Chapter 11
Hanna didn’t have time for this. No matter how much Krissy wanted to scream about it, the kids were getting rescued, and that was final. Hanna swallowed her misgivings and spoke with a forcefulness that was more for herself than for the others. “Jen, drag her. We’re leaving.”
“No!” Krissy tried to pull away again. While Jen didn’t exactly drag her, she still had to pick her up. Then Krissy started kicking.
“Ow!”
This outburst brought Jason out of his silence, but not in the way Hanna had hoped for. “Hey, she said they’re going to kill him! Don’t you believe her?”
Hanna ground her teeth. “Jason, Derek knows what he’s doing. He’s going to be
fine, okay?”
She stood up to help Jen with Krissy, but as soon as she did, Jason ran to one of the far corners of the room. “We’re not leaving without him!”
Hanna was speechless. Marie wasn’t well enough to manage the teleportation with
two kids who didn’t want to come along. She took a step in Jason’s direction, but this only led Travis to dart for the other corner.
Not you! You’re the one who picked up the phone! Can’t you trust us? Hanna didn’t say this out loud, and Travis didn’t say anything either. He just stared at her as his shoulders heaved up and down. She almost wanted him to collapse in a panic, if only because it would make this easier. Did they need Summer to tackle one of them?
Seconds passed which they couldn’t afford to lose, but nobody moved. Then, everyone moved as a noise like a distant explosion or shuttle launch pounded through the ceiling and shook the floor.
The kids looked up. Jason asked of nobody, “Is that Derek’s Tyranitar?”
Hanna and Jen said the same thing: “His
what?”
An alarm went off. It was a shrill, repeating tone, and it came with a woman’s voice from a loudspeaker in the hallway:
“All personnel: intruder alert. Hostile intruder on level B1. All personnel with Pokémon are to engage immediately. Repeat…”
Hanna clenched her fist and cursed at herself for the lie she was about to push on them. “They can’t beat a Tyranitar! Now get over here!”
“They can!” screamed Krissy. “They can beat any one trainer! Tyranitar has too many weaknesses!”
Of course, of course, and of course. Hanna knew all that, and so did Derek. He wasn’t just going to try and fight them all at once. He had a plan. He
had to have a plan.
There was another explosion, or something like one. The lights flickered and almost went out. Hanna felt Marie’s forehead. It wasn’t good for her to keep waiting like this. “Krissy, please. Marie’s—”
The alarm stopped, and in its place came a new voice. This one was male and sounded older.
“Mr. Brooks, your attention please.”
Hanna saw Krissy twitch.
“
This is Mariano Russo speaking. I’m told you seek an appointment. In the interest of limiting further structural damage to this facility, I will see you immediately.” The speech was interrupted by a short fit of coughing.
“…Also in the interest of preventing damage, and in acknowledgment that negotiations may break down, we will meet in the Testing Room on the bottom floor. It will be less claustrophobic for your Pokémon. One of my men will show you to the elevator.”
Hanna had no idea what to make of this, but Krissy did, and she was despondent. “No… You don’t know what he does to cops. Derek’s a cop, isn’t he?”
There was a question of when Krissy had learned that, but in Hanna’s mind, it was dwarfed by another: How would she know whatever it was Russo did to cops? Hanna looked behind at Jason, who showed no surprise, just terrified belief.
Krissy kept speaking, her voice growing weaker. “The last two that tried, he… he fought them both at once, just for fun. Their Pokémon d… died from blood loss. After he won, they…”
Krissy broke into tears. “They threw the cops in front of the Magnet Train. They forged suicide notes. He taught me how to fake their fingerprints… and…” She lost it.
Hanna’s heart stopped. She saw Jen’s grip loosen. At that moment, a news story from four years ago resurfaced in her memory—one that had seemed disturbing, but otherwise inconsequential. Two train-jumpers in the span of eight hours: the second coming only minutes after the trains started up again, with no relation found between the two cases other than their proximity. But the newspaper had said they were accountants or something, not police officers.
Then, she tried to imagine what would happen if Derek died on the job while under cover—whether his superiors at the police would acknowledge his work to the public or even to his colleagues.
If Krissy was telling the truth, then Russo knew killing Derek the same way wouldn’t risk an all-out war with the police. Undercover officers became statistics, not stories, so there was no reason not to execute them. Worse yet, killing Derek might not even be difficult for Russo if he was that skilled a battler. Hanna didn’t have Marie’s help to tell if Krissy was lying or acting, but the story fit too well for her to risk doubting it.
Part of Hanna’s brain knew this changed nothing: that getting the kids out came before getting any of themselves out, no matter how bad things looked. But she didn’t really believe it, anymore. Not when she could picture the reality of Derek’s death so viscerally. She knew she could never live with herself if they ran away now. And she couldn’t imagine what it would be like for Jen, who looked pale enough to faint, or for Krissy.
The girl’s face was hidden in her hands now. “I’m sorry… I tried to forget on purpose… I wouldn’t have done it if I knew you’d be here!
I’m sorry!”
Hanna’s chest felt both hollow and heavy. Her heart was made up, even if her mind wasn’t. She took a knee and put a hand to Marie’s forehead again.
Hold on.
Then, before she could articulate to herself why it was anything but her worst idea ever, she brought Marie back into her ball. Everyone stared at her. She motioned Jason and Travis to come over. They did. She stayed on her knee so she could talk to the kids from below their eye level.
“All right. We’re going to save Derek. But listen close, or the deal’s off.”
She had their solemn, undivided attention. She took a deep breath.
“If we’ve ever tried to tell you that you’re too small or too weak to make a difference, that was garbage. You’re strong as hell, and so are your Pokémon. That’s a stupid, dangerous thing for any kid to hear, but it’s true. We only tell you you’re weak because being young and strong makes you feel invincible, and we’re
terrified at the thought of something bad happening to you just because you didn’t know better.”
She gave her own better judgment a few seconds to offer an internal rebuttal. Then, she put all her cards on the table.
“If you can
promise me that you know you’re not invincible, we can try this.”
Jason, Krissy, and Travis all nodded. She had no choice but to believe them.
If the kids trusted her to have a plan, she didn’t—not quite. Hanna couldn’t bet on Marie evacuating everyone in the middle of a fire-fight. She also didn’t trust Marie or Summer to turn the tide in a battle between a Tyranitar and a Rocket Executive, and she knew of no way to get around that herself.
So, Hanna’s “plan” was to trust in her own tendency as a capable, confident adult to underestimate children. Fifteen years ago, Jen had taught her that nothing blinded the older like the size and age of the younger. That unguessed strength of young Jen’s had saved young Hanna’s life back then, and she had to hope something similar would work for Derek now.
She lifted her head to face Jen for a moment, just to be sure. Her best, oldest friend was still close to tears, but there was as much fire in her eyes as water. That settled it.
Hanna told the kids, “You stay behind Jen, and you stay in front of me. You fight when I say you can, and no earlier. And the next time I say we’re leaving, it’s final. Got it?”
More nods. She stood up. “Krissy. Do you know where we’re going?”
“…Yes.” Her eyes were red, but she sounded ready.
“You go second, then. Direct us.”
Just like that, everyone fell in line. They crept out of the room with Jen taking point. When they saw the coast was clear, Krissy said, “Left.” Then they ran.
Something told Hanna she was going to Hell for this.
*********
The elevator reached the bottom floor. Derek winced and grabbed his side as he stepped out. Tyranitar’s tail had only barely swung into him during the brief, one-sided skirmish upstairs, but he knew he was going to feel it for weeks. The elevator was at the end of a long hallway, and fortunately, it was tall enough for his Pokémon to fit without its spikes scraping the ceiling. Before Derek let Tyranitar out, though, he took a moment to make sure he could hide any sign of pain.
He was fine. He held Tyranitar’s ball in front of him and pressed the button. The familiar mountain of green rock appeared, all eight feet and five hundred pounds of it. It turned its head to look at Derek, opened its mouth to show its teeth, and growled. Derek didn’t move a muscle. He just stared it in the eye. That was how to say,
I’m still bigger and stronger than you. Don’t you forget it.
Tyranitar closed its mouth. For today at least, it was still convinced it was impossible to scare or seriously hurt Derek. That was the only way Derek had ever tried to keep its obedience, even though one of these years it was bound to fail. He walked past the armored dinosaur Pokémon, and it followed him. Each of its steps shook the floor. Derek still didn’t like walking with Tyranitar when there was no one else to capture its attention, but it would probably be smartest to show up armed and ready.
There came a shock from his side every few paces, but he kept them hidden. This served as a reminder that Tyranitar wasn’t really
his Pokémon in any deeper sense. All he’d done was convince it when it was small that if it knew what was good for it, it would do what he said. If he was honest, even when he was a kid, none of his Pokémon had been “his” Pokémon. The only difference was that they were soft enough for a Poké Ball to convince them who was boss, so there was never a reason to get physical with them. They had all just gone with the flow until they moved on to the next stage of their lives, whether back in the wild or with another trainer. Even his first one had been that way, his…
Shit. He had forgotten again. It felt wrong to forget when this might be the end coming up. He tried to retrace the memory. He had turned ten, but his dad had already sold off Vesuvius and Krakatoa’s litter to get them out of debt, so Derek didn’t get his promised Cyndaquil, which he used as an excuse not to start yet. Then he turned eleven, and Dad finally put his foot down and caught him the next best thing, which would mean Fire-type…
Vulpix. She was a Vulpix. He wondered where she was now, and if she could remember… how many… twenty years ago? She might already be dead.
They neared the other end of the hallway. He would have time to regret every last thing he’d ever done later. Or maybe he wouldn’t, but that was part of the idea. They reached the open doorway, past which was a ramp leading up.
What first came into view before they emerged from an opening in the floor was the towering ceiling. The underground gymnasium’s all-dirt battling surface was large enough for three basketball courts to fit end-to-end. There were no benches or seats, and the only features on the concrete walls were a number of exposed pipes and a door labelled “MAINTENANCE.”
At the other end of the arena was another ramp leading down. Derek only noticed it because at that moment, someone was coming into view. He wore a pinstriped suit and walked slowly. It was him. After years of hard, miserable work, plus a few minutes of reckless, irreversible decision-making, Derek was in the same room as Mariano Russo.
Both parties approached the center line and stopped close enough to talk, but far enough away to be safe. Russo cleared his throat, but then kept coughing for several seconds. He was even bent over. Perhaps this was Derek’s lucky day.
At length, the Rocket boss straightened up and spoke. “Good morning, Mr. Brooks.” His voice was steady, calm, and a little flat. “Your Pokémon is certainly an impressive specimen. It must have been an ordeal to train.”
Derek said nothing. The reports hadn’t suggested Russo would be the type to make small-talk. Was he stalling?
“To tell you the truth, I wish you had picked a better time to show up. Having a real battle usually means it’s my best day of the year, but as you can see, I’m not fit to fully enjoy it at the moment.” Indeed, Russo looked pale.
“You understand what I’m talking about, don’t you? In my experience, most police officers take the job because it’s the easiest way to bust some heads without facing any consequences. I just prefer to do away with the pretense of civic duty. It makes climbing the ladder easier.”
Tyranitar was getting impatient. It stamped its feet, bellowed at the stranger, and advanced well in front of Derek. He said, “Hold,” and it stopped in its tracks.
“At least one of you gets it. So, if battling doesn’t excite you, Mr. Brooks, perhaps gambling does? It’s always been something of a fascination for me. The real fun is in tricking some sucker into betting everything when he has no chance of winning. All the better when the sucker thinks he’s tricking you the same way. I think the best battles are also natural gambles, the only difference being that the terms are set by the victor after the battle is over.”
This behavior didn’t match the reporting at all. The book on Russo was that he was strictly business at all times. He was never supposed to indulge. Was their intel flawed?
Then, Russo squinted and just barely tilted his head. “Now that I think about it, you look familiar. I can’t help but shake the feeling we’ve met, but I can’t put my finger on it either.”
In Derek’s mind, that confirmed it: He was just stalling. He had probably called in backup from all around Violet City and wanted more time for them to show up. If that was the case, it meant he wasn’t feeling confident about the battle, and Derek’s best move would be to start the battle as soon as possible. With the idea of outright victory suddenly seeming very real to Derek, he went with the first idea he had for seizing the initiative.
“Hyper Beam.”
Tyranitar reared back its head and unhinged its jaws. As the unmistakable glow and high-pitched wail built up, Derek saw something no photograph had ever captured: Mariano Russo looking shaken. He scrambled for his belt. He had less than three seconds.
For a terrifying moment, Derek thought he might have miscalculated: unless a Pokémon appeared right away to take the attack, this would both
kill Russo and probably melt any credentials he had on his person.
Russo threw a ball at his feet, and a Snorlax taller than a man standing up and wider than a man lying down appeared. Not a millisecond later, Tyranitar’s mouth erupted. The focused orange blast struck the Snorlax directly in the stomach. It crumpled the giant Pokémon and sent it sliding on its back. Russo had to dive out of the way to avoid being crushed. When Tyranitar’s attack dissipated, there was a smoldering red oval on the Snorlax where several layers of skin and fat had melted away. It groaned once and didn’t get up.
One down, and since Russo had been fast enough, Derek wasn’t a killer yet. According to the bio, there were supposed to be four Pokémon remaining. But if the team’s damage-sponge could fall that easily, the rest of them might not even be a problem. This was going well.
Russo made no attempt to keep the fury out of his eyes. “That was low. I misread you.” As the steam billowed from Tyranitar’s mouth, the Executive pulled out another ball and threw it.
There appeared a tall, red, mantis-like Pokémon.
Scizor. Bug/Steel. Bad match-up for Rock/Dark. Need to put this one down quick. The only problem was that Tyranitar was still panting from using such a taxing move.
Russo knew this. “Plan B.”
The Scizor began to run in an arc around Tyranitar, which drew its attention but no response. As the Scizor built up speed, Derek began to notice something was off. The arc was too wide. At this rate, it was only going to get farther away from Tyranitar and closer to…
Derek’s hands shook. The Scizor’s eyes locked with his own as it broke into a sprint, and a far faster one than he expected from a Steel-type. Tyranitar was too slow to do anything about it. The steel claws opened, and Derek saw his death approaching.
The sense of easy mortality that had carried him this far vanished. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was too close to victory to die here. Moments before his survival instinct took over, he had one idea to save himself. He shouted,
“The trainer! Kill him!” He was dead if Russo could protect himself without Scizor.
Derek’s body moved on its own from there. He dove to the side just in time to avoid the Scizor’s swing. He ducked and rolled on impact, but it left him off balance. At the same time, Tyranitar began to run at Russo.
“Plan A! X-Scissor!”
The command came before Tyranitar got anywhere close to Russo. The Scizor turned its attention entirely away from Derek and darted after its new target. It would have no trouble catching up.
Derek called out, “Belay that! Get the Scizor!”
As the Scizor pulled back its right claw to strike, Tyranitar stopped in its tracks, spun, and sent its tail flying into its opponent’s head, knocking it thirty feet away with one blow despite its steel body. It was slow to come to its feet, and there was a visible dent in its skull.
Derek was about to order an attack, but Tyranitar already had its own idea. It rushed the Scizor with lumbering steps and opened its jaws to use Crunch. The Scizor failed to jump out of the way. Wisps of shadow came from Tyranitar’s fangs as they clamped down on the opponent’s head. Once again, the Scizor’s steel skin offered only so much resistance. When the difference in size and strength was this great, conventional battling wisdom always took a backseat to physics.
The Scizor struggled and managed to land two deep incisions on Tyranitar’s hide, but only deep enough to make it angrier. Tyranitar twisted the Scizor’s neck so hard, it looked like it would snap, and the struggling ceased. It dropped the enemy to the ground and crushed its chest with its foot.
Derek said, “Pull off.”
Tyranitar stomped on the Scizor one more time, but then it moved away and set its eyes on Russo again. Two down, three to go, and Derek wasn’t a killer yet. “If any of his Pokémon move past you, crush him. Ignore any others he sends out.” Derek didn’t even know if Tyranitar could process an order of that complexity, but all he needed was for Russo to believe it.
After near-brushes with death on both sides, it seemed like the time to speak to the Executive directly. “I wouldn’t mind Tyranitar turning you into a discolored spot on the wall, but you’re more useful to me alive. I’m willing to keep this between the Pokémon if you are.”
Russo’s voice remained steady despite his scowl. “Don’t flatter yourself. This has nothing to do with your preferences: it is textbook mutually assured destruction. Your Tyranitar cannot stop my Pokémon from killing you, and likewise. all of my Pokémon together cannot stop your Tyranitar from killing me as long as it’s at full strength. Therefore, the only path to victory is to disarm the opponent first. It’s still anything-goes.”
It was difficult for Derek to follow what happened next. Russo’s glare grew even sharper, and his eyes began to twitch uncontrollably. The Rocket Executive tensed his shoulders as if expecting something else to happen. Then he began to say, “Hypnos—”
Russo’s eyes went wide, and he grabbed his throat just before breaking into a fit of pained coughing. He dropped to his knees as his whole body convulsed. It was like the man was going mad. When he was finally quiet again, Derek saw him mutter something under his breath.
The lights flickered. He realized this wasn’t just Russo having an episode.
Frantically, Derek looked around for anything else that was amiss. He almost missed it in the bad light, but Russo’s shadow was slowly growing darker. When it became pitch black, it suddenly darted away from Russo and slithered on the ground in Tyranitar’s direction. “Below you!”
Before Tyranitar could react, a Pokémon emerged from the shadow. The maniac had been keeping a goddamned Gengar inside of him. It spat an inky, purple liquid from its mouth: Toxic. The mess landed on Tyranitar’s belly, which prompted a roar and an attempt at a Crunch attack, but Gengar was far too quick and floated out of harm’s way.
It was difficult to tell from a distance, but the poison didn’t appear to be sinking into Tyranitar’s skin. Close call. But with Russo still shaking on the floor, Derek only had to stay focused on the enemy Pokémon.
He and Tyranitar didn’t have much practice against Ghost-types, or against anything as fast as a Gengar for that matter, but at least the type matchup was nothing to worry about. The Gengar darted back and forth as it threw Shadow Balls and waved its arms as if to attempt Hypnosis, but none of its efforts did any more than annoy Tyranitar. So, it was just a matter of landing a hit. Crunch was apparently too slow, but they had practiced one other Dark-type move at least a little.
“Dark Pulse!”
Tyranitar lowered its head and allowed some shadow to seep out of the thin gaps in its armor. Immediately, the Gengar flew as far away from its trainer as it could, which happened to place it much closer to Derek than before. Tyranitar tracked it all the while, and before Derek could say anything, it let loose a massive wave of all-encompassing blackness. The bulk of it hit the Gengar, but the tail end of it flew at Derek and overwhelmed him.
He tried to stay calm. He knew what a Dark Pulse did to a human. He knew that when one hit you, it was vitally important to stay focused on the world around you and avoid thinking about anything else. He was especially not supposed to think about bullies from his childhood, especially not the ones standing right in front of him. The best part, though, was that they were still kids, while he had grown bigger. That made it easier to grab one of their necks. Derek pushed his thumbs into the little bastard’s windpipe. He squeezed and squeezed so he could be sure this brainless sadist would never say a word again.
Derek slapped himself in the face. That was one hand off the bully. He slapped himself two more times, and finally, the faceless children vanished. He was back in the Rocket gymnasium. He was just in time to see Tyranitar rush the Gengar where it was frozen in pain only inches above the ground.
“Toxic.” Russo had his voice back. The order made Derek realize the huge error Tyranitar was about to commit.
“Dark Pulse again!”
But it was too late. Tyranitar was committed to using Crunch. The shadows around its fangs took grip on the Gengar’s mass where normal teeth would just pass through them. There was an unearthly scream, and at the same time, a fountain of poisonous fluid erupted from the Gengar in all directions, including down Tyranitar’s throat.
Tyranitar choked and wailed, while the Gengar simply fell on its face and sunk halfway into the floor. Already, Derek could see veins bulging through Tyranitar’s rocky skin in the neck area, and they had a faintly purple cast.
Shit.
It was difficult, but Derek managed to convince himself this wasn’t as bad as it looked. The poison would get worse as the battle went on, but there was no way Russo could put up a war of attrition for long, now. He had sent out Gengar too late, so he only had two Pokémon left. Tyranitar would just have to handle them quickly.
Three down, two to go, and Derek still wasn’t a killer. As Russo came to his feet with another Poké Ball in hand, Derek told himself it was almost over. It had to be.
*********
Hanna stood with her back to the wall. She was watching the hallway behind them while Jen peeked around the next corner. They’d had good luck so far, but it obviously couldn’t last. Just as Hanna was wondering if this was the corner where their luck would finally run out, Travis tapped her on the shoulder. Jen was huddling everyone together and whispering. Hanna kept an ear on the discussion and an eye on the hallway.
“Big crowd in front of the elevator. They’re all just standing there watching the door, but I think there’s too many for us to get the jump on ’em.”
Krissy had an immediate explanation. “They must be guarding all of the elevator doors in case Derek tries to get away. It’ll probably be the same thing on all the other floors, too.”
Jason asked, “Are there any stairs?”
Krissy shook her head. Then she stared off into space while everyone waited for her to say something. If Hanna had her figured correctly, she was trying to work out a way to fight off a large number of Rockets. That was out of the question. Hanna seriously considered bringing out Marie before Krissy could suggest anything suicidal, but the girl spoke up first.
“I just remembered. There’s a service elevator that goes straight from this floor to the bottom.”
“Will it also be guarded?” asked Jen.
“I don’t think so. It’s in the quartermaster’s depot, and that has a special key. I think I can pick the lock.”
The fact that this plan didn’t involve taking on a small army was music to Hanna’s ears. And at this point, she could believe Krissy was plenty adept at breaking and entering. “We’ll take it.”
They walked back the way they had come slowly at first, but they took to running again when they were far enough from the last intersection. Even if they still had to be cautious, they couldn’t afford to ignore the element of time. Hanna prayed Derek would try to keep Russo talking for as long as possible.
As they went, the lights grew more and more erratic. Soon they reached a stretch where they were almost completely out. It was here that Krissy told Jen, “Next left, and then it’s on the right.”
As was becoming routine, they crowded near the corner while Jen checked for Rockets. But instead of signaling them one way or the other, she just said, “Oh my god.”
Jen just kept staring, so Hanna, despite her misgivings, got everyone moving again. But when she saw around the corner for herself, she too had to stop and stare.
There was a long gash in the ceiling. It was lined with twisted, broken, and melted steel bars. From the way everything burst downward, it was clear the cause had come from the floor above rather than this one.
“Hyper Beam,” said Krissy. “That must have been one of the shockwaves we felt.”
Hanna could hardly believe it. The damage spread for at least twenty-five yards. If Russo was confident he could take on the creature that did
this, then the five of them were hopelessly out of their league. She looked away from the ceiling, then noticed the rest of the wreckage on the floor. There were a number of fallen cinder blocks, next to one of which was a body.
She swallowed. Before anyone else decided to move, she walked towards it. She stayed clear of the sparks falling from the shattered fluorescent lights. “Krissy, get to work on that door.”
Hanna knelt over the prostrate Grunt and hoped neither of the boys would come to get a closer look. She saw the sticky mess of red the nearest block had made of the back of his head. Even though she knew what she would find, she put her fingers to his neck. Nothing. If there was any saving him, he needed to get to a hospital in no more than five minutes.
No, Hanna told herself. He was dead. Even if it weren’t obvious from the injury, they couldn’t use Marie’s teleportation without Derek. Alerting the Rockets wasn’t an option, and calling an ambulance wouldn’t even get anyone through the front door.
Therefore, he was dead.
Now that she was done rationalizing, it hit her. It hit her in the gut and stayed there. She put a hand to her mouth and tried not to make a sound. They could
never know about this. She could never tell the kids that their being here had contributed in any way to a person’s death, Rocket or no. And she could never tell Derek his Pokémon had been the most immediate cause, even if it was an accident. And she could never tell Jen, because it would tear her apart just as much as Derek, maybe more.
Hanna herself wasn’t sure she could sleep knowing about this, either. She wished Marie were in good enough shape to wipe out the memory that very minute, but she would have to hold it inside for now. She got up and turned around. The kids had already learned their lesson—they didn’t need to learn it even harder from a corpse. It was too cruel.
“He’s unconscious,” she told the others. “He’ll be fine when another Rocket gets to him.”
The boys seemed to hear her, but didn’t react much. They were focused on Krissy’s struggle with the doorknob. Jen, however, looked Hanna in the eye and kept looking. Her expression was inscrutable. For the first time in years, Hanna didn’t know what she was thinking. Maybe she was waiting for Hanna to shake her head—to let her know they were hiding the truth from the kids.
Please believe me, thought Hanna.
I know you’re not a kid, but I didn’t want to see it either.
Whatever she knew or didn’t, Jen turned away to watch the doorknob again.
Krissy wiped some sweat from her forehead. This was taking too long—solid minutes too long. Hanna just wanted them to get through the door and away from that body. She wanted to find Derek before he ended up the same way, and get everyone out before the hideous consequences of her own stupid decisions could pile any higher. Why hadn’t she put a stop to this weeks ago when she had the chance?
The lock clicked. Krissy opened the door, and Jen jumped in front to make sure she was the first to actually walk through. Hanna went last and remembered to shut and lock the door behind them. Inside, there were rows and rows of shelves, boxes, and miscellaneous electronic gadgetry. More importantly, there were no people in sight, and at the other end of the long, wide room was an elevator. Almost there.
Jen and the boys ran, wasting no time. Hanna started to follow after them, but she passed Krissy in the process. “Krissy, come on!”
Krissy didn’t move. Instead, she stood in place and stared at one of the shelves.
“Krissy!”
Krissy kept staring, but said, “I think I just got an idea.”
*********
The purple tint was spreading. Tyranitar’s shoulders sagged, its veins bulged, and its breathing grew more pained and erratic by the minute. Fifteen feet in front of it, Russo’s Mr. Mime also looked tired, but it had taken far too long to get him to that point. Worse yet, the twelve layers of alternating Reflects and Light Screens between him and Tyranitar were still up. They covered the entire width and height of the room. So far, each one that went down had been immediately replaced.
Derek seethed. “Again.”
Tyranitar lowered its head and charged at the shimmering, nearly invisible wall. Its momentum slowed with every other layer it passed through, and when it was almost halfway there, the Mr. Mime shifted his hands. A blindingly white sheet of light appeared in the middle of the wall. The new layer stopped Derek’s Pokémon completely, then sent it toppling backwards. Again.
Derek’s fingernails dug so deep into his palms, they nearly drew blood. Protect wasn’t supposed to work on four attempts in such a short span. Everything was going wrong. Hyper Beam had fizzled out after breaching four Light Screens, the Dark Pulses did even less, and trying to run through the Reflects was only tiring Tyranitar out even faster. There couldn’t be more than a few minutes left until the toxin brought down Tyranitar without Russo so much as needing to call out another attack.
Derek glared at the other side of the arena as Tyranitar struggled to its feet. Russo’s posture was still shaky, but his stall-tactics seemed to have only improved his condition. The Mr. Mime’s feet were dug into the floor, and while his hands stayed pressed against his conception of the wall, his knees were shaking. If that wasn’t a sign the defense was about to break down, Derek knew he was screwed.
Tyranitar pulled up to its full height. It roared, and the way its voice broke in places and sounded half-submerged did not inspire confidence. But it would have to do.
“Again!”
Head down. Charging. Slowed, but not yet stopped. The Mr. Mime shifted his hands yet again, and the white sheet began to coalesce. It grayed out. Tyranitar kept moving, and let loose another bellow.
Then Russo spoke. “Drop.”
The Mr. Mime’s hands fell to his sides, and the wall vanished. Tyranitar stumbled, but not enough to fall down. It kept barreling forward. When it was still a few steps away, however, Derek caught a faint glow all around the Mr. Mime. Then he was blinded.
The Dazzling Gleam attack filled every part of Derek’s vision with pulsing flashes of white and pale pink. Along with the Fairy-light came a high-pitched ringing that kept him from hearing anything else. It didn’t hurt much, though, so he must have been outside its damaging range.
All the same, he couldn’t afford to be out of commission with the battle still going on. He had to be ready as soon as his sight came back, so he tried to think. Assuming Tyranitar was in the process of clobbering the Mr. Mime—Derek didn’t want to consider the real possibility that a strong Fairy-type attack might be too much for it—then Russo could be sending out another Pokémon at any second. It would be his fifth and final.
Derek couldn’t afford to take any chances with the poison. The last round would have to end as soon as it began. At this point, he could see vague shapes, but only in his peripheral vision. He guessed there were two more seconds until Russo threw his final Poké Ball. He had to trust that the Mr. Mime was already gone.
“Hyper Beam!”
The ringing in his ears was replaced by another, more familiar high-pitched sound. The center of his vision began to resolve into shapes as well. He saw two flashes at almost the same time: a red one on the ground, and a long, orange one starting high and moving low. But instead of staying constant, the orange flash swung to the right after hitting the floor. The residual Fairy-light now faded more quickly, so Derek caught something red, white, and round moving away from the beam. It rolled faster than anything of that shape was supposed to of its own volition. Then, it jumped up at Tyranitar.
It was unbearably loud and bright. Derek was knocked off his feet. He hit the dirt, and all he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping. The Fairy-light was gone, but now everything around him was a blur. He tried to remember that this was nothing—that he’d kept far worse pain under wraps when he needed to convince Pupitar he was still stronger than it. He concentrated on one limb at a time and brought himself up to his knees.
His eyes came close to normal before his ears did. To his left, he saw the Mr. Mime sprawled out and inert in a tangle of bleeding limbs. To his right, he saw scattered pieces of a smooth material that were unmistakably bits of Electrode shell. Straight ahead of him was the rest of the Electrode, shattered and scattered but probably reparable.
Above that was Tyranitar. There was a long crack extending from its side to nearly the small of its back. Derek shuddered to think of what its chest looked like. It coughed, and blood tinged with black and purple fell from its mouth. He had never seen the creature hang its head so low. But it was still standing.
Lying all around the gymnasium were five battered, bruised, and broken Rocket Pokémon. That was all of them. Russo was lying prone with his hands covering his ears. The fight was over.
But that made no sense. Why would Russo have his Electrode use Explosion when all he had to do was keep stalling to win? With all that speed—hell, with a lucky Thunder Wave—an Electrode should have been able to avoid hits and keep Russo safe more than long enough for the poison to take down Tyranitar. This was all very, very wrong. Derek was missing something.
Russo stood up and removed his hands from his ears. Then, he reached for his belt. He pulled out an Ultra Ball.
In that moment, Derek felt the bottom fall out from beneath him as he realized his mistake. The
Gengar wasn’t one of the five. Whoever gathered the intelligence would have gotten the number based on how many balls Russo carried. The real number was five plus the one he housed inside him.
Russo began to speak. It might as well have been a whisper, and Derek only caught the tail end of it: “…but you’ve lost.”
The pounding in Derek’s head began to subside, but in his chest, the pounding only grew harder. He wanted to come to his feet, but his legs wouldn’t move.
Russo coughed, then half-smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, I can’t take any credit for training this one. It was a gift from the boss.” He threw the ball.
The red flash grew into something very large and very tall. It was a gray, hulking mass of armor, claws, teeth, and one drill-shaped horn: a Rhydon.
Derek was
positive they weren’t supposed to grow to seven feet. They also weren’t supposed to have blood-shot eyes and permanent holes drilled into their haunches. Derek could only imagine what they had pumped into those holes. Its muscles pushed apart the gaps in its armor in a way that was painful just to look at. Its whole body was already twitching.
The Rhydon didn’t wait for orders. It rushed head-on at Tyranitar, who was still trying to recover from the Hyper Beam and the Explosion. The sound of the collision was like a mountain breaking in two. Tyranitar struck the ground and kept tumbling from there until it slid to a stop.
“Earthquake.”
The Rhydon bellowed, which alone was enough to shake the floor a little. It set its feet, and Derek quickly came to his senses and dropped flat. The attack rattled every bone in his body, even as far away as he was. The dirt floor split only inches to his left. A wall of earth rose above him. It took all his willpower to stay put and not fall into the trap of trying to run away. One wrong move was more than enough to break a human bone.
As the shaking died down, Derek dared to look up at Tyranitar. The crack around its middle had been forced open even wider. He saw trickles of blood, sand, and shadow seeping out of it. The Earthquake had broken down too much of the rock in its armor. Against a lesser Rock-type in similar shape, the move might have been lethal. But, while Tyranitar’s eyes were closed, Derek could still hear its pained, hoarse breathing.
Russo spoke again. “Tear it apart.”
The Rhydon stepped forward. The horn above its nostrils began to spin faster and louder than any electric drill.
We’re dead.
A small feeling in Derek’s head insisted that this was fine. This was what he wanted. This was what he had been counting on.
They can’t fire you if you’re dead.
Derek told the feeling to shut its mouth and staple it. Whether because he truly wanted to survive, or simply because he preferred to die kicking and screaming instead of lying down, he wasn’t done yet. “Get up!”
Tyranitar’s head moved a few inches, but its eyes stayed closed. The Rhydon was almost there. Derek pushed himself to his knees again, then did the first thing that came into his head. He pulled his right shoe off his foot and chucked it at Tyranitar’s face.
“
Get uuuuup!”
As Derek’s vocal cords tore themselves apart, Tyranitar’s nose twitched. It rolled from its side, somehow forced itself to its feet, and burst forward, bellowing and choking, faster than Derek could have imagined. It caught Rhydon flat-footed. The collision was just as loud as the first.
But the Rhydon took only two steps backward. It kept its balance, locked claws with Tyranitar, and began to push back. That rush of momentum was gone, and now Derek’s Pokémon had to dig its feet into the ground just to keep from being knocked over again.
More blood and sand burst from Tyranitar’s side. Its back quivered feverishly. Just like that, Derek’s last hope was shown to be false. Even if there were an opening to execute a proper attack, Tyranitar was just as likely to faint if it tried anything that required more muscles than shoving.
The resistance was for naught. The Rhydon pressed until Tyranitar’s feet gave way. Derek’s Pokémon was on the ground again, and this time, the Rhydon was already on top of it. Once more, the horn began to spin.
Then, out of nowhere, several loud, metallic popping noises came from the ceiling. The sprinkler heads had exploded. Water poured down in jets, hitting the Rhydon square on the crown of its head with no sign of slackening. The drill came to a stop as the Rhydon yelled upwards in confusion. Where a second ago nothing could have stolen Derek’s attention, he found himself staring at the burst pipes as well.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. Looking closer, it was as if something were pushing or pulling the water in the direction it wanted.
“Ignore it!” shouted Russo, but the Rhydon continued to scream at the source of its irritation. It was twice-weak to Water, and those streams were not soft.
This was baffling enough, but then the leaves came. They flew in over Derek’s head, all aglow, and swarmed the Rhydon. The beast screamed and tried to bat them away, which accomplished nothing but to incur tiny, insignificant, but obviously infuriating cuts all over its arms.
Though the Magical Leaf attack succeeded in getting under the Rhydon’s skin, that was nothing compared to the stomach-churning dread it gave Derek. He stood up, turned around, and told himself over and over that this couldn’t be happening. The arena was in shambles from the Earthquake, so he couldn’t spot them right away, but there they were around the corner of a tiny cliff close to the wall behind him: Krissy and her Bayleef.
Derek nearly threw up. How could Hanna leave her behind? The answer was obvious: She hadn’t. Derek spun his head around the rest of the room until he spotted Travis with a Quagsire near the right-side wall. The Pokémon’s front fins were raised to the ceiling.
Derek thought he was losing his mind. “
What the fuck are you doing here!”
Even as he hollered at them, Tyranitar pulled itself away. It slowly rose to its feet. The Rhydon was too preoccupied to notice.
“Rhydon! Kill it!”
Russo’s Pokémon faced Tyranitar with reluctance, but then a capital-r Roar came from another corner of the arena, and its attention was robbed again. Derek knew the voice: Summer’s. How, how could Jen send her Arcanine out against the Ground-type from Hell?
Summer ran from her hidden spot to a rare stretch of flat floor close to the far wall behind Russo. She bared her fangs. It was enough to grab the Executive’s attention in addition to the Rhydon’s.
Derek wasn’t fooled. Summer couldn’t prolong this fight even a minute. As fast and strong as she was, she wasn’t in the same league as this Rhydon. Russo was going to snuff out the opposing Pokémon one by one, and then the trainers were next.
They hadn’t saved the kids. They were going to die.
Derek had killed them all. It was supposed to have been only himself, but he had killed them
all. For the first time since his trainer’s journey ended, when his dad last called him from the hospital, Derek’s eyes welled up.
*********
Jason took a deep breath. From his hiding place near the door, he saw Summer take her position on Russo’s flank. She had the room’s attention. So far, everything was going better than they could have hoped for. Lucia was keeping the Magical Leaf going strong, same with Leviathan and the Redirected Surf or the High-Pressure Rain Dance or whatever it was Travis had taught him. The only one with nothing to do was Rabies, still in his ball, not to come out. Jason knew that was for the best, and told himself so.
Summer moved to her next position. She ran in an arc to the opposite side of the arena from him and drew all eyes with her. The gigantic Rhydon now had its back to Jason. This was his chance. He ran from his spot and toward the middle of the gymnasium. Nobody noticed him, not even Derek. He stopped just far enough away. The ground beneath him was elevated, but still flat enough. He took another deep breath. Then, he adjusted his grip on the black Poké Ball in his right hand.
“Rhydon, Earthquake! Kill them both!”
Jason had to hurry. His eyes darted all over the Rhydon’s back until they settled on a set of small holes close to where its left leg met its backside. Those weren’t supposed to be there. That was his place to aim. He wound up sidearm and fixed his eyes on the target. If he kept looking right there, then he could hit the mark even if it was moving as he threw.
The Rhydon raised its other leg to launch the attack, and everything slowed down for Jason. He double-checked every condition in his head. The Pokémon was feeling stress from its elemental weaknesses, acting indecisive, and had a potential weak-spot. Those were all good. It may not have taken any meaningful damage, but there was nothing they could do about that. Most importantly, it didn’t know he was here. That was why even though he had a few more of the quartermaster’s Poké Balls on his belt, his only real chance would be on the first attempt.
Three movements began at once. The Rhydon’s other foot began to drop; Tyranitar ducked its head and lunged; and Jason stepped and planted with his opposite foot as he whipped his arm forward.
If time had been slow a moment ago, it was now at nearly a halt. A feeling of mixed weakness and regret stirred in the back of Jason’s head. It was there because none of his skills as a battler were of any use here, and Krissy’s were. Even Travis’s were. All
he could do to help was use his cheap, lousy tricks with a Poké Ball.
And wasn’t that why they were here to begin with? No matter how hard he tried, he had never proven to Krissy he was worth anything as a Pokémon trainer. So, he had gotten them to pick fights with Rockets. But he was never a real factor in any of those battles, either. And now, during the final showdown, he didn’t even have a Pokémon out. He would just have to live with the fact that she would never see him as anything more than a joke.
Eventually, she would probably leave because of it.
Time didn’t stop. The Rhydon’s other foot hit the ground, and Tyranitar made contact in its best attempt at a lower-case-t tackle. The cracks began to shoot from underneath the Rhydon’s foot, but Tyranitar pushed everything out of balance: Most of the cracks went in Jason’s direction.
Jason’s elbow and wrist twisted to fire the ball. Inside the elbow, something long and stretchy yelped in pain, but that was normal. It had been doing that for months.
The cracks in the ground were halfway to Jason. The punctures on the Rhydon’s left leg moved slightly. Jason’s eyes followed them, and the ball left his hand.
The long thing ripped nearly in two.
Jason’s elbow was on fire, and not in the same way it usually was when he threw. This was different, and it hurt five, ten, a hundred times worse. His eyes lost track of the ball as it spun towards its target. He was falling. The cracks passed all around him as his throwing arm hit the dirt. The shockwaves entered his elbow, and the soft, long thing inside there snapped. It was in two pieces. His forearm hung loose, and everything below his bicep was dying from pain.
He screamed.
*********
The Rhydon had vanished, but Jen barely noticed. The cries drowned out everything else.
“
Jason!”
She sprinted from her hiding spot in the corner: the place where she’d been huddled up like a coward while she let her little cousin, an eleven-year-old boy, Aunt Meg’s baby, take point. The residual shockwaves from the aborted Earthquake almost rolled her ankle, but she ran through it unscathed. She slid to a stop where Jason lay like a rag-doll on the floor. His eyes were shut and wet and he just kept screaming.
Derek was there almost as fast he she was, and he too dropped to his knees. “Oh god. Oh god…”
Derek moved Jason just enough so he was on his back and off his right arm. Jen had no idea what had happened, but it had to be to that arm. While everything else Jason had thrashed about, it was limp. Derek tried to steady him in place, but he didn’t seem to know where to put his hands. “Jason! Jason! Try not to move!”
Derek’s voice was crying. It wasn’t going to work. Jen fought back her own tears and tried to help keep him still. “Jason, you’re okay. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re taking you to the hospital, just hold on!”
Travis, Krissy, and their Pokémon hovered over them now. They were stunned silent. But that was still only five people—they needed one more. And she was the one they needed to get Jason out of here. Jen stood up and turned her head all around the room. “Hanna!”
Jen found Hanna where the battle had been. She stood in front of the man who must be Russo, and standing behind him was Summer, who growled in her best impression of a Pokémon that might actually hurt a human. Also nearby was Derek’s huge, sick Tyranitar. It was lying on its side with its eyes closed, not unlike the five other Pokémon all around that looked maimed or dead.
But the Rhydon was gone. There was only a black Poké Ball with a red “R” on the front, and it wasn’t shaking. There was nothing stopping them from leaving.
“Hanna! We have to go!”
Hanna didn’t say a word or even turn her head. Instead, Russo reached into his jacket and handed her something.
“Wallet too,” said Hanna. “Everything in your pockets. Anything with a chip in it.”
The Rocket took a moment, but he emptied his pockets as requested. It only barely registered with Jen that Hanna was taking what Derek had infiltrated the mansion to acquire in the first place. She could hardly think about anything other than Jason’s screams.
When she had everything, Hanna started to walk away with Summer, but then she turned around again. “If you think for a
minute about retaliating, you better know that I got us in here from miles away, and I can drop that guy and his Tyranitar on you faster than you can blink. Wherever you are and whenever I feel like it.”
Russo seemed not to care whether she was bluffing. “I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “I doubt I’ll have a job after today’s fiasco. And if I know my likely replacement, as long as you leave him alone, he’ll be satisfied to send his men after me, instead.”
“Whatever. Get fucked.”
Jen didn’t know if she believed him, but she didn’t care right then. Jason was still in agony. She was just relieved the explanation was finally enough for Hanna, who turned and ran back to them. Now Jen saw the tears in her friend’s eyes as well. Hanna gave her a look that could only mean,
I’m so, so sorry.
Hanna dropped Marie’s ball on the ground. The Alakazam’s head hung low, and she could only stay up on her hands and knees. “All Pokémon back in their balls,” said Hanna. “Quickly!”
Jen had forgotten. She recalled Summer, and Krissy and Travis recalled theirs, but Derek had to hurry away to retrieve his Tyranitar. As he ran back, Russo raised his voice and spoke again.
“Lucia.”
Who was he talking to? Not Krissy, right? But who else could it be?
“I will probably be overseas for some time. If you should need it, the region’s best center for homeless children is in Blackthorn.” He turned away with a frown, then stared at all his defeated Pokémon.
Krissy said nothing. Jen thought she saw some disgust come over the girl’s face, but she got the feeling it wasn’t as simple as that. Then, she looked back at Russo and felt the slightest hint of déjà vu, but it was dispelled by the urgency of the moment and forgotten immediately.
Hanna took Marie’s hand and placed it so her spoon was pressed against Jason’s heaving chest. Then, Jen and the others huddled close. They each got a hand on Marie and held on to each other. All six humans were ready to go, as were the Pokémon. It was finally over.
As the room dissolved around her, it occurred to Jen that soon Jason would also be thinking it was over, but in a different way. Going home still meant the end of the journey. Something told her that was going to hurt him worse than the arm, and her heart broke.
