“Wooooooooooow! Two outings in one week, that’s more family outings than we’ve had in ages; in fact the last time we went twice in the same week was…” Lola tilted her head and blinked slowly.
“We haven’t gone anywhere since the beach trip to—”
“There was the shopping trip and then the pick up from daycare, and the—” Lola began to recite a bunch of events that had been everyday events for me in the past. These days, I only really came along when I didn’t have a challenge booked in or other work. Typically, I tried to make room to be there for my little siblings a few times a week now that Lola and Flint were both home.
In the past, I’d done it every day, so the kids noticed when I suddenly dropped back from picking them up. The novelty of having their parents back had lasted a few weeks before they asked me to come back to pick them up.
Apparently, I was more fun than Flint and Lola.
Heh.
“So, this is cute and all, but we’re running an operation here. I need serious operators Lola, I’ve read your record. Are you able to follow orders?” Karen demanded, thankfully cutting through the family drama that Lola had started the instant she’d skipped towards our circle.
“I thought it was nice,” Erika murmured, making me recall that it was her weakness.
That and fire types.
Lola adopted a much sterner expression, and Karen shifted into a slightly more defensive position as she suddenly received Lola’s undivided attention, with her looking her up and down.
“I should be able to operate effectively. How do you want me to work in relation to you? Flushing them out or seeking and destroying?” Lola stated with little inflection.
Erika shifted, giving the woman who’d been spouting family moments a moment ago a second look.
“Riiiight, let’s go with you helping with transportation and scouting to start with,” Karen replied.
Lola nodded and then gave Erika a look over. "We need to get rid of the dead weight, or is she meant to be a damaged sponge?” she asked bluntly.
Everyone blinked in surprise at her harsh statement.
Erika drew herself. “I can handle myself! Especially against a fire type!” she growled.
Lola hummed and tilted her head, the doubt practically radiating off of her. “If you say so.”
Erika glared at her, and I held back a small smirk. I shouldn’t laugh. Lola could be a bitch, but in a twisted sort of way, her words came from a place of concern.
“Erika is right, she’s not here as a sop, we trust her to hold her own,” I said, deciding to speak up for Erika.
That earned me a grateful look from Erika and a squeeze of my hand telekinetically from Sabrina.
“Very well,” Lola conceded. “I can transport us and do scouting.”
“I already found one site, but I think it would be with you and your team giving it a look over before we attempt anything like an amphibious entry. We’re relying mostly on audacity for the water entry to get us past Blaine. Thoughts?” I prompted seriously.
Lola stared at me and a flicker of concern appeared as she stared at me only to firm up a moment later. “Right, usually that would be a bad call, but coming from an underwater tunnel is considered one of the most dangerous parts of exploring a cave and rightly so.”
She levelled a finger at me and wagged it. “Your father will be having words with you later, Brock.”
I blinked in surprise at the sudden feeling of whiplash as she oscillated from serious to almost maternal. Then she swapped back a moment before anyone could comment on it.
“But you’re not wrong. Most base commanders wouldn’t consider their water filtration system or pipes as there has to be a large volume of water. The trick will be getting in before any systems that are used to…. Cleanse the water of unwanted additions.”
Erika made a face. “When you say cleanse?”
“Big chopping blades sometimes, others are just powerful suction devices that draw pokemon and loose bits of debris into a grinding machine.”
We all made faces, realising we might be about to head towards such a system. Actually, there was every chance that Blaine would have such a system set up.
I doubted he had cared anything about the environmental impact when he set up such a water filtration system.
He might have even preferred a more violent system.
“Hmmm, I suddenly think we’d be better off finding their above-ground entrance and trying to brute force the issue,” I muttered.
“Oh, don’t worry! I’ve raided Team Aqua bases via their water filtration system and I can tell you their submarine bases don’t skimp on making every angle tough!”
“What the fuck?” muttered Karen.
“Oh, that must have been tough during the war; thank you for your service!” remarked Erika loyally.
Lola blinked. “During the war? I raided their bases last year?”
Erika stared, her eyes dimming as she processed this. Her mouth moved in silence. “What the hell?”
Karen snorted. “Heh, we need to call you in the next time we know Team Aqua are in the waters,” she chuckled. “But it sounds like sending you first is the best call I can make, so go scout things out. Let’s see if what we want is possible. We have a general location for the base thanks to Brock’s work with his Kabutops.”
Nearby, Shin straightened. Via the bond, I’d been able to watch him attach a GPS marker onto several pipes before things got turbulent and he had to withdraw.
Karen continued. “We have watchers atop the mountain for anything suspicious, but they’re keeping their distance to avoid alerting anyone that we’re onto the base.”
“Alright, can do!” Lola replied even going so far as to salute Karen.
Then she swiped her hand across her pokebelt to release her entire team.
Lapras, Tentacruel, Gyarados, two Seaking, a Golduck, and a Starmie appeared around her. Lola clapped her hands. “We’re doing a filter-cleaner team!” she announced.
Rather than look worried, they all nodded and inspected the water nearby. Lola turned to me. “Up or downriver?” she asked.
“Oh, upriver,” I replied.
“Awesome,” Lola replied only to skip towards the waterways. “Oh, Shin? Would you like to join us? You can watch and learn!”
Shin blinked in shock and glanced to me. I hummed and decided that yes, it would be a good idea to give him and my other water type pokemon a look at how a specialist went to work.
With a quick one-two Hypnotoad, and Shreak appeared. Both turned towards Lola with interest, having kept abreast of my situation in case I needed to deploy them quickly.
Karen coughed. “That offer open for other pokemon as well?” she asked, holding up a diveball.
“Oh! Sure thing” Lola gushed as three more water type pokemon joined her. “Stay back and watch!” she urged only to pluck a small scuba breather out of her pouch and dive into the water a moment later.
Her own pokemon dove after her with the others following after her.
I glanced towards Sabrina before shaking my head. Of course she didn’t need to send her pokemon in after Lola, she could just observe her psychically.
I pursed my lips and tapped my chin. “She didn’t take a radio with her, did she?” I asked.
When Sabrina sighed, I knew I was right. Thankfully, we had other methods to track her.
It did highlight that Lola was used to working on her own, however.
I watched through my pokemon’s senses as Lola swam upriver like an eel, her body undulating and worming its way, only for her Starmie to power up ahead of her and her to latch onto it.
Something I noticed right away was that Lola had her pokemon assume a cone-like formation to move forwards.
A moment later, Shrek noticed something else. The flow of water behind Lola’s pokemon was vastly easier. They cut their way through the water but they also made the water move around them.
None of Lola’s team were yet visibly using a move either. This was just the power of their swimming at play.
When they reached the pipes that Shin had discovered, Lola took her time inspecting them. Then she began to follow along it closely.
When she reached a suction point she had her pokemon ring the pipe for a moment only to move past it.
Lola made some hand signs to the observing pokemon that I believed meant she wanted us to avoid entering via that pipe and instead led us further along the waterway.
She continued on and found no less than four other sites. The only hiccup occurring was when some water type pokemon attempted to attack her only to be swatted away by her team of pokemon.
She considered each entry point carefully, only to eventually double back to the second entry point she’d found.
There she slid off her Starmie and slid onto her Lapras’ back.
Her Starmie, however, shrank down, becoming minuscule with Minimize. When she repeated it I could no longer track it causing me to hum. “She literally sends her pokemon into the thresher but makes it so small it can slip through. Clever,” I murmured.
“Teleport,” Sabrina murmured. “She can send her pokemon into the facility, have it disable the dark emitters in a set area, and then Teleport her and her team in.”
I whistled. Ah, cunning, and if that wasn’t possible, she might just have other options for aquatic entry.
Sure enough, Sabrina’s prediction turned true with Starmie returning suddenly and Lola returning her pokemon as she grasped the starfish pokemon only to vanish a moment later.
“Right so when she comes back we can—”
“She’s not coming back,” announced Sabrina with a scowl. “She is trying to destroy the base without our help so that if Blaine does come, he will only face her. She doesn’t want to risk Brock.”
I blinked, then I recalled the complicated look she’d given me.
“Shit!” I muttered.
“Shit indeed,” growled Karen. “Right! Sabrina! Get us in after her!” she ordered only for Sabrina to shake her head.
“I can’t, she deactivated the emitters and then turned them back on once she was through. We’re going to have to copy her entry method.”
“Shit! That bitch!” snapped Karen. “Right! New plan! We’re getting into that base and I’m putting a fist through your mother’s face Brock!”
“Go right ahead,” I muttered as I handed Erika a scuba breather.
“Do we need to get in the water if we’re just Teleporting?” Erika asked.
Sabrina nodded. “Sadly, yes, the cave is laced with resistive elements that makes it harder along with the dark emitters in various parts making it best that we be as close as possible.”
“Into the drink plant girl!” called Karen as she threw on some metal gloves to catch her Sharpedo to have it swim her up the river.
I grabbed onto Shin’s dorsal fin as Sabrina grasped her Starmie.
Erika bowed politely to Shrek, who gently offered his shoulder.
It only took us two minutes at most to copy Lola’s entry method, but by the time Sabrina was teleporting us into the entry point, alarms were already blaring throughout the facility.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!” growled Karen. “We’re hot!” she called, releasing a slew of her pokemon to start boosting them.
I matched her, annoyed thoroughly how my very controlled operation was going sideways with the inclusion of Lola.
Karen swept her hand towards the wall and her Gengar attempted to pass through them only to shake its head a moment later, earning another curse from Karen. “Fuck! Hard way it is!” she growled, stabbing a hand towards the singular door.
Urgh… this was looking bad.
Karen led from the front with Houndoom only for Sabrina to follow after her. Erika leapt after them with her Venusaur acting as a mount for her to ride through the narrow hallways, leaving me to leg it after them with the smaller pokemon I had on hand.
With Shin, Selene, Shrek, and Hypnotoad out I had a good layer of defence as a rear guard but I still would have preferred to have Bertha, Titan, or Regirock out and ready.
A moment later, I decided to risk playing my hand too early and let out Link.
We swept through the hall into a proper tunnel that looked like it could house several pokemon abreast at once. The floor had small tiremarks.
That alone let me know this facility was much bigger than I had originally anticipated, but with Lola already finding four points to drain water it couldn’t have been small.
Still, needing cars or buggies to get around was a pointed statement.
There was also an odd diamond patch square that wasflashing red and white continuously that seemed an odd choice in flooring but I couldn’t question it too much right now.
“Which way?” Karen asked of Sabrina.
Sabrina nodded to the left. “Lola went that way, there are watermarks on the floor there. She’s made sure to keep as much around her as possible to increase her fighting odds.”
“Hmph, smart,” growled Karen as she eyed the other direction. She clicked her tongue and nodded that way, causing her Gengar to peel off, only for a USB drive to be flicked after it.
“Insert that into any computers you find!” she called after her pokemon.
Then she turned and exhaled heavily. “Against my better judgement, we’re going to be going after Lola.”
None of us argued, instead we began to run. I released my other pokemon now that we had the room only for Bertha to scoop me up and carry me like an errant child.
I gave her a look. “Really? The unruly child carry?” I asked her only to earn a smirk from her and a chuckle from my other pokemon.
Bertha shifted me into a cradle that was only marginally better but I accepted, as I knew it was one of the most defensive positions for a trainer to be in if we were caught by—
Panels in the roof opened only for Sabrina, Erika and Karen to launch attacks at them, melting, jamming, or shattering the turrets that attempted to pop out.
“Fucking Lola wouldn’t have had to deal with these I imagine?” growled Karen.
“Hard to say, but it is unlikely,” Sabrina replied.
It wasn’t until we got a hundred metres down that signs of fighting began to appear, with sizzling wall panels, a few knocked out pokemon and some slumped over people.
“Are they…” Erika swallowed as she eyed them.
Karen approached and grimaced only to smirk as Erika’s face turned green. “Nah, I’m messing with you. She’s just knocked them out.”
“She knew we’d be coming after her, she’s hoping this will slow us down,” Sbarina supplied.
“Oh, yeah, no, tying people up with my pokemon is easy!” Erika proclaimed, and before anyone could blink Tangrowth rolled over the unconscious forms only for them to emerge tightly tied up. The pokemon on the other hand, were collected with red beams shooting out from pokeballs that were tossed to Erika.
She caught them in an impressive display of dexterity and had tape wrapped around them in seconds only for them to vanish into her pouch.
“Captives secured!” she announced proudly.
I whistled; that had been smooth.
Karen stared. “Cool. Ignoring the BDSM bullshit Erika just pulled, let’s keep moving so I can put my fist into Lola’s face.”
Erika sighed. “...just as bad as spending time with Visquez,” she muttered as we continued on our way.
We could actually speed up now that the hallways had been cleared with signs of heavy damage scattered everywhere.
It was kind of terrifying how much damage Lola had been able to inflict.
When we finally caught up to her, the hall had twisted around and led to a large suite of labs with purple tubes with what looked like… people within them.
Said people were missing limbs or had patches upon their torsos making me wonder at just what sort of research had been conducted here.
“BLAINE! GET OUT HERE!!” screamed Lola hoarsely as she stormed forward.
In her hand, a large piece of metal was braced on her right shoulder, shielding her from flak from the turrets that had popped out. While on her left side, Lapras slid along next to her.
Lapras’ shell upon its back was cracked and littered with small holes with signs of blood leaking onto the ground mixing with the water but even as they moved forward she tossed it a potion even as the large pokemon created Life Dew ahead of itself and its teammates.
Said pokemon surged into the healing dew and kept pushing despite the obvious damage they had taken.
“Lola you crazy bitch! Fall back!” Karen commanded.
Instead of slowing down Lola if anything doubled down and began to jog forward. “Double time! Keep up the pressure! To stand still is to die! Move move move! Don’t let them dig in!” she ordered to her pokemon who shouted back confirmations as they began to fight harder.
“Fuck! She’s right! We’re going to have to back her up!” Karen growled, breaking into a sprint and stabbing her hand forward.
Nodding, I focused on adding my own aura to my pokemon to help them conserve their energy as they jogged forward.
Sections of steel wall and various pieces of the lab that had been bolted down like tables and benches found themselves hurled through the air to dispatch turrets while psychic attacks lanced forward to the few pokemon that were fighting against us.
Lola didn’t stop, pointing towards a symbol that had a small lightning bolt. “The electricity grid and power unit will be in there! We need to take control of it and knock it out cause it’s most likely going to be operated by Electrode! If we’re too slow those will detonate and destroy huge chinks of the base!”
Her pokemon fired a large pulse of water to cut through the steel doorway only to growl when it didn’t punch all the way through.
“Houndoom! Show her how it’s done!” Karen ordered and suddenly her pokemon Mega-Evolved as a spike of darkness and fire erupted from Karen and her starter pokemon.
Houndoom inhaled and then disgorged a wave of fire that boiled any water nearby causing gouts of steam to hiss before the fire hit the wall and melted through it and into the next room.
“Brock get your pokemon in there!” Karen shouted, and I adjusted for who I’d send first, with Bertha letting me down as Titan shifted into guard position next to me.
Her, Shrek and Sanchez sprinted into the room to begin knocking out the Electrode.
Having caught up to Lola, Karen rounded on her. “What the fuck was that!? I thought you were some sort of professional!”
“I am! I can deal with this!” she growled only for her eyes to shift to me. “You shouldn’t be here!” she pleaded, and I sighed, realising what the issue was.
“Lola… I’ve trained for this and I have the best people possible to help me out.”
“That’s not…” Lola shifted.
Karen exhaled heavily through her nostrils, looking like an enraged Tauros for a moment. “Right, it’s nice and all that you’re trying to protect your son but that shit is compromising us, not helping us out!”
Karen reached for Lola’s shirt only for Sabrina to reach out and physically grab her back. It took me a moment to understand why she’d done it as I caught sight of a small blade in Lola’s hand.
“Lola… if you can’t determine friend from foe then we’re going to have to ask you to sit events like this out,” I said in as calm a voice as I could.
“I can! It’s just…” she stared at me and shifted. “I’m sorry…” she muttered, eyes filling with tears.
Rather than watch her break a little, or fake it, I wasn’t sure which was more likely even if my instincts screamed the later, I didn’t want to make a call either way. I turned my attention to the powerplant room.
“My pokemon are mopping up,” I announced, breaking the awkward silence that had built up.
A moment later the lights deactivated only for emergency lighting to activate.
“..the emergency power batteries will have kicked in. less risk of a self destruct going through now,” Lola muttered.
“Good, that’s good, now we need to…” Karen rubbed her head in thought, only for Erika to stiffen and gasp.
“The walls are heating up,” she cried out, eyes snapping towards the walls to our right.
I turned and frowned, surprised to see that they actually looked rather normal.
“Are you—” was as far as I got when the large sections of the wall and floor began to glow cherry red.
“Oh,” I stated, realising that Erika knew her craft. Perhaps it was like how Lance sometimes reacted to strong ice or fairy type moves being used around him.
Instinct was a scary thing.
I gave Erika another look as she settled into a fighting stance. Rather than backing away she stepped forward with her Jumpluff, beginning to float up high with a Tailwind of all things, buoying it higher as spores began to drift towards the likely entry point.
I didn’t have time to question her on what she was doing as the walls sloughed into molten metal as pokemon began to stride into the room, only for Lola’s water pokemon to unleash multiple Hydro Pumps that sent them sailing out of the room.
When identical pokemon emerged a moment later I blinked in surprise.
Sabrina, and I followed up on Lola’s initial assault with another wave of attacks only to find a continuous stream of pokemon marching forward to fight us.
What the? That was way more than ten, or even twelve pokemon…
Sections on the roof began to glow and I stiffened. There were now dozens of entry points and if each had multiple pokemon marching towards us we were going to be fighting a battle of attrition.
“He’s using his Ditto strategy with his fire type pokemon!” I shouted. “They’re going to be strong but not as strong as they should be!”
Which considering what I knew of Blaine’s actual team, was a damned good thing as they might have been able to shrug off the previous hits and counter attack.
All he needed was a battalion of Ditto copying his pokemon and throwing themselves at us. With the Hypno that we already knew he had access to… shit he wasn’t even going to be tiring himself out.
The good news, if you wanted to call it that, was that Blaine had to be here if those were his pokemon being copied via Transform.
“Should we evade a fight here?” I asked, realising that Lola had been right; the moment we stopped was the moment that we were actually in danger.
Karen cursed. “Blaine isn’t playing fair, so no reason we should play by his rules. We’re doing a fighting retreat to the next point of interest. Our objectives are the capture or neutralisation of Blaine, and or to gain intel on his operations.” She glanced around. “Barring that, we're going to be denying him this site,” she growled only for her Weavile to trot up with a USB datastick that Karen pocketed.
Huh, it seemed that while we’d been distracted, Karen had still kept some pieces in play.
“Lola, enough of your blubbering!” Karen snapped, ignoring that Lola had stopped already and was steely eyed as she directed her pokemon to fire upon various entry points.
“Get us to the next important site!” Karen commanded and Lola nodded.
“Right fighting retreat then! We’re going to punch through that wall behind us and then do it again before returning into the hall. Otherwise, we’ll be struck by the ambushing force most likely waiting for us!” she shouted.
Karen didn’t question her, instead snapping her hand towards said wall where her Houndoom once more tore through it with a powerful flamethrower.
An Icy Wind later allowed us to funnel through it.
The next room appeared to be a large open arena. There were numerous bloodstains upon the ground and walls that made my skin crawl.
Karen glanced around only to click her tongue. “Critical state power-ups… Karen mentioned he’d always been interested in understanding how a pokemon that had some pokemon on their last legs could grow stronger.” She licked her lips, “Keep an eye on the area for any computers or data terminals we can hack. At the very least I want to know what Blaine has been up to.”
Glancing around I noticed several cameras that were thankfully inert.
Hopefully with the electricity room destroyed Blaine wouldn’t be able to observe us too much.
We made it to the far wall in a controlled group, blasting the entrance we’d formed to discourage casual followers only for a streaking Rapidash with dot-like eyes to cut through.
It charged towards us only to twitch and stiffen, going still. Its head turned upwards, and it began to inhale, only for it to be smashed aside by a tide of Hydropumps.
It tumbled about the floor where it collapsed in on itself and revealed a knocked out Ditto.
“That was weird,” Lola commented as Karen cut us into the next room which turned out to be the observation room for the arena. “It was about to attack us when it got all twitchy.”
“No, it was an effect coming into play,” Sabrina remarked easily, her eyes darting towards Erika and then up to her Jumpluff which ducked through the hole at the front of the group.
I frowned at the red spores it was leaving behind all over the arena where Blaine’s swarm of ditto would be emerging.
“I’m missing the trick,” I murmured as I ducked into the observation room.
“It’s Rage Powder,” Erika answered. “It forces pokemon that encounter it to become solely focused upon one pokemon, which is quite the boon in this situation, as Jumpluff is drawing all of their fire, but when they can’t reach said pokemon… Well, they sort of freeze for a moment, which isn’t something a trained pokemon with its trainer close by would fall for, but if Blaine is going to try and use Ditto swarms from afar on us, well I thought up an answer.”
“That’s genius,” I complimented.
Erika preened. “I told you I’d be able to help out!” she said with a smile.
“Yeah, you’re incredible and all that, now Brock, get your zap happy boulder over her and help charge this computer so I can drain it of information.”
I sent Sanchez over only to wonder why I needed to, only to grimace. Right… we’d knocked the power out already, and none of the computers would be working.
Lola didn’t stop moving even as the data transfer happened; however, as she and her team hit the doorway at a run, they pivoted as they did to face the way we’d come.
I darted after her to help her out as she began to exchange Hydro Pumps with Flamethrowers. I added to it with my own pokemon launching their attacks. The second Tide’s head came around the doorway. I had him launch a Hyperbeam that cut through much of the ambushing force.
Then Jumpluff was out and overhead, sending Rage Powder out before it began to tuck and twirl with Tailwind behind it.
Erika’s other pokemon followed, unleashing their own spores and powders into the air.
Typically that would be the fuel for a powerful explosion on our side as fire types tried to ignite the cloud, only for the few surviving pokemon to be too busy trying to blow Jumpluff out of the sky.
Erika coldly cut off her pokemon creating a gap in the cloud several seconds before it rolled into the group of enemy pokemon.
It ignited instantly, and the pokemon that had been fighting were tossed aside while others collapsed.
Erika didn’t look back, instead turning and marching away, a stiffness in her step.
Hmmm, there was a saying about not staring into explosions, but I suspected in Erika’s case, it was the aftermath that she didn’t want to see.
I didn’t comment on it and instead began to jog deeper into the underground base, wondering how long we could keep up this raid before Blaine adjusted his strategy.
The lights flickering back on around us caused me to grimace. “Hmmm, that backup generator might be a bit more than just for emergencies,” I muttered.
From a wall, a set of turrets popped out, reminding me just why that might have been a priority for Blaine.
We destroyed them easily, but I still made sure to toss out some lemonades and other drinks to my pokemon.
This wasn’t going to be a simple one-and-done fight, that much was obvious.
Right as I thought that we tucked into another room at Lola’s urging, only to find ourselves in a large arena with several dozen of Blaine’s team staring our way with the derpy ditto eyes.
I sighed. Yeah… hard way it was.
Then a screen lit up to the side.
“Hello little Raticate. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting to see saboteurs slipping into my base like this but know that—”
Lola pointed and her Lapras launched a scything Hyperbeam into the screen, cutting Blaine’s monologue.
“If you want to bark words at us! Face us!” she bellowed at the room only to give our group a look. “Let’s show him why he shouldn’t underestimate us.”
“Couldn’t have said it better,” agreed Karen with a nod as her Houndoom strode forward. “If Blaine wants to stop us, he needs to actually show his creepy mug!”
Unbidden, I felt a smirk form on my face. I rather liked the sound of that.
Hell yeah, time to force Blaine’s hand by wrecking his secret base.
[hr][/hr]
A.N. Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support!
It also goes to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter!