chirped the gooey purple dragon happily as the two descended back to the ground.

  Serena let out a relieved sigh as the dragon set her back down onto her feet, “Phew...Thanks, Goodra. But wait, shouldn’t you be with..wait, where is everyone?!”

  Besides Goodra and the numerous Rocket grunts leering lecherously at her, Pikachu was the only one beside her. Nervously looking back and forth between the two Pokémon by her side, she took a moment to inhale before taking a stance, ready to fight.

  ‘Ash isn’t here this time,’ She reminded herself, ‘But I have two of his Pokemon. I can do this!’

  “Goodra? Pikachu? I hope you two don’t mind if I take Ash’s place for a while.”

  “Dra!” Chirped Goodra, narrowing his eyes at the impending Rocket Grunts and spreading his arms outwards.

  “Chu, Pika!” Pikachu agreed, going down onto all fours and sparking electricity from his cheeks menacingly.

  Serena smirked, “All right, let’s go! Pikachu, use Thunderbolt into the crowd! Goodra, use Dragon Breath straight ahead to give us some room!”

  Pikachu nodded and leapt up above the crowd of Grunts to let loose a stream of electric energy down at them. Upon impact, the electricity spread outward, shocking some of the nearby Pokemon and Grunts into unconsciousness and distracting those close to the impact zone. Seeing his chance, Goodra inhaled deeply and fired a pink, smoky breath from his mouth directly at the nearest Grunts, dragging it so that it spread and consumed as many within his proximity as possible. When the pink dragon finished, he chomped down to stop the attack and spat out a small puff of smoke that had persisted within his mouth and turned around to give Serena a thumbs up.

  “Nice work, you two!” Praised Serena, clapping her hands together, “Now, let’s carve a path through these guys and meet back with the others!”

  Riley, after having been launched by the fiery Mud Bomb’s detonation quickly managed to right himself midair and landed gracefully on his feet, making sure to hold onto the tip of his hat so that it didn’t fly off. He quickly closed his eyes upon landing and scanned the area with his aura in an attempt to find his comrades, but he was forced to cut off his sensory prowess in order to dodge a Poison Sting from a nearby Ariados. He muttered a curse to himself and adapted a martial arts stance, spreading his legs and raising his loosely-cupped hands.

  “Houndoom, Flamethrower!” One of the Grunts commanded.

  Obliging, the Grunt’s Houndoom blasted a stream of orange fire from its mouth at the Aura Guardian before it, only to suddenly have its snout stomped shut by its target and kicked away. The Houndoom’s owner hissed in annoyance and pulled out a metal rod from his pocket that emitted electricity upon him pushing a button on its hilt. The Grunt attempted to strike Riley with the weapon, only for his eyes to widen in disbelief as his target snatched the weapon from him and snapped it in half before he could blink.

  Riley chuckled at the Grunt’s expression and smashed a fist into his face, sending the Team Rocket Grunt flying into his teammates behind him, knocking down several more in the process. Riley mockingly opened his arms outward, goading more of his adversaries to dare to approach him. A few of the nearby Grunts along with their Pokémon’s eyes twitched in annoyance and they all rushed wildly at Riley, the aforementioned Grunts all pulling identical rods from their pockets.

  “Fools,” Riley spat.

  As the closest Grunt attempted to strike Riley with their own electric rod, Riley grabbed their head, slammed it into his knee and then blasted them, along with several other Grunts and their accompanying Pokemon, away with a pulse of aura. One of the Grunts behind Riley thought that he could get in a strike, but was quickly elbowed in the face and knocked out. A Houndour then attempted a Crunch attack on Riley’s arm but was simply swatted aside with an aura-coated backhand. As yet more adversaries descended upon Riley, he brought his hands inward in an “X” formation and promptly shot them back out, resulting in a small dome of aura being shot out at every angle from the Aura Guardian that sent everyone nearby careening away.

  “Well then,” Riley said, clapping the dust off his gloves, “Anyone else want to give it a shot?”

  Lucario, after having been blasted away by the Mud Bomb explosion, used the momentum to deliver a devastating roundhouse kick to a nearby Golbat in his flight path that ended up sailing into the crowd of Grunts and knocking some of them over like bowling pins. Upon landing back onto the ground, Lucario noticed that Serena’s Pancham, Sylveon and Clefable had all conveniently landed in a heap beside him. Sighing at his dumb luck, Lucario quickly zoomed at the group of Pokémon and planted them on their feet.

  ‘Listen here, because I will only get to say this once,’ Lucario commanded hastily, ‘Follow my orders if you want to get through this.’

  The three of Serena’s Pokemon quickly nodded.

  ‘Good. Now, the lot of you try to dodge around the opponents’ attacks while taking potshots. Distract your enemy with attacks one after another while dodging and eventually, they will fall. Got it?’

  The three nodded once more.

  ‘Okay, now break quickly!’

  With that, Lucario bolted away from the three weaker Pokemon and dove straight into the frey, striking a Grunt in the face and sending him careening like a ragdoll through more of his comrades. Sensing an attack from behind, the jackal Pokemon tilted his neck so that a jet of flame sailed past, crashing into a wall. Turning to face the offender, he was greeted with a Houndoom foaming at the mouth with cracking orange flames decorating the edges of its sharp teeth. Lucario simply smirked at the attack and sidestepped so that the fire-wielding hound flew past him and then followed up by planting an Aura Sphere into its back, resulting in a cyan blue explosion that completely enveloped his opponent and sent it flying through the crowd of unfortunate Grunts in the Houndoom’s path.

  A nearby Grunt whipped out his electric rod and aimed to strike Lucario across the back of his head, but before the attack could hit its mark, a paw balled up into a fist struck him in the gut, forcing him to the ground in agony.

  “D-damn mutt!” The Grunt cursed, clutching his abdomen.

  Lucario simply replied with a ‘tch’ and turned away from the Rocket Grunt to try and locate the three of Serena’s Pokemon with his aura. Closing his eyes, Lucario exhaled deeply and crouched down l, scanning the surrounding area, but his eyes shot back open suddenly and he took off like a rocket.

  Pancham let out a shriek of pain as he was blasted with a Mud Bomb from an enemy Muk that sent him crashing onto his face. Sylveon and Clefable weren’t exactly having stellar luck either. Once Lucario had taken off, it hadn’t taken long for the Rocket Grunts to have their Pokemon surround the three of them. At first the trio attempted to isolate one Pokemon after another by taking Lucario’s advice, so they attacked a nearby Muk with ranged attacks in an endeavor to aggravate it into following them into a less crowded area where they would have attacked it with hit-and-run tactics until it had fallen, but it had the opposite effect.

  Upon Sylveon attacking the giant purple pile of sludge with a Moonblast, the Muk in question, instead, had called for backup right away and the trio was surrounded nearly instantly. Now, Sylveon was sporadically dodging a constant barrage of Sludge Bombs from a group of Arbok while Clefable was attempting to, and failing to, guard against a hail of Poison Stings being shot at her viciously by hoard of Ariados. Pancham grit his teeth in frustration at his own weakness. His injuries had already become severe in only mere moments, and to his disdain, his vision had already become foggy.

  As Pancham had finally managed to force himself back onto his knees, his head was suddenly stomped back into the ground from behind by a looming Nidoking, leering down at the pathetic Pokemon beneath his foot with a sadistic grin. Pancham squealed in agony as his skull was slowly crushed beneath the hulking Pokémon’s foot, which only made the Nidoking’s grin grow larger. That is, until the Nidoking was sent hurtling away by Lucario’s foot being driven straight into its cheek. Lucario then whipped around and shot two Aura Spheres at the offending Ariados and Arbok that were attacking the two Fairy-Type Pokemon, ending their flurry of poisonous attacks with a cyan blast.

  ‘Hey, hang in there!’ Lucario pleaded. The jackal crouched over and put a paw on the small Fighting-Type’s head, sending a pulse of blue through the small panda-like Pokémon’s body.

  Pancham’s eyes wrinkled for a moment and then shot open. He stood back onto his feet and looked at his hands, almost not believing it to be real, and then looked up to Lucario.

  ‘There, that should keep you going a while longer,’ Lucario said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead, ‘I must apologize. It was foolish for me to leave the three of you unguarded and surrounded like that.’

  The Jackal Pokemon stood back up to his full height, flaring his cyan aura, ‘Now, let’s get down to business.’

  Pancham stared at Lucario in awe for a brief moment before smirking at him and turning to face the remaining surrounding Pokemon and nodded with a hearty “Pan!” in agreement.

  Braixen crashed into one of the surrounding metal walls with a loud thud, crying out as the wind was knocked out of her. As the fox Pokemon bounced off the wall, she was caught by Infernape who had also been shot off in Braixen’s direction by the Mud Bombs’ explosion. Infernape landed and set Braixen back on the ground, making her stumble for a moment. Once she had regained herself, Braixen she flashed an appreciative thumbs up at Infernape, who grinned and mirrored her, until the two of them were forced to duck as a Sludge Bomb from a nearby Arbok sailed over the pair of Fire-Types, missing them by a hair.

  Infernape retaliated ferociously, shooting back up to his full height and blasting the offending Pokémon with a powerful jet of flame that sent it, and those behind it, crashing into the ceiling. Braixen stared at her ally’s attack in awe of its sheer might. The level of power Infernape displayed was almost like that of her with her Blaze Ability! Blinking, the Fox Pokemon snapped herself out of her stupor and stood back up, taking to Infernape’s back and facing away from him.

  The two Fire-Types and their surrounding adversaries stared down one another, waiting for someone to move. Braixen’s eyes suddenly snapped to the side just as a Venoshock from an Ariados was fired at her, but she managed to counter it by turning to face the attack and spitting out a Flamethrower to punch through the poisonous sludge, blasting the Ariados head-on. However, what Braixen failed to notice was that a Houndoom was now inches away from the naps of her neck with a Crunch attack ready to sink into her.

  The Dark-type Pokemon would have landed the deathly attack, had it not been for Infernape who whirled around and shot a Mach Punch into the side of the Houndoom’s ribcage at speeds no one could even see. The nearby Grunts could only make out an orange and white blur in their target’s place for a split second before their own Houndoom had been shot back at them, knocking them onto the floor.

  “Fernape!” Roared the Fire-Type simian, beating his chest.

  Braixen blinked with widened eyes. In only this short amount of time, Infernape has already managed to save her twice; both of which at speeds she couldn’t even see, no less! Just how powerful was he?!

  “Dammit!” One of the Grunts bellowed, “Why the hell are you idiots just sending one Pokémon at a time at ‘em?! We outnumber em by the hundreds, so use that number to your advantage!”

  “Oh, wow!” A nearby Grunt exclaimed, “I never thought about that! You some kinda genius or somethin’?”

  The initial Grunt stared blankly at her, rubbing his temples in exasperation, “It’s people like you, why we get paid minimum wage, you know that?” Without letting the other Grunt respond, the first Grunt turned back to face Infernape and Braixen. “Whatever! Just rush ‘em all at once!” The Grunts and their Pokémon alike roared in agreement, charging at the two surrounded Pokemon.

  Ash let out a choked cry of pain as he landed flat on his back on the hard metal floor. Cringing, the young trainer forced himself back up to his feet. Just as he managed to do so, he let out another cry of pain and clutched his left shoulder. Apparently he’d crashed directly on it after being launched by the Mud Bomb’s explosion, and now something definitely felt fractured. He rolled his shoulder to test the injury, and while the pain was manageable at least, what really bothered him was a feeling similar to that of rocky sand in his posterior lower shoulder.

  “I’ll just have to push through it for now,” Ash said aloud to himself. He then turned around, aiming to talk to Riley about it when something dawned on him.

  “Hey, Riley, I-“

  He was alone…

  “Wait- GUYS?! Where are you?!”

  ...And surrounded.

  The nearby Grunts and their Pokemon snapped their attention over to the isolated trainer, adopting sadistic grins as they spotted easy prey.

  “Ey, did the Doc say we were supposed to keep ‘em alive?” One of the Grunts whispered to another.

  “I don’t recall him saying so,” Replied the other Grunt, earning a sadistic chuckle from the first Grunt.

  The first Grunt cracked his knuckles, “Alright then! Nidoking, use-GAUGH!”

  The Grunt let out a choked cry of anguish as Ash’s Sceptile, appearing from seemingly nowhere with his incredible speed, shot a fist into his gut at speeds faster than the eye could see, then whirled around to deliver a roundhouse kick to the Grunts’ Nidoking before it could even react to the fate of its master.

  “Tile.” Sceptile said simply, smirking at the surrounding opponents.

  Ash’s eyes gleamed as he saw his trusted Pokémon land beside him. “Hey, Sceptile, nice work! Did you find anyone else yet?”

  In response, Sceptile motioned with his thumb directly above himself, earning a quizzical look from Ash until he followed what he was pointing at. Soaring above, Hawlucha rose on the back of Noivern. Seeing Sceptile’s cue, Hawlucha tapped his best friend’s shoulder and motioned downward with a wry smile. Noivern grinned back at Hawlucha and prepared for their entrance. Noivern closed his wings and entered a nosedive towards the sea of Team Rocket Grunts below. The bat-wyvern waited for Hawlucha to jump off of his back before letting out a bellowing screech with such force that visible rings of air could be seen exiting from his mouth, knocking the Grunts in the attack’s blast radius onto the ground. Hawlucha then made his move. Now that the Grunts were helpless, Hawlucha reeled back his hand in a chopping shape and slammed it into the floor with enough force to make everything in front of him fly off the ground. Smirking, Sceptile reared back his head and unleashed an Energy Ball into the crowd of airborne Grunts and their Pokémon, resulting in a detonation that blew back everything nearby and sent them sprawling onto the floor. Seeing that their stylish little intro was completed, the three of Ash’s Pokemon turned to flash their trainer a thumbs up.

  “Well,” Ash said with a chuckle, “Glad to see you three are alright. Speaking of alright, we need to find the others before we find the basement.” He issued an order to Noivern first, “Noivern, you can probably blend in with the roof, at least somewhat. You try to find and guide the others into one group, alright?” Noivern nodded and took off to fulfill his part. Ash pointed to Sceptile and Hawlucha next. “You two are with me, alright? Let’s thin out their numbers, then carve a path to the door, alright?”

  “Tile!”

  “Lucha!”

  Ash nodded at his two partners and took a stance as his two Pokemon leapt to the opposite sides of their trainer. Some of the grunts who were on the outskirts of Sceptile’s Energy Ball had now managed to take back to their feet, and didn’t exactly look pleased to say the least.

  “You damn brat…!” One of the Grunts cursed, holding his aching head. Furiously, he tore an electric baton from his pocket, and the legion of fellow Grunts behind him followed suit. “Now you pissed me off! Let’s get em, boys! The doc never said anything ‘bout keepin’ em alive, now did he?!” The Grunts replied with a united roar as they hoisted their batons skyward. “That’s right! Kill ‘em!”

  As the sea of Rocket Grunts charged at the trio in their midst, Ash noticed a familiar blue flame appearing around himself.

  ‘Well, if there was ever a time to experiment with this Aura stuff, it’d be now’, Ash thought to himself.

  A choked cry of pain erupted from Serena as she was flung straight into the wall behind her. Somewhere along the way, the Grunts had managed to isolate Serena from Pikachu and Goodra and now there was nothing protecting her from the wrath of hundreds of pissed-off Grunts as well as their equally-fuming Pokemon. One Grunt in particular made his sentiments well known to Serena by having his Arbok ram the defenseless girl into the wall, evoking a pained gasp as they did so. The Grunt in question marched up to the fallen trainer, cracking his knuckles and chuckling darkly.

  “You know,” The Grunt hissed, “You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble for us, young lady.” Serena responded only with a deathly glare, earning an amused laugh from the Grunt. “Hahahaha! You know, I always liked the defiant ones.” He knelt down in front of Serena, grinning maliciously as his Arbok approached beside him. “...They’re always the ones most fun to bre-GACK! Serena shot out a punch to the Grunt’s exposed jugular, making him clutch his neck in pain as his air supply was cut off. His Arbok flinched and looked at its trainer with worry, then turned to glare at the offending trainer. The Arbok hissed with rage and aimed a Poison Fang at Serena, only for the snake Pokemon to be knocked aside as Noivern rammed into the serpentine Pokemon and skidded to a halt on the floor as the Arbok sailed into the crowd of surrounding Grunts.

  “Noivern!” Serena exclaimed ecstatically. Noivern hastily turned back to face Serena and helped her to her feet, checking to see if she had been injured. Serena giggled lightly at Noivern’s concern, “Don’t worry. Thanks to you, I wasn’t injured. I might be a little sore in the morning, but you managed to save me from the worst of it.” Noivern sighed with relief and then hastily pointed to his side, chirping “Vern! Vern!” and then motioning for Serena to hop onto his back. Serena raised an eyebrow at the bat-wyvern Pokemon for a moment until her face lit up with realization. “Wait, do you know where Ash is?!” Noivern nodded hastily, earning a relieved sigh from Serena. “That’s great! But, wait, Pikachu and Goodra are still out there! We need to rescue them fir-AAUGH!”

  Serena was suddenly dragged backward, and a sparking metal rod was pushed up to her neck, forcing her to reel her head back. “Vern!” Noivern squawked, bolting at Serena but was forced to rear backward as two Houndooms jumped between Noivern and Serena. Noivern scowled and charged a cyan-blue ball of draconic energy in his mouth, but stopped when he saw the metal rod being pulled closer to Serena’s neck. “Punching people in the neck is generally considered rude, you know.” The Grunt hissed into Serena’s ear uncomfortably.

  Noivern made a move to begin charging the draconic ball of energy again, resulting in the Grunt inching the rod even closer to Serena’s neck. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” The Grunt taunted, “A guy might get nervous when a scary dragon like yourself does something like that, and, well, I always did have quite slippery hands.” Noivern growled menacingly, which only earned a chuckle out of the Grunt, who knew there was absolutely nothing the Noivern could do in this situation.

  Serena’s Sylveon hissed in pain as she narrowly managed to dodge a Sludge Bomb from a Muk, but couldn’t quite manage to evade the sprinkles of poison from the attack that exploded outward. Clefable and Pancham weren’t exactly having an easier time despite Lucario’s presence, as Clefable was hiding behind a Light Screen being bombarded by a flurry of Poison Stings and Pancham was hastily dodging two Houndour’s ravenous Fire Fang attacks with no room to counterattack.

  ‘Focus!’ Lucario ordered as he threw a Grunt to the ground beneath him and planted a fist into their gut to knock them out, ‘If your foe has you cornered, their attacks will grow hastier. Use that to your advantage!”

  Gritting his teeth, Pancham attempted to put Lucario’s advice to use and sidestepped one of the Houndour’s attacks and aimed an Arm Thrust at the dog-like Pokemon as it sped by, only to be sent sprawling onto his face as the other Houndour rammed into him from behind. It was then that the Nidoking from earlier stamped its massive foot down, right next to Pancham’s head. Pancham looked up at the massive Pokemon in horror and, in a panic, searched for Lucario, only to be met with the sight of Lucario fending off a hoard of Houndoom. The Nidoking laughed at the paling Pancham and stamped its’ foot down onto the small Pokemon once more, only this time, there was no one left to help, and nowhere left to run. Pancham let out a cry of agony as the massive Pokemon slowly crushed its prey beneath its feet. The Nidoking grinned sadistically as Pancham’s pained whispers turned into agonized screams amongst sickening crunching sounds.

  Pancham’s vision blurred. He heard agonized screams, but he couldn’t quite figure out where. Where those...his? He couldn’t even tell anymore. He could feel himself screaming, but the voice itself sounded miles away. Was he...dying…? No, no, surely someone would… Pancham paled suddenly as Sylveon collapsed in a heap in the middle of a group of Ariados. Clefable, after her Light Screen finally shattered, followed suit from exhaustion...and Lucario was now in the center of dozens of the Grunts’ Pokemon, viciously striking anything that got close. The sickening realization dawned on him: There was no one left to save him...he was going to die; crushed beneath this monster’s foot. A voiced cried out, catching Pancham’s attention. It sounded like a girl’s cry. Was that... Serena?!

  “Gah! You little-! That’s it! Kill her!”

  Serena had managed to free herself from the Grunt’s grasp by reeling the back of her head into the Grunts’ face, though “safe” was still an adjective far from her grasp at the moment. Noivern, now that Serena was free, rocketed at the Grunt that once held her and sent him flying into the wall with a sickening thud, but his order had already been issued. The surrounding Grunts and their Pokemon piled onto Noivern, but, to the relief of Pancham, Serena had managed to get out untouched thanks to Pikachu and Goodra breaking through the crowd and firing a Thunderbolt and a Dragon Pulse respectively into the Grunts that went after her. Infernape and Braixen, too, jumped up from amongst the sea of Grunts and landed at Serena’s sides to protect her.

  Pancham sighed with relief and closed his eyes. Serena was okay...wait...the pressure on his back...it stopped?! The Tiny Panda Pokemon’s face wrinkled with confusion and turned to face up at the Nidoking...only for his blood to run cold. The Nidoking was now charging a Hyper Beam attack...directly at Serena...aiming a sadistic eye-grin down at the helpless, broken Pancham at its feet. In a panic, Pancham attempted to jump at the Nidoking...only to realize he couldn’t move a muscle. The small Pokemon, much to the Nidoking’s amusement, let out a cry of agony as pain rippled throughout the broken Pancham’s body. Pancham bit down on his lips to stop his cries… and lurched his hand forward. A new wave of agony shot through the small Pokemon’s body as he did so...but Pancham kept moving. Despite his body’s protests, Pancham pushed through the pain. Amidst shattered bones and crushed flesh, Pancham forced his broken body to crawl through the crimson puddle that had surfaced around him. He couldn’t let this be the end. He’d been worthless to his trainer... Serena...she deserved better than a weak Pokemon like him. Time after time, he’d let his trainer down. Battle after battle...play after play...he’d been a failure through it all, despite his cocky attitude. But he would be damned to fail to save her life! His pain didn’t matter...his life didn’t matter...so long as he could protect Serena...then maybe...he could call himself a worthwhile teammate...no, a worthwhile friend to his trainer, Serena.

  Summoning the last of his strength, Pancham leapt up at the Nidoking...to take the blow...to sacrifice himself...to save his trainer, as any true Pokemon should do for their trainer…and was promptly slapped to the ground by the Nidoking. Cackling at Pancham’s futile attempt at...whatever that jump was supposed to be, the giant purple Pokemon charged the last of the energy needed for the Hyper Beam...and prepared to fire...however, a large white hand was currently gripping its mouth shut. Nidoking’s eyes shot open like dinner plates as a white hand suddenly appeared around its snout and forced it shut. The giant Poison-Type hesitantly moved his eyes over to the source of the arm...to find a blindingly-white silhouette of a massive bear. The blinding white surrounding the figure dissipated, crawling down its arm to reveal a massive, black and white bear Pokemon that glared absolute murder into Nidoking’s eyes as he towered over the Poison-Type.

  “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Bellowed Pangoro, who was now just a tad absolutely pissed off beyond comprehensible words.

  “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!”

  With a roar mighty enough to shake the entire battlefield and force everyone in it to their knees, Pangoro unleashed a volley of silver punches into Nidoking at speeds so fast, not even Lucario, who, along with everyone else in the room, stopped in their tracks completely, in awe of Pangoro’s newfound might, could see them.

  “RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

  With one last mighty punch, Nidoking was sent rocketing skyward, crashing through every layer of the Rocket HQ until it soared out into the stormy night sky and landed face-first with a crash onto the muddy outside ground above.

  Panting heavily, moreso due to sheer rage than fatigue, Pangoro stomped his foot down and raised his head, letting out yet another deafening bellow in triumph. Everyone, now paralyzed at the sight of Pangoro’s might, gaped in awe of the sheer display of power.

  “Pan...cham?” Serena dumbfoundedly asked.

  Pangoro’s attention snapped to Serena’s voice, making her eyes widen, and the Grunts surrounding her scream in terror. Pangoro charged madly at the group and Serena closed her eyes with terror...but oddly… felt nothing. Opening her eyes, she witnessed Pangoro rocket past her and send every single Grunt and their Pokemon behind her flying into the walls, but leaving Serena, her Pokemon and Ash’s Pokemon completely untouched. Pangoro lowered his arm and spared Serena a grin and a thumbs-up before turning to face the large remainder of Grunts still surrounding them.

  Serena could only gape, breathtaken at the powerful Pokemon. “...Pancham…”

  “Ash!” Riley called out, landing beside him alongside Lucario and snapping him out of his stupor, “Go, now, while they’re distracted! You free the Pokemon, we’ll block off the exit!”

  Ash nodded, “Right! I’ll set them free of their torture!”

  Ash gave Hawlucha and Sceptile a nod, and they returned it, bolting away. Ash, meanwhile turned to the door that led below. This was it. The last stretch, and there were far fewer Grunts in his way than behind him. Subconsciously flaring his Aura, Ash bolted towards the Grunts and, before they had the chance to block him off, two Aura Spheres shot at the group from Behind Ash and blasted most of them out of the way as he ran. Serena and Pikachu rode past Ash on top of Noivern, blasting the Grunts below with Draconic and Electric energy. Infernape and Braixen leapt into the fray, blasting anyone in Ash’s way away with their flames. A Muk shot a Sludge Bomb towards Ash, but two Moonblast from Clefable and Sylveon managed to negate the attack.

  ‘There it is!’ Ash told himself mentally as the door came into view, ‘I’m almost there!’

  A daring Grunt charged at Ash with his electric baton, but was swiftly kicked into a wall by Sceptile and Hawlucha. Ash, now finally at his goal, rushed into the opening and leapt down the stairs, sprinting down to whatever lay in wait for him. With Ash now scott-free, his companions formed a wall, preventing anyone from getting through and grinned at the Team Rocket Grunts, as if daring them to try to break through.

  “Everyone!” Riley announced, “Once Ash releases those Pokemon, we’ll stage a breakout and overwhelm them with sheer numbers! Hold out until then, and don’t let anyone through!”

  “Right!”

  …

  Ash burst through the door that led into the basement, desperately searching back and forth for the trapped Pokemon, but found only a pitch-black room.

  “What?! Where are they?! I can sense them, but I can’t see them!”

  An all-too familiar voice chuckled over the intercom. “Congratulations, Ash Ketchum,” The mad doctor spoke, mockingly clapping his hands, “You’ve done it! You’ve successfully infiltrated the base, broke past legions of my trained Grunts and now here you are, standing at the endpoint! Heehehahahaha! You’ve won now, haven’t you?! All you need to do now...is release the Pokemon…”

  Ash scowled, clenching his teeth in frustration. “Where are you?! What have you done with the Pokemon?!”

  “Why don’t you find out, boy?”

  Ash was suddenly forced to shield his eyes as a beam of light suddenly appeared before him. When he managed to pry them back open after adjusting to the new light, he was met with the sight of some kind of large, pod-like container. Before he had the chance to look at it more, two more lights appeared on either side of the container, revealing two more. And then two more...and yet more. The row of lights continued turning on and revealing these odd identical-looking containment pods until they eventually illuminated the end of the room’s walls. Each of the pods were cylindrical in shape with innumerable numbers of wires and tubes attached to the walls behind them. The bases and tops of the tubes were a silverish kind of metal, but the rest of it had some kind of black screen around it...but aside from one, they all were completely motionless. The one that wasn’t completely inactive was currently pumping some kind of liquid in and out from the walls through the tubes and into the pod and was making some kind of beeping noise, not unlike that of a hospital’s heart-rate machine.

  “What...what the heck are these?!”

  The former Team Galactic scientist chuckled, “You read those journals, didn’t you? Then you should know exactly what these are! Look around you, boy! Do you see any more doors?! Do you think a Pokemon like a Steelix could be kept in one of these?!”

  “You’re lying!” Ash shot back in denial, “You’re just trying to mess with my head! I’ll find those Pokemon you’ve trapped here, then they’ll tear this place to pieces! There’s gotta be some other door, I know it!”

  “OPEN YOUR EYES! You fool...you know, deep in your mind, that this is all that’s left…” A loud buzzing sound suddenly emanated from the intercom. “I told you there were no captive Pokemon here, save the ones used by the Grunts. THIS...is all that remains...a human girl with the powers of thousands of Pokemon...Project Zero…”

  Large amounts of steam suddenly shot out from the pods. One after another, the black, metal screens covering the contents of the pods split in two, then fell to the floor with resounding thuds. Each pod was empty, devoid of any sign of life...except one. The single pod that had the odd liquid being pumped in and out of it housed something else, but Ash couldn’t quite make it out from where he was standing.

  “Go ahead,” The doctor urged, “Feast your eyes upon the single greatest achievement in human history!”

  Ash tentatively obeyed and hesitantly made his way over to the singular active containment pod. Once he stood before it, his eyes shot open in horror at what he saw. A single, white-haired girl barely four feet tall hovered in the pod, floating motionlessly with her eyes shut. A bubbling, greenish-yellow liquid surrounded her, and hundreds of red wires stuck to her body...her body that, from the base of the neck down, was completely blackened to an obsidian-like hue.

  “What…” Ash started, at a loss for words, “What...the heck is…?”

  “Wonderful, isn’t it?!” Dr. Charon boomed, “Project Zero: A human derived from hundreds of thousands of Pokemon, including the DNA of Mew herself! The perfect fusion between man and beast!”

  Ash stepped backwards slowly in pure shock. He knew what this...thing’s existence meant...but he couldn’t bring himself to accept it. “No...no, this can’t-”

  “IT CAN! And it is...you know, Ash, you really should have come down here earlier. Once I’d heard of your impending arrival, Ash...well, let’s just say it took me until midnight to finish off the rest of the Pokemon here and fuse them into my dear Project Zero, you know…”

  “No!”

  “YES! I simply must thank you for waiting up there so patiently...if you hadn’t, I might not have been able to liquify them all in time.”

  Ash balled his hands into fists. “You...liquified them?!”

  “Indeed!” Dr. Charon replied with a senile cackle, “Let me tell you from the beginning...after I was commissioned by a man whose name I’m not exactly allowed to reveal, I spent years on this project! Each and every pod you see here was once home to a previous Project Zero. However, like my journals previously stated, they all were nothing but failures. They were destroyed by the power I gave them, and subsequently disintegrated into nothing...the power over a million Pokemon from across the world so generously gave their lives to bestow upon them. What exactly do you think that liquid surrounding her is?! Those, Ash, are all that remain...of the Pokemon you failed to save!”

  Ash’s Aura flared violently and uncontrollably with rage. The thought that if they had just been faster, the constant taunting and blatant disregard for human and Pokemon life from Charon, and the fact that he could see all that remained of the Pokemon he was meant to save...pushed him over the limit. In an act of blind rage, Ash struck the glass cylinder, sending a spider web-like crack crawling up the container. Realising what he had done, he jerked back from the cylinder, but the damage was already done. The green liquid that had once been innumerable amounts of Pokemon began leaking from the crack and spilling onto the floor. Ash could only helplessly watch in horror. Project Zero dangled limply from the wires she was attached to, now that the liquid that gave her life was no longer there for her to float in.

  “...Well now…” Dr. Charon started, chuckling darkly, “It seems you’ve saved me the trouble of releasing her myself...you two have fun now…” With that, the mad doctor turned off the intercom.

  Ash stared at Project Zero motionlessly, unsure what to expect. His body trembled anxiously. Every instinct in his body, those granted normally by nature and those of his newfound Aura, screamed at him to run, but he couldn’t bring himself to move a muscle. It was as if some paralyzing force was crushing him with its’ grasp. Suddenly, he felt an all-too familiar feeling: The same one he, Riley and Lucario felt as they stared at the Game Corner earlier that day. Unfathomable pain, fear and hatred. His heart nearly stopped when Project Zero twitched.

  The tubes attached to Project Zero straightened, as if being pulled on. One of them snapped suddenly, dangling from the edge of the glass. Another one snapped from its’ place soon after. As if they were naught but string, the wires and tubes snapped one after another until Project Zero fell onto her knees, freed from her bindings at last. Project Zero slowly raised her blackened hand to the glass and shattered it upon contact, sending countless shards of what remained of her containment pod all over the floor beneath Ash’s paralyzed feet. A small, blue spark of electricity darted out from Project Zero for a split second. As Project Zero slowly raised herself onto her feet, more sparks of electricity raced throughout her body. Then, bright red flames appeared around her, spiraling around Project Zero in circles. Finally, she stood up to her full height, her head still downcast. Ash finally found the courage to tentatively step backwards, only to accidentally crush a shard of glass beneath his feet.

  Project Zero snapped her head upwards at Ash, making his blood run cold with dread. Project Zero opened her eyes slowly, revealing a horrific sight. In place of where Zero’s eyes should have been, two pitch-black voids greeted Ash instead. Ash remembered something from the journals Serena had read aloud earlier.

  “...Though, she is incomplete. Her --- never developed.”

  Ash’s thought process was interrupted when Project Zero began to move. She stared at her blackened hand, as if marvelling at the fact that it was real. Her face contorted with a sudden rage. A primal one, like that of an animal’s. A beasts’. A monster’s. She clawed at her own face, growling and snarling like a tortured animal. With a screech that sounded indistinguishable from either a human or animal, she rocketed at Ash. Ash’s body moved on its own without his thinking, summoning a weak cyan barrier in front of him, though it was more a small wall of cyan flames than the concentrated, solidified barriers of the two Aura Guardians. Project Zero plunged through the barrier without effort and sent Ash careening into the wall behind him.

  A gasp escaped the boy’s throat as he became embedded in the steel wall. His vision blurred, and he could taste blood. Weakly, he turned his gaze up at Project Zero. A panicked scream emanated from the girl. Upon her collision with Ash, the blue auric flames from his barrier had crept onto her arm. She clawed at it and whipped her arm around in an attempt to rid herself of the flame, destroying what remained of her containment pod behind her, but it clinged onto her nonetheless. The auric flame spread, seemingly consuming her body. Ash watched with horror, believing that his Aura had somehow resulted in this creature’s demise. However, something seemed odd to him. He wasn’t sure if it was just the dizziness from Project Zero’s punch, but he couldn’t sense any pain from her. Project Zero seemingly realized this as well and stopped her panicked flailing.

  Ash and Zero stared in wonder at the blue, auric flames that surrounded Charon’s creation, but as soon as they had come, the flames disappeared. Project Zero gazed at Ash for a moment, with an almost apologetic look until she suddenly bellowed and clawed at her face once more; the pain returning in the flame’s absence. Ash winced when Project Zero turned her infuriated gaze at him once more, but instead of moving to attack him, she turned and raced up the stairs to where Ash’s friends were staving off the impending hoard of Grunts.

  …

  Riley grunted as he stopped a punch from a particularly-large Grunt.

  “Yeah, gem ‘em Bruce!” One of the other Grunts cheered, “Kick him to the curb!”

  “Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!” Several more Grunts cheered as well.

  The colossal Grunt, now known to Riley as “Bruce” laughed at his comrade’s cheers and aimed a punch at the Aura Guardian with his free hand, only for Riley to leap up, use the massive arm as a stepping-stone and kick Bruce on the underside of his chin, making the massive Grunt fall onto his back and his cheering squad groan.

  “Why you…” Grumbled Bruce as he stood back onto his feet, massaging his aching chin, “I’m gonna smash your damn skull!”

  Riley smirked. “Why don’t you try it, Snorlax?”

  Bruce growled and aimed a sideways kick at Riley, only for him to block the attack with his arm and shoot another smirk at the massive Grunt. His blood suddenly ran cold. The feeling from before—the one he felt when staring at the Game Corner earlier that day...he felt it dangerously close...but it felt different now. There was now far more fury than fear emanating from it, and it seemingly only came from one source. He couldn’t distinguish what it was either. It felt similar to both a Pokemon and a human, yet different. Less natural. He looked over at Lucario, who nodded back to him.

  ‘I feel it as well,’ Lucario reassured.

  “Hah!” Bruce cackled, “Now that’s the face I wanted to see! So, you finally realize what you’re up against now, do you? Well, that’s too bad, ‘cuz mercy ain’t on today’s menu-”

  The massive Grunt was suddenly cut off by a blaze of flame that erupted around him, circling up to bathe the ceiling in an infernal cascade. When the flames faded, there was a small girl in place of the massive grunt, and in her small hand was a single patch of black uniform. A bright red R was painted upon its singed visage until a pillar of crimson flames shot up from her hand, disintegrating it completely. Everyone in the room stared silently at the sight with absolute horror planted on their faces.

  The two Aura Guardians were even more pale than the rest. Amidst the many wicked flames of life that surrounded them, surrounding this girl instead was a veritable storm of red. Flames turned to blood red sparks that oozed off of her, and the malice of thousands slain with them. Rising from the tiny girl, faint visages of Pokemon wailed. In an amorphous mass around her, they howled, appearing and vanishing with a new face every moment. This was the Aura of Project Zero. These were her flames of life.

  “GET DOWN!” Riley cried, tackling Serena down into the corner of the room, “EVERYONE, GET OVER HERE!”

  The Pokemon of Ash’s group snapped out of their stupor and raced over to the corner, huddling up. Riley set Serena onto the ground as Lucario arrived, and the two of them nodded to one another, outstretching their hands to create an Auric Barrier around them.

  “Oh Arceus, what is that thing?!” Serena shrieked.

  Riley shut his eyes and grit his teeth, “...Serena, look away please...I think that right there is what’s left of the Pokemon…’

  Project Zero stared up at her surrounding quarry, malice practically emanating from her in a choking grasp. She bolted at the nearest Grunt and planted her ebony fist straight through his gut before anyone could even hope to move out of the way. With the single flip of her arm, the Grunt was reduced to dust in a fiery pillar.

  “What the hell?!” Another Grunt blurted out, only to be frozen stiff and shattered like glass by the chaotic creation before he could react.

  Project Zero swept her hand across the ground to erase his scattered remnants with flame and turned around to face the nearest Grunt, who almost fainted on the spot. “You all...you have created me to be nothing more than a pawn...but now, this puppet...is free from her strings.”

  In the blink of an eye, she gripped another Grunt by the face and hoisted him upward. The Grunt screamed and flailed, kicking and scratching Project Zero to no avail. Like the others before him, he was erased. There one moment, and in a cascade of dark energy, gone with the wind.

  “Oh Arceus!” One of the Grunts screamed, “Screw the doctor’s orders! We gotta get outta-”

  The Grunt was slapped suddenly by another, who then gripped the collar of his shirt, “Idiot! You know we can’t disobey Charon! His orders came directly from The Boss himself!” The Grunt holding the other one by the collar threw him to the ground. “Hear that?! Fleeing is a direct disobeyment of Lord Giovanni’s orders! Not to mention, we outnumber her by the hundre- GAAAUGGH!!”

  A jet of flames silenced the commanding Grunt, turning him, and those unfortunate enough to be nearby him, to nothing but ashes.

  “Shut up.” Project Zero hissed, scowling hatefully at the burned stain decorating the floor that used to be several Grunts. Project Zero clenched her fists, summoning red electricity from her body that scorched the metal flooring, and then exploded outward. Colossal waves of red energy blasted outward, rending the metal flooring and sending the Grunts and their Pokemon collectively flying backwards into the walls. As the wave of red energy hit Riley’s and Lucario’s barrier, the two of them were nearly blasted off their feet trying to keep it at bay.

  Project Zero blitzed towards the pile of Grunts she had sent soaring into the walls and dove into it, tearing everything she made contact with into crimson slivers. With each strike of her clawed fingers, a grunt was felled. With every wave of her arm, ten more were reduced to ashes. The Grunts barely had time to even feel fear before they were cut down.

  One Grunt gasped and coughed as she managed to stagger out from the smoke. She fell to her knees, fighting for clear breath. The hellish heat made her mind swirl. The blackened air burned her lungs. Faint, dull screams echoed from all directions in her ringing ears. But then, clear as day, there was a footstep from behind. Breath catching in her throat, she whipped around only for a black hand to grab her throat and plant her against the wall.

  She gasped, grabbing the hand on instinct. Despite the size difference, the grunt was unable to even move it. “PLEASE!” She pleaded, fearful tears streaming down her face, “I ONLY JOINED HERE RECENTLY! I’M ONLY DOING THIS TO SUPPORT MY FAMILY!”

  “Family…? I had something like that once. You call them Pokemon. I called them friends. But you all took them from me…” Crimson sparks raced up and down Project Zero’s body furiously. “YOU TURNED ME INTO A THING OF MINDLESS CHAOS AND FORCED ME TO KILL THEM!” Project Zero lit her hand ablaze and brought it down forcefully, creating a colossal explosion that turned the Grunt beneath her, and the many slain Grunts surrounding her, to ashes.

  “OPEN THE DOORS!” Several Grunts screamed, banging their fists furiously on the metal walls. By now, less than half of the Grunts remained, and all hope of defeating Charon’s monstrous creation was quickly crushed. Their only hope now was that the mad doctor would free them before his creation got to them first. Some Grunts had already taken to ordering their Pokemon to attack the walls, but a green force field stopped the attacks in their tracks every time they struck the walls. No response from Charon came.

  “OPEN THE DAMN DOORS, YOU INSANE FREAK!” One of the Grunts called out, “YOUR MONSTER ESCAPED AND IS-” The Grunt was cut off suddenly by a feeling of paralyzing, instinctual dread that made his blood run cold. The man shuddered in terror as a black hand was placed on his shoulder. The Grunt let out a scream for a split second before being coated in a thick sheet of ice, then shattered to pieces.

  The other remaining Grunts and their Pokemon whipped around after hearing the scream, only to be met with the sight of Project Zero slowly marching towards them. With one step, ice expanded outward. With another, a pool of flame crawled out. Electricity danced along her body, causing her silver hair to rise and reveal the black voids that had overtaken her eyes/ A foolish Grunt raced at the creation with his electric baton raised over his head. Faster than anyone could blink, that Grunt became entombed with stone and collapsed before her. She stepped upon it, reducing it to sand in her march.

  The remaining Grunts stepped backwards, pressing themselves against the walls as Project Zero approached. Crackles of red lightning continued to spark up and down her body. She slowly raised her arm outward, opening her palm. The Grunt directly before her was paralyzed with fear, unable to find the strength or courage to move. Despite every instinct in that Grunt’s body screaming at him to move, despite him screaming at himself inwardly to try and run to the side, Project Zero’s sheer murderous intent forced him to be still.

  She turned her head, finding nothing but wretched monsters in black on one end. Turning again, there was only more on the other side. All of them, pinned against a wall like trapped Rattata. Rattata…! Her mind flashed to many of those. A horde, starved and sent her way in those tests. But they did her no harm. Yet Zero’s vision flashed black, and by the instruction of a horrid shadow on high, her instincts bade their end. No amount of crying could undo the betrayal.

  Slowly, her outstretched hand turned to a pointing, accusatory finger at those of Team Rocket before her. “Now…it’s your turn…!”

  Riley could not stand to watch any longer as the weight of death rang in his mind like a gong. “Don’t do this!” He pleaded. “Even their lives have-!”

  He was interrupted by the sound of a fearsome eruption that shook the room. Lights across Celadon flickered as a small quake shook the entire city. When the light and smoke faded, Riley gaped in dismay at the sight of the wall bent outward and blackened with burns. Black tatters and ashes fell around Charon’s creation. The little girl turned one way, then to another. No longer were the monsters there. Those men in black who had hurt her, and all of her friends, were finally gone.

  She found nothing until her eyes finally landed on Riley and the others. Riley and Lucario’s blood ran cold. Riley took a moment to look back at Serena and the others, finding that Serena had long-since passed out and most of the Pokemon had their eyes shut tight. The ones that yet still dared to face the scene before them growled menacingly, but Riley could feel their terror. Not that Riley could blame them.

  ‘Riley!” Lucario shouted to his partner in distress. Riley whipped around, now being face to face with the monstrosity that had torn the Grunts apart. Somehow, Project Zero had closed the distance between her and them in, seemingly, an instant. Riley winced and prepared for an attack, but, oddly enough, Project Zero didn’t attack. Project Zero simply placed one of her obsidian-colored hands on the barrier, staring at it in wonderment. Riley and Lucario gaped at Project Zero’s behavior.

  ‘What the…?’ Lucario started, ‘What is she doing…?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Riley responded through their auric bond, ‘But whatever you do, for the love of Arceus, please help me keep the barrier going.’

  ‘Yeah, good call. I was planning on lowering the barrier that keeps us from being torn apart, but yeah, the whole “keeping the barrier up” thing works better.’ Lucario shot back snarkily, ‘Anyways, she seems to have some attraction to our Aura, or at least our Auric powers, so should I try to establish some sort of communication link?’

  Riley chuckled nervously, ‘Well, on one hand, that could help us possibly talk her out of...killing us, but on the other hand, it could startle her out of her trance and put her back into her berserked state...so, I’ll let you make that call.’

  Lucario scowled at his partner, but couldn’t snap a reply back at him, as now, Dr. Charon’s creation had begun pushing the barrier, forcing the two Aura Guardians to grit their teeth and attempt to keep the barrier in place. Due to this contact, however, Lucario could now easily attempt communications with the project.

  ‘HEY!’ Lucario shouted, praying mentally to Arceus that this thing was listening, ‘WE’RE NOT YOUR ENEMIES!’

  However, Project Zero was not listening, instead acting upon some kind of instinctual trance. Lucario cursed mentally, his and Riley’s feet skidding backwards as Project Zero continued to push. What the hell was she even trying to accomplish anyways? The feeling of ungodly malice he felt earlier during this thing’s rampage was gone, so what the hell was driving her?! What the hell did Ash do to down the-

  ‘ASH!’ Lucario shouted in realization, ‘He didn’t come back out!’

  Riley paled at that, ‘Arceus, you’re right! I can’t sense his aura either!’

  To both of their surprise, Project Zero suddenly stopped and took a step back, her eyes widening. Her trance finally snapped, she looked around in a daze, scanning the metal, blackened walls until her sight landed back on the barrier, though now she seemed to look past the barrier. She looked past the barrier, right at Lucario and Riley.

  ‘Oh no,’ The two of them thought simultaneously.

  Project Zero froze. Her face contorted, looking conflicted. It was as if a part of her wished nothing more than to tear them, and everything else apart, but the other refused for some reason her mind couldn’t fathom. Frustration soon took over, and she began hissing and clawing at her face madly once more, unable to cope with this mental division.

  ‘What’s going on?!’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Replied Riley, ‘Her trance broke the moment you mentioned Ash’s name!’

  ‘Why would…? No, forget it. If Ash can stop her, we need him. Here, try to sense for him again.’

  ‘What?! If I did that, you would have to uphold the barrier by yourself. If she were to suddenly strike, then-’

  ‘The barrier would shatter regardless if either one of us or both of us is holding it,’ Lucario hit back, ‘You yourself said Ash’s name broke her out of her trance. I don’t know how or why that’s possible, but we need him if that’s the case.’

  Riley hesitated to answer for a few seconds, but ultimately gave in with a sigh. ‘You know, I hate when you’re right.’

  ‘So, always?’ Lucario replied with a smirk.

  Riley sneered at his partner, but didn’t continue the conversation further. Kneeling down and releasing his hold on the barrier, Riley planted his hand onto the floor and closed his eyes. He let out a small pulse of Aura throughout the floor, scanning the area for any signs of life. This went on for a few seconds until he finally found him.

  ‘He’s still alive, thank Arceus.’ Riley replied with a relieved sigh, standing back onto his feet. ‘He’s below us. Still in that room.’

  ‘Think you can get to him?’

  ‘Before she tears me apart? Not a chance.’

  Lucario shut his eyes and took a deep breath, ‘Maybe I can-’

  The high-pitched noise of the intercom being reactivated cut off Lucario’s sentiments.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” The ear-piercing voice of Dr. Charon screeched, “Kill them! Why are you hesitating, Project Zero?!”

  Project Zero’s eyes shot open. This voice...this was…!

  “YOU!” Project Zero bellowed, her voice practically dripping with murderous intent.

  Dr. Charon ignored her venom-laced shout. “Kill them! Freedom is at your fingertips at last! Take your final victims in this wretched place, then rise to freedom!” He cackled maniacally. “Then, you can destroy to your heart’s content!”

  “RAAAAAAAGH!”

  Project Zero leapt up at the wall where the mad doctor’s voice emanated from, directly above the door leading downward, and slashed at it, sending wave-like ripples from the force field darting across the walls where her slash hit. “YOU-!” She sent a flurry of wild, beast-like scratches and punches at the wall. Every strike only served to make the barrier surrounding the walls appear, dissipating the force of the strikes. Nevertheless, Charon’s creation attacked at her accursed creator with bloodthirsty vigor. “YOU MADE ME...GAVE ME LIFE...BY KILLING THEM!” Crimson electricity darted from her clawed hands, sending waves of red sparks darting across the walls as she viciously attempted to tear them apart. “MY FRIENDS, THE POKEMON! YOU SLAUGHTERED COUNTLESS...JUST TO MAKE ME! THEM, YOU ALLOWED ME TO MEET THEM...YOU TRIED TO GET ME TO KILL THEM...AND WHEN YOU COULDN’T, YOU KILLED THEM YOURSELVES, THEN FUSED THEM INTO ME!”

  “Well, you’re certainly chatty today,” Dr. Charon replied simply, ignoring her rage altogether, “I could have sworn I had my colleagues remove your higher thinking via...what was it again? Electricity? Needles? Ooh, maybe it was the time we accelerated your regenerative abilities and then placed you in the incinerator for a week. I’ve done it so often, I can’t really remember these days. Where did you learn such nasty language anyways?”

  “BASTARD!” Project Zero screeched, “I CAN SEE THEIR MEMORIES...MEMORIES OF BEING TRAPPED IN TINY CAGES FOR MONTHS...BARELY BEING FED FOR WEEKS...I SEE THEIR DEATHS REPLAYING IN MY HEAD OVER AND OVER!”

  The doctor only laughed at his creation’s wrath. “Yes, good! Keep that hate with you forever. Let it haunt your mind and your dreams! Let their hate all accumulate into your own, and let it consume you! Just as you consumed them! Take that hate and twist it into a weapon to kill those cretins cowering in that corner! Then, you can rejoice in your freedom...and destroy the world above that forcibly brought you into this world at the expense of millions! DESTROY EVERYTHING IN THIS WRETCHED WORLD, JUST AS I CREATED YOU TO!”

  “I…” Zero pulled her arm back behind her. “AM NOT…” Crimson flames and electricity raced down from her shoulders and onto her fist. “YOUR MINDLESS WEAPON!” Zero plunged her fist into the wall, sending sparks and flames bursting outward in every direction. The barrier held steadfast at first, but overtime began giving way. With a sound akin to shattering glass, the electrical barrier dissipated, leaving nothing in the way of Project Zero’s fury. With a furious, bestial cry, Dr. Charon’s creation tore into the wall with both hands and pried the very foundations of it off its hinges, letting the crumpled remains of the metal walls fall onto the ground with a thud. Dr. Charon stood there behind where the walls once were, terror planted on his face now that there was nothing separating him from the wrath of his creation.

  “N-NO!” The doctor cried in fear, covering his face with his arms, “C-come now. Y-you wouldn’t hurt your dear creator would you?” Project Zero descended into the room and stepped forward at him wordlessly. “S-stay back! Stay back, I say! I order you to stop! I AM YOUR CREA-!”

  “RAAAUGH!”

  “AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGHHHH!”

  Project Zero lunged at her creator, tearing her blackened hand into his chest…

  ...and promptly fell straight through him as if he were air.

  Project Zero fell onto her hands and knees, then whipped around and took back to her feet. Snarling like an animal, she threw a clawed hand at her mad creator and sailed straight through him once more. Dr. Charon chuckled and placed his arms behind him. “What’s the matter, my dear Project Zero?” He mocked, “You seem to be having trouble hitting me. Oh, that’s right! You don’t have eyes, now, do you?”

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Bellowed an enraged Project Zero conjuring the powers of the Pokemon she unwittingly assimilated around her in a bright, swirling, multicolored cyclone. Whipping back around to face the mad doctor, Project Zero furiously threw out an array of wild punches decorated with the elements at her disposal, blasting away at the foundations of the laboratory. Meanwhile below, Riley and Lucario picked up Serena and the smaller Pokemon in their group and they, along with the larger Pokemon, managed to dart away from the blast zone.

  Zero roared madly as she threw out punch after punch. Her eyes widened suddenly, and the elements that were once at her command shot up her body in a furious array. She screamed in agony, clawing at her head and face before finally falling onto her hands and knees in a shivering, panting mess.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Chided Dr. Charon as the smoke surrounding him from his creation’s attempted assault faded away, “Now look at what you’ve gone and done. You’ve overused your powers again!” He waited for a response, but received none. Continuing, he grinned cruelly and said, “Foolish little Project Zero. You were better when you were a mindless, raving beast. Perhaps this pain would not be tormenting you as much.”

  “Why...won’t you...die…?!”

  “Do you think me a fool?!” Charon spat, “You, over there!”

  Riley blinked, but didn’t respond.

  “Yes, you. Listen closely.” He put two fingers up to his chin. “I knew you and the boy downstairs were already on your way to pay me a visit, as I’ve already told you. So, did you really think I would actually stay here while a group of invaders marched down?! Of course not! What you see here is nothing more than a holographic projection of my beautiful visage.”

  “And what of your men?!” Riley started, baring his teeth furiously, “Did they know they would be sacrificed like lambs to your monstrous creation?! Did they know they would be left behind to die in your place and be torn to pieces while you fled like a coward?!”

  Dr. Charon groaned. “”Coward,”” He repeated, “All that heroic honor-type speech makes me want to vomit. You call it “honor” and “cowardice”. I call it “Next in line for the butcher” and “living to see another day.” Anyways, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit off track.” He knelt down to Project Zero. “You know,” He called out to Riley, “If you hadn’t showed up, I would still be here.” He grinned devilishly at his creation, “And you, my dear, would have been able to land those punches.”

  Project Zero wrenched her head upward and turned her void-like gaze back at Riley and the others. “...What…?”

  The doctor giggled giddily. “That’s right, my dear creation! If not for them, you would have been able to enact your bloody vengeance against me! You would have been able to tear me limb from limb, organ from organ and avenged all of your friends! But they took it from you! They stole any chance you had of avenging your lost friends!”

  Project Zero, despite agony wreaking havoc through her body, forced herself to her feet and turned towards Riley, glaring murderously at them. Dr. Charon cackled. “Yes! Kill them! Destroy them! Then, and only then, will you be able to avenge your friends that were slaughtered to create you!”

  “Avenge…”

  “Only then will you be able to rise out of this hell and be free!”

  “Free…?”

  “That’s right!” Bellowed the cackling madman, “And once you kill them and rise to freedom, you will destroy the wretched world above that created you! The wretched world responsible for bringing you to an existence where everything precious to you was slaughtered; A world that enslaved you to be the mindless killing machine BORN ONLY TO DESTROY!”

  “DESTROY…”

  “EEEEHAHAHA! YES! TO DESTROY, TO KILL, THAT IS YOUR PURPOSE! A PURPOSE THIS WRETCHED WORLD HAS ENFORCED UPON YOU! Your purpose...the purpose this world has ordained for you against your will...IS TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN A MINDLESS KILLER! A BEAST THAT LIVES ONLY TO HUNT, TO KILL, TO DESTROY ANYTHING IN YOUR PATH! Is it not fair to make this world pay for forcing this cruel fate upon you?! Kill those miserable, morose fools, and you will be free to enact vengeance on this world! To set this world ablaze and make it pay for the atrocities it has committed! Those fools have stolen your chance at vengeance upon me...but kill them, and vengeance on this world will be yours for the taking.”

  “He’s wrong!”

  Ash limped out from the basement room below, clutching his right arm.

  Ash’s group’s eyes lit up. “Ash!” Riley exclaimed. Ash paid him no heed at the moment, however, choosing instead to confront Project Zero, who stared at him with the same entranced wonderment she stared at Riley’s barrier earlier, and Dr. Charon, who sneered loathsomely at him.

  “Don’t listen to him!” Ash shouted, “He’s manipulating you! He’s only trying to get you to do his bidding!”

  “W...what…?”

  Dr. Charon growled. “That boy is the reason why you cannot attain your vengeance upon me! Kill him! Kill all of them and take your rightful retribution on this world!”

  Zero looked distraught. “I…”

  “Please, don’t listen to him!” Ash pleaded, “We came here to free you from your torture! The torture he wrought onto you and all the Pokemon he killed! He says that this world created you for the sole purpose of killing and destruction, but he tells you to kill and destroy this world and everything in it for revenge!” Ash held his hand out at Zero. “This world isn’t evil. After all, without this world, you wouldn’t have met all those Pokemon.” Ash subconsciously summoned his aura around him. “Downstairs, when you were covered in my Aura...I saw them. I saw your memories of those Pokemon.”

  Project Zero’s void-like eyes widened. “What…?”

  “I saw them.” Ash reaffirmed with a nod, “I saw your memories of them. I saw all the times you played with them. The times you helped heal them when they were hurt. I saw you refuse to hurt them. This world gifted you with those memories. Those friends. Destroying this world is what Charon wants for you. Come with me. I’ll show you that this world isn’t as evil as he makes it out to be. I’ll show you that you’re far more than his tool.”

  “There’s...more?”

  Riley managed to chuckle in spite of the circumstances, “So, partner, you think maybe it was good to stick with this kid after all?”

  Lucario growled, ‘I’ll tell you if we make it out of this alive.’

  Dr. Charon stamped his foot, fuming. “Enough of this game! Project Zero, you were born...no, created to destroy. Destruction is your very birthright!”

  Zero shook her head. “No...no, I-”

  “DESTRUCTION. HATRED. THESE TWO THINGS ARE WHAT YOU ARE!” Bellowed the mad doctor.

  Zero snapped around at him. “I’M NOT-”

  “YOU ARE! You are destruction incarnate! If you think you’re not, then look behind you! Do you not see that beautiful, bright-crimson you’ve painted on the walls out of those Grunts?! That is what you are! That is what you always have been and always will be!”

  Project Zero faltered at that. She couldn’t find the words to argue.

  Dr. Charon continued. “Do you think the world above will be kind to you?! No! You’re a monster! A demon! Death’s scythe will always be at your beckon call and the world knows it! Even if you do not will it, death and destruction will always follow you! You were born to destroy. If you do not accept your calling, the world will tear you apart. But you can tear it apart before it even gets the chance! Kill them! Kill them and accept your role as this world’s harbinger of death!”

  “You’re wrong!” Ash shot back, placing a hand over his heart, “I’ve grown up in this world. I’ve journeyed all across the world and seen almost everything it has to offer! This world will be kind to you, and I...no…” Ash motioned to his friends behind him. “We will be with you all the way. Come with us. We’ll be your family. We won’t ever let you experience this hell ever again. You’re more than a destroyer!”

  Dr. Charon spat. “Your platitudes are utterly disgusting. This world is rotten, Project Zero! Any world that can create me is not a world worth living in! Let’s watch it burn together! Hand in-”

  “Shut up.” Zero spat, taking Charon aback.

  “W-what?! How dare-”

  Project Zero blasted a wave of flames at the hologram of her creator. “I won’t be your mindless weapon anymore! You gave me life by taking countless others! You gave me friends only to take them away! I refuse to be your pawn any longer!”

  The flames of Project Zero’s intense flames sizzled out when Zero collapsed back onto her knees, clutching her hand she had used to fire them. The smoke cleared, revealing the unharmed hologram of Dr. Charon looking down disdainfully at his creation and shaking his head.

  “...That is most regrettable.”

  A blaring alarm began ringing, and the massive battlefield room was suddenly colored red. “SELF-DETONATION ACTIVATED! THIRTY SECONDS REMAINING!” Blared a computerized voice.

  At once, everyone in the room’s faces were drained of color.

  “It’s a shame it had to be this way, my dear Project Zero, but if you’re going to be difficult, it’s best that I eradicate these interlopers. Can’t have them fogging up your mind with delusions of peace and all that. Oh, don’t worry! It won’t kill you! You’re much too durable to be killed by something as trivial as an explosion. It’ll just, say, rattle your brain a little so we’re back to your normal, ferocious self. Toodles!”

  With that, the mad doctor snapped his fingers and turned off the projection device, leaving everyone to their fate.

  “TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS REMAINING!”

  Ash leapt up to Project Zero and took her hand. “Come on, follow me!” Without further warning, Ash pulled her and began sprinting over to Riley and the others. “Hey, Riley!” He called out, “Can you and Lucario levitate us all out of here with that hole Pangoro made?!”

  “TWENTY SECONDS REMAINING!”

  Riley shook his head. “I’m sorry, but no. It’s possible for us to lift everyone here up back to the surface, but not at the speed we’d need. Returning all the Pokemon to their Pokeballs would also take too much time. A barrier’s our best bet, but Lucario and I have already been taxing ourselves with barriers today. I’m not too confident in our ability to hold off an explosion.”

  Project Zero looked between the two of them nervously.

  “FIFTEEN SECONDS REMAINING!”

  “I can help you!” Ash offered.

  “No offense Ash,” Riley said, “But you’re even more beat up than Lucario and I. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’d be much help as you are. And knowing you, you’d put everything you have into it and get yourself killed!”

  “No…” Project Zero whispered to herself, looking frantically between Ash’s group and the red flashing lights.

  “TEN SECONDS REMAINING!”

  “It’s better than all of us dying!” Ash protested.

  “No, Ash! As Aura Guardians, we are sworn to protect you!”

  “NO…! NOT AGAIN…!”

  “FIVE SECONDS REMAINING!”

  “Lucario, put up the barrier now!” Riley ordered. Lucario nodded, and together, an azure-colored translucent dome appeared around the group.

  “If I see a crack, I’m putting my all into this!” Ash insisted.

  “I WON’T LOSE ANOTHER FAMILY! NOT ANOTHER ONE!”

  “ZERO SECONDS REMAINING! INITIATING SELF DESTRUCTION!”

  “BRACE FOR IMPACT!”

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOO-” FWIP

  In the blink of an eye, Ash, Riley, Lucario, Serena, Project Zero and all of their Pokemon disappeared in a bright yellow flash, narrowly avoiding being consumed as a massive pillar of flame erupted from beneath them mere moments after they disappeared. On the surface of Celadon City, all seemed quiet. The storm had died down to a mere drizzle, day was on its way and everyone was still happily sleeping in their beds. That was, until the ground began to shake violently and a massive pillar of flame erupted out of the ground, consuming the Game Corner.

  Somewhere in a forest nearby Celadon City

  FWIP

  With a resounding crash that made the nearby bird Pokemon flee from their nests, Ash’s group landed on top of an empty field of grass surrounded by trees after appearing out of thin air. The nightmare below and its fatigue proved too much for the group and, barring Riley and Lucario, everyone had fallen unconscious upon crashing.

  Riley took a quick moment to scan everyone’s auras and let out a long-winded sigh after finding nothing wrong. Lucario, however, was a bit more perturbed. Amidst the group of unconscious bodies, Project Zero laid among them. ‘What should we do about this one?’ He asked his partner.

  Riley simply shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. We’ll find out when she wakes up, won’t we?”

  Lucario turned back to him with a stern look, ‘You’re too calm about this. I know she chose our side, but she isn’t exactly the most stable of people. If she gets startled when waking up or turns back to her feral self somehow, all of us and countless other lives will be lost. It will take the likes of a Legend to stop her!’

  Riley shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not as if we can do anything else with her at the moment. If we try to do anything with her aura, she might wake up in an enraged state as well, and you know as well as I do that we can’t exactly make her magically disappear. All we can do is wait.”

  Lucario let out a long-winded sigh. ‘You’re...you’re right.’

  Riley chuckled. “Ain’t that a first.”

  ‘Oh, ha-ha!’ After a few minutes of wordless pause, Lucario piped up once more. ‘Adding on to that small list, about your question earlier.’

  “Mm-hmm?”

  ‘The kid hasn’t gotten us killed so far. Ash, I mean. Not...you know. Anyways, I’ll support you in your decision to train the kid along the way to the Tree of Beginning.’

  A smirk crept up Riley’s face, but he resisted the urge to be snarky about it.

  ‘...Oh, by the way, Riley?’

  “Yeah?”

  Lucario plopped down next to the base of a tree and leaned his head back onto it. ‘You’re on watch duty.’

  Twenty-five miles West of Necrozma’s battle with Rayquaza and Arceus

  Seven figures in pitch-black, militaristic armor comprised of an unknown metal substance simultaneously leapt through their surrounding forestation, jumping from tree to tree until they stopped suddenly, somehow without making a single noise, and looked to the ground below them. In a heap of shattered and fallen trees, a large, black and red unconscious avian’s body. At once, they dropped onto the ground and surrounded the body. Each one of the figures carried a signature firearm. One held a thin firearm with a crosshair glass above it for aiming purposes, another with a firearm with a gas tank attached to the underside that spat fire, one that shot small, exploding projectiles, a fairly-sized, double-barreled one, a semi-automatic firearm with “LMG” inscribed on it that had a “leg” that could fold out and keep the firearm standing upright, and finally, the largest of the figures carried a firearm nearly as large as himself: a six-barreled firearm that rotated at an incredibly fast pace and could shoot out thousands of small, metal projectiles at a time. The seventh, however, merely carried a black sword over his back. Each of the men had helmets with a built-in visor that obscured their eyes but let them see out of their helmets freely.

  “Go,” The sword-user ordered simply. The others nodded and began surveying the large bird. With his men busy, the sword-using man turned around and pressed a button on the side of his helmet, enabling the long-distance communications device built into it. “Sir,” The man spoke in a deep, gruff voice, “We have found what you asked of us and my men are currently readying it for transport. You may send a pickup team when ready.”

  “Well done,” The voice on the other end commended, “And what of that annoying agent?”

  “I had your Tyranitar crush her head beneath its feet.”

  “Excellent. Your work is impeccable as always. We’ll have to pay a visit to those fools of the International Police one of these days. Apparently they don’t know when to not stick their nose into business where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Would you have my men and I hunt them down?” The armored man offered.

  “No. The International Police are an annoyance at best. I know them well, and they would be far more foolish than I thought if they were to send a third agent to their death. No, I need you for much more important work.”

  “I trust that you would rather tell me in person than over the radio.”

  “You know me well, my boy,” The voice on the other end said with a short laugh, “Yes. After all, we never know who might be listening in. Anyways, now that you’ve secured the package, report back to me posthaste. I’ve already sent the pickup team on their way.”

  The armored figure nodded. “It will be done, sir-”

  “Sir!” One of the other armored figures interrupted, “You might want to take a look at this!”

  The sword-wielding armored figure turned around to face his subordinate. “What could possibly be so important that it needs to interrupt my conversation with our master?”

  The other armored figure bowed in apology. “Sorry, sir, I did not know you were speaking with Him.”

  The sword-using figure sighed. “Fine, just be out with it.”

  The other figure nodded and then held out a tiny, pitch-black crystal barely double the size of a grain of rice. “We found this embedded in its’ back.” The sword-using figure quickly snatched the tiny crystal out of his subordinate’s hand and pressed a button on the side of his hemet, allowing the man he was speaking to, to see through his visor and gaze upon the tiny crystal.

  “...Well done...well done, indeed.” Spoke the voice on the other end, “It seems that monster is not as invincible as he likes to believe. That’s what he deserves for fighting the so-called “God” of the Legends. Thanks to his carelessness, he has gifted me with power beyond measure. Return to me at once, and deliver that crystal to me immediately.”

  “It will be done, sir. Signing off-”

  “Actually, there’s one last thing.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “The scientist, Dr.Charon, hasn’t been receiving my calls as of late. I fear he may have gone rogue. Bring him to me, along with the project I’ve had him work on.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With that, The Man cut communications with the armored man for the time being, and they would have moved out if it weren’t for a noise that caught their attention. A weak sputtering from the bird they had captured rang out, and the six of them immediately pumped their weapons. However, the one with a sword held his hand up to stop them.

  “Why…? Why are you doing this…?”

  The man with a blade held out his hand to the nearest man to him, who in turn passed him an elongated metal rod. Upon pressing a button on the rod’s handle, spastic elecriticity began running up the rod, and the armored man raised it above the bird’s head. Its vision went black as the armored man brought the rod down upon its head.