Chapter 1: The Symphony of Destruction
I tiredly pushed open the door to my small house and sighed as I inhaled the familiar, comforting scent. Somehow, office work simply didn’t resonate with me. Heading into the kitchen, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table. I loosened my tie and kicked off my dress shoes before plopping down in an overstuffed chair in front of the TV and smiling contentedly. It was Friday. Another week gone, and I was still hanging in there, somehow. I took a sip of my beer and then reached over, pressing the buttons on three pokeballs which had been resting on the end table next to my seat. There were cries of happiness as my three pokemon were released.
“Hey guys,” I said, “sorry I’m home late.”
Lucy, my Dragapult grumbled something in her phantasmal tone. Incensed, Harriet, my Tinkaton slapped the dragon, playfully.
Clayton, my Corviknight cooed, gently as he towered over the other two. Despite being much taller than Lucy and Harriet, he was easily the most gentile of my pokemon. Having been rescued from a poacher, he preferred to withdraw to the background and go unnoticed, although that tended to be quite difficult for the seven foot tall steel bird.
Lucy stuck her head out and I scratched it, being rewarded with a satisfied growl from the eldritch dragon. Her two babies were asleep in the two holsters on either side of her head. Toil and Trouble spent almost all of their time sleeping, only waking up for feeding time or when their mother wanted to shoot them through the air.
I sat back and closed my eyes. All three of my pokemon were substantially powerful, but I’d lived with them for years at this point. All of them, except for Clayton, had been raised from eggs and the bond we shared was unbreakable. My three pokemon and I were so mentally connected, that I was able to meld with them on a mental level. However, it was a one way street. Pokemon couldn’t send thoughts back to me. This phenomenon wasn’t unique. Many talented trainers had it. There was only one recorded instance of a Unovan trainer who could read the thoughts of his pokemon. Still, the telepathic avenue between myself and my pokemon was very handy, especially in battle.
I must have nodded off, because when I awoke, the entire room was darker than it had been before. A telephone in my bedroom was ringing. I leapt up from the couch and raced to the room. Judging by the lighting, it was about 5:45 or 6 PM, and the sun was starting to set.
The ringing phone wasn’t the ordinary house line. That was plugged into the wall in the kitchen. This one was a special line directly wired into the city’s power grid through its own independent connection. It had a 72 hour battery life in case the power was cut and an encoding system which made the words spoken on the line nye impossible for a potential third party to understand.
I picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Is this Vanguard 3?” A female voice which I didn’t recognize asked. Her voice quivered but she was doing her best to hide her fear.
“This is him. Go ahead.”
“I…I need your callsign please,” she responded.
“Name: Nico Barnes, primary callsign: Vanguard 3, secondary callsign: Delta Tango Six,” I rattled off the information clearly, and concisely.
“We have a code Absol. I repeat, code Absol,” the fear had taken full control of the woman's voice now.
My heart began to thud in my chest, “where at?”
“They’re… everywhere!” She was beginning to panic.
“How so?”
Just then, I heard a crash outside my window, followed by a scream. I rushed over and pulled the curtain back.
Ordinarily, Pallet Town was a small, peaceful town. It was a sleepy place with a very relaxed atmosphere. People, be it retirees or adults sick of the busy city life, came here to slow down. To live a lifestyle that didn’t force you to be on the go 24/7. All of the architecture in the town except for the pokemon lab was old but charming. Everything about this place was calm.
What I saw outside was anything but that.
The small town had been thrown into chaos. Houses and lawns were burning, cars were smashed and all nature of destruction had been sewn. An entire block of houses were on fire, casting a crimson glow into the fading light of dusk. Down the street, about two blocks away from my window, I counted three trainers, and probably around 50 pokemon chaotically teeming around them. Each of the trainers was clad in a black bodysuit, black gloves and boots, all with no identifying markers. The force methodically was slowly moving down the streets, scanning my block for anyone who might oppose them. The trainer in front had a Delphox released. Every so often, he would gesture with his hand, and the magical fox would send a column of flame towards wherever the trainer indicated it, usually a building or a car.
I ducked away from the window and raced over to my closet, “what the hell is going on?” I hissed into the phone.
“We don’t know! They all appeared at once!”
“Where’d they come from?” I drew out a blue gym bag and a black satchel.
“Again, we don’t know. All we know is that all the attacks happened at once.”
A code Absol was for something like this exact situation. Absol, being the disaster pokemon, was the representative of the current situation we were in. Our communication with command had been cut. It was just as Red had feared.
I tore my dress shirt off, not bothering with the buttons and yanked on a black, form fitting, long sleeve, polyester turtleneck.
“What’s my objective?” I questioned, switching out my slacks for a pair of cargo pants.
“City hall,” the woman said, “you need to make sure they haven’t gotten to the mayor yet.”
“Copy,” I unzipped the duffel bag and began to stuff my satchel’s pockets with all manner of useful equipment. Everything from extra pokeballs, gauze and rations. This assignment was not to be underestimated and something told me that in this situation it was better to be safe than sorry. I fit a utility belt around my waist and holstered three stealthy dusk balls for nighttime use.
As I slipped on a pair of black hiking boots, I spoke to the woman once again, “stay on the line with me for as long as you can.”
What I didn’t expect to hear on the other end was a sob.
“I can’t,” The woman’s voice was noticeably weaker than before.
“What? Why not?”
“They got here first, Nico... Took out everyone in the command center…” she coughed “Lurantis ran me through… thought I was dead…” the woman’s voice was becoming more and more faint.
“No no stay with me.” I desperately called into the phone.
“You’re the only one left, Nico… Baxcalibur… only agent still active…”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone in my hand for a moment. That couldn’t be, right? The Baxcalibur program was vast, spanning the entire region, the Sevil Islands, and parts of northern Johto. There was no way I was the last one left standing.
Another scream of fear from outside brought me into the present. I holstered the phone on my belt, tugged on an olive green fleece jacket and called Lucy, Hariet and Clayton into the dusk balls on my belt.
A glance outside revealed that an inferno was beginning to burn across the street. The attackers, whoever they were, were rounding up citizens and carrying them off.
If I didn’t want to be detected, it was time to move. A fingerless gloved hand turned the handle of the door and I stepped outside.
Something told me that I wouldn’t be back here for a long time.
***
As I skirted between the houses, I felt oddly calm. The Absol Protocall wasn’t something that I expected to ever be enacted, much less the town I was assigned to be invaded. In all honesty, I had been disappointed to be given the assignment to live undercover in Pallet. If there was ever to be an attack on Kanto, it wasn’t going to start in this city. But here I was. If the woman was to be believed, I was the only one to respond to the Absol Protocall. That had to be untrue. The agency I worked for was far too compartmentalized for her to know every nook and cranny of it. More agents had to be out there. I just needed to rendezvous with them and get more information.
As I moved closer to the city hall, the buildings became larger and more tightly packed. Storefronts and a few apartments ran the length of main street. I knew that one of the roads off of main street eventually turned into the long drive up the hill to the pokemon lab.
Downtown was terrifyingly silent and dark. Despite it being a small town, Pallet still had a little bit of a nightlife, and a decent tourism sector. However, right now, there was absolutely nobody around. I peeked around the corner of a building and looked down the eerily desolate main street.
The sound of voices and glass breaking halted me in my tracks.
“Glad we’re breaking in here. I’m famished,” I heard a voice say.
“Me too. We haven’t eaten since this morning.”
There was the sound of glass crunching as two pairs of feet entered a bakery through the broken front window.
I began to slowly ease myself away from the broken storefront, back behind a large brick building. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, when I heard a low growl. Turning, I saw an enormous dog baring its teeth at me. The creature’s eyes were slits and its fangs could rip me in half.
I didn’t know how it had snuck up on me so quietly, but the beast was so close that I could feel its fiery breath curl the hairs on my arms. Slowly, I extended my thoughts out to my pokemon, mentally connecting with Lucy, Harriet and Clayton and letting them know of my plan.
I raised my arms in a placating gesture, trying to calm the hound. Instead, the Houndoom lunged forwards and snapped at me.
Before my brain could process what was happening, I spun out of the way and drew a pokeball. The Houndoom skidded to a halt. Silently, Harriet emerged from her ball. Before Houndoom could react, Harriet spun in a full circle and clubbed the demon dog across the nose with the flat end of her mallet. There was a dull thonk and a yelp from the creature. I doubted that Harriet had hurt it much with the steel attack, but Houndoom were pack hunters. If any resistance was given, they wouldn’t push me any further.
Sure enough, after a moment of hesitation, the dog turned tail and ran.
I returned Harriet and paused for a moment. Where was Houndoom’s trainer?
I had just finished processing the thought when I heard the two voices again:
“Did you hear that?”
“Yeah!” Followed by footsteps approaching.
I snapped my dusk ball back onto my belt and hastily retreated away from main street. Maybe, if I had the drop on the two trainers, I’d be able to take them out. Lucy had two very sharp, aerodynamic children, after all. However, that would make far too much noise, and from what I had gathered, the enormous attacking force was far too large to justify such a full frontal assault.
As I moved between the buildings, towards city hall, I heard disturbing sounds coming from inside. Roars of pokemon, screams of terror, shouts of trainers giving commands. Apparently there were a few people still giving resistance to the mysterious attackers. Despite that, I doubted that would be very long lived. From what little I had gathered, it was easy to tell that these trainers were well equipped and talented.
Finally, I reached city hall. As far as I could tell, I was still undetected. The building wasn’t imposing, a relic from when Pallet Town was far smaller.
I paused for a moment to scan the area. From what I could tell, there weren’t any attackers in sight. They all seemed to have moved on towards Northern Pallet. This was my chance.
I dashed out from behind a large tree, and leapt up the steps to the hall two at a time. I thrust my shoulder against the door, but it didn’t budge. Confused, I checked the latch. The door wasn’t locked. I shoved my shoulder against the door again, it shifted a little bit. Something was blocking the door from the inside. Maybe whoever was in here had barricaded the door?
On the fourth attempt, I managed to force open the door wide enough to squeeze through. As I entered the room, I tripped over something laying on the ground. After catching my feet, I turned around and had to suppress a cry of horror.
Laying on the ground was a man and a pokemon. The man wore a security guard’s outfit. Next to him was a large yellow and black cat -- a Luxray. The large cat had been the reason for my difficult entry into the building.
That wasn’t what had surprised me, however. The security guard’s throat had been slit, and the Luxray had been pummeled so badly that I could see brutal purple bruising across its entire body. Whoever had attacked them had left nothing to chance.
Worriedly, I began to move into the building proper. Everywhere I looked, there was carnage. Apparently, the mayor had tried to rally his people together and hole up in city hall.
It hadn’t worked.
Fainted and dead pokemon littered the hallways. People; employees of the mayor and civilian trainers alike had been brutally executed. I had to suppress a gag. There was an almost sadistic creativity in the different ways these people had been murdered.
It felt like hours, but probably was only a matter of moments until I reached the main meeting room.
I looked inside and it was just as I had feared. At least 11 bodies littered the ground. I assumed this to be an attempt at a command center. There was one woman in a lab coat, presumably the ranking resident from the pokemon lab. Multiple city council members lay among the gore as well as two wiry men in suits; heads of the only bank in Pallet. Some of the bodies didn't have all their limbs attached, and some were horrifically burned, as if someone had thrown a grenade into the room. At the front, slumped against the pulpit was the mayor.
A Pallet town native, he had been a gym challenger in his youth, and once he grew out of his prime, he’d taken up politics. From what I had heard, he’d been a good leader, causing his sleepy hometown to flourish. The mayor had made his last stand at the front of the room. Next to him lay his trusty companion: Blastoise. Between its giant paws was the body of someone who I assumed was one of the invading trainers. The body had been almost broken in two before the Blastoise had succumbed. Another body in a black bodysuit lay on the other side of the room, also very clearly Blastoise’s doing.
However, whatever they had done, it hadn’t been enough.
I crouched low to the body, wondering what I was going to do now. I was supposed to try and save these people, but I’d been late. The mayor had met his end by some sort of electrical shock, judging by the burns and smell coming off him. I assumed his pokemon had been subjected to the same fate.
With a heavy heart, I closed the stunned eyes of the noble trainer. He deserved more dignity than to be slaughtered and forgotten about. I gently adjusted his shoulders and legs so it looked like he and his pokemon were simply resting after a long speech. His right fist was clenched. I reached down and splayed his fingers open into a more natural position.
To my surprise, a piece of paper fell out of his hand, to the ground. Confused, I reached down and picked the note up.
The piece of paper was crumpled from his hand, and part of it was blackened, however, desperately scribbled on the post-it-note were two words:
Pewter City
I furrowed my eyebrows. Was that note for me? Why else would a dying trainer have such a message be his last words? That had to be the message for me, right? I examined the paper some more. There was nothing else on the back.
The sound of footsteps in the hallway interrupted my thoughts. Without a moment’s hesitation, I burst into action, rushing to the door and drawing a pokeball.
“Dart!” I shouted as I threw Dragapult into the hallway.
Lucy appeared and roared her spectral cry. As she fully materialized, a gout of flame collided with her. Luckily, the dragon absorbed the fire as she launched Toil towards my unseen attacker. There was a hypersonic scream of glee as the baby Dreepy shot towards the target.
“Again!” I called.
Instantly, Trouble followed his brother down the hallway.
I leapt into the confined space, with Harriet’s pokeball at the ready, however there was only the fainted body of a Pinsir on the ground. The new attacker must have ducked into a room somewhere to avoid Lucy’s supersonic children.
Toil and Trouble shot past me, back to their mother and into the holsters on the side of her head.
“Cover me,” I muttered to Lucy, before sprinting down the hallway.
I was about halfway to the staircase which led to the entrance, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A human figure in a stealthy black bodysuit lunged from a side room and tried to tackle me.
I didn’t even slow down. There was a shrieking sound from behind me, followed by a grunt. I doubted the attack had killed the person. Toil and Trouble usually needed a few moments before they could be shot at full power again, however, it was enough to derail the trainer’s attempt to hinder my escape.
Pointing the pokeball behind me, I called Dragapult back and leapt down the stairs into the main entrance. I dashed past the security guard and out into the cold evening. Mid stride, I summoned Clayton in front of me. He crouched low, allowing me to leap onto his back. He cawed, defiantly and began to flap his mighty metal wings.
We were off the ground in moments and a few seconds later, Pallet town was receding behind us. Below, fires burned uncontrollably. Buildings were leveled, and small specks moved through the destruction, undoubtedly seeking to do more damage.
Before anybody could notice me or my bird, I tapped on Clayton’s neck and whispered: “Go.”
Clayton huffed in a huge puff of air and then shot forwards, traveling away from the sea. I could see Route 1 up ahead, and the Viridian Forest beyond that. I had failed in Pallet Town. Maybe that message wasn’t for me but either way, I couldn’t stay here. If this attack was as expansive as I feared, I didn’t know what to expect when I landed in Pewter.
Nevertheless, that was where I would go.
