Sabrina and I sat in the ready room with a holographic map detailing Indigo in bright colours. Several sites were marked on it along with various icons indicating specific force dispositions.
Rangers had tree symbols, Gym Leaders had their badges, and Police had their service badges.
Lance hovered over the tactical display with Lorelei and another woman acting as aides-de-camp, feeding him updates as they came in about the raids on specific servers.
Somewhere out there, Cypher and my other two Porygon were putting up a hell of a fight.
There was a tense air in the room as everyone waited for the other shoe to drop.
For Hack3erman, or Blaine, or someone to poke their heads up and try something.
“Isn’t this fun?” giggled Lola, who’d chosen to sit on my left while Sabrina sat to my right.
She’d brought knitting supplies and was currently patching up one of the kids’ outfits that had a hole in it.
“Can you not do that right now?” I asked. “This is a serious situation.”
Lola’s smile didn’t falter. “Oh, it’s because it’s such a serious situation that I’m doing this. Tasks like knitting require intense control of your fine motor skills. When you’re about to enter a fight Brock you should be trying to amp yourself up, but focus on your control as much as possible,” he replied casually as she finished off the stitch and tied it off.
She smiled and raised the shirt up to the light to look at her uneven stitches. She nodded, pleased like she’d done a good job of it. “Hehe! I’m such a good mother!”
I stared at the horrible patch job she’d done while processing the thought of her sitting in a room with men like Surge, knitching and stitching.
“If you’d been doing it for that long I would have thought you’d be better at it,” snarked Sabrina.
Lola twitched. “There’s nothing wrong with this!” she defended, only to turn to Erika and wave the shirt at her. “Erika dearest, you’d wear this, wouldn’t you?” She then gave Erika a very pointed smile.
Erika blinked, looking from Lola, to Sabrina and me. “Uhmmmm I… wouldn’t?” she replied honestly. “I have seamstresses that see to my outfits so I can’t comment on how I’d do but… well I would have sent my shirt back if it came to me like that.”
“Give me that, you’re doing it wrong,” I demanded, reaching for the shirt.
“No!” Lola yowled, causing the people who had been ignoring us to send us glares, which when you have a dragonmaster and an ice type specialist in the room, is saying something.
Unperturbed, Lola continued to thrust her needle and string onto Erika who looked rather lost. I want to see the rich girl try her hand at stitching! She acts like a lady but she’s never picked up a needle for her own outfits?”
The needle and thread stopped halfway to Erika, only to float back to me.
“Stop teasing Erika,” Sabrina stated firmly.
Erika shot Sabrina a thankful look.
“That’s my job,” Sabrina finished, causing Erika to blink in surprise and send Sabrina a frustrated look.
I chuckled and shook my head even as I drew out the stitches and adjusted them so they’d be less obvious. A few other articles floated out with several needles and thread working on their own on other items of clothing as Sabrina helped.
Lola stared. “Hmmm, Sabrina dear, I also have some washing that needs doing at home along with weeding the garden.”
“Do it yourself,” replied Sabrina without so much as looking at Lola.
The glares leveled at me continued for a few moments only to shift away, allowing me to look up and track the movements on the map.
“We’ve cleared the Vermillion server bank,” announced Lorelei and a moment later the city turned from a dark shade of angry red to that of a tranquil blue.
“When can we expect intel from there?” Lance asked.
“Should take a few minutes, preliminary results are good with only a quarter of the Porygon flock being knocked out. Chansey are already working them over. Visquez will move with them as her electrical attacks worked well. She didn’t blow out more than three server banks and those might have been targeted.”
“Huh?” Lance asked, blinking in confusion.
“She saw something about Peddit? It’s apparently a chat forum?”
“Hmmm, make sure the report classifies that as collateral damage instead of Visquez being herself,” Lance replied. “And make sure some of the other server banks don’t contain pokenet pages she might find acceptable to ‘accidentally’ fry.”
“Hehe, that girl has spunk!” declared Lola with a carrying whisper.
I looked over only to find her working with knitting needles to make a scarf that spelled out F. U. C…
“Lola, who is going to wear that scarf?” I asked pointedly, feeling more like a teacher in a kindergarten class with her here rather than one of Indigo’s strongest trainers.
“Hmm? Oh, I was going to send it to this guy I know. It’s a message,” she stated even as the K took shape and a Y followed.
Sabrina eyeballed it. “So it’s supposed to be terrible quality?” she asked.
Lola lowered her needles and eyed Sabrina. “You can be rather un-cute sometimes you know? If you and Brock weren’t so good together, I’d be polling the room for other girls.”
“Hmmm, go ahead, see how that goes for you,” demanded Sabrina as a glint entered her eye that made me think she was sizing Lola up for a casket.
Sparks flew between them and I sighed.
Yup, like I was in kindergarten.
“Lance, please tell me you have a situation we can deal with?” I called.
Lance smirked as he shook his head, eyes briefly flicking towards Lola and Sabrina. “Not as yet. I’ve been able to send Bruno out because of his fighting type pokemon which has worked… alright against the Porygon but no one else is yet needed.”
I almost asked how much collateral damage he’d caused so far but decided I didn’t want to know. Instead I asked, “Where did you send him?”
“...Chrysanthemum island,” Lance replied with a grimace.
Erika began giggling. “Oh, President Kruger will not like that!” she tittered, and it took me a moment to recall that the highest elected official, Kruger, had come from said city.
“Oh, yeah…” I whistled while Lance shot us annoyed looks.
“He didn’t cause that much damage! It was collateral!” he claimed.
Lola giggled. “I think the gentleman doth protest a little too strongly!” she teased.
“Don’t tease our champion,” I said to Lola even as my lips twitched. I didn’t say the follow up line like Sabrina had earlier, but I heavily thought it, causing Sabrina to giggle.
Others obviously knew what I wasn’t saying and smiled while Lance shot me a flat look.
His mouth opened, no doubt to verbally riposte my unspoken shot only for a series of lights to begin flashing across the map.
“Multiple sites are being assaulted!” shouted Lance’s secretary. “The prisons holding the Team Rocket grunts along with the sites hosting the Executives and Giovanni are reporting incursions!”
“The powerplants are also under assault! The workers there are fighting back however!” Lorlei cut in as another cluster of icons flashed yellow.
“A dam overlooking route fifteen is under attack! If that dam collapses the entire area will be flooded and swamped for days!”
“There is also attacks on the support beams for set points of the highway and cycling road!”
“Get Sophia to rally out on route eighteen! She might need reinforcements as I’m going to have Janine focus on route fifteen!” Lance began to bark orders.
“We’re going to need ready teams for the prisons!” Lorelei began only for Lance to nod.
“Erika and Clair! Take the prison with the Executives! I have an asset who has been setting up a trap around the Grunt’s prison so we should be fine there, if not he’s there to call it in.”
Clair rose and locked eyes with Lance, a challenging tilt in the way she positioned herself. Uhm, okay? What brought this on? Clair was usually buddy-buddy with Lance.
“And you’re sure of this asset? This isn’t like your last plan?” she demanded.
Lance's eyes snapped up and there was a flash of hurt in there for a moment before his gaze hardened. “No. It won’t be,” he stated calmly. “Now, are you going to the prison or do I need to send someone else?” he all but growled.
Clair turned and nodded to Erika as one of the Psychic trainers that had been lingering approached them. They offered a polite bow to Sabrina before releasing a Hypno that touched the girls on the shoulder only to vanish in a flash of light.
“What about us, champion sir? What about us?” chimed Lola as she rose, her knitting bag snapping shut as a smile that was far too eager for my liking started to form on her face.
“We’re keeping you back for a potential sighting for Blaine. As the strongest Water trainer I have available to me on short notice I will be using you to handle Blaine’s history of wide area attacks,” Lance stated.
“Hmm maybe you should have played along with Wallace to have a better water trainer on hand then?” Lola teased.
For a long moment no one reacted.
Then Lance’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything, perhaps you heard something?” Lola said with such a concerned expression that I almost believed her.
The only reason I doubted her was because I knew what I had heard, and I also knew that Lola could be a consummate troll when she wanted to be.
Lance narrowed his eyes at her and shot me a look. “So this is where you get it from,” he muttered as he cast his gaze back to the map.
I sat there, more wounded than any insult or pokemon move he’d used against me in the past.
I wanted to clutch my chest and sink to my knees while muttering ‘critical hit!’.
Sabrina patted me on the shoulder, understanding what was bothering me. “I had the same response when someone asked about my mother-in-law’s take on the seating plan for the wedding. Made me realise that yes, she is going to be my mother-in-law.”
I almost laughed at that, and when I looked at Sabrina, she smiled back and nodded showing that she’d come to terms with it.
The Secretary cleared her throat. “Fires are beginning to appear around the powerplant, but we’re unsure if that is Blaine, or due to the electrical discharge from the workers.”
Lola kicked her feet idly. “Say, you kept mentioning Blaine… is he related to Commander Blaine from Cinnabar?”
For a long moment, everyone stared at Lola like she was an idiot.
Then I remembered that Lola, had very much been outside of Indigo when we’d performed the raids upon Team Rocket and ousted Blaine as a dangerous element. She literally would have no idea of that unless she’d sought out specific information, as I doubt any media channels would be running it these days.
“Uhmmm, so Lola, while you were away, we discovered Blaine… was a bad guy,” I finished lamely.
“Oh! That’s good! He was always pretty evil. Glad you all caught on,” she chirped. “So we’re bringing him in?” she asked, glancing towards Cinnabar.
“Oh… no he ran off before we could get him. But we think this is him causing these issues.”
“Gotcha!” she declared with a placid smile.
I shared a look with Sabrina and Sabrina nodded, indicating that the bland reaction wasn’t masking anything.
“She’ll be ready to fight if she’s called upon, don’t worry Brock,” Sabrina said.
Lola giggled. “Oh Brock, it’s adorable that you think you need to look out for me! I’m always ready for a fight!”
I decided to ignore that for now and instead glanced towards the powerplant that Lance and the others were debating a response for.
“They’re going to need to get that under control, or else they’ll have the local Zapdos coming down on their heads,” I said, projecting my voice to be heard over the small beeps and chimes that indicated intel arriving.
Lance cursed and barked an order to adjust the Power plant workers to adjust their zeal, as well as redirecting Visquez to that location.
“She should be able to manage a juvenile zapdos shouldn’t she?” Lance asked me.
I hummed. “She did well in Shamouti, so I think she has good odds,” I replied. “Then again the best fight for her in this situation is to avoid one with the local Zapdos right now.”
While we were speaking of Legendary pokemon… “What of the other Legendary haunts and nests?” I asked.
Lance tapped a few buttons and the map shifted colours to showcase several coloured zones.
Right there was Zadpos, the Moltres, and the Articuno both in the Battle Frontier as well as down in the Seafoam Islands. Then there was New Island, the Orange Archipelago.
“No sign of the Legendary dogs recently?” I asked.
“Funnily enough, the last confirmed sighting we had was Suicune off the Cerulean Cape by one Crystal Glass,” Lorelei reported.
I hummed thoughtfully; the girls hadn’t mentioned that last I’d spoken to them.
My eyes darted to the preserve I knew they were near. They were supposed to be on the road to Porta Vista for one of Yolanda’s shows. They’d said they were going to lock down with everything going crazy due to the Porygon plague but there was still a risk that they might be targeted.
“Greta and A.J. are there with her. They’re both strong enough to hold off most people, and Yolanda herself isn’t weak,” Sabrina whispered, noting where I was looking.
I nodded and turned back in to listen to Lance as he explained that he had accounted for the danger of Legendary pokemon becoming involved, either voluntarily or by being provoked.
Lance pointed to several nearby ranger units. “We have people in position to intercept or deal with anyone who attempts to agitate the Legendary pokemon.”
I nodded only to pause on the team of Rangers situated outside of Cerulean to the north.
Why…
Oh, right, the strong pokemon in the mystery cave. In the games that was where Mewtwo camped out but in reality, no one was quite sure what was in the depths, only that it wasn’t worth poking their heads into as the pokemon were content to fight among themselves in a contained ecosystem that was the subject of several Pokémon University studies.
“The Cinnabar island is going active!” shouted Lorelei and the map shifted colours again to its previous overlay.
Cinnabar was now extremely hot.
Lance stiffened. “Shit! Is this a pride play? Blaine wants to destroy what he can’t have?” he growled.
“You mentioned the residents might be in cahoots with Blaine? Could it be something they’re instigating?”
“That… urgh! We need to respond to this!” Lance declared. He looked to Sabrina and me before shifting to Lola. “We need to ferry the residents while being on the watch for any dissidents hiding among them.”
“Oh? The old hiding the Mightynena among the Mareep? Gotcha!” She stood and offered a salute. “Capture or kill?” she asked.
Lance blinked slowly, only to glance at me with an unspoken question.
I shook my head, indicating that no, she wasn’t joking.
Lance blanched, suddenly understanding just how dangerous Lola was.”Capture. We need to pull on the thread. With Blaine, there is also the risk that some of the people we think are dissidents are being leveraged in some manner.”
“Ah, so a gentle beating then, gotcha!” chirped Lola, causing Lance to obviously have second thoughts, only to sigh. “Deal with the issue as quickly as possible and then return here please… we’re going to have a lot more fires to put out in future I suspect.”
Sabrina rose and placed a hand on my shoulder while grabbing Lola like an errant child.
“We’ll deal with it,” She stated, only to vanish a moment later.
Rather than reappearing directly upon the streets of Cinnabar we instead landed above a small pier that was built upon an atoll slightly out from Cinnabar.
It was a good thing we did as Cinnabar itself had smoke, lava, and large rocks falling from the sky.
“Well this is FUBAR,” declared Lola as she stepped forward, her eyes glinting as they darted here and there.
“We’ll need to run a perimeter check for enemy combat—”
“This is a rescue operation Lola, not a fight,” I reminded her and she jolted.
“Oh… right… I’ll be in your care then.”
I nodded only to sighed. “What’s your pokemon team right now?” I asked, knowing it was important information to have.
“I have Lapras, Tentacruel, Gyarados, a Cloyster, a Seaking, a Golduck, and a Starmie,” she rattled off.
I tilted my head. “Seven pokemon? You were special ops weren't you? Why don’t you have more?”
“They died,” she replied with a flat tone.
“O-oh… sorry about that,” I said, feeling like a heel for pushing such a delicate topic.
“It’s alright. It happened before your time,” she replied. “I haven’t expanded back to the ten I was allowed since the war ended,” she stated.
“Right… we’re going to have to talk about that, later,” I said, knowing that it was something kind of important but not something I could deal with right now. “Think you can send out Lapras, the Seaking, and Starmie to start ferrying people that might be on the beach to this location? Let’s keep the others on you for now. We'll do a sweep, check the situation for any critical cases but others try to address the root cause,” I rattled off.
Lola blinked and stared at me. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I can do that.” A smile slid into place as she stared at me, only for something to shift back and forth in her expression.
Riiiight, that was mildly concerning.
I almost considered asking her to stop before shaking the desire away. Now wasn’t the time.
“Let’s get moving,” I ordered as I palmed Tide’s pokeball. Sabrina Teleported us once more and we appeared slightly off to the side of a large cluster of people milling about in the water staring up in horror at the inferno that was their homes.
I flicked Tide’s pokeball out. “Work with Lola buddy! We’re ferrying refugees to the pier for now!”
He sang back at me, only to perk up as another Lapras appeared next to him with his song taking an all too familiar tone.
Lola’s Lapras took one look at Tide and turned up her nose.
“Not the time!” I barked at him as he made to perform a mating dance. If I had a horny stick to bonk him with I would! Sadly I’d left it at home after having to chase Rachel around the Gym when she’d got too worked up during a workout session run by Trixie.
My warning caused Tide to stiffen before nodding and refocusing on the people, crooning encouragement to the nearest people who stared at him hopefully.
“Please form five orderly lines!” I called, cupping my hands and projecting my voice above the startled shouts and the rumble from the volcano.
Pokemon formed at the end of each line with the Lola’s smaller pokemon creating a circuit where they ferried one or two people at most to the pier only to dart back twice as fast.
“Any other clusters of people?” I asked Sabrina who had been staring intently at the volcano.
“There is a few other piers we’re going to have to adjust to,” Sabrina replied tightly before nodding her head towards the volcano. “There is… There is also someone up there… They are using several fire pokemon to cause the eruption.”
“Shit, that is most likely going to be…” I paused as somehting didn’t add up. “Wait!” I perked up. “You wouldn’t be able to detect Blaine would you?”
“No, if he had the dark emitter as Surge did, then it would be difficult but somehow I doubt Blaine would settle for a subpar piece of equipment in his own brain.”
“Hnnn,” I grunted in response.
Alright, we had people in danger, Cinnabar burning, and a person, or people up in the volcano causing issues… What else might I be missing?
“Any looters?” Lola asked firmly.
“None, but that’s not surprising with most of the town on fire,” Sabrina replied.
“No, that wouldn’t be enough to stop people from doing it,” Lola sighed. “You can never underestimate the power of idiots after all.”
“You’d be the expert,” remarked Sabrina blandly.
Lola didn’t reply to the insult but continued speaking. “Looters will always try something when there is something to gain. What’s the most important facility on Cinnabar? The Gym?”
“The Research Lab,” Sabrina and I said together.
“There might be professional thieves at play then,” Lola stated, and I grimaced, knowing that the labs, better known as the pokemon mansion, were some of the only places in the original games where you encountered thieves and scientists that were trying to loot the place.
Both were the sorts of people who had good odds of having access to dark emitters as well as a motive to raid such a facility.
“Does it feel like someone is trying to split us up?” I asked.
Sabrina nodded as she glowered at the volcano. “It certainly feels that way.”
I chewed my lip in thought. Each position was going to be risky to handle with only one trainer and their pokemon to watch their back, but they could all have significance if Blaine was here.
It was just that with three trainers…
Ahhh, there was no reason it had to stay that way, however, did it?
I tapped my Xtransceiver and brought up Lance. “Got developments on Cinnabar. We have at least one person in the caldera stirring up trouble, while there are no signs of looting or opportunism by the population. Lola suspects that the amateurs were driven out by professional thieves. We’re currently stuck dealing with rescuing people that may or may not attack us.”
An explosion went off and Sabrina’s expression tightened. “They’ve also set explosives near some of the piers where people are fleeing to.”
“Shit!” Lance swore. “Right, that tracks. Sorry, I should have sent more people. I’ll rectify that now.”
I nodded, pleased with myself. Sabrina shot me an approving smile. “It is rather nice when we can call in back up.”
Within a minute, we had five more trainers appear on the beach near us. The Psychic trainers collapsed onto the sand a moment later, causing me to raise an eyebrow.
Oh, right.
They weren’t Sabrina.
I waved a hand towards half of the new arrivals. “Lock down the research labs and then enter in groups. Expect resistance and professionals at play. We’re going to the caldera to settle things down and save what we can!”
Another explosion went off and I growled. “After we see to the people on the piers,” I corrected.”
As I said this I carefully watched the crowd for anyone who was paying a little too much attention to us. It didn’t appear that any—
Lola darted forward and punched someone who was toying with their transceiver with a glassy eyed look. “Got a Hypnosis subject!” she called causing the psychic trainers to perk up and wander over.
Damn it, Hypnosis? It was going to be so much worse if there were people in the crowd that had been programmed to act in certain manners. They might not even be aware that they were doing as their programming demanded.
A more chilling thought then occurred to me.
“How long can a Hypnosis or programming like that last?” I asked Sabrina.
When she didn’t answer, I glanced over only to find her shaking her head. “I… don’t know,” she replied.
“Shit,” I declared, eying the last of the group departing the beach. Blaine had been in charge of Cinnabar for years now. “...we’re going to need to isolate and process everyone for it potentially,” I muttered.
Sabrina grimaced and nodded. “Which will tie up almost all of the psychic trainers we have within Indigo,” she stated.
“Double shit,” I muttered. Just that alone was worth it, as other actions that relied upon psychics, such as transport, interrogation, or rescue operations, as the Rangers had been doing.
Lola slunk back after the person was secured, while I tried to understand all the ramifications of this reveal.
“Nice save,” I commented. “Recall your pokemon, we’re going to need to hop to the next few piers, check for more Hpnotised people then move on while leaving a pokemon or two.”
Lola hummed, but nodded and returned her pokemon.
The next pier we went to thankfully didn’t have any hypnotised people or explosives, which allowed for a quick ferrying to safety before we moved on to one more pier. When we’d gotten half way through getting people away, the other group of psychics started arriving to help speed the process up.
I was still conscious of the time it was taking us, as reports came in from the psychics and trainers seeing to the Research Lab and other piers. They’d found explosives and hypnotised people in both.
Once we had everyone seen to Sabrina and I turned our attention toward the volcano which had been spewing fire and lava into the air for a few minutes now.
This time we emerged slightly off the lip of the volcano. Lola began to scan the area. “No signs of traps or ambush,” she rattled off.
None of us relaxed but we still marched up to the volcano that typically acted as the battleground for Blaine’s Gym challenge for anyone who properly faced him.
Standing in the middle of the arena was a man wearing an extremely bizarre attire.
“Is that a fake bald patch with a moustache?” I asked, bewildered at what I was seeing, only to jolt myself and glance around to make sure no one was sneaking up on us.
My gaze turned back to that of the man with his fake moustache, bald spot and sunglasses, despite it being rather late at night now. Then again with the light from the lava beneath us and his pokemon firing what looked like Flamethrowers directly into the volcano, it was quite bright.
From a distance, and for those who couldn’t see through the smoke, he’d have looked like Blaine, albeit a poor man’s version but enough to have people storming the volcano.
“—” the man shouted to an ensemble of fire type pokemon.
Some of whom were staring at the man worriedly.
“He’s been hypnotised as well, hasn’t he?” I said, the clues clicking home straight away.
Sabrina nodded, eying the ground around him. “He’s also being held hostage, there are several Electrodes buried in the ground around him.”
I glanced around, licked my suddenly dry lips and grimaced.
There was a lot of bad ways to approach this.
Thankfully, there was a way to disarm everything without having to engage the various pokemon or deal with the trap.
I sent out Tide once more and drew up my aura to funnel it into him. “Perish Song,” I commanded darkly.
A moment later, an odious melody rang out. Rather than stopping straight away Tide continued to sing, pouring more and more of himself into the performance, making sure it permeated the entire volcano.
The various fire types paused in their actions and stared at Tide, only to slowly slump and collapse as their energy vanished making them slump.
Perish Song was a move that I suspected many Lapras pods would utilise as a sacrifice play. When a trainer became involved however, none needed to throw themselves upon their sword.
I returned Tide before the counter could tick down on him and instead nodded to Sabrina.
We Teleported to a closer position, and this time we inspected the ground for any further traps.
The upturned ground was clearly visible but it appeared each was full of unconscious Electrode.
“That was well done Brock,” Lola remarked quietly as we advanced upon the man who I could now hear to be urging his pokemon on.
He didn’t appear to have realised that his team were knocked out. Observing him I noted that he was almost collapsing.
“He's about to white out,” I said, stepping forward quickly to catch him before he fell.
Lola lunged at me, only for my longer stride and Rock Step to see me out of her range. “Brock, it might not be safe!” she screamed only for me to catch the man before he fell.
Nothing happened at first. Then a soft chime rang out.
In the man’s top pocket, a tiny pad that reminded me of the communication pads the Guardians used was stuffed.
I nudged it out of his pocket, and a moment later, a small projection arose from my palm.
A shadowy room with a man lounging behind a desk appeared. “Ah, Gym Leader Brock and Sabrina, excellent. With both of you here, the raid upon your homes will be all the easier!” declared the voice.
We all stiffened, and Sabrina appeared next to me.
Without questioning what we were going to do we vanished into a Teleport back to Pewter.
Only to find nothing was amiss.
I blinked and glanced around. Had we arrived before the raid… or… No. There wasn’t any smoke. I’d walked the aftermath of a battle, and this wasn’t that.
“Brock…” Sabrina murmured in disbelief.
I glanced at her only to turn to the west.
Upon the distant ridgeline where I knew the Pokemon League to reside, there was an inferno that I’d only seen the equal of once before in my life.
“Blaine attacked the Pokémon League Headquarters,” I murmured in disbelief.
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A.N. Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support!
It also goes to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter!