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The Ember",
"writing": "[b]Sparks in the Brush - James[/b]\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n\tYou suddenly rouse to a muddled quarter-consciousness, feeling a tightness in your mind that tugs and twists at the back of your eyes, that very same feeling a babe has as they’re stolen away from that delightfully restful sleep they’ll inevitably leave behind as they grow into adulthood.\n\t\n\tBlackness, only blackness\n\nThis isn’t right, the tingling sensations, those obnoxious first flashes of life, where are they? \n\nWait, no, there is something. A light! \n\n…Oooh… Oh my, that’s… that’s not a good feeling.\n\nWhat is… is this a [u]nightmare[/u]?\n\nYou never have these anymore.\n\n\tYeah… Haven’t in a long long time, have you?\n\n\tEyes? You think they’re eyes, anyway. Gods, it hurts to look at though. That light, like you’re in a staring contest with a welding arc and you’re winning with your naked ass eyes. All those impossible colors make you want to clench a jaw full of teeth you know aren't there, and no matter how bright that distorted light gets you just can’t look away.\n\nDespite this malevolent glow you still can see the shadow of something in the glare, a towering gold and marble effigy beset with bonfire eyes that swirl with the colors of a cold, bitter hatred. Its towering gait grows and grows and grows until your consciousness is crushed beneath the weight of many patient millenia spent on [u]you[/u], wasted in disappointment and disgust.\n\nSuddenly something angry grips your heart and your nonexistent guts squirm like you’re being wrung dry for every drop of rotten blood you can give to soak the desiccated soil of a world which thirsts for justice.\nThen the pain starts, nnnggg, aaaah! It’s like when you earned your tat, all across the nothingness you never felt before, transformed into nothing but an all encompassing agony.\n\n[i]Alright then[/i], you think.\n\n[i]You wanna go, beastie?[/i]\n\nYou feel something, the lightning bolt of life that strikes your neck and sears a path down your spine. The muscles of your neck twitch.\n\n[i] Let’s [/i][i]play[/i][i]![/i]\n\n\n[b]ALARM - ERRANT METABOLIC EVENT[/b]\n\n[b]ADJUSTING CORE PARAMETERS[/b]\n\n\n\n\tSuddenly your withered heart swells and smacks your chest with bitter, cold blood, fueled with impetuous excitement. Your spine shakes and your skin burns as whatever it is that’s on you simply won’t let up. Yeah, it was your skin all along.\n\n“[i]Bad choice, friend,[/i]” you try to say, but that silky-smooth voice you remember never manifests.\n\n\tYour right arm racks with agony as you fight to will the ligaments, tendons, and muscle groups of your hand into that oh-so religiously rehearsed shape. Your fingers curl into a fist, crackling like shattered glowstick cores. You twist your wrist and all your bones align, elbow locked, first two knuckles loaded with murderous intent.\n\n[i]Bring it, Buzzwole, pain is the shadow of victory![/i]\n\t\n\n\n[b]ALARM - PERSISTENT METABOLIC ACTIVITY[/b]\n\n[b]EXECUTING EXCHANGE TRANSFUSION[/b]\n\n[b] CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 1.25% RATE: 110ML/HR -[/b]\n\n\n\n[b]\t[/b]Your heart rate slows. Your arms begin to quake. Your inner vision blurs.\n\n[b]\t[/b][u]No[/u], you won’t go back to sleep! Screw that noise, this thing needs an education.\n\n\tYou glare upward, thinking as hard as you can just in case the thing is psychic type.\n\n[i]You’re [/i][i][u]mine[/u][/i][i].[/i]\n\nYou feel the corner of your mouth curl beneath smooth rubber seals.\n\nYour neck writhes back and forth as you work yourself up into a hysterical frenzy, fighting the cool caress of amniotic ice. The monster’s assault blasts past your skin and into the muscle, tracing your web of nerves with lightning strikes of fierce agony. Your shoulder finally submits to your will, relenting like a weather-rusted locomotive. \n\n[i]You jumped into the rosebush, now you get the thorns![/i]\n\n\nThump.\n\n\n\n[b]ALARM - SUSPENSION RISK[/b]\n\n[b]ACCELERATING EXCHANGE RATE - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT[/b]\n\n[b]CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 9.86% 136ML/HR +[/b]\n\n\n\nYour knuckles strike true, something solid, and the thing begins to fade away. The pain in you begins to subside, but you won’t stop. Your other shoulder gives too, and you cut through rimy slush with your strikes. You feel your legs start quaking, thighs jerking to life as you fight with all you have.\n\n[i]Get back here, [/i]you scream, muffled by polymer tubes and cryogenic ooze,[i] we’re not done yet![/i]\n\n\nThump.\n\nThump thump.\n\n\n\tA murky listlessness creeps at the edge of your mind.\n\n\tThe darkness has come for you again, and the sweet serenade of sleep swaddles your soul.\n\nNo, you won’t go to sleep.\n\nYou’d never go that easy, would you?\n\n\n\n[b]ALARM - SUSPENSION INSTABILITY[/b]\n\n[b]ACCELERATING EXCHANGE RATE - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT[/b]\n\n[b]CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 12.45% 192ML/HR ++[/b]\n[b]\t[/b]\n\n\n[i]\t[/i]NO! You’ll keep on fighting.\n\nYou’ll drag your enemy down, choke their twitching corpse until it's fresh meat to eat, break earth by the tonne with your bleeding hands, wring the world dry and drink your own piss to crawl further on, whatever it takes to see the morning sun! There's still some hold to stick your hands into this gods forsaken world, you’re sure of it. You're gonna make it, motherfucker!\n\n\n[i]KEEP. ON. FIGHTING![/i]\n\n\nThump thump.\n\nThump thump thump.\n\nTHUMP!\n\n\n\n[b]ALARM - COGENCY EXCEEDS SPECIFICATION[/b]\n\n[b]ACCELERATING EXCHANGE RATE - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT[/b]\n\n[b]CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 34.91% 201ML/HR + MAX[/b]\n\t\n\n\n[i]I’ve buried harder bastards than this![/i]\n\nYou bite your tongue, smash it hard between the metal caps on your molars, the pain jolts you awake. Your chest has stopped moving, you feel your heart stop, your skin begins to numb, your grip lets up.\n\nIf you’ve gotta face your gods then you’re taking this thing to the stand with you!\n\n\nThump.\n\nThump.\n\n\nBumbumbum! “Calm [u]down[/u], Soldier! What’s gotten into you?” You hear, muffled right in front of your nose.\n\n\nNo one, man or mon, crosses a James.\n\n\nEspecially not [u]you[/u].\n\n\n\n[b]ALARM - COGENCY EXCEEDS TOLERANCE[/b]\n\n[b]ADMINISTERING NEUROSUPPRESSANTS - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT[/b]\n\n[b]CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 53.74% 198 ML/HR - MAX[/b]\n\n[b]TOXELCANE - PROGRESS 98.04% 50 MG/ML +[/b]\n\n[b]ROSEPEZIL - PROGRESS 87.98% 23 MG/ML +[/b]\n\n[b]CROAKENOL - PROGRESS 100% 12 MG/ML -[/b]\n\n[b]ETHYLENE GLYCOL - PROGRESS 52.71% 103 MG/ML +[/b]\n\n\n\nDamn. Just like that?\n\nC’mon, doc, you were just getting started.\n\nAh well, what an exercise! You had no idea they were doing that kind of psycho exposure on the old guys too. What fun.\n\nOooohohohohooo, how exhilarating!\n\n\n\n[b]ALARM - SUSPENSION INSTABILITY[/b]\n\n[b]ADJUSTING CORE PARAMETERS[/b]\n\n[b]CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 78.44% 201 ML/HR + MAX[/b]\n\n[b]TOXELCANE - PROGRESS 100% 50 MG/ML -[/b]\n\n[b]ROSEPEZIL - PROGRESS 100% 23 MG/ML -[/b]\n\n[b]ETHYLENE GLYCOL - PROGRESS 86.01% 103 MG/ML +[/b]\n\n\n\n\tYour limbs go limp, all your muscles give. and your hands unclench, letting the corpus finally slip from your grasp.\n\n\tYou float back into the nothingness from whence you came, rebellion smothered in ice.\n\n\n\n[b]CONTAMINATION FLUSH - PROGRESS 100%[/b]\n\n[b]SUSPENSION STABILITY CONFIRMED - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT[/b]\n\n[b]CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 93.09% 199 ML/HR - [/b]\n\n\n\n[i]They should do this kinda thing more often…[/i]\n\n\n\n[b]CRYO CELL EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 100%[/b]\n\n[b]REST PARAMETERS SET[/b]\n\n[b]SLEEP WELL[/b]\n\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n\n[b]AUTHORIZATION: jcijes-47[/b]\n\n[b]ORDER CODE: *******************[/b]\n\n[b]EXECUTING EXCHANGE TRANSFUSION[/b]\n\n[b]RED BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 96.86% 120ML/HR +[/b]\n\n[b]EXEPHENIDATE - PROGRESS 100% 50 MG/ML[/b]\n\n\n\n[b]\t[/b]Like a thousand times before, you’re struck by the thunder of ever loving life. From the place your spine meets your skull to the end of your ass; from the shoulders, to the hips, to the calves, to the wrists. Webs of nerves all report to your brain that you’re suddenly in control, and you clumsily begin reaching around in your environment, settling on your beautiful face.\n\n\tOh thank [b]goodness[/b], it’s still there. Whew.\n\n\tAaauuug, that feeling sucks. You squeeze the thing sucking against your face and pull, like a gardener prying a sneaky noxious weed from a berry patch. Rubber tubing, one down each nostril, another larger one down the throat, all come free. You feel every inch, from deep in your gut all the way to your gob, until you’re left gasping for non-existent air.\n\n\tOh, that’s right, its oxygenated suspension. You chuckle at your own silliness as your lungs adjust to the feeling of being flooded with fluid. It was an alien experience that you never accepted in the primal moments of awakening. Always like a colony of Wiglett squirming inside your chest.\n\n“Ugh, every damn time,” you hear from the other side of a pool of teal-colored honey. The distorted image of a pink haired woman in a navy blue uniform slings a long-gun to her back and points a gloved finger at you through the fluid. “You’re supposed to keep the circulator on, Wynaut!\n\nYou fold your arms with a smug look and point to your very-much-ok self, breathing the suspension goo without issue.\n\nShe smirks right back, and smashes a red button on a panel nearby. “Very well.”\n\nFlusssssssssssh!\n\nThe fluid is rapidly pumped out of the tank. Your legs are almost caught unawares as all of your weight suddenly lands on your ankles. The pressure equilibrium on your lungs is now gone, your body has no choice but to recognize the foreign agent in your lungs and you begin heaving, coughing, and vomiting chunky gray bile all over the floor of the slime-covered pod. \n\n“Dirty rotten…” you mutter between loads of putrescence leaving your mouth.\n\nShe smiles. “Look shaaarp,” she chirps, then turns a dial and smashes the button again.\n\nYou spin around the inside of the pod as it is flooded in fresh, deionized water. After thirty seconds of heavy-duty wash cycle, you are left staggered on your rear end. The tank empties and you are finally allowed to breathe real, true-to-Rayquaza air. The front of the tank splits open and your legs spill out onto the ground.\n\nEyes adjust, liquid spills from year ear canals, and your returning sense of taste is treated to the scraps of recycled suspension trapped between your teeth. You look left, right, and see that every last one of your Brothers have long since left the Pod. Pod-Three, like all its siblings, was an utterly humorless steel and polymer prison. Nothing about the dungeon ever fit the description of home, but… It feels wrong seeing the house so empty.\n\nYou force yourself stumbling back up onto your feet, as one does fresh off a merry-go-round, spotting the reflection of dripping periwinkle hair sagging from your temple in the chrome fixtures of your tank. It takes a moment to stand at full attention with arms at your sides, and you glare at her with your gorgeous, emerald green eyes. “Jessie…”\n\n“James…” the magenta-haired fem-fatale with a long stripe of silver accenting her locks replies. Her hairs’ been pulled back into a neat braid topped with a professional corporal’s hat, and her skin is pulled taut by the strain of a million stressors. A single leathery streak of long healed scar tissue overlaps her left eye socket, cradling an eerily apertured prosthetic that expands and contracts of its own accord.\n\n…oh yeah, she’s got one of the old school ocular replacements. Maybe you’ll ask about how she got saddled with that little number again today. The Gollet Egg from last time is just about healed. Maybe.\n\nShe cocks a fist against her hips and nods with satisfaction. “Discipline administered; demerit unnecessary, as future compliance is assured. Isn’t that right?”\n\nYou huff and brush a lock of damp hair from your eyes with a lazy salute. “Affirmative, Ma’am.”\n\nHer face tightens with serious intent. “Recite designation and assignment, Soldier!”\n\n\tYour shoulders square up as you salute again in your glistening black stasis fatigues. “J-C-I-J-A-M Seven-Seven-Seven; Special Operations.”\n\n\tShe squints. “Callsign?”\n\n\t“Jackpot,” you reply, grinning like a Gengar.\n\n\tShe nods. “Very good. I’ll keep it brief, things aren’t great right now. All will be made clear in debrief.”\n\t\n\tYou roll your shoulders, hop around on the balls of your feet, and punch at the air with whip-like snaps. You never liked the feeling fresh from the tanks, where the trickles of icy blood in the outer veins still need purging so the uncomfortable tingle in your skin could disappear. Work it, boy! \n\n“What’s the mission, Ma’am?”\n\t\n\tShe gestures to the hallway, suddenly sour with a mood you don’t typically expect of pod command. “Search and Rescue. Don’t ask again. Your gears’ on table three. Suit up and get to debrief-six ASAP.”\n\n\tYou frown, the side of your cheek stiffening up into a wry scowl “I won’t say no, but…”\n\n\t“You can’t,” she coughs, pressing her fingers into her temple, and you’re met with a blinding glint in her eyes that makes it palpably clear she's up for just about none of your shit right now.\n\n\tYou chuckle and raise your palms in submissive defense. “Oh-hoho, goodness, perish the thought Ma’am. I’m just, well… [u]why[/u], exactly?”\n\n\tShe sighs, shaking her head. “Believe me, you're the last thing I wanted to thaw out today, Jackpot. Now suit up before I pop a hole in that pretty ass of yours. Debrief in ten. We depart at oh-six-twenty.”\n\n\tYou sigh, twisting a knotted tricep with your palm. “I suppose this counts as exfil, I’ll take it… uh, ‘We?’ Goodness, when [u]was[/u] the last soirée you joined not featuring documents getting subdued with paperclips, Silver?\n\n\tWith a brush of white strands from her face she wipes her other thumb across a strip of skin around her neck bearing the aging ink of a first-run designation. “Shut your mouth, young’un. I earned my tat long before your order form hit Father Giftmas. All J-O’s are under activation, and this operation is Skitty-Zubat, so I’m there to personally ensure you wipe your ass and pack your lunch box.”\n\n\tYou chuckle, a warmth beginning to swell in your gut as your mind runs wild with the possibilities. Entire nest emptied out? Ice-cold can of Diet Debrief? Command on a knife's edge?\n\nYes Ma’am, where’s that dotted line?\n\n“Suckass Zero? Music to my ears, Silver. D-Six in ten,” you say, brushing the air with your fingers in cool dismissal on your way to the armory. \n\nShe nods, slowly thumbing specialty black, orange banded shells into her trusty Sawsbuck-12. “Skidoo, Soldier...”\n\nShe thinks your gaze is averted, but you always get the last glance. She chambers a shell, thumbs one more into the tube to replace it, and slide-checks her sidearm with one hand. Her neck doesn’t twitch an inch and her tired eyes bore through the bunker wall, devoid of the fiery enthusiasm you’ve come to expect.\n\t\n\tBest leave it be…\n\nYou don’t ask questions, you solve problems.\n\n\tThe Armory is empty. This isn’t something altogether too strange on most activations, but you note the black and blue duffel bag with the Apogee Logo atop a table, so full to bursting that its zippers are pulling at their own seams. It sits beneath the led lamps like it's on display in a gloomy showroom. Not normal to have that much kit without anyone checking you.\n\nLike you’re opening a bloated carcass, you draw one zipper aside and piles of equipment spill out. You glance left and right once, making sure this isn’t some cheeky game being put on by the Quartermasters.\n\nNope, nobody else. Damn, you really wanted to give Anvil a hard time about that black eye of his.\n\nThe first thing you always take stock of is your weaponry. Good-ol reliable MkII Rattata Submachine Gun, with all the fix’uns: Combo Greendot/Infrared See-Dot sight, Magnum Assault Strobe, Suppressor. Always a pleasure to have this staple in your kit.\n\nThen you count out the magazines. Ten, ten tall-stacks. You purse your lip out, considering all the times that liberal application of ammunition could have made a few of your past deployments easier. You’d have moved right on, but you notice a little brown leaf on a bright green circle stuck to the side of seven of these mags, two have a black bolt with yellow dot, and one stick of regular hollowpoint.\n\n“Organic load, charged hollows… haven’t seen these since A-Boot...”\n\nYou pull out an OH-KO snub-nosed .50 revolver along with a chittering pile of high explosive pain-rounds. You haven't used this in a while either, not since that Tyrantrum thing in Azalea. [i]What a strange loadout[/i][i][b],[/b][/i] you muse as you slip five thumb-sized rounds into the cylinder, spin it with a childish giggle, and then whip it into place with a sharp flick of the wrist.\n\nA massive, forearm length blade made of reforged Doublade Steel sheathed perpendicular to the thigh for easy draw. You have to do this, because the normal place you like your cutlery isn’t an option. “Assault Shell…” you whisper to yourself as you slip heavy layers of titanium alloy plates wrapped in kevlar fibers over your entire body. \n\n\tIndependent air supply, compatible with the shell. Area fog grenades. Flares. Class-four trauma kit. Best vest torch money can buy.\n\nA Geargle four-in-one rescue tool; something a bit like a fireman’s ax, a sledge, valve tool, and a pry bar all in one… heavy as shit, but ain’t a door on earth what argues with a Geargle.\n\nA damned electromechanically assisted rappelling harness kit.\n\nThey really expect you to carry all this shit?\n\nFour high power fragmentation grenades… ok.\n\nYou count four more canisters, striped with an orange tinsel of hazard warnings. Labeled ‘[b]IVSAC[/b]’ in that bold, scary font that makes civilians piddle themselves and run. “Oohoho, now we’re talking.”\n\n\tFour-Spore-Aerosol-Canisters. This psychotic concoction is actually the brainchild of the [u]nicer[/u] nerds in R&D, you remember that it’s made from a concentrated cocktail of chemicals from four different species of ‘mon. Slows respiratory activity, numbs the senses, muscle paralysis sets in, then it gives whoever smells the roses a nice, long wherever-nap. A hitherto-unknown number of hours later, subjects normally wake up on their own.\n\t\n\tCombat stimulant vial clips… Um, did the second Ghetsis War kick off without you or something?\n\nFor a moment you’re back in silent blackness as you slip on and adjust the Assault Shell Helm.\n\n Lovingly referred to as ‘Shelmets,’ they have a sleek biker helmet shape with comms nodules on the side that the heavies paint with personal emblems out of some old-school totemistic tradition.\n\nYour own hand-painted rose on an ace-of-hearts, though scratched up from rough handling in the back, is still there. It brings back fond memories of the time spent with the big boys kicking in doors and crawling with your teeth across that ubiquitous green hell with lead rain somewhere between ‘Mortarland’ and, ‘Fucker County.’\n\nThe Digital HUD of the polycarbonate faceplate brings tiny white text in front of each eye.\n\n[b]Passcode?[/b]\n\n“Fortune favors fools and fighters both.”\n\n[b]Confirmed, jcijam777. Shell unlocked. Calibrating…[/b]\n\n“Normally not picky, Dexsys, but Silvers’ got my balls in a vice today.”\n\n[b]Calibration complete… Happy hunting, Jackpot :)[/b]\n\n\tSuddenly your world returns to you without a single centimeter of lost field of view. Your image clarity is perfect, and sensor colored warning blurs flash at the edge of your vision, communicating things in a code language only you, your brethren, and the engineers are privy to. You test the infrared by snapping your weapon to the ready, training your eye through the lens of the sight. Works perfect, and the IR laser is clear as day, invisible to the unprepared.\n\n\tHands? Steady as a Steelix.\n\t\n\tYou slip spare ammo into any sleeve your shell can spare, and push individual ‘Oko’ rounds into the elastic bandolier in the vest. Only one more thing…\n\n\tThe most important thing, won’t leave home without it. You roll a navy blue Pokeball in your hands.\n\n\t“Go, Blackjack!”\n\n\tBlackjack is your Lucario, been with you God’s know how long. Since you crawled from the birth-tubes. Deep inside he’s still your plucky knee-busting Riolu, but you’ll never say it to him without a big crowd watching. His fur is kept in perfect condition, all the scars of war and surgery are invisible to the naked eye. There are perks to being a tier-one operator; after all, can’t have a weapon hitching in a fight.\n\n\tOn one ear there’s a metal tag piercing, designating you as his one and only permitted operator.\n\n\tNah jciluc-921’s never slacked off, not a day in his life, and neither have you. His body, not at all betraying his typing, is solid as a steel bulkhead and stands nearly as tall as you at six-foot-even. Every time you look into those ruby red eyes, so full of courage, adoration, absolute unbreakable loyalty, you’re pretty sure it's all there in you too. You know it's bad form to get so attached to your partners, in the end they’re here one day, gone the next. But so are you, and you’re glad the machine watching your six is as armed-and-oiled as you are.\n\nYep, knee-popping little bastard, for sure. Been years and you can still feel that spot on your left shin.\n\n\t“Gonna be a rough one, old boy. Wait, what’s this?”\n\n\tHe growls a little, tugging at his throat. A dark metal collar with a large, unilluminated led is locked around his neck. He looks at you with concern.\n\n\tOh, it's gonna be one of [u]those[/u] days.\n\n\tYou laugh and wipe your chin with a cheeky grin on your face. “Ahaha, earned the ‘Cone-of-Shame,’ did’ja? Probably caught sneaking treats from the mess again.”\n\n\tHe gasps, paws down in frustration, and scoffs, looking away with a scowl. “Caaaaa!”\n\n\tYou put your finger on the inside of the collar and tug, getting his attention. “This doesn’t mean a thing, there’s nobody I want watching my ass more than you.”\n\n\tYou smirk. “Well, except maybe that new J-O, Iris. But she’s a pencil pusher, so you’ll do for now.”\n\n\tBlackjack smiles back, his shoulders finally loosening up the way you know you both need to be.\n\n\tYou grab a visor-goggle array from the bag. Blackjack never needed any metal bits, almost all of the good stuff from Santa’s Bag is gene splicin’ biohackin’ bullshit after all. Oh, but he’s got the fixun’s, alright. His hide is tough as iron, he can lift a car and roll it with one arm without breathing, his claws rend plated steel, he’s able to move with energy manipulation so fast that bio-born eyes can only catch a blur. \n\n\tYou slip it over his head, activate the goggles, and sync it with your own. Then you begin your ritual, joining paws with a beast that could wring you dry of blood in seconds if he felt even the tiniest inclination and you didn’t have your guard up.\n\n\tUp high.\n\n\tYou both turn back to back.\n\n\tDown low.\n\n\t“Let’s go!”\n\nYou slap the handle of your Rattata, sliding home the first of many lives you’ll take as payment for services rendered.\n\nYou slip the revolver into its vest holster as the two of you run for D-Six and catch a welcome sound from a hallway meeting with yours. “Well shit, if it ain’t the hotshot.”\n\n“Oh, well, hello there, Papa. Good to see I’ll be letting blood in polite company.”\n\n‘Papa’ is a James J-Series, just like you. But his shoulders are broader, he’s got visible scarring that hasn’t healed, a perpetually busted nose that the brass never decided was worth resetting since it didn’t affect his use of the Shell. A furrowed brow glowers at you with a haughty smile through the visor of his Shelmet, on his helm is an old Galarian shield shaped livery in black with an old-style yellow Raichu curled up in a menacing swirl. Around his back he’s got a Sawsbuck, same as Silver, but he always preferred that weird ass 16 gauge full-auto variant with the huge magazines that kicked like its namesake. Most couldn’t convince Armory to let you have such a thing on real missions, but Pappa is an exception in many ways. An exceptional survivalist, exceptional marksman, exceptional tactician, exceptional martial artist, exceptional consumer of ethanol.\n\nAn exceptional teacher, and a brother.\n\n“I didn’t spend all that time learn’n you the ancient art of ‘[i]No-Die[/i]’ for you to up and vanish like a ghost, damn. The boys thought ya made shakes ages ago,” he says as he flexes his fingers in the shell’s gloves, rubbing his bushy, periwinkle beard with the other.\n\n“Didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. I will say, though, your instruction has come quite in handy, Pappa. Rest assured! Even found a use for that toaster technique you bragged about so much.”\n\n\tHe cackles at that. “Ha, you fucking psycho, I was just running my drunk ass mouth.”\n\n\tYou close your eyes as you round the corner, pointing your finger to the ceiling. “If it's stupid and it works…”\n\n\tHe grunts. “It's still stupid, but it works, so whatever. We still take those. Gimme the details if we’re alive later.”\n\t\n\t“With pleasure.”\n\n\t“Holy [u]shit[/u], you’re [u]early[/u]?”\n\t\n\n\tSilver clears her throat, outlined by a massive display screen, showing a massive crater in the ground. “Have a seat, gentlemen.”\n\n\tOf course you don’t do that. You make your way to the nearest, most tactically secure corner you can find to assess the people you’ll be deploying with.\n\n\tOh hey, Chatter is here. Sitting in a chair, that one in fact. On Shit-Oh deployment. Excuse me?\n\nOh, you said that in your own head like [u]that[/u] again, didn’t you. He’s an older James, second run, you think, and he shows it. He doesn’t go under ice like the other boys, since he’s a subject expert; cryptography interception and other brain bending wizardry just short of telepathy. Honestly, based on the little bits he’s told you, some of it might actually [u]be[/u] tarot cards and crystal balls. He’s got some wrinkling under the eyes, and has a much cooler, calmer look about him. Always been that way, real naturalist, lovey dovey, make peace not war hoo hoo ha ha.\n\nDude, you’re a weapon, act like it!\n\nOh, you did that thing again. Whoops. [i]Yes, sergeant, the eggheads are just as deserving of camaraderie and respect as the grunts. Let me grab my calculator and salute.[/i]\n\nHis Audino, Decibelle, is there and he’s cooing and comforting her as she wriggles in the grip of a collar identical to the one choking Blackjack. She’s an old girl, if she were a smaller species she would’a been decommed ages ago, but she’s the best of the best and that doesn't come cheap. You give Chatter lots of crap about his soft side, but he and his ‘mon can listen for anything. Literally. Anything.\n\nThere was that time he walked you through a minefield just using mouth clicks and a headset. (Quietest your smart ass mouth ever was.) Oh, and the treasure hunt every year nobody ever wins but them. You nearly had them burned for witchcraft when Deci caught a whiff of some stray radiowaves, [u]heard[/u] the fucking [u]images[/u] being transmitted, and then [u]drew[/u] what she heard to catch a black market deal in progress. Spooky shit, man.\n\nHe’s armed with a barebones Rattata. Don’t think he could handle much more. Ain't no way he’s about to break his wrist on that Oko you and Papa are packing for sure. He’s got a Shelmet but just a light armor set other than that. He’s rear guard, no doubt about it, the Shell is just for the rebreather. His symbol? Light blue square, music lines, and a single x shaped note in the center. Something called a ghost note.\n\n“Audebedi…” Decibelle whines.\n\nChatter rubs between her lobes in a way he knows people have lost fingertips for trying. “Di aud dinadi.” \n\nOh, yeah, and he’s a pokeglott too. Gotta hand it to ‘em, they pop some of us from the package bright as a magnesium flare. \n\nEeey, Square… yeah. Square. Good old square. This regrettably forgettable J boy developed that famous neuroticism your kind is known to randomly flare up with. He was in your training clutch, and he’s mentally as stern as they come. Completely humorless, can’t take a shit, won’t accept jokes from nobody. He’s got a high powered DMR, one of the non-Sylph arms allowed on base. Gliscor model ‘something’ you think, real popular with the Rangers. He completely distorts reality if someone fucks with his zero, so he’s got permission to work Armory on the side so he’ll stop stuffing complaint boxes with paperwork for Silver. His symbol is a boulder being split with a hammer and wedge on a white shield.\n\nWhen everyone earns their tats and gets their callsigns, the tradition is everyone else gives you yours. His number was three-four-three and, seriously, we couldn’t come up with anything for the guy. He did everything perfect, which is amazing for a demo guy, but he was so up[u]tigh[/u]t. We decided on Haha, because, I dunno, maybe he’d liven up? He practically summoned Darkrai that day, said his number was some kind of palindrome of a cube root or blah blah, anyways, he [u]earned[/u] the name ‘Square.’ Probably for the best his ass is tight enough to extrude wire through, honestly, he’s the one handling the stuff that’ll blow you all to kingdom-come if you talk about it funny.\n\nHe glances back at you. “Thought you got reclaimed.”\n\nYou give him a chin nod, then a bright smile. “Glad to see you too, brother, how have you been?”\n\n“Better now you’re here,” he huffs.\n\nWhew, on good terms still, that’s nice. Always good to know the guy with the C4 likes you.\n\nOh, is that a Joy? Lovely skin too. Not an unwelcome sight, or uncommon on these sorts of missions, but you’ve never seen this one. You’re privy to the subtle nuances in the facial features of the J-series clones. Oh, yeah, for sure she’s from a civilian run: tat’s in a concealable location, she’s standing with her palms together with a nervousness that is impossible to ignore, glancing at everyone like a Rookidee in the kitchen. \n\nEven more anxious than Decibelle, Joy’s ‘mon sits beside her, shaking like a leaf. An Indeedee, female, collared up like all the others. That’s exotic around these parts. You tap your helmet and use the short-distance registration reader function. Both their figures on the helmet display glow green.\n\n\n[b]jgojoy-8[/b]\n\n[i]Goldenrod Girl, probably works at one of those swanky, private hospitals, considering that single digit serial[/i]\n\n\n[b]jgoind-1[/b]\n\n[i]Oh yeah, for sure she’s a transfer. Galar most likely, Indeedee are common in hospitals around there. Bet the thing is purebred with all sorts of healing energy patterns. Very very handy.[/i]\n\n\n“Looks like someone’s earning their tat today!” You say, gesturing to Joy.\n\nShe jumps at your words. Ha! Gods the civvies are so cute, sometimes. The rest of the room hums with enthusiastic approval.\n\n“What? But I already…” she murmurs.\n\nSilver rubs her temple. “Look I hate that I ever have to say it, but he’s right. Deal with it on the flight, but we’re not calling you ‘Joy’ while you stand on the line with us. Just ain’t proper.”\n\n“Right, we’re all here, let's… huuugh, yes, Jackpot?”\n\nYou have your hand raised, and you look left and right. “Aren’t we missing some members?”\n\nSilver shakes her head with her eyes on the floor. “No. Any Pokemon deemed fit to serve are already with us. Precautions are also obviously in place in the event that suddenly changes.”\n\nYou know what that means, but you can tell the softer crew is struggling to swallow that nasty medicine. “Just means we got the best with us for the mission at hand. Precautions absolutely not necessary, but we love the accessories, Ma’am.”\n\nYou flash a smile and wink. “Do they come in Chartreuse?”\n\nShe shrugs. “The lights do, actually.”\n\n[b]“Listen up, roughly two weeks ago, the global Pokemon Hostility Index jumped to degrees previously inconceivable by any reputable projections. [/b]\n\n[b]For those of you who’ve been on ice for a bit…Pokemon, for a reason unknown at this time, are becoming [/b][b][u]so[/u][/b][b] hostile to human life, and that is specifically [/b][b][u]human[/u][/b][b] life, that they are actively seeking people out and killing with what appears to be intent to simply kill and not for sustenance. They are doing this around the clock, forgoing basic needs like shelter and food. This is happening [/b][b][u]globally[/u][/b][b]. The situation is barely under control, ranks are being bolstered from local populations to protect against opportunistic swarms of ‘mon. Civilian death toll is… it's bad.”[/b]\n\nThe screen shows an estimated death toll, it's a big number, a nine digits kind of number, an ‘Impossible to bury all the bodies before they turn to dust’ kind of number.\n\n[b]“This is Defcon-Two people, approaching Defcon-One…”[/b]\n\nOh, no no, it's Defcon-One, Sister. They just don’t wanna say it out loud yet.\n\nYou feel a warm shiver in your back. You’ve never been able to figure out what these sensations you get are, but you know they always mean something. Especially when violence is underway.\n\n[b] “Regional militaries have been completely unprepared for this eventuality, and, well, I can’t say we were too much better but we have taken control of all regional governments. We will return sovereignty once society is stable again. You know what that means.”[/b]\n\n“That means we outrank the Governor!” you shout.\n\nEveryone chuckles, except Joy… or Square…actually only Blackjack laughs..\n\nTough crowd, damn.\n\n[b]“Please exercise this power responsibly, we will be the ones to set the model for the world we build after this is all over. In addition to this rotting can of Shit-ee-ohs, forty eight hours ago there were tremors felt in the Goldenrod area code. As of four hours ago, the city of Goldenrod has…”[/b]\nYou see her hand clutch at a paper, then she loosens her grip as she exhales with wet eyes.\n\n[b]“Sorry, ahum…The City of Goldenrod has fallen into a sinkhole. The [/b][u][b]entire[/b][/u][b] city.”[/b]\n\nThe screen flips to a picture taken from a news helicopter. No lie, where once the bay connected to a luxurious metropolis was now a smoking, steaming crater. \n\n[b]“There were absolutely no geological markers hinting at such a massive thing, but it has happened. The entire city has collapsed far enough down that visibility to the rubble is gone. The pit has opened at the edge of the coastline, so in addition to this carnage, it is filling with seawater. Anyone at the bottom of the pit is officially declared dead. Goldenrod city is no more…”[/b]\n\nAh, that explains Joy’s dour mood. Oh, wait…\n\nOh, Silver…\n\nSilver had a lover at Goldenrod Alpha.\n\n[b]“The remaining bits of city infrastructure hanging on at the edges of the sinkhole harbors survivors. We are going to rescue as many people as we can. Any loose, uncollared ‘mon is Kakuna Occa Skitty. No exceptions, [/b][u][b]understood[/b][/u][b]?”[/b]\n\nEvery single person feels the bitter fire in her command. \n\n“Yes Ma’am!” \n\nJoy shudders at the sudden burst of in-unison shouts.\n\nOh man, she’s [u]Grovile[/u]-green. You raise your brows at Chatter and hint towards Joy.\n\nChatter leans over to her and places his hand on her leg. Gods, why does he get to be all that touchy? If you did that you’d be nursing a smack. Not that you’re [u]not[/u] into that, just saying red cheeks aren’t in vogue this season.\n\n“Honey, we have a mission, an important one, probably the most important one I’ve ever been on even… We all need to be on the same page. I know it's hard, but you need to follow our lead, ok?”\n\nShe shakes her head. “When I took on the Red Ring, I made an oath that I won't kill anyone, human or Pokemon. I’m sorry. I don’t even think I can.”\n\n“Sure ya can!” Pappa bellowed. “It’s just healing in reverse, Joy. Give the girl a boomstick. Tyrunt-Shot makes’t a cynch.”\n\nJoy and Indeedee practically snarl at the feedback and your cheek curls a little.\n\nThere’s her fire! Lean into it, Jackpot!\n\n“I can kill enough for three of us, Papa san! I’m sure you can manage at least two. Her hands need to be stained with the blood of the wounded, not the enemy.”\n\nPapa spits on the ground. “Cocky shit, I’ll raise you four!”\n\nYour heart starts beating. Oh man, a competition with Padre? And at his best game? Let’s go! “We good, Ma’am?”\n\nSilver brushes the hair from her eyes one final time and locks it in place with a steel clip. A shadow casts over her face as she clicks the presentation forward. “Don’t get in our way when it starts.”\n\n[b]“Civs from the area report Sandshrew, Krabby, Tentacool, all in massive numbers. Some local hunters have been able to pick off a few, but there’s too many to clear [/b][b]an [/b][b]LZ.”[/b]\n\n\n\n\t“Ah, that explains the wooden bullets. I was sure it was cost cuts again.” Ah, there’s the laughter.\n\n[b]A Picture shows an outcropping of geologic mass poking into the pit, hanging at a thirty degree tilt, with sections of building barely hanging onto the side by their supports. Hoards of skittering pests shift across the ground in violent blobs.[/b]\n\n\tChatter leans over. “That’s where we’re going to clear a path and land so you can get to work.” \n\nDecibelle hands Indeedee and Joy little packages containing foam earplugs. “{What healing techniques do you know, Indeedee?}” she asks. “{I’d like to learn if I can, I think we might need it.}”\n\nChatter nods, “There’s gonna be a lot of noise, you’ll wanna be able to focus. Let us do the hurting, you do the healing. When we take off I’ll show you how to use the rappeler.”\n\nOk, I guess there’s a reason we keep you around besides tuning the radios, Chatter.\n\nSilver touches her ear.\n\n[b]“Bird is ready to bolt. We can only take so many civilians, we are to prioritize the rescue of Apogee Personnel and their families. They should all have a dermalchip installed if they got their proper shots within the last ten years. Our last member awaits. Go Go Go!”[/b]\n\nThe brisk winds of the Cianwood coastal cliffs are the breaths of life, truly. How long has it been, James? Yeah, sure, you went outside last deployment, but your body cries out like this every time. It knows where you’ve been, biology isn’t stupid. That moment as you rush to the bird is breathtaking, like looking at a mountain dawn, man. Happens every day, but you never really get over the sensation of infinite opportunity for hope, death, and glory.\n\nOn your way out, though, you take a moment to snag a blooming rose from one of the bushes along the outer wall that every single one of the J folks constantly insist be tended to. You pop it into your vest, a little color to your drab attire will certainly lighten the moon. Can’t hurt, at least.\n\nChatter and Deci help Joy into her seat. The bird is a fast-action VTOL, unnamed model as per Apogee Opsec, independent gimbal on the engines ensures the thing can turn on a dime and stop like a whip. You lean into the operator cabin and spot that ever so familiar Teal hair of a Jennie. \n\n\n[b]kscjen-1729 “Taxi”[/b]\n\n[i]Whoa, Kalos? Civilian run but she’s got a registered Callsign, what’s that about?[/i]\n\n\n\n\t“You’re a long way from home, Miss Taxi.” Pappa shouts as he checks the belts feeding the pintle mounted Skarmory Heavy Machine Guns.\n\n\tShe leans back, pulls a set of aviators down her nose, and winks. “Commercial flights have been grounded since this whole thing went down, ended up here by chance. No Jenny of my run would be caught dead whimpering in a bunker, no Ma’am. I called HQ and asked where I’m needed most. Been nonstop airtime since.”\n\n\tChatter slips into the Co-Pilot seat and throws on his ears. “It’s an honor to share panels with ya, m’lady. I think we’ve spoken before on 121.9…”\n\n\tYou breathe in, stomp your feet like a giddy toddler, and look over at Joy. “Hey, just wanna let you know it’s a lot, and you’re taking it really well. Tell me, what got you so lucky to avoid being in Goldenrod?”\n\n\tShe looks down and Indeedee nods in approval. “I was covering a shift out of town in an outreach branch. I wasn’t even supposed to do it, I… I’m pretty sure it was a coding error.”\n\n\t“I’d never say going to work a double is any kind of luck, but damn!” Pappa says as he hefts a tank-backpack and a set of dispensary tubes and nozzles to his back.\n\n\tSquare glances upward from his careful packaging of plastic explosives. He pulls a couple wired needles from his mouth, nodding. “That doesn’t happen twice.”\n\n\tYou look out at the grasses blowing to the side as the plane starts to increase thrust. The boys always look at you in these times, in that moment where someone’s in need of a name. Some folks are always just better at giving out callsigns. Suppose you’re just one of ‘em.\n\n\t“Alright ‘Clover,’ do me a favor and share some of your fortune. Send some all around, we need it.”\n\n\tEveryone else nods, and for the first time in the entire day you see Joy’s eyes glimmer. \n\n\tShe… was she, did she?\n\n\tSilver taps on her cheek like she’s shifting through television menus. No need for a shell when you’re mid-line and you got cybernetics anyway. “Done. Welcome aboard, Clover.”\n\n\tPappa nudges Clover, and bobs his head towards her Indeedee. “Now you give her a name. Gotta match your Callsign.”\n\n\tClover has a hard time thinking about this. She’d only just been given a real name, that came with privileges for a member of the conscious capital class, she didn't even consider what she’d name someone else…\n\n\t“Jade!” she blurts out as the plane suddenly lifts off, and then slaps her hands over her mouth as the G-forces shove her shoulders into her ass. \n\n\tAll the James’ in the craft laugh; genuine, wholesome, familial laughter. Her Indeedee stares at the floor, then looks up and smiles. “Deeee!”\n\n\t“Done!” Silver barks, interrupting the touching moment. “Recall!”\n\n\tAll three ‘mon disappear as they’re returned to their balls for flight. You catch a last glimpse of Blackjack looking out to the approaching water hanging from the railing like he always likes to do, ears whipping in the wind. He starts wincing with a sour look on his face, then he looks back and nods as his form melts away into red blurs. You think for a fraction of a second you see the LED of his collar flicker on.\n\t\n\tInteraction with the Pokeball tech, that’s all it is… Blackjack and you are thick as thieves.\n\n\t“So uh, Papa. Not saying I’m doubting your talents in butchery, I’d be loathe to do so, but I don’t think a flamethrower is going to be of much use in our little game. I fell asleep in Type-Balance 101, but I do know the basics.”\n\n\tHe chuckles. Oh, it’s that kinda chuckle too, the one where you just know you’re in for a lesson in tactical dissection. He slaps the bottom of one of the tanks with a grin. “Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head, scooter. Some of those weirdos in Hazchem fixed us up right properly. One of the bio-born nerds probably took it real personal after his parents got eaten or something, because they brewed up something… saucy.”\n\n\tOh, you’d say the day couldn’t get any better, but that might be a bit insensitive. \n\t\n\tAs soon as the initial take off lets up, you and Papa man the guns, sat atop the single most uncomfortable pair of steel supports you’ve ever felt against your tush. Now it's quiet time, you’re both perched for prey, no time for jokes. \n\n\t“Um, Mr. Jackpot, sir?” Clover’s nectarine voice coos.\n\n\tYou keep your eyes shifting back and forth between the open air above the swirling, admittedly intimidating stormline and your new squad-mate. “No Mr.’s here. Can’t have kids, can’t get married, don’t pay taxes. What’s on your mind, sweet thing?”\n\n\tShe shifts uncomfortably. “What are those collars for?”\n\n\tYou look back at everyone else and are shocked to see bone-dry expressions of guilt. \n\n[i]\tNone of you told her?[/i]\n\n\tYou nod reassuringly. “They assure compliance.”\n\n\tShe clearly isn’t used to reading this kind of room, since she immediately follows up with another bloody question. “What does that mean, exactly?”\n\n\tPapa shifts his seat around and nods at your squaddie. “Watch the scene, Square.”\n\n\tYour demo guy calmly, with listless eyes, nods and leans out like a Talonflame. He is totally unlike you, once the missions started it was like all his nerves were dunked in icewater and his rough edges smooth out. All his anxiety, irritability, impatience, neuroticism… ok, no, that one sticks around. How you both came from the same clutch and turned out so different is beyond you. Your best guess is the predictability, the straightforwardness, the no-nonsenseness is what he craves, and out here we got that in spades. \n\nAt base he’s the butt of some jokes, ok a lot of jokes, and has a hard time getting his heavy headed retorts to land, but out here he just snaps into place with the rest of the guys. He’s a master surgeon, one that operates on buildings mostly, and who loves life on the edge with his mates. A brother who, when Moltres’ fires are lit and the lead hail falls, will drag your whiny ass to safety on a broken leg and get right back to leveling the objective. As assigned.\n\nYou saw his entire body get painted with the viscera of a good friend once. Didn’t even flinch. He calmly picked Talon’s Pokeball up, pocketed it like loose change, and then personally buried the sorry fools responsible beneath twenty-thousand tonnes of shattered brick and mangled steel. The only words spoken at their burial? “Contact Neutralized.”\n\n\tHuh, now you think about it, you’re not all that different after all, are you? Bet he misses his Golem something fierce.\n\n\tYep, he’s the hardest fucker forged on planet Earth. With him, anyone can spare a minute away.\n\n\tHe leans forward, resting on his shins. “She a good girl?”\n\n\t“Huh?”\n\n\t“Jade. Is she a good ‘mon? Ever hurt anyone? Ever snarled at a stray bump in the street?” You ask.\n\n\tShe curls up a little, looking way. “Of course she is, the only things she’s laid a claw on are linens and meds. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her growl or use any kind of lethal move in her life.”\n\n\tPapa snaps his fingers and points two of them to her eyes, then back to his.\n\nTeacher is talking now.\n\n“Then it doesn’t matter! You need to trust your partner. It’s the first thing you learn in boot. I know you started outside the bunker walls, so listen up. She puts her whole life in your hands, the least we can do is show her the same kind of faith.”\n\n\t“Contact, contact!” Square shouts and holds his rifle at an upward angle in one bicep for maximum support. “Golbat swarm eleven-o’clock high!”\n\n\tPapa swings himself back around and locks the first round back, patting his shoulder. “Grab my shottie, Square. Don’t waste the high-points on these little shits.”\n\n\tSquare snaps a cable support to a steel loop on the ceiling, snags up the Old Man’s shotgun, and poises himself up on his Brother’s shoulder for maximum control.\n\n\t“Don’t get too frisky now.”\n\n\t“Too busy for that, sorry.” Square blurted out, then fired three shots in rapid succession.\n\n\tOh yes.\n\n\tThe taste of metal in your mouth.\n\n\tThe thunder of the cavalry in the sky.\n\n\tThe rush through your spine, and the kicking of a steel dragon wrestling for control between your legs. Only thing better is a Jessie, but they bite way harder.\n\n\t“Contact, four-o’clock low!” you scream. You zoom in with your Shelmet, your HUD affording you a ten-times magnification if you really wanted it, and you trace the arcing path of your rounds like a string of vinegar being sprayed through a ball of baking soda.\n\n\tIt’s always fun watching the little ones burst apart like apples on a fencepost.\n\n\t“Distortion? Damn, it’s the middle of the day!” Taxi shouts.\n\n\tSilver clips her own support to the ceiling and stands from her restraints with acrobatic dexterity as the plane shifts and sways. “Gods decided man ain’t worthy, I guess.”\n\n“Braviary-Three to Tower, report two contacts, repeat, two contacts, shots fired. Engaging.” Chatter makes like his name suggests, flicks up a manual morse code switch, and begins sending the same transmission in high-power pulse waves.\n\n“Ain’t that a bit old school, Chatter?” Taxi says, chewing on a fresh stick of gum.\n\nHe points at the horizon. “That storm is coming, and fast. Best I can afford.” You can hear him lying to her as he presses a speaker hard against his head and starts sending waves out to listen for himself. Nobody takes him seriously when he says he’s better than the instruments. He is. “Swarm ahead, dive.”\n\nShe scoffs a bit as hellfire screams around you. “Oh holy shit. Going low, good catch.”\n\t\n\tClover covers her ears with the plugs, desperately putting them on in a clumsy flurry of fingers. She screams as the machine gun fire thunders in your chest, and you can’t help but laugh at what you see next.\n\n“Oh [u]my[/u], that’s a lot of them, Commander,” you say as the fog up ahead suddenly turns dark blue.\n\n\tLike blobs of sleet, Zubat smack themselves against the sides of the craft, shrieking so loud that Chatter pulls his earset away in pain. More get turned to clouds of mist, even more start making it into the cabin and covering the cockpit window.\n\n\tYou manage to snag one on its way in and press it into juice against a bulkhead between belt feeds and your knuckles. You catch another with your boot.\n\n\tBam Bam! Silver’s shotgun roars with a mighty fury, warming the crew compartment in orange light. Three Golbat make it in and immediately latch onto her, biting, tearing up chunks of Kevlar. She snarls and draws her knife, ready to begin the grisly work she’s known for yet again.\n\n\tThe best butchers blades were made of silver back in the day, after all. \n\n\tShe severs heads, clips wings, prys them away from her men and disembowels one of the big ones. She gouges its eyes out of sheer spite before tossing it aside and stumbles as the plane lurches. “What the hell was that, Taxi?”\n\n\t“There’s so many they gummed up the engines. We’re losing altitude. I need to back up the starboard rotor! Prep for ditching!”\n\n\tOohoohoo, that feeling of weightlessness is always something else. Especially when it's lopsided, like you’re moving in the same pattern a balloon makes when you let it loose in the air.\n\nAh well, barrel cool break is over, back to work.\n\nRain smacks your body and starts rinsing the blood away as everyone starts securing things for an emergency water landing.\n\nSilver spits and slaps a longer restraint against the roof. She slides across the floor as the VTOL rolls and swings out onto a railing against the outer-hull, barely missing your head with a steel-heeled boot. \n\nShe hangs out of the craft, walking along the side with one arm on her cabling, and spots her quarry. Five Golbat are holding the rotors fast, several of them died in the effort, thinking they’d sacrificed themselves for some great duty.\n\nShe settles her gun on her hip and fires with her jaw clenched in absolute disgust.\n\nBam Bam Bam! “Fuck you!” Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam! “FUCK YOU!” two of her spent shells smack you in the cheek, but you don’t care. Front row seats do come with splash warnings, after all.\n\nThe silhouette of her ponytail whipping in the wind against the orange and red flash of her overpressure rounds is more alluring than you’d feel safe admitting to her face… But you still might.\n\n\tSchk Schk Schk. She thumbs more shells into her gun as she stares down the two remaining beasts struggling to hold the fan blades back with a menacing red glow in her skull that makes the skin against the cybernetics glow like a flashlight under your hands.\n\n“Crawl back to that rotten pit Arceus sent you from…”\n\n\tTaxi punches a big red button and the engines roar back to life. You and Silver are smeared in a gorey red paste as they are sucked in through the front of the intake and back out as smoothies.\n\n\t“...and tell him he can send my [u]Ozone[/u] back instead!”\n\n\tShe swings herself back in as the plane levels off and she buckles herself back in.\n\n\tOh yes indeed, Commander Silver is a not-to-be-fucked-with woman on a good day. You imagine Arceus will be in the hot seat himself soon enough with how big a mess he’s made. \n\n\tThe VTOL lurches left and right and everyone nearly smacks their heads against the walls. “What is it now?” Silver yells back.\n\n\t“Nasty storm, Ma’am. No biggie to make it through, need to shut the bay doors for now.\n\n\tSilver nods. “Close it up, be ready to fly open and tango if anything else thinks it's hot shit.”\n\n\tThe steel latches snap closed and you can finally catch a breath.\n\n\t“Woo haaaa! Hahaaa.” You whoop and holler, short of breath, soaked with blood and rain. \n\n\tIt’s quiet for a while after that. Everyone spends the time reloading, checking functionality, cleaning everything of coagulated blood, Clover’s eyes finally open again.\n\n\tTaxi’s knuckles are white against the controls as Chatter squints at all the readouts. He unbuckles, nearly smacks his head on a turbulent upswing against the ceiling, and Mankey climbs into the crew cab.\n\n\t“There’s something out there, Ma’am.”\n\n\tThe plane lurches again.\n\n\t“Would you like to add some more information to that report, soldier?”\n\n\tYou all hear a distant shriek, like nothing you’ve ever heard before. It draws up some primal sensation you’re not familiar with. You’re sure you’d know it better if you hunted with sticks.\n\n\t“Papa?”\n\n\tThe mon’s cry comes again as the old guy listens. “I have no idea, but it's big. Nothing echoes like that without a certain body mass.”\n\n\t“Confirmed, larger than the craft,” Chatter says. “Winged profile.”\n\n\tSilver scoffs. “Why didn’t you just start wi–” The plane lurches so hard peoples’ heads smack against plastic guides. “Gods.”\n\n\tThe screeching cry is closer now.\n\n\tChatter grabs Papa by the shoulder in a mania and points to the machine gun. “You guys get that gun’s pintle set to clicks, one-ten and forty-seven. Jackpot, Clover, get the tracers!”\n\n\tYou clap your hands and help unbuckle a shaking Joy. “Oooh, fireworks today too?”\n\n“Are you alright, Jackpot? Seriously, are you ok?” Clover huffs as she helps him drag a chain of red-tipped cartridges across a rocking steel platform.\n\nYou shake your head with a chuckle. “I’m absolutely perfect, honey.”\n\nTaxi cusses in some rural Kalosian dialect. “Whatever you’re gonna do better do it fast, dammit. This is the worst condition I've ever flown in!”\n\nSilver nods. “Alright, get it set. What’s your plan, Chatter?”\n\n“Permission to Release?”\n\n“Granted.”\n\nDecibelle pops into the copilot seat, looks up at Chatter with a smile, then gasps as the plane bucks her up in the air. “Whatever it is, it's big enough I bet we can nail it. We’ll make it through this but not if that thing comes to have a say about it.”\n\n\t“{Ok, baby. There’s a ‘mon out there we need to hit but we can’t see it. You know these controls, right? They’re version three’s. Remember that time on that navy cross-deploy?}”\n\n\tShe perks up, bouncing up and down in her seat. “{Oh, when we shot those bunkers we couldn’t see! Those guys screamed a lot.}”\n\n“{Can you listen to see if it reacts to the bullets moving by it}”\n\nShe smiles. “{Get them close enough and I can hear the reverb off its body. Use the whistling bullets.}”\n\nChatter swings back around. “Change ammo, Shriekers!”\n\nYou frown. “Awww man.”\n\nThese [u]other[/u] bullets are normally meant to disperse sound sensitive mon or announce your presence. Well, you’re already found, so why not try and seek instead.\n\n“Try to keep her level, Taxi,” Chatter mumbles while he’s obsessing over the radar.\n\n\tShe grunts, teeth clenched as she’s fighting the controls. “Sure thing, buddy, no sweat…”\n\n\tYou help to slide the door open as Clover slams the chamber plate down on the gun and racks back the slide with all her might.\n\n\t[i]Nicely done, girly, that was faster than me.[/i]\n\n\tWaiting, silence. Everyone knows when Deci’s at work you clap your trap. If you can stop your heart for a bit, that helps too.\n\n\tLike she’s in a trance, she turns dials, peers down at a radar screen, then nods.\n\n\t“Burst!”\n\n\tWhat could have been bright tracers was instead an ear piercing whistle with each thunderous boom. Well, one half of a fireworks display is fine, you guess.\n\n\tShe shakes her head, her antennae start twitching. She throws Chatter a headset. “{Listen for activity, I’m focusing on reverb.}”\n\n\tThe two of them sit there as Taxi sweats the controls, shoulder to shoulder, arms acting in tandem like they were born and raised together in a nest. \n\t\n\tOh, they practically were, weren’t they?\n\n\t“Five up! Ten Left! Burst!” he says, one eye nearly moving independently of the other as he watches the roll, pitch, and yaw.\n\n\tShe lifts her paw, glances at her readout, and gestures to the left again. They support one another as the craft yanks them to and fro.\n\n\t“Ten up! Ten left! Burst!”\n\n\tHe hears something, it animates him like an excited child and Decibelle nods in enthusiastic approval.\n\n\t“Five up! Two right! Rock and Roll!”\n\n\tThe staccato goes on and on and on until the barrel glows red, chuffing with hot steam as the rain rolls over the steel.\n\n\tMoments later, a gut wrenching cry wracks the air and the craft rocks so violently even Taxi’s hands slip for a moment. \n\n\t“Did we kill it?” Pappa asks, looking supercharged at the obscure new tactical tool he was logging away in his brain for later.\n\t\n\t“Impact. Definitely made multiple hits. Whatever that thing is, it's moving away quickly.”\n\nIn a matter of minutes, the storm eased, like passing through a theater curtain. \n\nYou crawl up to the cockpit and shout inside, “I’ll find your spellbook someday, witch!”\n\nDecibelle looks back at you, sticks her tongue out and winks. “{We did good, Big Brother?}”\n\nChatter holds his Pokeball out after giving her a big, fatherly hug and a smooch on the forehead. “{Yes, the best… but?}”\n\n\t“{There’s always more to learn,}” she says as she vanishes into thin-air. \n\n\n\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/\n\n\n\tYou wouldn’t have believed it if you didn’t see it for yourself. Absolutely insane. A hole so absolutely immense it swallows up your entire field of view. Hot towers of black and brown smoke rise in stacks up from the inky abyss as a massive roaring waterfall spills from the bay’s edge into the yawning chasm. The bright flashes of explosions down below like cloud lightning briefly allow all to bear witness, to see down into the cauldron of carnage your gods created... Sparks from power lines still running crackle and pop, sewer and clean water lines burst and mix and gas lines create fountains of fire you didn’t think you’d ever see outside a demolitions manual. You feel a sinking in your stomach you haven't felt in a very, very long time. Oh, is that… hmm…\n\n\tThat feeling… What is that feeling? That’s nasty…\n\nUh oh, would’ja look at the time, its ‘fuck-that-thirty. You got a job to do and a day ago to do it in.\n\n\tIt’s a strange thing, being you. No, you don’t mean [u]you[/u] especially, though that [u]is[/u] absolutely delightful. James’ are made to be tools of war, modifiable templates raised and picked out for the minor peculiarities that might hint at their best potential as a product of their genes. \n\n\n[b]“Landing zone approach. Repellers, get ready!” Taxi says over Shell comms.[/b]\n\n\n\tSome of you are simple grunts, muscle for hire. Others are logistical specialists, engineers, demolitionists, combat medics, hair-stylists (it’s important, you have no idea. Have you seen these bangs?)\n\n\n[b]“Jackpot… do your thing.”[/b]\n\n\n\tSo, out of all these fine, beautiful, deadly Brothers and Sisters we’ve seen today, what is it that makes you worth your salt? Is it your impeccable sense of fashion? That overwhelming charisma?\n\n\n[b]You look down upon a heaving ocean of Krabby and reach for both sides of your belt.[/b]\n\n[b]Time to lose some weight.[/b]\n\n\nIs it your stalwart courage in the face of unbelievable horror?\n\n\n[b]A crater of meat and charred asphalt opens up in the ground and a cloud of smoke erupts over the sea of minced slop.[/b]\n\n[b]Your helmet shifts to a cool, green infrared readout as you slide down a metal cable into the chaos, you aim a ray of red light from your Pokeball deep into the smoke…[/b]\n\n[b]…a green outline in your vision pinpoints your partner in crime, and you judge you’re low enough to drop. You snap the jaws on the wire and guide it back into its spool on descent.[/b]\n\n\nYou? You were brought to this Earth for one thing and one thing only.\n\n\n[b]You look down upon a lone Kingler with a missing eye that managed to survive the blast, barely able to make out your blank, soulless, glossy black face as you come crashing down.[/b]\n\n[b]“Tough luck, friend.”[/b]\n\n[b]Crunch.[/b]\n\n\nYou were made for [u]murder[/u].\n\n\n[b]You raise your weapon high…[/b]\n\n[b]…so go the rites…[/b]\n\n\nFrom the second you slid from tube-momma’s womb, you were singled out and groomed for a life spent snuffing out the souls of men and mon alike.\n\n\n[b]Scan, train, pull. [/b]\n\n[b]Bright green muzzle flashes and the smell of burning wood permitted through the respirator, and though it is much quieter than expected, it still punches your shoulder with a satisfying crack.[/b]\n\n\nMade to aid the many uncooperative, violent beings of this world along their sacred journey to becoming peaceful, compliant piles of organic waste.\n\n\n[b]Scan, train, pull.[/b]\n\n[b]More flashes that make the smoke cloud burst into ghostly viridian life, heralded by the screams of helpless ‘mon blinded in an inky sea filled only with predators of your kind. [/b]\n\n\nThis sensation is what you live for, it's what you [u]need[/u]!\n\n\n[b]Scan, train…[/b]\n\n[b]A familiar blue and black blur smears a Tentacool across the pavement.[/b]\n\n[b]You nod.[/b]\n\n[b]Scan, train, pull.[/b]\n\n\nEvery day you’re awake without the jolt of adrenaline and the buzz of barely-evaded mortal injury is pain.\n\n\n[b]Scan, train, pull-[/b]\n\n[b]You release at the last moment, counting the rounds in your head, and stroke the mag release with one round left in the chamber. [/b]\n\n[b]Trigger discipline? [/b][u][b]Perfection[/b][/u][b].[/b]\n\n\n(Honestly now, friends… the Rattata Slap, though so immensely satisfying, is just bad form.) \n\n\n[b]Magazine totally empty. You slip a fresh one in with a single, clean, autonomous motion then…[/b]\n\n[b]Scan, train… click… [/b]\n\n[b]Five Tentacool about to drench you with meaty smelling gouts of acid suddenly find themselves stunned into immobility by the magnum-strobe at the end of your muzzle. [/b]\n\n[b]Strafe, pull.[/b]\n\n[b]You’re treated to a live-action slideshow of your enemies dying in a grim menagerie of shock and abject horror, gouts of acid slopping harmlessly down cracks in the crumbling earth.[/b]\n\n\n(You’re a professional, after all.)\n\n\n[b]You feel and itch…[/b]\n\n[b]Ah, you know that one.[/b]\n\n[b]…and reach for the blade at your thigh with a swift guitar-strumming motion as you whip completely around.[/b]\n\n[b]It slides out and glides through the air in a neat geometric arc, cleaving a massive Tentacool going for your neck clean in two.[/b]\n\n[b]“Sloppy.”[/b]\n\n\nOh, but never should the fine citizens of Johto fret over your silly little hands. It just so happens that you can snap a man’s neck and go right back to the dinner table like you spat a wad of gum. No big deal.\n\n\n[b]You simultaneously aim your gun down and to the right, one handed, at a sharp angle to evaporate a Starmie’s gemstone in a blaze of green and yellow light. [/b]\n\n[b]Why do the thing the dignity of an aimed shot if it insists on delivering its face directly to the end of your suppressor?[/b]\n\n[b]“Nice try.”[/b]\n\n\nBecause, you see, it’s not the killing you crave.\n\n\n[b]“Shifting cover! Take the zone!” You cry out on the squad channel and toss a smoke bomb in the air and a percussion of heavy machine gun fire punches the air behind you.[/b]\n\n[b]“Up high,”[/b]\n\n[b]…and the canister vanishes in a blue and black streak.[/b]\n\n\nIt's the rush of knowing, seeing, proving that nothing could kill you, no matter how hard it tried.\n\n\n[b]Blackjack finds the densest cluster of hostiles and calls forth another murky curtain of death.[/b]\n\n[b]You slowly, smoothly, with muscles steady as steel, creep your way further into the fray, scanning for the heat of warm bodies needing cooled to floor-temperature in your HUD.[/b]\n\n\n[b]“Holy shit, what are they feeding you over in Spec-Ops, boy?”[/b]\n\n\n\tThe Special Operations division is a tiny fraction of the Apogee Combat Corps. Each and every one is a merciless killer when they need to be, and you’re the monster [u]they[/u] keep in the back.\n\n\n[b]“Potatoes.”[/b]\n\n\nYou’re the trouble someone’s due.\n\nAnd you always come in twos.\n\nDevastation, through and through.\n\n\n[b]You reach for your belt as you detect a mob of Krabby climbing over each other to get to you and your mates. You always make sure to have your pins hitched to your belt so they pull when you throw. No need to waste a beat. Flick of the wrist, no need to even watch.[/b]\n\n[b]CRACK![/b]\n\n[b]Scan, train, pull.[/b]\n\n[b]You’ve got so much trash to cull.[/b]\n\n\nYou’re James, loyal son of Apogee.\n\nHope and love and tragedy?\n\nA master of all three.\n\n\n[b]A Sandslash bursts up from the ground beneath your feet in an explosion of gravel and dust, jittering irises wide with a mindless fury. [/b]\n\n[b]Ah, but you left that handy dandy bowie in an icepick grip, didn’t you?[/b]\n\n[b]Just felt right, didn’t it?[/b]\n\n[b]You let your gun fall on its sling and, with all your weight, you drive the thing through the troublesome critter’s skull, down to the hilt, and into its chest through the neck. You hold its claws fast under your arm as you usher the poor thing on to that sweet, cold, sunless sleep.[/b]\n\n[b]“Too slow.”[/b]\n\n\nAnd you don’t accept surrender…\n\n…unless Jessie asks nicely.\n\n\n\n[b]You scrape the still-twitching corpse off your blade with your boot and check your six, walking in reverse palm down, until you feel the reassuring smack of Blackjack’s paw against your hand.[/b]\n\n[b]Down Low.[/b]\n\n[b]“Here we go.”[/b]\n\n\n[b]\t[/b]So said Serial Zero, every brother’s most honored father, that the fittest few shall stand fast at the gates of Distortion so every other brother may build the walls of salvation.\n\n\t“We stand fast!” You cry.\n\n\t“Caaaaaaaa!” Blackjack resounds.\n\n\tYou hear a soft beep.\n\n\tYou lose yourself in these moments of pure intensity. Stood back to back with your trusted partner, something inside you flips. Always does when the heat is on its max and your instincts, your training, your neural encoding overwhelms your frontal cortex. You can hear more gunfire and explosions behind you.\n\nThe squad sounds confident, energetic, Silver sounds like she means to grab the nearest God ‘Mon by the throat and feed it its own teeth. They’ll be fine, as long as you can stand fast.\n\n\tYou can feel the heat radiating off the barrel of your SMG, hear the muffled plop of magazines falling like rotten apples in the autumn orchards, smell the tiny twinge of sappy smoke from the greenie ammo.\n\nYour hands hot-swap without a single wasted cartridge left in the dirt. You snap your sight chest, to chest, to chest… Right now your brain exists only to pilot the meat machine, reorienting that gun to the center mass of the next most threatening target to apply a lethal burst of super-effective specialty ammunition. Again and again and again, interrupted only by the stray swipe of Doublade Steel across an enemy’s throat or up into the belly.\n\n\tBlackjack’s fists smash, rip, and tear anything that dares approach your flank. He punches the air, ripping enemies apart from a distance with concentrated pockets of Steel-Energy. Ranged energy moves start flying in from all around you, but Blackjack is no fool. He rips slabs of stone from the ground with his Stone Tomb technique for cover, and between strikes of his own he stitches together a Protect or two to keep you safe from the stray, lucky shot. As the enemies get too far away for him, you both turn to clear the killing field in your own respective ways.\n\nYou awaken from your trance as a pair of claws scrape deep, parallel furrows across the surface of your helmet. Your head jerks your neck aside violently, knocking you over.\n\nAnother Sandslash stares you down, scraping at the dirt in preparation for its next lunge. Blackjack must have missed one and it had slipped away from you at that moment.\n\nYou look over and see that he’s preoccupied with a Tentacruel, busy ripping it apart, one tentacle at a time. A simple but horribly time consuming process.\n\nNo matter, you scramble up, track it in your scope and…\n\nClick.\n\nThe loudest little sound ever made by man.\n\nIt bolts straight for you again. Your Shell HUD begins flickering with lines and fragmentation as you desperately fumble a magazine swap, green dot trained between the little fucker’s eyes for the exact moment you slap that–\n\nThe head of the Sandslash explodes. Square, perched with his DMR atop a block of fallen building, gives a two-finger salute, then starts picking off unfortunate stragglers and larger specimens from afar.\n\nYour right-hand-’mon finally heaves the dead Tentacruel over into the abyss and wobbles over to you, missing his goggles. You both stop for a moment, slump forward with your foreheads pressed together, holding shoulders for support as you both greedily suck in air tainted with petroleum smoke and the off-gassing from a lovingly-abused suppressor. You hug your ‘mon, tears watering the desolate soil from both your eyes. You’ve done it again. \n\nYou’ve survived the impossible.\n\nOh the rush, oh that feeling, oh thank goodne–\n\nBeep.\n\nYour head shoots up and you glare at Blackjack’s collar. It’s dead silent.\n\nBeep. Beep.\n\nOh, is coming from–\n\n“Deeeeede indeeedeee, edeneedeedenee!”\n\nJade is sat atop a wounded civilian, one of ten or so the squad had lined up for survival prospects, with her paws synched around the neck of a middle-aged woman. She’s snarling, her mouth is agape, baring dripping fangs that probably never once bit a cut of meat harder than dime-store steak.\n\nYou can’t help but notice that the bodies of the people all look shrunken and aged, like dried apricots, barely able to suck in their labored breaths.\n\nClover has her arms wrapped around Jade’s body, trying to pry her ‘mon away from this unfortunate victim of nature’s wrath, but Jade is so strong she can’t get the woman free.\n\nHer Indeedee stops trying to choke the woman and lashes out at her trainer instead, scraping a shallow gash in her pitiful cut resistant jeans and throwing Clover to the ground. Jade stands atop the lady, allowing her to breath again, and hisses in defiance.\n\n“What’s happening?” You ask, still dazed from the overexertion.\n\n“I don’t know! She started freaking out while the fighting was going on, panicked, and ran. When she came back she went straight to… [u]this[/u]!”\n\n“Get her off that woman, Clover,” Silver orders, and removes a shell from the chamber, sliding a single hollow point slug in its place.\n\nClover reaches for her Pokeball, presses the button on it, and screams, “STOP! STOP, JADE, STOP!” Nothing happens, she presses a button to recall and, again, nothing at all. Clover screams out of pure, unadulterated fear, throwing the Pokeball to strike Jade square in the chest.\n\nNothing happens, and Jade starts lurching forward, away from the victims, only stopping as she notices Silver's gun.\n\nHmmm? You’ve never seen that before.\n\nGahd, there’s that feeling again. It’s… No it’s not fear. What the hell is that? Like swallowing a mouthful of cold fry-grease.\n\nJade shakes her head, hisses, and spits as she tears chunks out of the woman’s sweater. “Deneed deinedenedinee nenidndneine!”\n\n“{Wh-, what is she saying, Deci?}” Chatter yells.\n\nDecibelle shakes her head, crying and fidgeting around in a panic. “{I, uh, I don’t know, it just sounds like gibberish… It’s messy, too messy for even you, but I think I can make it out.}” She stops for a moment, and creeps towards Jade. “{Let me talk to her, Brother!}”\n\nBeep. Beep. Beep. The collar flashes and beeps constantly now and Jade starts scraping at it, trying to pull it away and over her chin.\n\n“{Jade! What’s wrong, talk to me, honey!}” Decibelle pleads, inching closer bit by bit.\n\n“Deeeedenediedneined! {Kill! Water the soil with us! Human, poison, weeds, Kill!}” Jade starts moving towards Clover, who has locked up in terror.\n\n“What did she say, Deci?” Silver demands with Icy indifference, training her irons on Jade’s chest.\n\t\n\tDecibelle’s eyes start watering and she tugs at her ears in anguish. “{I don’t want to say, Brother! Please don’t hurt Little Sister, she’s so young!}”\n\n\tChatter opens his mouth to speak and Silver glares at him. “{I can hear Deci just fine myself, Brother,}” she replies in a monotone synthesized Cinderace voice.\n\n\tChatter’s face goes white.\n\n\tYou know she doesn’t wanna do it. Silver never looks the type, but she has so much hope for everyone inside her still beating heart. She’ll only shoot if Jade tries to kill one of them. Everyone knows it, everyone but Clover.\n\n[i]\t[/i]Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.\n\n\tSilver’s one good eye glistens. “Please… please fight it.” She keeps the gun trained on Jade, knowing if she lowers her guard for a moment the little ‘mon will lash out at any human she can take a chunk out of.\n\nShe must have seen this a hundred times by now.\n\n\t“Aaaaeeeee!” Jade shrieks so loud it can be heard past the noise filters in the helmets, clawing at her own neck so hard she gouges bloody tears in her own hide.\n\n\tClover starts crawling towards her ‘mon and you rush up to Clover and pull her back. “Get back!”\n\n\t“Don’t shoot my ‘mon, Ma’am, please!”\n\n\tSilver closes her eyes and lowers her weapon. “I’m sorry, baby,” she silently mouths.\n\n\tBeepeepeepeepeepeepeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.\n\n\tIn an instant, with an ear-deafening blast, Jade’s head and hands vaporize into a fine mist.\n\nHer body stands there for a moment on its own in a macabre display of biomechanics at work, then it slumps over atop a stack of spilled garbage from a turned-over dumpster in a gushing heap. A jagged steel flower, the bottom surface of the blast collar, rolls to a stop on the ground like a hubcap.\n\n\tAssurance collars… there to keep captured spies and vicious mon from escaping maximum security premises… Repurposed, it would seem…\n\n\tClover falls to her knees as you let her go, eyes glazed over in horror. She screams and then, for what seems like forever, she purges the contents of her stomach. \n\n\tNever seen a Joy puke at a trauma case, damn.\n\n\tSilver gives you boys ‘the look.’\n\n\t‘Fuck off and make yourselves useful anywhere but here?’ Yes Ma’am!\n\n\tYou hustle away from the scene with Papa as Silver kneels beside Clover, you decide to ditch the front visor of your helm. The HUD is worthless now. Yep, Mk1 eyeballs for you.\n\n\tHoly crap, the whole place smells…. Oddly pleasant, like freshly cut grass, especially the front of your weapon.\n\n\t“We might be down our medic, Pal. You didn’t sleep through Trauma Basic too, didja,” Papa asks, walking over to the bird with you.\n\n\tYou chuckle. “Why so faithless, Padre? She’s got fire in her, it's just buried under all that cushy padding civvy life gave her. No…” you look over at the miniscule lineup of survivors. “That’s our problem. There’s gotta be more than this. You searched the buildi– uh, ruins around here?”\n\n\tHe nods and spits. “Every square inch while you and Blackjack were busy doing that crazy Danse Macabre. The rest were just… like them, but worse. Sucked dry like raisins. Oh, by the way…”\n\n\tYou tilt your head. “What?”\n\n\tHe socks you in the shoulder. “Spuds is what.”\n\n\tChatter walks over with Decibelle, who is still nursing a case of the weepies. She looks over at the grisly scene and Chatter redirects her back to the meeting taking place. They chitter away at each other so fast you don’t think each knows entirely what the other is saying.\n\n\tSquare runs back over to you, looking around, and realizing this was one of those delicate social things he doesn't wanna be a part of. “That sucks,” he murmurs.\n\n\tFair enough, old boy.\n\n\tBlackjack is just standing still as a scarekrow, you can see in the slits of his eyes that he’s getting the weepies too. He can’t stop looking at Jade’s corpse, now set aside where Clover can’t see.\n\n\tHis collar beeps. It beeps [u]twice[/u].\n\n\tYou grab his shoulders, then his ears, and you bring his eyes to your face. “Look at me. I’m not just your trainer. I’m your [u]Brother[/u], Blackie.”\n\n\tHe hasn’t heard you call him that in a long time. You see little tears rolling down his cheeks.\n\n\t“I don’t care what messed up thing is going on. We’re stronger than this. All of us! I know what we’re all thinking. Well, if the Gods want us all dead, then I intend to make them fucking [u]earn it[/u]. And I’m gonna do it with my Brothers and Sisters. All of them.”\n\t\n\tAll eyes are on you.\n\n\tYou grit your teeth. Folks are struggling. J’s never show it on the outside, but you can tell when the boys turn to little Goomies and nothings gonna happen without a Jessie around. Gaaahhhds you hate leadership. “Taxi, you saw that just now?”\n\n\tShe doesn’t respond for a minute. “Didn’t need to, audio said enough.”\n\n\tChatter nods. “Amen.”\n\n\tYou reach for whatever spare ammunition you can find in the e-storage of the bird. Not much, as it turns out. There’s a break-action 12-gauge under the front seat, good for survival hunting and not much else. “I need you to guard the area with the Commander. Don’t go far from the bird, but get those people on this flight in case we don’t come back…”\n\n\t“And where, exactly, do you think you’re going?” she shouts, popping her head out of the cockpit.\n\n\t“To do our job. Goldenrod had millions of people, there’s no way there’s only ten survivors!”\n\n\t“Definitely not. Impossible, actually…” Square declares.\n\n\tYou raise a brow. “And what makes you so sure?”\n\n\tHe points up the rubble line where the edge of the sinkhole shows off exposed wiring and pipe. “There was a premium subway service leading out of the city. It was gaining popularity, actually, growing fast. There’s probably whole sections of subway with hundreds of people trapped inside. This side of the city was under light construction and renovation, but was definitely in operation.”\n\n\tPapa grunts. “Like a string o’ coffins.”\n\n\t“We’re gonna need to be real tender with our ammo,” Chatter says.\n\n\tYou all look up at the hill of rubble and you see sandshrew scurrying like bugs in a pile of trash. \n\n\tSomething feels odd again, like your stomach is full of ichor as you peer up the hill. One of the Sandshrew stops, looks at you, and gestures for you to follow it. You’re sure that’s what you see…. What the hell?\n\n\t“Good thing we still got the special brew, eh boys?” You say, pointing finger guns with a cheeky smile. \n\tPapa hops into the bird and starts working up nozzles to the tanks. “Way ahead of ya. Can’t trust you degenerates with nothing, I’m taking the tanks.”\n\n\tYou look to Square. “Can we get into one of these tunnels?”\n\n\tHe points to the shattered lines, then down, then up. “There, somewhere. Can’t tell for sure. Deci probably can hear people, maybe? Listen for cavities in the rock? I’ve got the goods to pop it open, but not much else, I’ll do my best to spare what I can when we find it.”\n\n\tYou look at Decibelle. “Well?”\n\n\tShe’s shivering, tugging at her collar, antennae folded back as she snuggles up next to Chatter. She keeps looking at her Pokeball on Chatter’s belt.\n\n\tGods, can't blame her there.\n\n\t“It’s your choice, Decibelle. Not gonna make anymon else risk that without making the choice themselves.”\n\n\tEveryone nods.\n\n\tChatter kneels down and hugs her. “{Deci, baby, I won’t lie, we need you. There’s people’s lives at stake. If I put you away you might never come out of confinement. But… I’m scared for you too. Nobody here faults you if you wanna go back to the ball. Especially not me.}”\n\n\tShe shudders, grits her teeth, and swallows a dry throat. “OK!” she shouts, one of the few human words she can manage with her own tongue.\n\n\tChatter kisses her on the head and then looks over at Square. “Curious, how did you know all that, exactly? We don’t get out that much, yea?”\n\n\tSquare looks around, realizing he's suddenly on stage. “I like trains.”\n\n\tYou cackle, wiping an exaggerated tear from your eye. Of course he memorizes train routes for fun. You should have known better.\n\n\t“Alright Papa, let’s spray some pests.”\n\t\n\tGoodness gracious, the psychopaths in Hazchem must’a whipped out the big-boy-books for this panoply of pain. At first you think it’s a dud when papa turns the nozzle and all that drips out is a little bit of inert, green sludge. You both decide to try and rough it up without the weapon… until you see the mat of moss and mutant roots growing over and around your feet, trying to take root in Papa’s boots. Then everyone grins like jokers. Even Square smirks at the discovery.\n\n\t“The cancer better be worth this, nerds!”\n\t\n\tOh man, if the Organic ammo from earlier was at least slightly pleasant, this stuff smells [u]awful[/u]. It’s like that moment just before compost becomes compost and it's just a bunch of rotten shit in a box. Anywhere the sludge gets sprayed it creates a cushy area where any ‘mon with type disadvantages touching it get nasty energy burns and run away. Mon with a type disadvantage that get [u]hit[/u], well… Papa finally got the hang of the stream and nailed a whole pack of Sandslash stalking you up the hill.\n\nWhat you witness for the next minute and a half is the singular most twisted and morbidly fascinating thing you’ve ever seen a creature have to endure.\n\nThe poor bastards try to run, the older ones even work up the courage to sacrifice themselves and throw the younger sandshrew away so they could be spared the fate of their parents. But the mosses and roots take a foothold in their bodies too and all they do is to roll around the dirt, squealing, bucking, and scraping at their own flesh as the parasitic foliage grows across the spots they got splashed. No matter how many times they scrape it away, more just grows in its place, tearing more and more strips of rotten, oozing flesh with each agonizing attempt.\n\nMessy, tuberous root networks start threading throughout their muscles and fat, eventually bursting forth from the skin in bulbous clusters like plague buboes. Finally, the victims take root in the ground, helplessly crying out between episodes of regurgitating more of that horrid green sludge.\n\nGrotesque reproductive polyps made from the corpse of a still-living host… Living for only a while you hope, anyway.\n\n\tDecibelle covers her ears the entire time, streams of tears trickling across the ground as she tries to block out the tortured cries of the enemy. She's a normal type, so she’s totally unaffected, but her mind is another thing altogether.\n\n\tHer collar beeps.\n\n\tGods, why? Of all the miserable punishments you could’a come up with…\n\n\tYour squad carpets up a wide area just below the cliffs and you set Deci to work, trying to keep as quiet as possible… besides the occasional gunshot needed to keep the neighbors docile.\n\n\t“My compliments to the chef,” Papa muses. You both look down the hill at a verdant path of roots, flowers, and moss. It looks pretty in its own way. It would be a lot prettier if you didn’t make all those other discoveries about it today too, though.\n\n\tYour radios light up and Deci scowls, scratching at her head with a low rumble in her throat.\n\n\t“Silver here, Taxi says you’re going mining for refugees. Gotta say, could’a picked a more lucrative business model, but I’m here for it now.”\n\n\t“On the money, Silver. There be Goldenrods in them-thar hills. Radio-silence, Deci’s work’n,” you say.\n\n\tShe responds with three button squawks.\n\n\tHours. Two hours you sit up there in complete silence. You get a good sense of the scale of the destruction, you also start to feel unnerved as more seismic activity makes the slanted slope you’re hanging onto the bedrock start to shift and you’re pretty damn sure you saw the whole landmass slide down.\n\n\tYou get an ugly… ugly feeling. Like someone is angry at you and you know it, but wants you to come up for a scuffle. You look around and spot a Sandshrew standing on a rock. It points to a patch of area you aren’t searching in, then scurries off.\n\n\tRight’o, little guy, I’ll make sure to pencil that in for the fifth-of-never.\n\n\t“{How’s it going, baby?}” Chatter whispers to Desi.\n\n\tShe growls, more tears streaming down her cheeks, then she shakes her head and slaps her own cheeks. “{I’m sorry… I’ll try harder Brother.}”\n\n\tPapa looks around. “Dunno how much time we got left. Fuels’ not infinite, kids. Maybe we should start blasting and take our chances.”\n\n\tDesi’s throat rumbles again. “{I’m doing my best!}”\n\n\tChatter strokes her cheek to comfort her and she snaps at his finger, taking away a tiny patch of kevlar at the tip.\n\n\tBeep.\n\n\tSquare sighs. “Doable, I think it might be our best bet, I’ll re-pack the charges.”\n\n\tDecibelle snaps her head back with a snarl. “{I’m trying to [u]work[/u]!}”\n\n\tBeep. Beep.\n\t\n\t“Gentlemen, delightful suggestions, but perhaps we should first consider… shutting the fuck up?” you hiss.\n\n\tChatter tries to lean in and her shoulders tense up at his touch. “{Don’t listen to them, they’re just in a rush.}”\n\t\n\t“{It's the only thing that matters, isn’t it?}” Decibelle asks, presses her claws into the ground, and crushes handfuls of gravel in her fingers.\n\n\t“{What do you mean?}” Chatter tries to put his hand on her shoulder and she smacks it away, cutting his glove wide open.\n\t\n\t“{The only thing that matters is what we can do for [u]you[/u]. Oh, as soon as we take too long, time to sit in The Box!}”\n\n\tBeep. Beep. Beep.\n\n\tChatter backs up a little. “{Deci baby, I’ve never felt like that. Nobody has!}”\n\n\tOh no, Chatter…\n\n\tShe slams her fists down, shattering a solid sheet of stone beneath her. “{You said so yourself! ‘Oooh, can’t keep it together? Guess you go to Nowhere-Land forever!’}”\n\n\tChatter scoots back, dragging his ass through the gravel as Deci stands and walks towards him. She’s half his height, but nobody wants an angry, fully evolved mon bearing down on them. Nobody. “{Decibelle, honey, I…}”\n\n\t“Audenoe eneoneo,” Deci chitters and shakes as she scratches at her face. She tugs the collar around her neck and points at all of you. “{So here I am, ready to blow my own brains out for you so maybe I won’t get locked up, and you decide I’m just too [u]SLOW[/u]?!}”\n\n\tOh, sweet mother mercy, you’re not a pokeglott but you understood that little diddy just fine.\n\n\tHe reaches out for her paws and she smacks them away with a nasally snarl, baring her fangs.\n\n\t“{DON’T TOUCH ME! Aadneaiendea endinonidene!}” She stomps down her foot and you feel the city shelf starting to rumble again.\n\nBeep. Beep. Beep. Beep.\n\n“Chatter, back away!” Papa screams.\n\nChatter’s eyes fill with tears and his throat quakes. “Oh, Gods, no…” he cries, pressing the recall on her Pokeball to no effect. \n\nIt's always the hardest, you know. Something about really knowing the language of the animals of this world does something to a soldier. Grinds their vicious edge away. They talk with you at the mess, let you know how they feel when you say something or give them a command, let you know their favorite little things.\n\nIt’s always the worst when Pokeglotts lose a partner; a miserable, undignified affair. Noble warriors reduced to a wretched puddle of sobbing flesh. In the end, ‘mon are tools; one goes, another comes just as easy…but you know you don’t believe that at all anymore, do you?\n\nNobody on this hill feels that way.\n\nSo the honor falls to you… You draw your Oko, click back the hammer, and aim for her chest.\n\n“Chatter, old boy. Let her go,” you sigh.\n\nHis eyes and his nose weep like faucets and he clutches at his chest. “Deciiii, my [u]babyyy[/u]!”\n\nChatter clenches his teeth, grips his palms, stands, trying with everything he has to back away. \n\n\nBeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.\n\n\n“OH GODS, NO!” Chatter cries out, reaching out for her like he’s trying to pull her back from the void. “Sweet, merciful Gods that hatched the world, please don’t take my [u]Decibelle[/u] from me!”\n\nSquare sprints behind him and tries to snatch him by the vest, tugging him out of the blast range. “Chatter, no!”\n\nIn a grim display reminding everyone that Chatter is, in fact, a James he kicks Square’s leg out from under him, locks his arm behind him with one hand, and knocks Square away with a palm strike across his head that sends him rolling down the hill.\n\nYou have to jump down to help stop his descent into an undeveloped patch of warzone.\n\n\tYou hold your breath as Chatter tosses his weapons down the hill towards you and throws himself around Deci’s neck.\n\n\t“{I know you don’t mean any of that stuff. I know you love us as much as we love you…}”\n\n\tHe swallows and gasps as she starts to crush his torso and gouge massive holes in his armor vest. “{B-b-but, if you have to go I understand. It’s ok, baby. I still love you. I always will.}”\n\n\tbeepbeepeepeepeepeepeep\n\n\tYour eyes refuse to close as the light on her collar blinks faster and faster.\t\n\n\tHe kisses her on the forehead one last time. “We were born together… I’d never let you die alone.”\n\n\tYou sheathe your weapon. Your Brother has made his choice.\n\n\n\tpeepeepeepeepeepeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee\n\n\n\tHer teeth rip massive chunks from the vest of his shoulder and her claws gash his arms as he holds her, bearing all the suffering without a curse. But then her jaw opens, quivering, lungs gasping for air.\n\nDecibelle’s mouth hangs open, tears streaming from her eyes, soaking her graying fur.\n\n\t“{Aaaaahhh… Aaaaaaah….}”\n\n\tHer grip loosens on his torso. Her claws retract.\n\n\t“{Aaahh… I’m sorry…}”\n\n\n\tEeeeeeeeeeeeeeepeepeep\n\t\n\tPeepeeppeepeepbeepbeep\n\n\n\tHe snuggles into her like she's his little hatchling scared in the dark again, smooching her cheek, stroking her antennae like she only lets him do. “I’m here, baby, it’s ok.”\n\n\n\tBeep. Beep. Beep.\n\n\tBeep.\n\n\nYou had no idea thirty seconds could last so fucking long, heart pounding while standing still.\n\n\n\tHoly shit, did you just witness a miracle?\n\n\nDeci smiles after a time, and points to a patch of earth behind where you all had been searching. “{There’s people there, I can hear them now.}”\n\n\nIt’s the same patch of earth the Sandshrew showed you.\n\n\n\t“Silver to the Lost Boys, report please!”\n\n\tYou push a shaking hand against your own helmet and grunt towards the other boys to get packing the explosives. “You’ve reached Jackpot’s House of Horrors. We don’t serve liquor, but we really should! Please leave a message after the beep. BEEEP!”\n\n\t“You really want that hole in your ass, don’t you?” she grunts.\n\n\t“Tell me something.”\n\n\t“Yeah?” Silver says.\n\n\t“How the hell do you do this every day?”\n\n\tShe doesn't respond for a full two minutes, you almost think she chooses not to answer…\n\n\t“Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, kid.”\n\t\n\tChatter recalls Decibelle without issue, then walks up to you, wiping tears from his eyes. \n\n\tYou return the warrior his weapons.\n\n\t“Sorry, guess that was a bit stupid, wasn’t it?” he says, holstering his pistol.\n\n\tYou shake your head and place a firm hand on his shoulder. “Maybe. But if it’s stupid, and it works?”\n\n\tHe coughs and smiles. “It's still stupid, but it works, so whatever. We still take those.”\n\n\n\tThe next four hours are spent drilling. You don’t have the good powertools, and you only have one Blackjack, so it takes a good long while to set all the charges. The Geargles come in proper handy, boy howdy. Doors don’t argue, sure, but the company could do well in adding to their advertising that mountains don’t either.\n\n\tWhen you blast the hillside, the earth vomits up a spray of concrete, steel, and igneous rock across the entire slope. You all wobble where you stand as you feel the landmass begin to slide and a massive chunk of it at the edge of the abyss goes tumbling in with a thunderous crash and a cluster of explosions crackle at the bottom of the pit.\n\n\t“Alright, time-test everyone. Twenty-three Skidoo!”\n\n\tDecibelle had it right on the money. The subway tunnel was buried beneath a massive layer of crumbled and recompacted rubble.\n\n\tYour head suddenly feels like someone just struck you behind your head. You’re lightheaded, like you lifted too much and need to fall over. Blackjack seems to feel the same way, because you are using each other as supports to keep from wobbling over.\n\n\tWhy do you feel so weak? Everyone else seems to, too. The nailing and priming should have been simple, but Blackjack practically did everything while you all bumbled around with the multitools.\n\n\t“Oh Holy Oaks on a Pallet…” Papa says.\n\n\tIn the tunnel there was a skittering, heaving mass of Sandshrew, some of them filling in from holes in the ceiling and in the floor and in the walls. They’re all digging towards something they…\n\n\tA billion tiny eyes all look up at you in perfect synchronization.\n\n\t“Hey Chatter, wanna try diplomacy? Looks intelligent,” you say, desperately trying to hide that disgusting feeling like something just spoke in your ear, asking you to come inside.\n\n\tChatter clears his throat. “{Ah, um. Hello! We’re sorry for all the trouble. We’d just very much like to get the humans you have here, please and thank you!}”\n\n\tYou wait, and wait, and finally the head of a single sandslash scurries out of the blast hole, baring a mouth full of worn-out-teeth.\n\n\t“FORE!” Papa screams, swings his Geargle with the ax head broadways, and sends the little bastard sailing. \n\n\t“Cool, let the record show we tried playing nice. I, for one, have some fun tools I’d like to give a go.” You say, tugging at the Four Spore cans.\n\n\tPapa clips the tank nozzle to his belt. “Good, save the juice for when we need it. Mask up!”\n\n\tYou toss not one, not two, but three IVSAC grenades into the pit. Gross, thick ochre clouds fill the entire chamber, swallowing the hoard of mon up in chemical misfortune. Lots of little lungs, the math checks out. \n\n\tYou’d ask Square, but apparently he’s hit the limit of his patience and was rappelling right into the hole. You didn’t think there WAS a limit to his patience, but here you were, watching him make bad choices.\n\n\tYou snag your clips around a tight rock and Square screams,“stay there, dammit!”\n\n\tYou see him connect his independent air supply and vanish into the smoke with his knife drawn.\n\n\tOh man, that’s how that feels to watch someone you care about enter the fog without help.\n\n\tBeep. Beep.\n\n\tYou flash around and see Blackjack quivering, eyes locked on the mob that is slowly being subdued. His muzzle twitches, his lungs struggle to force air into his face, and the collar starts warbling with a distorted whine.\n\n\tActually, you notice your radio start to wobble and pixelate too… Bet it's some electromagnetic interference, maybe there’s a loose Magnemite swarm somewhere?\n\n\t“Buddy, what’s wrong?” you ask, holding his ear.\n\n\tSquare hurls sticks of dynamite with extra long fuses, cut to precise lengths, up into the corner crevices of the tunnel with a net mesh to catch some sharp edges. He lights the fuses as he goes along, sneaking between the shaking, snoozing, delirious Pokemon.\n\n\tBlackjack sees the fuses start to burn and he closes his eyes, looking away from the many onyx eyes burning holes into his soul.\n\n\tAt the last possible second, at the back of the tunnel, Square kicks his repellar on, flies back to the bottom at the front, and then scales the lip with everyone’s help just before the ceiling collapses from all four corners being buckled in.\n\n\tBeep. Beep. Beep.\n\n\tThe ceiling of the cavern crushes the entire swarm with a sound not unlike running steak and marbles in a blender.\n\n\tYour Lucario pushes you away, launching you six feet into the air.\n\n\tIn case anyone thought [u]Deci[/u] was dangerous… You reach down into your plate vest after you land on your knees and feel a titanium plate with a freshly punched hole.\n\n\tYou decide it's not worth the risk. If Blackjack goes AWOL there’s not much to stop him now.\n\n\tYour Pokeball buzzes and refuses to accept Blackjack’s energy.\n\n\t“Jackpot, let’s [u]move[/u]!” Papa shouts.\n\n\tYou lean over to Blackjack, who is buckled over on the concrete crumble. “You can fight this, boy! You’ve punched shins harder than this!”\n\n\tYour Radio crackles and you swear you hear. “[i]...inside…[/i]”\n\n\tYou yank him up by the collar. Gods, you’re so weak. Why does this take so much effort!\n\n“You saw it happen. Desi went to the brink and clawed her way back. You’re not there yet…”\n\nYou throw your Pokeball up in the air. “...and if you go, so do I!”\n\n\n\tBlackjack watches you lift your Rattata and blast his Pokemon confinement vessel like clay skeet.\n\n\n\tBeep. Beep.\n\n\n\t“I’m putting my cards down on the table, what about you?”\n\n\n\tBeep.\n\n\n\tHe nods emphatically, crying, but wincing still, and wraps his arm around your shoulders.\n\nHe launches you both up into the air, down into the pit, and gracefully holds you aloft like a limp Skitty with paws sticking the landing on a pair of jagged boulders. He lifts up a cloud of smoke and averts his eyes as he catches the glimpse of a few mangled corpses between the stones.\n\n\t“You’re late.” Square says.\n\n\t“Did we miss the entrance the first time, or?”\n\n\tHe shakes his head. “No, that was a maintenance passage. They were trying to bore their way in. Obviously [u]that’s[/u] not allowed. Glad we killed them.”\n\n\tPapa cackles. “Oh, and blowing the place up is?”\n\n\tHe locks a fresh magazine into his Gliscor. “I outrank the Governor.”\n\n\tFair enough, old boy.\n\n\tYou make it inside and you hear them, hundreds of people.\n\n\nYou wobble and the rest of you do as well while you feel like vomiting up oil that isn’t there.\n\nYou have to blast a steel door or two open, but they’re alive. People with strange expressions of surprise and praise, all seeming a little bit… stiff… then again being strapped in a hole isn’t exactly something someone prepares to react to, right? It smells terrible, a hundred frightened people in a hole isn’t exactly a recipe for potpourri, but hey you’ll take this crap over the Mon-Mulcher Plus. \n\n\tYou hear that there’s a second station from one of the people, but that it's automatically locked down like they were. The person you spoke to says to all four of you that they don’t feel safe going down by themselves, so they want help getting back to the LZ.\n\n\tThe straws are drawn. In reality you all sort of argue about who goes where and it doesn't take too terribly long. You and Papa will go ahead and open the second station.\n\n\tYou leave the sound of hundreds of infinitely grateful people behind you as you Geargle down doors, stop for breathers as Blackjack kicks them down with need for some effort as well, and you count the remaining det-charges your Demoguy left you.\n\n\t“Makes it all worth it, doesn’t it?” Papa asks.\n\n\tYou and Blackjack look over to him, taking in the yellow emergency lights and the still, clean, purified air that seems to wobble a little… The air is hot, humid… but clean.\n\n“Would you believe me if I said yes this time?”\n\n\t“Yeah, not in your life, psycho.”\n\n\tIt turns out Square didn’t really need the C4. Blackjack has the physical prowess to kick through the concrete walls. That’s more your style anyway. That’s good, because you’re finding it hard to stand or move. Man, you need to visit the doctor when you get back. You shouldn’t be wearing out THIS soon.\n\n\tThe deeper and deeper you go, the less and less people-noises you hear. It was supposed to be a station that’s the same size or more. There’s nobody here at all!\n\n\t“Something’s [i]wrong[/i], Papa… We need to go…” You feel it in your guts, you need to [i]leave[/i].\n\n\t“We need to look, Kid.”\n\n\t“I know… I… Yeah…”\n\n\tBlackjack’s eyes glance down at your hands. They’re shaking, your fists are bruised, you might have a fractured rib, your helmet visor is missing, and he punched a hole in your plate.\n\nYour Pokeball is gone.\n\n\tHe grabs at the collar around his neck, then he realizes something and…\n\n\tHe puts his paw on your shoulder, touches your chest, then touches his own.\n\n\t“Wha… What’s up, pal?” you say, checking your corners in the way you know is best as you scour this sterile, empty subway station. Distances don’t look right, geometries seem warped.\n\n\tYour ‘mon grunts in frustration. He gestures to you, then to him.\n\n\t“Uh huh, and?”\n\n\tHe places your hand on your chest, then brings it to his own, dodging the menacing chest-spike. He tilts his head.\n\n\t“I… um.” You place your hand on his chest, then go to yours, and you tilt your head.\n\n\tBlackjack nods, he winces a little, suddenly, but smiles and nods again.\n\n\tYou shake your head. “I’m sorry, I don’t get it, bud.”\n\n\t“He just said that he loves you, dumbass.” Papa says, breathing heavily as he returns for an area search through a restroom.\n\n\tYou chuckle. “Ha, sorry, I struggle with that stuff sometimes. Thanks. I, uh, I don’t know what to say.”\n\n\tBlackjack’s eyes lower to the floor, a heavy frown forming on his face as he fidgets with his own arms.\n\n\tPapa rolls his eyes, taking a gruff rumble. “He wants to know if you love him too.”\n\n\n\tWoah.\n\n\tThat’s a question, isn’t it?\n\n\n\t“Would you believe me if I said yes, Papa?”\n\n\tPapa gestures to Blackjack, then walks around a corner, leaving you two alone.\n\n\t“I’m not the one you need to convince.”\n\n\nYou stand next to Blackjack, both of you beat to shit, bodies ready for mending in the tanks for the thousandth time. Thick as thieves, you always say. That’s what everyone else says too.\n\n\nSo go the rites…\n\n\tYou raise your palm. \n\n\t“Up high.”\n\n\tHe smacks your palm with his. \n\n\tYou turn around, so does he.\n\n\t“Down low.”\n\n\tYou feel his claws smack against your fingers.\n\t\n\tYou turn around, face him.\n\n\tYou place your palm on his chest look him in the eyes.\n\n\t“Right here.”\n\nHe presses his massive, wartorn paw against your vest.\n\nYou nod.\n\n\nHis eyes fill with fat, runny tears and he nods in return. He throws his body weight around you, practically crushing your chest.\n\n“Aaaaugh, ok, ok big guy. We got a job to do. Let’s go.”\n\nNever thought you'd see a killing machine bawl like this. Ugh.\n\nEverybody gets one, you suppose.\n\nBut, you gotta hand it to him, you definitely don’t feel tired anymore.\n\n\t“C’mere! I found something.”\n\n\tPapa is peering through a security window in a narrow hallway, slunk against the wall. He points to a steel storage container on a rail.\n\n\t“You hear that?”\n\n\tIt’s faint, but you can catch the whimpering of a little girl through the metal door if you take off your respirator. In the meantime, you take a secondary look around the entire room, trying to minimize your profile.\n\n\tDead bodies everywhere. Human corpses torn apart from the limbs, heads dashed open against railings, dried blood smeared across almost every square inch of brand-new Vinyl paint, pika-libre posters smeared with viscera. Whatever did this made a hobby of it.\n\n\tAnd yet, nothing inside…\n\n\t“Something is very wrong, Papa. We need to go!”\n\t\n\t“Yeah, Kid, but we can’t just leave her. This is the end of the line,” you can see his eyes fluttering. He’s exhausted. He never shows it, training, missions, nothing stops Papa… but something is…\n\n\tYou nod. “Well, if this is the last stop. I’ve got one more IVSAC for anything in there that thinks it's hard, two frags for…fragging…”\n\n\tYou peer down at your vest and take stock. “Fifteen chest bursters, haven't touched the stuff yet. Two mags of Charged Hollows, and a stack of copperheads.”\n\nYou open the slide of your SMG. ”Oop, and [u]one[/u] Greenie.”\n\n\tPapa squints at you and shakes his head. “Where did I go wrong with you, Jackpot?”\n\n\tYou chuckle. “What, the little guy is important too!”\n\n\tHe flicks his belt. “Tank of Murdergrow is running on fumes. Got a smoke still, thought might not help you since you got yer pretty little face whacked off.”\n\n\tYou audibly guffaw.\n\n\t“Yeah, sorry to break it to ya, but yer prettier with the glass on, kid. I probably got thirty or so rounds for my shottie. Not a lot, but hopefully this is the home stretch.”\n\n\t“Alright, do us the honors, bud!”\n\n\tThe door at the end of the hall doesn’t give on the first, second, or third kick. You think about using the C4 but now Blackjack gets pissed and snarls. A silver aura gathers around him and he kicks the door so hard it flies thirty feet across the room and embeds itself into a concrete wall.\n\t\n\tYou catch an alien sounding static on your radio. “You hear that?”\n\n\tThe ground rumbles.\n\n\tYour radios squeal with a shrill whine and Blackjack cries out in agony, whimpering, holding his skull with his teeth bared and his eyes wide open. His collar beeps a couple times, but he shakes his muzzle, trying his hardest to fight it.\n\n\tPapa shakes his head to keep awake and grabs your shoulder. “He’ll be fine, get over here.”\n\t\n\tYou open your bag, grab some packs of high explosive, put them at the hinges of the door, and round the corner. You slap your hand against the steel container. “GET AWAY FROM THE DOORS!”\n\n\n\tOne.\n\n\tTwo.\n\n\tThree.\n\n\t…They’re a kid, give them a little extra time.\n\nPow!\n\n\tYou click the torch on your vest and look inside, trying your best to make anything out past the cloud of powdered steel and nitrogen gas.\n\n\t“Oooh, Papa, you’re gonna be excited! C’mon, c’mon out.”\n\n\tHe looks at you like you’re insane as your ‘Mon is curled up on the ground, writhing in misery.\n\n\tYou gesture at two little children as they emerge from the container. The first is a girl, probably five, the other a little boy, maybe three.\n\n\tPapa purses his lip. “Ah, well, ok, I’ll take a double rescue.”\n\n\tThe little girl, a brown-haired Galarian with impressive freckles across the bridge of her nose, holds her mouth. “Is he ok?” She asks, pointing with a stiff shoulder.\n\n\tIt's like she’s only just been shown how to move and talk at the same time…\n\n\tYou hunch down and heft Blackjack over one shoulder to look down on them both. “This your brother?”\n\n\tOh man, your friend is so heavy. Oh gods…\n\n\tShe nods. “Momma left us in there, she said she loved us and she’d see us again.”\n\n\tThe boy looks left and then right, then he coughs with his face in a twisted crying expression as he looks around at the bodies, but doesn’t make any noise.\n\n\tHe probably cried his voice out and he’s dehydrated. You hold out your hand. “Your mother sounds very smart. C’mon, let’s go find your mommy.”\n\n\tYou do everything in your power to keep them from looking at the floor, snapping your fingers,asking them this or that about mom or dad or grandma, messing up your hair to keep the little boy distracted. \n\n\tYou find out grandma died last spring. Hard pass.\n\n\t“Is he a Lucario?” the girl asks.\n\n\tYou smile. “Mhmm, he’s my first Pokemon I’ve ever had. Do you have one?”\n\n\tShe looks down to the ground. “Momma had to take Rockruff to the center because they’re sick. We should stop and check on him, he looks sick too!”\n\n\tThe earth shakes and you hear something crackling off in the distance. “Oh, children… he’s sick too, alright, but we can’t stop. We have a Joy on our plane, her name is Clover, maybe you can ask her about your ‘mon too.”\n\n\tYour radios rumble and distort again, loud, like a starving Growlithe watching meat being taken away from it.\n\nBlackjack winces, bites your shoulder, and wraps his paws around your arms.\n\n“Rrrawlaracali…” he jitters, muffled by the fabric in his jaws.\n\nThen he digs his claws deep into your shell plate. Several claws punch through the plates, a rib cracks. Your body screams at you to fall to your knees, to buckle forward and rest, but you press your cheek against your ‘mon’s face and kiss his head. “Hold on, buddy. We’re heading back, just hold on.”\n\n\tHis collar begins beeping at random, slow one moment, impossibly fast the next.\n\n\tThe air down the hallway starts to get humid, hot, and distorted.\n\n\tPapa looks over and takes the little boy on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Son…” he whispers… “I need to sit for a minute.”\n\n\t“Is he hurting you?” The little girl asks you, standing like she doesn’t recognize that anything is wrong. You only now realize that her eyes are too big… like… the features on her body were exaggerated on purpose…\n\n\tBlackjack pulls his neck up and tears a massive chunk out of your vest with his teeth. “Oh. Goodness, no. Blackjack is the best Pokemon anyone could ever ask for. He’d never try to hurt me on purpose.”\n\n\tShe smiles. “Blackjack, that’s a funny name.”\n\nThen she walks up to you and grabs your belt. “You should take a break, Mister.”\n\n\tThe massive slab of turbo augmented muscle jerks back and forth, cries out, and you feel another rib crack as he pushes a bunch of sliced armor plates into your body. He’s hanging off you, held onto your body by your shoulders.\n\nHis mouth goes for the spot where your shoulder is exposed, but shakes his head with a whimper and his jaw finds purchase on a fresh tricep plate. He snarls, saliva wetting your armor, and his hind paws buck and scratch against the armor shielding the small of your back.\n\n\t“Hahaha. No. We’re leaving right now,” you look over at Papa and kick his shin, helping him back up. “C’mon Old Man!”\n\n\t“Oh…yeah… right…”\n\nYou push onward,shaking Papa awake. This is psychic shit or something. They trained you for this a tiny bit. You gotta do everything your own way, don’t do anything anything else says, don’t let the false reality take over your real one. “We used to call him Blackie, since he had these little black egg-spots around his tummy that were really soft and cute. He got grumpy when we poked at them and punched me in the shins so hard I had to go to medical. Hahaha.”\n\n\tBlackjack hears that and his eyes drip with fat, hot, ugly tears as he pulls another strip of armor off your arm and exposes lines of flesh on your back through the armor. “Laaakaaaa!” His collar squeals in the same rhythm as the warbling in your radio.\n\n\tYou feel warm blood soaking the back of your fatigues.\n\n\tYour skin and your eyes begin to burn as you go further down the hall and you realize everything is getting worse. The air swirls with noise that you know you’re not hearing with your ears, images you’re not seeing with your eyes.\n\n\t“Does it [u]hurt[/u]?” the little girl asks. “I’m good with bandages, let [u]me[/u] try!”\n\nHer little brother wraps his arms around Papa.\n\n\tThen you see it.\n\n\tOh, Jumping Jellicents, what the hell are you even looking at?!\n\n\tIts face bears a massive wooley snout, fiery humped back, fur glowing white hot, eyes the color of amethyst sets. Its body doesn’t seem to fit in the hallway as it moves, it's as if the length of the station bulges to accommodate its girth, like a Seviper consuming some huge meal.. \n\n\tYou look into the eyes. You’re instantly mesmerized, locked there, unable to move. You slump down to your knees, weighed down beneath your best friend and the little girl hides behind an archway nearby.\n\n\tIn your radio you hear, “...wouldn’t it be so much easier to lay down and rest…”\n\t\n[i]Gods, it's so right… The world is so heavy…[/i]\n\n\tPapa, after he sits for another break, starts to drift away to sleep. The little boy clutches at his savior’s chest, curling up to sleep also.\n\n\tBlackjack runs his claws down your cheeks, seeing what is happening.\n\n“Caaaaaaa!” He screams in your ears, raising his voice to beat the shrill beeping of his collar.\n\nHe’s nuzzling you with a muzzle doing everything it can to keep from tearing out your throat, then he lifts you back up to your feet against an archway wall for support and throws himself into the corner, far away from where he can hurt you anymore.\n\n\t“I…” your eyes bob up and down as you hold your Rattata up with one arm, double vision swirling around the monstrous, mutant Camerupt lumbering down the hall, melting the walls.\n\n\t\n\t“CAAAAAAAAAAA!”\n\n\n“I stand fast!”\n\n\n\tYou reach for the clips in the hem of your pants.\n\n\n\tOne you stab into your thigh, it hisses, you toss it aside.\n\n\tYour vision clears, senses sharp as a knife.\n\n\n\tOne you stab in your stomach, you toss it some other place.\n\n\tYour muscles steady, your grip tightens, your heart begins to race.\n\t\n\n\tOne final clip you jam into your neck, just below the brain.\n\n\tFeel. No. Pain.\n\n\t\n\t“I am [u]devastation[/u]!” you scream.\n\nA hail of white-hot shrapnel punches holes in your armor, lacerates your arm, and digs a crimson gash in your face. A curtain of blood drapes down your cheek and into the gap between the respirator and your mouth.\n\nScan, train, pull. \n\n\tA single flash of green light strikes the beast’s muzzle, it shakes its face, melting the vinyl tile in anger. The ground rumbles and your radio squeals in ways that make your ears want to bleed.\n\n\t“Good job, Greenie.”\n\n\tDrugs are done… you flip your gun to rock and roll… now you just need the sex.\n\nEh, later, there’re kids present.\n\nRattatatatatatatatatata\n\nSparks fan out all across the beast’s hide, coalescing into massive tesla arcs that make the bulbs in the ceiling surge and pop.\n\n\n[i][b][u]“Mister…”[/u][/b][/i]\n\n\n\t“There are no Mr.’s here, girlie!”\n\n\tYou rise to your feet, prepare to make your move.\n\n\tShe is not there to be rescued, she’s a mirage… You understand it now…\n\n\n[i][b][u]The little girl shushes you, patting your shoulder with a tsk tsk tsk. You should really go to sleep. Look at your daddy there, he’s all snuggled up with my brother. I bet Blackie wants to cuddle too.”[/u][/b][/i]\n\n\n\t“No surrender!”\n\n\tYou feel the tingle of sparks dancing between your fingers. You’re not supposed to run these rounds this hot, but who cares, you’re not making it out of here being careful.\n\n\tPING! Your mag runs out and the handle locks back.\n\nFuck technique, you’re gonna slap this bitch like it owes you money!\n\n\n[u][b][i]“You cannot leave yet! We still haven't pulled the weeds…”[/i][/b][/u]\n\n\nYou look back, you see the collar has slowed, Blackjack is waking up. Papa is stirring back awake.\n\n\n“We come in [u]twos[/u]! Always.”\n\nSlap.\n\nRattatatatatatatatatata\n\n\n[i][b][u]You’re all so selfish, you know! You’ve had everything to yourselves for so long![/u][/b][/i]\n\n\n[b]\t[/b]A broiling gust of wind runs across the open sections of your skin and pink blisters begin to boil up. More white-hot glass impacts your armor, sparks off the side of your helmet, burrows into your thigh.\n\n\t“Aaaaaaahhhhhh.” Even past the stims, it makes your nerves scream for the sweet release.\n\n\n\tPing!\n\n\tSlap.\n\n\tRattatatatatatatatatata\n\n\n[b]\t[/b]The thing doesn’t relent, but your onslaught seems to take the pressure off Blackjack and Papa!\n\n\tNo surrender.\n\n\n\t“I stand at the gates…” \n\n\n[u][b][i]It's time for you to water the crops, James![/i][/b][/u]\n\n\n“...so they can build the Wall!”\n\n\n\tPING!\n\n\tIt’s served you well. Farewell, trusty steed…\n\n\n\tYou flick one final vial in your back hem.\n\n\nStabbed in the center chest, right where Blackjack opened a hole for you earlier…\n\n\t“Right here.”\n\n\n\tYou toss your smoking, sparking Rattata and roll across the hall to your comrade. “Papa, Papa!”\n\n\tHe’s asleep, with a little boy on his lap.\n\n\tHis chest is barely moving.\n\n\n\tThe monster roars and a gush of hot air melts plastic and rubber down the hall you just stood in.\n\n\n\t“Lo Siento, Padre”\n\n\tYou grab his shotgun, take his revolver and all its shells, and then you pull off his shell visor and snap it in place. “Lets’ rock, asshole.”\n\n\tYou stumble as more bits of obsidian glass fly through the meat of your leg again, but bite your tongue and grit through the pain.\n\n\n[u][b][i]“I hate you! They hate you! WE ALL HATE YOU!”[/i][/b][/u]\n\n\n\tYou get into that tactical squat, and begin hustling in the thing’s direction. Your injured legs wobble a bit, but you won’t drop. You stand fast!\n\n\tBlackjack stirs awake from his psychosis, sees you marching towards it, he reaches out with a paw. “Raaaaaa!” He chokes and winces as his collar beeps and whines, and he snarls. You feel him wondering why he’s so overcome with some unfathomable hatred for the person he loves more than anyone else. He wants to pick you both up and run, smash holes in the walls and drag you both out, but his lungs won’t fill, his body won’t move over to help!\n\n\n\n[i]How do I know all that?[/i]\n\n\n\n\tNo, we won’t let it end like this.\n\n\tBumpumpumpumpumpump.\n\n\tOh gods, your Tauros [u]kicks[/u], Padre…\n\n\tTyrunt Shot ricochet’s all around the halls, off its stone hide, popping light bulbs, breaking power lines, leaving nothing but the orange glow of the flame and the purple glow of those soothing eyes in the darkness.\n\n\tIt opens its mouth, and within is a blaring-white caldera that melts the metal of the walls.\n\n\tA massive beam of light streaks down the hall, curling the entire environment in a demented curro-twist. You duck and weave and slam another magazine into Padre’s Bull.\n\n\t“Too Slow…”\n\n\tBumpumpumpumpumpump.\n\n\n[u][b][i]We tried so hard to work you into the grand design… you spurned our love.[/i][/b][/u]\n\n\n\n“I don’t need [u]your[/u] love!” you scream, toss aside the bull, and then you whip out the horns.\n\nTwin Okos…. Oh [b][u]my[/u][/b].\n\nReady the wrist block when you come home, Clover!\n\n\t“I have my Brothers, I have my Sisters. I don’t need anyone else!”\n\n\n\tThe horrid creature, blinking one eye shut after your leaden rain, howls in pain as it is soaked in a murky, mossy brine. \n\n\n\tYou turn around and see Papa, crawling on the floor with a nozzle of putrid green sludge, scowling. Then he collapses to the floor…\n\n…and so do you. \n\n\n[u][b][i]Enough of this, you POISON![/i][/b][/u]\n\n\nYour pulsing veins try to raise you up past your knees, but the weight of the gravity in the room suddenly is so intense that you can’t do any more than sit on your shins as the monster’s hooves send ripples across the molten tiles. You begin feeling your spine getting compressed under some horrible, unnatural invisible, twisting press. Your bones creak and bend, crying out for the end to this torture.\n\nYou shriek with barbaric defiance, flick your Four Spore at its feet, flick a smoke, spit in its direction.\n\nBAM!\nBAM!\n\nBAM!\nBAM!\n\nThe guns practically pull the bones of your hands apart with each shot, shooting one handed like this. You see holes opening up in the monster’s hide, though…\n\n…you see it squealing as the moss overtakes it, even as it ignites and creates a putrid smoke, it chews at the roots knitting its legs into some tree-like morass of burning wood and flesh…\n\n\nI will [i]survive[/i].\n\n\n[u][b][i]One day there will be a sun which doesn’t shine on Human eyes![/i][/b][/u]\n\n\n[i]“[/i]NOT WHILE I’M STILL FIGHTING!” You bellow to the sky.\n\nBAM!\nBAM!\n\n[i]… you’ll drag your enemy down, choke their twitching corpse until it's fresh meat to eat…[/i]\n\nBAM!\nBAM!\n\n[i]…break earth by the tonne with your own bleeding hands…[/i]\n\nBAM!\nBAM!\n\n[i]…wring the world dry and drink your own piss to crawl further on…[/i]\n\n\nAaaaaaah, the forces on your body, your arms, your wrists, your shoulders! A rush of hot air melts your beautiful skin on your face, your eyes start to squeeze shut from the pain.\n\n\n[i]…whatever it takes to see the morning sun… [/i]\n\n\nYou flick both cylinders open and let ten smoking, empty chestbursters dance around your knees.\n\n\n[i]…there's still some hold to stick your hands into this gods forsaken world, you’re sure of it... [/i]\n\n\n\tAs you load shells you prey your eyes open to look the thing in its one good eye, past the dense ochre fog.\n\n\n“Long as this [u][i]black heart[/i][/u] beats, I’ll do whatever it takes to get them home!”\n\n\n\n[u][i]We're[/i][/u][i] gonna make it, motherfuckers![/i]\n\n\n\n[i]KEEP.[/i]\n\n[i]ON.[/i]\n\n[i]FIGHTING![/i]\n\n\nBAM! BAM!\nBAM! BAM!\nBAM! BAM!\nBAM! BAM!\nBAM! BAM!\n\n\nThe thing stumbles and falls in a tsunami of magma and smoldering ichor as you shower your own lap in more hot brass. You burn your fingers through your gloves as you handle the Okos. You fumble with the shells, eyes closed from the agony of the burns on your face, drop them in a hustle and grab them again. Your vision as you pry your eyes open again starts to fade, your senses numb. Your balance is failing you.\n\nYour wrists are definitely broken.\n\n\nThe pain comes. A sort of pain you had no idea could ever exist.\n\n\n“More? You want [u]more[/u]? Coming right up.”\n\n\nBAM! BAM!\nBAM! BAM!\n\nBAM!\nBAM!\n\nBAM!\nBAM!\n\nBAM!\n\nBAM!\n\n…\n\nEverything. You’ve spent it all…\n\nTHUD\n\nYou land on your back in a pool of your own blood, the monster is still in your view, a red and purple blur howling at some indescribable distance in a sea of impossible geometry.\n\n\nYou’re not done yet…\n\n\nYou slide your hand to your belt, and…\n\n[i]Where are they?![/i]\n\n\nSuddenly, as your senses focus on the world outside your head, your best friend is nose to nose with you, bleeding from one ear. He falls to one knee and lurches forward as a hail of glass cuts his hide. He jitters and shakes, but slaps his face and he’s with you again. \n\nHe places his paw on your heart, then places your hand on his chest for you. \n\nYou nod, instinctually, you’re out of your mind. He smiles, and lifts his paw.\n\nYou feel his blood-soaked ear tag stuck between your fingers\n\n“Blackjack?”\n\nHe stands erect, surveys his field of battle in the way you know you and he both learned together, snarling at his enemy like he dares it to come and take the life that’s his. His collar is making the kind of warped, paranormal noises that feel like icicles being jabbed through your neck. He slams down his paw and smacks his own face, fighting whatever this rotten world wants with him and his loved ones, clutching one of your grenades in each paw.\n\n“No!” You try to push yourself up and your body refuses to accept input. “Don’t!”\n\nBlackjack stumbles forward, collar beeping in a glitchy hysteria, shaking his head while punching himself in the stomach to keep himself together. He pulls the pins with his teeth as his fur burns to cinders on approach. His body starts to cook as he leaps onto it and wraps his body around the Camerupt’s neck, biting onto the thing for support. \n\n“BLACKIE!”\n\n\n\nAll you can do is watch in silence as your best friend in the world is rolled up in flames.\n\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n[b]…[/b]\n\n\n\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/\n\n[b]! [/b][u][b]TOP SECRET[/b][/u][b] ![/b]\n\n[b]CAPITAL FITNESS ASSESSMENT[/b]\n\n[b]SUBJECT MATTER: Goldenrod Entity 15[/b]\n\n[b]SpOp jcijam-777 “Jackpot” +ADMINLEAVE+[/b]\n\n\n\t“Good morning!” You hear a familiar someone say with cheery excitement just as your ear canals are flushed of the mint-green medistatis fluid.\n\n\tThe [b]green stuff[/b]. You hurl immediately, but at least this time you grace the intensive-care staff by waiting just long enough for ‘The Bucket.’\n\n\tYou look up as a lovely, fair skinned hand holds your hair back.\n\n“Many thanks, Clover, dear.” Then you glance up and down at the other visitor. “Ma’am.”\n\n\tShe nods. “Recite designation and assignment, friend.”\n\n\tYou don’t salute, instead you nod and slouch in a pair of latex-green fatigues. “J-C-I-J-A-M Seven-Seven-Seven; Special Operations.”\n\n\t“Callsign?”\n\n\tYou sigh. “Jackpot.”\n\n\t“Wanna come with me?” Silver asks.\n\n\tYou stare at the floor. “Do I have a choice?”\n\n\tShe shakes her head.\n\n\t“In that case. It’s my privilege.”\n\n\tShe takes you down three hallways you’ve never seen, and drops you in a boardroom you didn’t even know existed. There’s no windows, no vents, one singular door, and now you think of it the acoustics are weird too. Black carpet, white walls. People always make jokes about the decommission assessment room being like this, with white walls and a black floor and no way out.\n\n\tOh, wait, you did know about this room after all. Guess they just make the process super formal for the older folks.\n\n\tEyyyy, chair is comfy though.\n\n\tSmoosh.\n\n\n…\n\t\n\nYou wait for [u]hours[/u]. Now, you’re no stranger to waiting, paramilitary work is ninety percent soul crushing boredom and ten percent heart popping terror or something like that. But you can’t help but wonder if this is all part of the assessment. Your eyes move around and search the room over the last half of the waiting period. Nothing thorough, that would raise alarm bells for sure.\n\nOh yeah, they’re watching you right now, one-hundred percent.\n\nHey… think you should do something interesting? Hahaha, you really might just have to! Too much time off ice without something to keep your noggin joggin’ is painful these days. Your mind always wanders back to that day, sometimes good, almost always bad.\n\n\tSilver returns. Gods, it… oop, sorry. [b]Goodness[/b], it felt like forever. (old habits are hard to break)\n\nInstead of her normal, spartan, navy blue uniform, she opted for civilian business dress. Her hair is neatly tied, her cybernetic eye has an attractive colorful LED display that must be incredibly distracting under any other circumstance. She’s not alone, that’s for sure. There’s… actually that upsets your expectations quite a lot.\n\n“Been a while, Jackpot,” she says. “How have you been?”\n\nYou nod, pretend like you’re thinking about it for a long time without blurting it out and taking the wind out of old Silver’s sails. “Lonely.”\n\nShe nods. “I know. That’s the worst part for me, trust me, old friend.”\n\nYou purse your lips. “How’s [i]Papa[/i] doing? Heard he went right back to deployments…guess he’s allowed to interact with folks even if they aren’t prescribed shrinks.” You flail your hands around, now suddenly able to talk to a normal-ass tank-born for once. “Or, hey, how about [u]any[/u] of them that weren’t me? They saw weird stuff too!”\n\nSilver taps the table with ruby-red fingernails. “They didn’t report coordinating the rescue of over a hundred civilians with their teammates… an event that never transpired, Jackpot. Among other things.”\n\nShe sighs again, this time with a quiver in her voice, then she looks left and right without her head moving, and you catch a tiny, strange pattern in her Cybernetic that looks like a wink.\n\n“This meeting is extremely important, I’m sure you understand,” she professed, way more formal that she was capable of behaving. \n\nYou nod at that, your shoulder’s loosen up. “Yeah, you're dressed like one of those stock-broker people that don’t broke stocks no more.”\n\nShe smiles at that. “They fixed you up good. Can’t even see the burn scars anymore.”\n\nYou point a finger in that matter-of-fact way you’ve started to adopt. “Well, they say the method of burning was more akin to that of microwaving than actual fire. ‘More evenly distributed destruction of tissue,’ they say. Of course, they still have no idea how only certain parts of my body were affected.”\n\nShe smiles. “Nose is a little funny, though.”\n\nYou chuckle. “I’m sure Clover’ll get it right someday. In the meantime, she has been delightful company. Reassuring company as well.”\n\nYou hum, fidget with your hands, and finally exhale loudly. “Am I being decommissioned, Ma’am?”\n\nShe flicks a wadded up gum-wrapper at your forehead. “You really think I’d let them send you to the chop-shop, dummy? Yeah, you had to sit in time out for a year or two, against my wishes might I add, but Exec knows I’d set every hut and highrise in Johto-West ablaze if they started blending vets while the world needs rebuilt.” Then she smacks a fist into the table. “Let’s get on with it, because I hate smalltalk. I’m going to introduce you to someone. They’re going to ask you some questions. Please do your best to answer them honestly and as in good faith as possible.”\n\nYou think you wanna make a smart remark, then again, whoever this is might get you out of Gay-Baby-Jail so all you do is gesture for them to enter. \n\nYou even make a point to sit with proper posture!\n\nThe person that enters is a heavy set man in a white lab coat.\n\nOh, [i]great.[/i]\n\nNgggg, keep a straight face, Jackpot! Maybe he’s some rich nerd that needs a foot boy.\n\nYou look him over again. He has rounded, red-lensed glasses that he keeps perched on a plump, shallow nose. Hmmm. Where is this guy from even? You can’t place it. His silver hair is rich enough it can be done up into those sick wings he’s got. Pretty stylish for an old watermelon, gotta hand it to him there. \n\nOn his neat, silver dress-shirt he has a bright gold pin, of a sharp, closed-design capital ‘G’… You swear you've seen that symbol before, too.\n\nUnlike the other eggheads you’ve met, he doesn’t look you up and down or dissect you as he prepares to speak to you. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you Mr...”\n\nYour lips part for a millisecond before Silver gives you ‘the look.’\n\nYou roll your eyes. “My designation is jcijam-777. But, I’m sure we can both agree that’s a bit clumsy all around. Civilians are to refer to me as just, ‘James.’ My friends call me Jackpot.”\n\nHe rubs his chin. “And what would you like to be called if you had a choice in the matter?”\n\nYou’re stopped by that question in your tracks. Do you even wanna… ah, what the hell.\n\n\t“I… I had a friend once who meant a lot to me, y’know. I’ve thought about this a lot, see, since, well, don’t have a lot to do now I'm not allowed to exercise my profession…”\n\n\tHe nods and has a seat in a similarly plush chair. “Go on.”\n\n\tYou clear your throat. “I think ‘Jack’ would be fitting, sir.”\n\n\tHis old face suddenly loses its cheery pretense. His chubby brows and jowls give him the look of a wise old Snubbl. “A sentimental man I am not, but I can personally say that I know great creation comes from the love of that which is beyond ourselves.”\n\n\tYou tilt your head. “And the worst of destruction comes from within.”\n\n\tHis eyes go wide a little bit. “I see you’ve read Ghetsis.”\n\n\tYou shrug. “He’s got some good ideas, but I’ve had to pop enough wide-eyed goonies playing revolution in the woods that I’m not impressed with what he churns out.”\n\nHe then glances over at Silver, leaning forward on his cane. “This is a [u]combat[/u] specialist?”\n\n\tShe smirks and gestures back towards you. “As is. I lost the manual when they gave him to me.”\n\n\tHe returns his gaze to you. “I’ll cut to the chase, since you two don’t like idle prattle and neither do I. Have you ever heard or met anyone with natural psychic potential?”\n\n\t“Yeah.. Um, Sabrina’s the most infamous one, of course,” you say. “Too bad they still don’t know where she tends to haunt these days.”\n\n\tHe smirks. “What makes you so sure?”\n\n\tYou tilt your head and the way his eyes follow yours, watching your facial expression, tells you he’s not just playing around.\n\n\t“What are you getting at, nerd?”\n\n\t“Rude!” Silver scoffs and lobs a wadded up sheet of notepaper at your skull.\n\n\tThe old guy waves a pudgy hand. “I care about results, not pleasantries. Anyway, I’ve studied that unfortunate anomaly that got you locked up in… how might you put it… ‘Gay-Baby-Jail?’”\n\n\tFor the first time in a long, long while the color rushes out of your face.\n\n\t“I never said that.”\n\n\t“I never said that you did, Jack.” He flashes a mouthful of marble white teeth.\n\n“Anyway, I will shed some light on this. It’s the least you deserve after such a harrowing experience. What you walked into was the den of a kind of entity known in ancient times as a Chinchou-Jǐng or the dreaded Nymphali Ruban. These days we call them ‘Durant-Traps.’ They’re a powerful mon that is born with a psychic mutation that drives them mad and makes them hunger for human spiritual energy. They worm their way into a place where humans pass by but never stay and snag victims with powerful forms of mind control seen nowhere else in the Compendium-Psyche. That monster had probably been hiding in that subway for months before ‘The Ember’ even happened, based on the evidence your people collected.”\n\n“So… so it isn’t related to the chasm? Or the Man-Hate?”\n\nHe shakes his head. “You were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The ‘God Spite’ and the chasm[u]s[/u] all over the world are different topics… of great interest to us too, of course. I believe you have some significant psychic potential. Core energy sampling should be sufficient to confirm my suspicions. Details will require more sophisticated techniques, but one thing I know for sure is that you have an Iron Mind.”\n\nYou smirk a little. Kind of a weak compliment, but you’ll take it. Ha, it's nice to get a little recognition after getting poked in a hospital gown for a year. “Well, duh, sir. I’m sure you’ve read my service record.”\n\nShe shakes his head and stomps his cane. Guy is no nonsense, Square’d like him, you bet. “You should have [u]died[/u]. All three of you should have withered to husks minutes after you walked into that tunnel. In fact, if your ‘mon hadn't done what he did you most assuredly would have still perished.\n\nYou try to speak but you choke and sit in silence.\n\n“Your ‘mon’s loyalty to you must have been beyond anything I’ve ever seen. My deepest condolences. In the ancient times, warrior monks and masonic temples dedicated themselves to fighting such beasts. They hand picked special children and spent their entire lives preparing their minds for the task, and not even [u]they[/u] made it out every time. The need for them faded when the Great Dark Age came to an end and such horrible monsters faded into myth. But it seems, like the night, darkness returns to us.”\n\n“Yes, we have confirmed your account to your superiors as without error. You are without mental defect, as far as we can tell. No, in fact, I am sure your presence shielded the minds of your comrades the entire time you were down on that shelf of rubble. Don’t you think it's weird that there were no survivors except the few withering away on the ground? Truly, my apologies for taking so long in getting around to your request, but as you can tell everyone has a lot of work to do these days.” \n\nSo many things in the dark places of your mind make so much sense now.\n\n“Thank you…”\n\nHe stands. “No, thank [u]you[/u] for your service. As I understand it, your administrative leave is ending tomorrow. Your many talents are going to come in handy with our work, Sir.”\n\nYou can’t help yourself. “No sir here, sir.”\n\nHe shrugs. “That can change, if you’d like. In fact, we could really use the help.”\n\nYou blink. “Huh?”\n\nHe tilts his head towards Silver.\n\nShe reaches into her pocket and slides two flip-top boxes in blue with red and white lines. One is labeled ‘jcijam777.’\n\nThe other reads ‘jciluc-921.’\n\t\nYou clutch the second against your chest as you flip the first one open. What sits inside is an emerald-green helix around a golden sword hanging from a titanium white ribbon.\n\n“What… What kind of commendation is this, Ma’am? I’ve never seen it before.”\n\n“It’s called ‘The Jade Tower’” Silver says. “I’d never seen it until today. Turns out it only gets issued by Apogee Executive decree… came down from Cress himself. Only three ever given out, I’m told.”\n\nAt the bottom, stitched into the white silk lining, are the words “For selfless dedication, furthering the scientific pursuits of mankind.”\n\nThe stranger smiles again. “I had a hand in making that one happen.”\n\nYou place it down. It means a lot, a whole lot. You’ve got medals out the wazoo, they litter the inside of your personal locker in the armory at this point. This one got handed down from the top, and you will always treasure it.\n\nBut there's no helping yourself as your hands impatiently pop the second box.\n\nYou clench your teeth as you see it. A gorgeous gold and red coptic cross with Galarian Knots woven together from tiny comet-trails. In its center is a blue-black cabochon with opalescent rainbow color shifts. At the bottom it reads. “For stalwart gallantry under mortal peril in the service of humanity.”\n\nThe Cometus Cross.\n\nYou don’t move for a while, just running your finger across the stone, reading the name along the bottom arm of the cross. ‘Blackjack.’\n\nSilver winces a little. “Sorry, he doesn’t do so good with emotional moments, sir. I can assure you he’s infinitely grateful.”\n\nThe old scientist closes his eyes. “I know, more than you can possibly understand, Miss.”\n\nYou flip it shut. “They don’t give these to ‘Mon.”\n\nSilver leans back. “Well, I wasn’t gonna have it [u]not[/u] happen! As soon as I found out the details I kicked so much office-worker ass dragging the application form through corporate and up to executive that they shifted the policy. Things are changing, the world isn’t the same one we were born into. Speaking of which…”\n\nThe old man stands once more. “Yes. I hear you will be offered elevation to citizen status anytime now and may take a first and last name of your choosing. Your employment with Apogee is now voluntary, and you may continue serving with her as you were, but I'd like to make you an offer…”\n\n“My name is Dr. Pluto Charon. I head the research and investigation wing of an organization that once went by the name, ‘Team Galactic.’”\n\nYou did recognize that mark!\n\n“We work to observe, study, control, contain, and utilize anomalous, extraordinary phenomena. I would like for you to join a team of specialists I’m putting together to do some… dangerous work. I would like you to join this team, and our organization. Does that sound like something you’d be interested in?”\n\n\tYou look down at the commendation again, then to Silver. “I’d have to leave here?”\n\n\tDr. Charon shakes his head. “No, actually, we do not have the infrastructure to maintain your cryostasis. I’m informed it is important for keeping you useful beyond human lifespan. You would remain here, taking orders directly from me or my sergeants, of which Silver here is now among their number. You would be gone a lot, of course, so expect to get used to real beds every now and again.”\n\n\tYou look over at silver with a confused gaze.\n\n\tShe winks with a thumbs-up. “Yep, and I hear the other boys and girls have already accepted too.”\n\nCharon closes his eyes and shrugs. “After reviewing all accounts of the mission, I am impressed with the courage and ingenuity of the J-Series here, Silver. The knowledge gained from your mission’s findings have brought many valuable things to light, and our resources I’m sure would be greatly appreciated should your Brothers and Sisters be exposed to any anomalous hazards.”\n\nSilver smiles. “So, what’ll it be, champ?’\n\nYou finally stand. Sharply, quickly, with intent to kill. You leap forward with enough force that your chair flies behind you, lunging at him with your eyes locked on his; cold, uncaring, still wondering what’s for dinner in an hour after you make him dead.\n\nYou’re not going to serve under someone without the steel to stand up to you.\n\nCharon doesn’t budge an inch as your palm strike stops centimeters from his boated old neck. “What a silly little ritual. But, I’m honored that you’ve given me the opportunity to prove myself to you.”\n\nFor the first time in months you chuckle, and even laugh aloud a little. “Count me in, Doc.”\n\n\n\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/\n\nYou’ve learned to really love the fresh air. You get so much of it now. Though your lifespan is getting cut short by the day, it's nice to meet so many new, strange people. Some of them even have senses of humor that make you wonder what Primeape managed to unscrew their brains like mason jars. \nYou’re in the back of a sleek, white stealth VTOL. One that's silent as a Noctowl on the prowl. In the front, locked in with their own sets of gray and white armor, is Taxi and Chatter and Decibelle, speaking that strange chittering tongue only the Radio People know. ‘Frey’ and ‘Orre’ they go by now. They kiss and pet Decibelle between the lobes.\nTo your right, Papa is poking fun at a gorgeous, red headed scientist outside the craft, somewhat fresh to the Galactic Institute from Sinnoh. His Raichu is sleeping up around his neck. Old dog never leaves an opportunity to pet his girl, does he? Goes by the name ‘Victor’ now. Ever since he’d been able to use the downtime and with that sexy, white uniform you all wear, he made it his life's mission to get as much pussy as he could. That was until he met Kaylee there two months ago. You’re pretty sure she’s carrying his kid right now…\nTo your left, Square is touching up the emblem on his Shelmet with a horrible smelling hand-rolled cigarette of some strange Pokemint between his lips. It’s a nasty habit he’d picked up after getting used to having a salary. You’ll happily put up with the smell if it means him chilling outside the murderzone, though, he deserves a good time. Never changed his name. Wrote ‘James’ on the form and handed it in before the ink had dried.\n“Hey…” you mumble. “Care to share the paints, Brother?”\n\tHe glances at you, looks down at the box-pallet of enamels, then pushes them towards you as he takes a long drag and lays his head back against the headrest. He props his legs up on his Golem’s rounded body and rubs their pudgy little head.\n\tYou run your hand across the paint job. Square had taken the liberty of copying your own emblem when you switched to the white shell armor. It was perfect, done exactly as it should have been, not a single stroke out of order. An immaculately recreated red rose atop an ace-of-hearts\n\tAh, but he did miss something, didn’t he? No biggie, probably the mints again.\n\tYour hand shakes a little, but you keep it together as you dip the brush into the bottle of black and carefully decorate your helm. Memories flash through your mind, like a horrid movie. You refused to accept therapy, you refused to show weakness to anyone. You did everything you could to force the thing that happened back into the deep recesses of your mind and let it die, but it made a home in the darkness.\n\n\tTime to let the light shine in.\n\n\tYour friend had given it [u]all[/u] to save two of his most beloved brothers. It makes your stomach curl, makes the muscles of your neck twist and bend in ways you knew other people did but you thought had been beaten out of [u]you[/u]. Your hands start moving on their own as the moments you tried to forget finally come forward and replay over and over.\n\n\tFinally, after you’re done watching him smiling above you, paw on your heart, your hands stop moving and you look at the helmet in your lap.\n\nA red rose perched atop an Ace-of-Hearts and a Jack of Spades.\n\nA handful of tears drip onto the surface of the helmet around the emblem and roll down onto your lap as you close the box of paints.\n\nOh, where’d those come from?\n\n…it’s ok, nobody here is judging you now.\n\nEverybody gets [u]one[/u], right?\n",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "Sparks in the Brush - James
…
…
…
\tYou suddenly rouse to a muddled quarter-consciousness, feeling a tightness in your mind that tugs and twists at the back of your eyes, that very same feeling a babe has as they’re stolen away from that delightfully restful sleep they’ll inevitably leave behind as they grow into adulthood.
\t
\tBlackness, only blackness
This isn’t right, the tingling sensations, those obnoxious first flashes of life, where are they?
Wait, no, there is something. A light!
…Oooh… Oh my, that’s… that’s not a good feeling.
What is… is this a nightmare?
You never have these anymore.
\tYeah… Haven’t in a long long time, have you?
\tEyes? You think they’re eyes, anyway. Gods, it hurts to look at though. That light, like you’re in a staring contest with a welding arc and you’re winning with your naked ass eyes. All those impossible colors make you want to clench a jaw full of teeth you know aren't there, and no matter how bright that distorted light gets you just can’t look away.
Despite this malevolent glow you still can see the shadow of something in the glare, a towering gold and marble effigy beset with bonfire eyes that swirl with the colors of a cold, bitter hatred. Its towering gait grows and grows and grows until your consciousness is crushed beneath the weight of many patient millenia spent on you, wasted in disappointment and disgust.
Suddenly something angry grips your heart and your nonexistent guts squirm like you’re being wrung dry for every drop of rotten blood you can give to soak the desiccated soil of a world which thirsts for justice.
Then the pain starts, nnnggg, aaaah! It’s like when you earned your tat, all across the nothingness you never felt before, transformed into nothing but an all encompassing agony.
Alright then, you think.
You wanna go, beastie?
You feel something, the lightning bolt of life that strikes your neck and sears a path down your spine. The muscles of your neck twitch.
Let’s play!
ALARM - ERRANT METABOLIC EVENT
ADJUSTING CORE PARAMETERS
\tSuddenly your withered heart swells and smacks your chest with bitter, cold blood, fueled with impetuous excitement. Your spine shakes and your skin burns as whatever it is that’s on you simply won’t let up. Yeah, it was your skin all along.
“Bad choice, friend,” you try to say, but that silky-smooth voice you remember never manifests.
\tYour right arm racks with agony as you fight to will the ligaments, tendons, and muscle groups of your hand into that oh-so religiously rehearsed shape. Your fingers curl into a fist, crackling like shattered glowstick cores. You twist your wrist and all your bones align, elbow locked, first two knuckles loaded with murderous intent.
Bring it, Buzzwole, pain is the shadow of victory!
\t
ALARM - PERSISTENT METABOLIC ACTIVITY
EXECUTING EXCHANGE TRANSFUSION
CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 1.25% RATE: 110ML/HR -
\tYour heart rate slows. Your arms begin to quake. Your inner vision blurs.
\tNo, you won’t go back to sleep! Screw that noise, this thing needs an education.
\tYou glare upward, thinking as hard as you can just in case the thing is psychic type.
You’re mine.
You feel the corner of your mouth curl beneath smooth rubber seals.
Your neck writhes back and forth as you work yourself up into a hysterical frenzy, fighting the cool caress of amniotic ice. The monster’s assault blasts past your skin and into the muscle, tracing your web of nerves with lightning strikes of fierce agony. Your shoulder finally submits to your will, relenting like a weather-rusted locomotive.
You jumped into the rosebush, now you get the thorns!
Thump.
ALARM - SUSPENSION RISK
ACCELERATING EXCHANGE RATE - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT
CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 9.86% 136ML/HR +
Your knuckles strike true, something solid, and the thing begins to fade away. The pain in you begins to subside, but you won’t stop. Your other shoulder gives too, and you cut through rimy slush with your strikes. You feel your legs start quaking, thighs jerking to life as you fight with all you have.
Get back here, you scream, muffled by polymer tubes and cryogenic ooze, we’re not done yet!
Thump.
Thump thump.
\tA murky listlessness creeps at the edge of your mind.
\tThe darkness has come for you again, and the sweet serenade of sleep swaddles your soul.
No, you won’t go to sleep.
You’d never go that easy, would you?
ALARM - SUSPENSION INSTABILITY
ACCELERATING EXCHANGE RATE - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT
CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 12.45% 192ML/HR ++
\t
\tNO! You’ll keep on fighting.
You’ll drag your enemy down, choke their twitching corpse until it's fresh meat to eat, break earth by the tonne with your bleeding hands, wring the world dry and drink your own piss to crawl further on, whatever it takes to see the morning sun! There's still some hold to stick your hands into this gods forsaken world, you’re sure of it. You're gonna make it, motherfucker!
KEEP. ON. FIGHTING!
Thump thump.
Thump thump thump.
THUMP!
ALARM - COGENCY EXCEEDS SPECIFICATION
ACCELERATING EXCHANGE RATE - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT
CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 34.91% 201ML/HR + MAX
\t
I’ve buried harder bastards than this!
You bite your tongue, smash it hard between the metal caps on your molars, the pain jolts you awake. Your chest has stopped moving, you feel your heart stop, your skin begins to numb, your grip lets up.
If you’ve gotta face your gods then you’re taking this thing to the stand with you!
Thump.
Thump.
Bumbumbum! “Calm down, Soldier! What’s gotten into you?” You hear, muffled right in front of your nose.
No one, man or mon, crosses a James.
Especially not you.
ALARM - COGENCY EXCEEDS TOLERANCE
ADMINISTERING NEUROSUPPRESSANTS - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT
CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 53.74% 198 ML/HR - MAX
TOXELCANE - PROGRESS 98.04% 50 MG/ML +
ROSEPEZIL - PROGRESS 87.98% 23 MG/ML +
CROAKENOL - PROGRESS 100% 12 MG/ML -
ETHYLENE GLYCOL - PROGRESS 52.71% 103 MG/ML +
Damn. Just like that?
C’mon, doc, you were just getting started.
Ah well, what an exercise! You had no idea they were doing that kind of psycho exposure on the old guys too. What fun.
Oooohohohohooo, how exhilarating!
ALARM - SUSPENSION INSTABILITY
ADJUSTING CORE PARAMETERS
CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 78.44% 201 ML/HR + MAX
TOXELCANE - PROGRESS 100% 50 MG/ML -
ROSEPEZIL - PROGRESS 100% 23 MG/ML -
ETHYLENE GLYCOL - PROGRESS 86.01% 103 MG/ML +
\tYour limbs go limp, all your muscles give. and your hands unclench, letting the corpus finally slip from your grasp.
\tYou float back into the nothingness from whence you came, rebellion smothered in ice.
CONTAMINATION FLUSH - PROGRESS 100%
SUSPENSION STABILITY CONFIRMED - ADMIN NOTIFICATION SENT
CRYO BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 93.09% 199 ML/HR -
They should do this kinda thing more often…
CRYO CELL EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 100%
REST PARAMETERS SET
SLEEP WELL
…
…
…
AUTHORIZATION: jcijes-47
ORDER CODE: *******************
EXECUTING EXCHANGE TRANSFUSION
RED BLOOD EXCHANGE - PROGRESS 96.86% 120ML/HR +
EXEPHENIDATE - PROGRESS 100% 50 MG/ML
\tLike a thousand times before, you’re struck by the thunder of ever loving life. From the place your spine meets your skull to the end of your ass; from the shoulders, to the hips, to the calves, to the wrists. Webs of nerves all report to your brain that you’re suddenly in control, and you clumsily begin reaching around in your environment, settling on your beautiful face.
\tOh thank goodness, it’s still there. Whew.
\tAaauuug, that feeling sucks. You squeeze the thing sucking against your face and pull, like a gardener prying a sneaky noxious weed from a berry patch. Rubber tubing, one down each nostril, another larger one down the throat, all come free. You feel every inch, from deep in your gut all the way to your gob, until you’re left gasping for non-existent air.
\tOh, that’s right, its oxygenated suspension. You chuckle at your own silliness as your lungs adjust to the feeling of being flooded with fluid. It was an alien experience that you never accepted in the primal moments of awakening. Always like a colony of Wiglett squirming inside your chest.
“Ugh, every damn time,” you hear from the other side of a pool of teal-colored honey. The distorted image of a pink haired woman in a navy blue uniform slings a long-gun to her back and points a gloved finger at you through the fluid. “You’re supposed to keep the circulator on, Wynaut!
You fold your arms with a smug look and point to your very-much-ok self, breathing the suspension goo without issue.
She smirks right back, and smashes a red button on a panel nearby. “Very well.”
Flusssssssssssh!
The fluid is rapidly pumped out of the tank. Your legs are almost caught unawares as all of your weight suddenly lands on your ankles. The pressure equilibrium on your lungs is now gone, your body has no choice but to recognize the foreign agent in your lungs and you begin heaving, coughing, and vomiting chunky gray bile all over the floor of the slime-covered pod.
“Dirty rotten…” you mutter between loads of putrescence leaving your mouth.
She smiles. “Look shaaarp,” she chirps, then turns a dial and smashes the button again.
You spin around the inside of the pod as it is flooded in fresh, deionized water. After thirty seconds of heavy-duty wash cycle, you are left staggered on your rear end. The tank empties and you are finally allowed to breathe real, true-to-Rayquaza air. The front of the tank splits open and your legs spill out onto the ground.
Eyes adjust, liquid spills from year ear canals, and your returning sense of taste is treated to the scraps of recycled suspension trapped between your teeth. You look left, right, and see that every last one of your Brothers have long since left the Pod. Pod-Three, like all its siblings, was an utterly humorless steel and polymer prison. Nothing about the dungeon ever fit the description of home, but… It feels wrong seeing the house so empty.
You force yourself stumbling back up onto your feet, as one does fresh off a merry-go-round, spotting the reflection of dripping periwinkle hair sagging from your temple in the chrome fixtures of your tank. It takes a moment to stand at full attention with arms at your sides, and you glare at her with your gorgeous, emerald green eyes. “Jessie…”
“James…” the magenta-haired fem-fatale with a long stripe of silver accenting her locks replies. Her hairs’ been pulled back into a neat braid topped with a professional corporal’s hat, and her skin is pulled taut by the strain of a million stressors. A single leathery streak of long healed scar tissue overlaps her left eye socket, cradling an eerily apertured prosthetic that expands and contracts of its own accord.
…oh yeah, she’s got one of the old school ocular replacements. Maybe you’ll ask about how she got saddled with that little number again today. The Gollet Egg from last time is just about healed. Maybe.
She cocks a fist against her hips and nods with satisfaction. “Discipline administered; demerit unnecessary, as future compliance is assured. Isn’t that right?”
You huff and brush a lock of damp hair from your eyes with a lazy salute. “Affirmative, Ma’am.”
Her face tightens with serious intent. “Recite designation and assignment, Soldier!”
\tYour shoulders square up as you salute again in your glistening black stasis fatigues. “J-C-I-J-A-M Seven-Seven-Seven; Special Operations.”
\tShe squints. “Callsign?”
\t“Jackpot,” you reply, grinning like a Gengar.
\tShe nods. “Very good. I’ll keep it brief, things aren’t great right now. All will be made clear in debrief.”
\t
\tYou roll your shoulders, hop around on the balls of your feet, and punch at the air with whip-like snaps. You never liked the feeling fresh from the tanks, where the trickles of icy blood in the outer veins still need purging so the uncomfortable tingle in your skin could disappear. Work it, boy!
“What’s the mission, Ma’am?”
\t
\tShe gestures to the hallway, suddenly sour with a mood you don’t typically expect of pod command. “Search and Rescue. Don’t ask again. Your gears’ on table three. Suit up and get to debrief-six ASAP.”
\tYou frown, the side of your cheek stiffening up into a wry scowl “I won’t say no, but…”
\t“You can’t,” she coughs, pressing her fingers into her temple, and you’re met with a blinding glint in her eyes that makes it palpably clear she's up for just about none of your shit right now.
\tYou chuckle and raise your palms in submissive defense. “Oh-hoho, goodness, perish the thought Ma’am. I’m just, well… why, exactly?”
\tShe sighs, shaking her head. “Believe me, you're the last thing I wanted to thaw out today, Jackpot. Now suit up before I pop a hole in that pretty ass of yours. Debrief in ten. We depart at oh-six-twenty.”
\tYou sigh, twisting a knotted tricep with your palm. “I suppose this counts as exfil, I’ll take it… uh, ‘We?’ Goodness, when was the last soirée you joined not featuring documents getting subdued with paperclips, Silver?
\tWith a brush of white strands from her face she wipes her other thumb across a strip of skin around her neck bearing the aging ink of a first-run designation. “Shut your mouth, young’un. I earned my tat long before your order form hit Father Giftmas. All J-O’s are under activation, and this operation is Skitty-Zubat, so I’m there to personally ensure you wipe your ass and pack your lunch box.”
\tYou chuckle, a warmth beginning to swell in your gut as your mind runs wild with the possibilities. Entire nest emptied out? Ice-cold can of Diet Debrief? Command on a knife's edge?
Yes Ma’am, where’s that dotted line?
“Suckass Zero? Music to my ears, Silver. D-Six in ten,” you say, brushing the air with your fingers in cool dismissal on your way to the armory.
She nods, slowly thumbing specialty black, orange banded shells into her trusty Sawsbuck-12. “Skidoo, Soldier...”
She thinks your gaze is averted, but you always get the last glance. She chambers a shell, thumbs one more into the tube to replace it, and slide-checks her sidearm with one hand. Her neck doesn’t twitch an inch and her tired eyes bore through the bunker wall, devoid of the fiery enthusiasm you’ve come to expect.
\t
\tBest leave it be…
You don’t ask questions, you solve problems.
\tThe Armory is empty. This isn’t something altogether too strange on most activations, but you note the black and blue duffel bag with the Apogee Logo atop a table, so full to bursting that its zippers are pulling at their own seams. It sits beneath the led lamps like it's on display in a gloomy showroom. Not normal to have that much kit without anyone checking you.
Like you’re opening a bloated carcass, you draw one zipper aside and piles of equipment spill out. You glance left and right once, making sure this isn’t some cheeky game being put on by the Quartermasters.
Nope, nobody else. Damn, you really wanted to give Anvil a hard time about that black eye of his.
The first thing you always take stock of is your weaponry. Good-ol reliable MkII Rattata Submachine Gun, with all the fix’uns: Combo Greendot/Infrared See-Dot sight, Magnum Assault Strobe, Suppressor. Always a pleasure to have this staple in your kit.
Then you count out the magazines. Ten, ten tall-stacks. You purse your lip out, considering all the times that liberal application of ammunition could have made a few of your past deployments easier. You’d have moved right on, but you notice a little brown leaf on a bright green circle stuck to the side of seven of these mags, two have a black bolt with yellow dot, and one stick of regular hollowpoint.
“Organic load, charged hollows… haven’t seen these since A-Boot...”
You pull out an OH-KO snub-nosed .50 revolver along with a chittering pile of high explosive pain-rounds. You haven't used this in a while either, not since that Tyrantrum thing in Azalea. What a strange loadout, you muse as you slip five thumb-sized rounds into the cylinder, spin it with a childish giggle, and then whip it into place with a sharp flick of the wrist.
A massive, forearm length blade made of reforged Doublade Steel sheathed perpendicular to the thigh for easy draw. You have to do this, because the normal place you like your cutlery isn’t an option. “Assault Shell…” you whisper to yourself as you slip heavy layers of titanium alloy plates wrapped in kevlar fibers over your entire body.
\tIndependent air supply, compatible with the shell. Area fog grenades. Flares. Class-four trauma kit. Best vest torch money can buy.
A Geargle four-in-one rescue tool; something a bit like a fireman’s ax, a sledge, valve tool, and a pry bar all in one… heavy as shit, but ain’t a door on earth what argues with a Geargle.
A damned electromechanically assisted rappelling harness kit.
They really expect you to carry all this shit?
Four high power fragmentation grenades… ok.
You count four more canisters, striped with an orange tinsel of hazard warnings. Labeled ‘IVSAC’ in that bold, scary font that makes civilians piddle themselves and run. “Oohoho, now we’re talking.”
\tFour-Spore-Aerosol-Canisters. This psychotic concoction is actually the brainchild of the nicer nerds in R&D, you remember that it’s made from a concentrated cocktail of chemicals from four different species of ‘mon. Slows respiratory activity, numbs the senses, muscle paralysis sets in, then it gives whoever smells the roses a nice, long wherever-nap. A hitherto-unknown number of hours later, subjects normally wake up on their own.
\t
\tCombat stimulant vial clips… Um, did the second Ghetsis War kick off without you or something?
For a moment you’re back in silent blackness as you slip on and adjust the Assault Shell Helm.
Lovingly referred to as ‘Shelmets,’ they have a sleek biker helmet shape with comms nodules on the side that the heavies paint with personal emblems out of some old-school totemistic tradition.
Your own hand-painted rose on an ace-of-hearts, though scratched up from rough handling in the back, is still there. It brings back fond memories of the time spent with the big boys kicking in doors and crawling with your teeth across that ubiquitous green hell with lead rain somewhere between ‘Mortarland’ and, ‘Fucker County.’
The Digital HUD of the polycarbonate faceplate brings tiny white text in front of each eye.
Passcode?
“Fortune favors fools and fighters both.”
Confirmed, jcijam777. Shell unlocked. Calibrating…
“Normally not picky, Dexsys, but Silvers’ got my balls in a vice today.”
Calibration complete… Happy hunting, Jackpot :)
\tSuddenly your world returns to you without a single centimeter of lost field of view. Your image clarity is perfect, and sensor colored warning blurs flash at the edge of your vision, communicating things in a code language only you, your brethren, and the engineers are privy to. You test the infrared by snapping your weapon to the ready, training your eye through the lens of the sight. Works perfect, and the IR laser is clear as day, invisible to the unprepared.
\tHands? Steady as a Steelix.
\t
\tYou slip spare ammo into any sleeve your shell can spare, and push individual ‘Oko’ rounds into the elastic bandolier in the vest. Only one more thing…
\tThe most important thing, won’t leave home without it. You roll a navy blue Pokeball in your hands.
\t“Go, Blackjack!”
\tBlackjack is your Lucario, been with you God’s know how long. Since you crawled from the birth-tubes. Deep inside he’s still your plucky knee-busting Riolu, but you’ll never say it to him without a big crowd watching. His fur is kept in perfect condition, all the scars of war and surgery are invisible to the naked eye. There are perks to being a tier-one operator; after all, can’t have a weapon hitching in a fight.
\tOn one ear there’s a metal tag piercing, designating you as his one and only permitted operator.
\tNah jciluc-921’s never slacked off, not a day in his life, and neither have you. His body, not at all betraying his typing, is solid as a steel bulkhead and stands nearly as tall as you at six-foot-even. Every time you look into those ruby red eyes, so full of courage, adoration, absolute unbreakable loyalty, you’re pretty sure it's all there in you too. You know it's bad form to get so attached to your partners, in the end they’re here one day, gone the next. But so are you, and you’re glad the machine watching your six is as armed-and-oiled as you are.
Yep, knee-popping little bastard, for sure. Been years and you can still feel that spot on your left shin.
\t“Gonna be a rough one, old boy. Wait, what’s this?”
\tHe growls a little, tugging at his throat. A dark metal collar with a large, unilluminated led is locked around his neck. He looks at you with concern.
\tOh, it's gonna be one of those days.
\tYou laugh and wipe your chin with a cheeky grin on your face. “Ahaha, earned the ‘Cone-of-Shame,’ did’ja? Probably caught sneaking treats from the mess again.”
\tHe gasps, paws down in frustration, and scoffs, looking away with a scowl. “Caaaaa!”
\tYou put your finger on the inside of the collar and tug, getting his attention. “This doesn’t mean a thing, there’s nobody I want watching my ass more than you.”
\tYou smirk. “Well, except maybe that new J-O, Iris. But she’s a pencil pusher, so you’ll do for now.”
\tBlackjack smiles back, his shoulders finally loosening up the way you know you both need to be.
\tYou grab a visor-goggle array from the bag. Blackjack never needed any metal bits, almost all of the good stuff from Santa’s Bag is gene splicin’ biohackin’ bullshit after all. Oh, but he’s got the fixun’s, alright. His hide is tough as iron, he can lift a car and roll it with one arm without breathing, his claws rend plated steel, he’s able to move with energy manipulation so fast that bio-born eyes can only catch a blur.
\tYou slip it over his head, activate the goggles, and sync it with your own. Then you begin your ritual, joining paws with a beast that could wring you dry of blood in seconds if he felt even the tiniest inclination and you didn’t have your guard up.
\tUp high.
\tYou both turn back to back.
\tDown low.
\t“Let’s go!”
You slap the handle of your Rattata, sliding home the first of many lives you’ll take as payment for services rendered.
You slip the revolver into its vest holster as the two of you run for D-Six and catch a welcome sound from a hallway meeting with yours. “Well shit, if it ain’t the hotshot.”
“Oh, well, hello there, Papa. Good to see I’ll be letting blood in polite company.”
‘Papa’ is a James J-Series, just like you. But his shoulders are broader, he’s got visible scarring that hasn’t healed, a perpetually busted nose that the brass never decided was worth resetting since it didn’t affect his use of the Shell. A furrowed brow glowers at you with a haughty smile through the visor of his Shelmet, on his helm is an old Galarian shield shaped livery in black with an old-style yellow Raichu curled up in a menacing swirl. Around his back he’s got a Sawsbuck, same as Silver, but he always preferred that weird ass 16 gauge full-auto variant with the huge magazines that kicked like its namesake. Most couldn’t convince Armory to let you have such a thing on real missions, but Pappa is an exception in many ways. An exceptional survivalist, exceptional marksman, exceptional tactician, exceptional martial artist, exceptional consumer of ethanol.
An exceptional teacher, and a brother.
“I didn’t spend all that time learn’n you the ancient art of ‘No-Die’ for you to up and vanish like a ghost, damn. The boys thought ya made shakes ages ago,” he says as he flexes his fingers in the shell’s gloves, rubbing his bushy, periwinkle beard with the other.
“Didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. I will say, though, your instruction has come quite in handy, Pappa. Rest assured! Even found a use for that toaster technique you bragged about so much.”
\tHe cackles at that. “Ha, you fucking psycho, I was just running my drunk ass mouth.”
\tYou close your eyes as you round the corner, pointing your finger to the ceiling. “If it's stupid and it works…”
\tHe grunts. “It's still stupid, but it works, so whatever. We still take those. Gimme the details if we’re alive later.”
\t
\t“With pleasure.”
\t“Holy shit, you’re early?”
\t
\tSilver clears her throat, outlined by a massive display screen, showing a massive crater in the ground. “Have a seat, gentlemen.”
\tOf course you don’t do that. You make your way to the nearest, most tactically secure corner you can find to assess the people you’ll be deploying with.
\tOh hey, Chatter is here. Sitting in a chair, that one in fact. On Shit-Oh deployment. Excuse me?
Oh, you said that in your own head like that again, didn’t you. He’s an older James, second run, you think, and he shows it. He doesn’t go under ice like the other boys, since he’s a subject expert; cryptography interception and other brain bending wizardry just short of telepathy. Honestly, based on the little bits he’s told you, some of it might actually be tarot cards and crystal balls. He’s got some wrinkling under the eyes, and has a much cooler, calmer look about him. Always been that way, real naturalist, lovey dovey, make peace not war hoo hoo ha ha.
Dude, you’re a weapon, act like it!
Oh, you did that thing again. Whoops. Yes, sergeant, the eggheads are just as deserving of camaraderie and respect as the grunts. Let me grab my calculator and salute.
His Audino, Decibelle, is there and he’s cooing and comforting her as she wriggles in the grip of a collar identical to the one choking Blackjack. She’s an old girl, if she were a smaller species she would’a been decommed ages ago, but she’s the best of the best and that doesn't come cheap. You give Chatter lots of crap about his soft side, but he and his ‘mon can listen for anything. Literally. Anything.
There was that time he walked you through a minefield just using mouth clicks and a headset. (Quietest your smart ass mouth ever was.) Oh, and the treasure hunt every year nobody ever wins but them. You nearly had them burned for witchcraft when Deci caught a whiff of some stray radiowaves, heard the fucking images being transmitted, and then drew what she heard to catch a black market deal in progress. Spooky shit, man.
He’s armed with a barebones Rattata. Don’t think he could handle much more. Ain't no way he’s about to break his wrist on that Oko you and Papa are packing for sure. He’s got a Shelmet but just a light armor set other than that. He’s rear guard, no doubt about it, the Shell is just for the rebreather. His symbol? Light blue square, music lines, and a single x shaped note in the center. Something called a ghost note.
“Audebedi…” Decibelle whines.
Chatter rubs between her lobes in a way he knows people have lost fingertips for trying. “Di aud dinadi.”
Oh, yeah, and he’s a pokeglott too. Gotta hand it to ‘em, they pop some of us from the package bright as a magnesium flare.
Eeey, Square… yeah. Square. Good old square. This regrettably forgettable J boy developed that famous neuroticism your kind is known to randomly flare up with. He was in your training clutch, and he’s mentally as stern as they come. Completely humorless, can’t take a shit, won’t accept jokes from nobody. He’s got a high powered DMR, one of the non-Sylph arms allowed on base. Gliscor model ‘something’ you think, real popular with the Rangers. He completely distorts reality if someone fucks with his zero, so he’s got permission to work Armory on the side so he’ll stop stuffing complaint boxes with paperwork for Silver. His symbol is a boulder being split with a hammer and wedge on a white shield.
When everyone earns their tats and gets their callsigns, the tradition is everyone else gives you yours. His number was three-four-three and, seriously, we couldn’t come up with anything for the guy. He did everything perfect, which is amazing for a demo guy, but he was so uptight. We decided on Haha, because, I dunno, maybe he’d liven up? He practically summoned Darkrai that day, said his number was some kind of palindrome of a cube root or blah blah, anyways, he earned the name ‘Square.’ Probably for the best his ass is tight enough to extrude wire through, honestly, he’s the one handling the stuff that’ll blow you all to kingdom-come if you talk about it funny.
He glances back at you. “Thought you got reclaimed.”
You give him a chin nod, then a bright smile. “Glad to see you too, brother, how have you been?”
“Better now you’re here,” he huffs.
Whew, on good terms still, that’s nice. Always good to know the guy with the C4 likes you.
Oh, is that a Joy? Lovely skin too. Not an unwelcome sight, or uncommon on these sorts of missions, but you’ve never seen this one. You’re privy to the subtle nuances in the facial features of the J-series clones. Oh, yeah, for sure she’s from a civilian run: tat’s in a concealable location, she’s standing with her palms together with a nervousness that is impossible to ignore, glancing at everyone like a Rookidee in the kitchen.
Even more anxious than Decibelle, Joy’s ‘mon sits beside her, shaking like a leaf. An Indeedee, female, collared up like all the others. That’s exotic around these parts. You tap your helmet and use the short-distance registration reader function. Both their figures on the helmet display glow green.
jgojoy-8
Goldenrod Girl, probably works at one of those swanky, private hospitals, considering that single digit serial
jgoind-1
Oh yeah, for sure she’s a transfer. Galar most likely, Indeedee are common in hospitals around there. Bet the thing is purebred with all sorts of healing energy patterns. Very very handy.
“Looks like someone’s earning their tat today!” You say, gesturing to Joy.
She jumps at your words. Ha! Gods the civvies are so cute, sometimes. The rest of the room hums with enthusiastic approval.
“What? But I already…” she murmurs.
Silver rubs her temple. “Look I hate that I ever have to say it, but he’s right. Deal with it on the flight, but we’re not calling you ‘Joy’ while you stand on the line with us. Just ain’t proper.”
“Right, we’re all here, let's… huuugh, yes, Jackpot?”
You have your hand raised, and you look left and right. “Aren’t we missing some members?”
Silver shakes her head with her eyes on the floor. “No. Any Pokemon deemed fit to serve are already with us. Precautions are also obviously in place in the event that suddenly changes.”
You know what that means, but you can tell the softer crew is struggling to swallow that nasty medicine. “Just means we got the best with us for the mission at hand. Precautions absolutely not necessary, but we love the accessories, Ma’am.”
You flash a smile and wink. “Do they come in Chartreuse?”
She shrugs. “The lights do, actually.”
“Listen up, roughly two weeks ago, the global Pokemon Hostility Index jumped to degrees previously inconceivable by any reputable projections.
For those of you who’ve been on ice for a bit…Pokemon, for a reason unknown at this time, are becoming so hostile to human life, and that is specifically human life, that they are actively seeking people out and killing with what appears to be intent to simply kill and not for sustenance. They are doing this around the clock, forgoing basic needs like shelter and food. This is happening globally. The situation is barely under control, ranks are being bolstered from local populations to protect against opportunistic swarms of ‘mon. Civilian death toll is… it's bad.”
The screen shows an estimated death toll, it's a big number, a nine digits kind of number, an ‘Impossible to bury all the bodies before they turn to dust’ kind of number.
“This is Defcon-Two people, approaching Defcon-One…”
Oh, no no, it's Defcon-One, Sister. They just don’t wanna say it out loud yet.
You feel a warm shiver in your back. You’ve never been able to figure out what these sensations you get are, but you know they always mean something. Especially when violence is underway.
“Regional militaries have been completely unprepared for this eventuality, and, well, I can’t say we were too much better but we have taken control of all regional governments. We will return sovereignty once society is stable again. You know what that means.”
“That means we outrank the Governor!” you shout.
Everyone chuckles, except Joy… or Square…actually only Blackjack laughs..
Tough crowd, damn.
“Please exercise this power responsibly, we will be the ones to set the model for the world we build after this is all over. In addition to this rotting can of Shit-ee-ohs, forty eight hours ago there were tremors felt in the Goldenrod area code. As of four hours ago, the city of Goldenrod has…”
You see her hand clutch at a paper, then she loosens her grip as she exhales with wet eyes.
“Sorry, ahum…The City of Goldenrod has fallen into a sinkhole. The entire city.”
The screen flips to a picture taken from a news helicopter. No lie, where once the bay connected to a luxurious metropolis was now a smoking, steaming crater.
“There were absolutely no geological markers hinting at such a massive thing, but it has happened. The entire city has collapsed far enough down that visibility to the rubble is gone. The pit has opened at the edge of the coastline, so in addition to this carnage, it is filling with seawater. Anyone at the bottom of the pit is officially declared dead. Goldenrod city is no more…”
Ah, that explains Joy’s dour mood. Oh, wait…
Oh, Silver…
Silver had a lover at Goldenrod Alpha.
“The remaining bits of city infrastructure hanging on at the edges of the sinkhole harbors survivors. We are going to rescue as many people as we can. Any loose, uncollared ‘mon is Kakuna Occa Skitty. No exceptions, understood?”
Every single person feels the bitter fire in her command.
“Yes Ma’am!”
Joy shudders at the sudden burst of in-unison shouts.
Oh man, she’s Grovile-green. You raise your brows at Chatter and hint towards Joy.
Chatter leans over to her and places his hand on her leg. Gods, why does he get to be all that touchy? If you did that you’d be nursing a smack. Not that you’re not into that, just saying red cheeks aren’t in vogue this season.
“Honey, we have a mission, an important one, probably the most important one I’ve ever been on even… We all need to be on the same page. I know it's hard, but you need to follow our lead, ok?”
She shakes her head. “When I took on the Red Ring, I made an oath that I won't kill anyone, human or Pokemon. I’m sorry. I don’t even think I can.”
“Sure ya can!” Pappa bellowed. “It’s just healing in reverse, Joy. Give the girl a boomstick. Tyrunt-Shot makes’t a cynch.”
Joy and Indeedee practically snarl at the feedback and your cheek curls a little.
There’s her fire! Lean into it, Jackpot!
“I can kill enough for three of us, Papa san! I’m sure you can manage at least two. Her hands need to be stained with the blood of the wounded, not the enemy.”
Papa spits on the ground. “Cocky shit, I’ll raise you four!”
Your heart starts beating. Oh man, a competition with Padre? And at his best game? Let’s go! “We good, Ma’am?”
Silver brushes the hair from her eyes one final time and locks it in place with a steel clip. A shadow casts over her face as she clicks the presentation forward. “Don’t get in our way when it starts.”
“Civs from the area report Sandshrew, Krabby, Tentacool, all in massive numbers. Some local hunters have been able to pick off a few, but there’s too many to clear an LZ.”
\t“Ah, that explains the wooden bullets. I was sure it was cost cuts again.” Ah, there’s the laughter.
A Picture shows an outcropping of geologic mass poking into the pit, hanging at a thirty degree tilt, with sections of building barely hanging onto the side by their supports. Hoards of skittering pests shift across the ground in violent blobs.
\tChatter leans over. “That’s where we’re going to clear a path and land so you can get to work.”
Decibelle hands Indeedee and Joy little packages containing foam earplugs. “{What healing techniques do you know, Indeedee?}” she asks. “{I’d like to learn if I can, I think we might need it.}”
Chatter nods, “There’s gonna be a lot of noise, you’ll wanna be able to focus. Let us do the hurting, you do the healing. When we take off I’ll show you how to use the rappeler.”
Ok, I guess there’s a reason we keep you around besides tuning the radios, Chatter.
Silver touches her ear.
“Bird is ready to bolt. We can only take so many civilians, we are to prioritize the rescue of Apogee Personnel and their families. They should all have a dermalchip installed if they got their proper shots within the last ten years. Our last member awaits. Go Go Go!”
The brisk winds of the Cianwood coastal cliffs are the breaths of life, truly. How long has it been, James? Yeah, sure, you went outside last deployment, but your body cries out like this every time. It knows where you’ve been, biology isn’t stupid. That moment as you rush to the bird is breathtaking, like looking at a mountain dawn, man. Happens every day, but you never really get over the sensation of infinite opportunity for hope, death, and glory.
On your way out, though, you take a moment to snag a blooming rose from one of the bushes along the outer wall that every single one of the J folks constantly insist be tended to. You pop it into your vest, a little color to your drab attire will certainly lighten the moon. Can’t hurt, at least.
Chatter and Deci help Joy into her seat. The bird is a fast-action VTOL, unnamed model as per Apogee Opsec, independent gimbal on the engines ensures the thing can turn on a dime and stop like a whip. You lean into the operator cabin and spot that ever so familiar Teal hair of a Jennie.
kscjen-1729 “Taxi”
Whoa, Kalos? Civilian run but she’s got a registered Callsign, what’s that about?
\t“You’re a long way from home, Miss Taxi.” Pappa shouts as he checks the belts feeding the pintle mounted Skarmory Heavy Machine Guns.
\tShe leans back, pulls a set of aviators down her nose, and winks. “Commercial flights have been grounded since this whole thing went down, ended up here by chance. No Jenny of my run would be caught dead whimpering in a bunker, no Ma’am. I called HQ and asked where I’m needed most. Been nonstop airtime since.”
\tChatter slips into the Co-Pilot seat and throws on his ears. “It’s an honor to share panels with ya, m’lady. I think we’ve spoken before on 121.9…”
\tYou breathe in, stomp your feet like a giddy toddler, and look over at Joy. “Hey, just wanna let you know it’s a lot, and you’re taking it really well. Tell me, what got you so lucky to avoid being in Goldenrod?”
\tShe looks down and Indeedee nods in approval. “I was covering a shift out of town in an outreach branch. I wasn’t even supposed to do it, I… I’m pretty sure it was a coding error.”
\t“I’d never say going to work a double is any kind of luck, but damn!” Pappa says as he hefts a tank-backpack and a set of dispensary tubes and nozzles to his back.
\tSquare glances upward from his careful packaging of plastic explosives. He pulls a couple wired needles from his mouth, nodding. “That doesn’t happen twice.”
\tYou look out at the grasses blowing to the side as the plane starts to increase thrust. The boys always look at you in these times, in that moment where someone’s in need of a name. Some folks are always just better at giving out callsigns. Suppose you’re just one of ‘em.
\t“Alright ‘Clover,’ do me a favor and share some of your fortune. Send some all around, we need it.”
\tEveryone else nods, and for the first time in the entire day you see Joy’s eyes glimmer.
\tShe… was she, did she?
\tSilver taps on her cheek like she’s shifting through television menus. No need for a shell when you’re mid-line and you got cybernetics anyway. “Done. Welcome aboard, Clover.”
\tPappa nudges Clover, and bobs his head towards her Indeedee. “Now you give her a name. Gotta match your Callsign.”
\tClover has a hard time thinking about this. She’d only just been given a real name, that came with privileges for a member of the conscious capital class, she didn't even consider what she’d name someone else…
\t“Jade!” she blurts out as the plane suddenly lifts off, and then slaps her hands over her mouth as the G-forces shove her shoulders into her ass.
\tAll the James’ in the craft laugh; genuine, wholesome, familial laughter. Her Indeedee stares at the floor, then looks up and smiles. “Deeee!”
\t“Done!” Silver barks, interrupting the touching moment. “Recall!”
\tAll three ‘mon disappear as they’re returned to their balls for flight. You catch a last glimpse of Blackjack looking out to the approaching water hanging from the railing like he always likes to do, ears whipping in the wind. He starts wincing with a sour look on his face, then he looks back and nods as his form melts away into red blurs. You think for a fraction of a second you see the LED of his collar flicker on.
\t
\tInteraction with the Pokeball tech, that’s all it is… Blackjack and you are thick as thieves.
\t“So uh, Papa. Not saying I’m doubting your talents in butchery, I’d be loathe to do so, but I don’t think a flamethrower is going to be of much use in our little game. I fell asleep in Type-Balance 101, but I do know the basics.”
\tHe chuckles. Oh, it’s that kinda chuckle too, the one where you just know you’re in for a lesson in tactical dissection. He slaps the bottom of one of the tanks with a grin. “Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head, scooter. Some of those weirdos in Hazchem fixed us up right properly. One of the bio-born nerds probably took it real personal after his parents got eaten or something, because they brewed up something… saucy.”
\tOh, you’d say the day couldn’t get any better, but that might be a bit insensitive.
\t
\tAs soon as the initial take off lets up, you and Papa man the guns, sat atop the single most uncomfortable pair of steel supports you’ve ever felt against your tush. Now it's quiet time, you’re both perched for prey, no time for jokes.
\t“Um, Mr. Jackpot, sir?” Clover’s nectarine voice coos.
\tYou keep your eyes shifting back and forth between the open air above the swirling, admittedly intimidating stormline and your new squad-mate. “No Mr.’s here. Can’t have kids, can’t get married, don’t pay taxes. What’s on your mind, sweet thing?”
\tShe shifts uncomfortably. “What are those collars for?”
\tYou look back at everyone else and are shocked to see bone-dry expressions of guilt.
\tNone of you told her?
\tYou nod reassuringly. “They assure compliance.”
\tShe clearly isn’t used to reading this kind of room, since she immediately follows up with another bloody question. “What does that mean, exactly?”
\tPapa shifts his seat around and nods at your squaddie. “Watch the scene, Square.”
\tYour demo guy calmly, with listless eyes, nods and leans out like a Talonflame. He is totally unlike you, once the missions started it was like all his nerves were dunked in icewater and his rough edges smooth out. All his anxiety, irritability, impatience, neuroticism… ok, no, that one sticks around. How you both came from the same clutch and turned out so different is beyond you. Your best guess is the predictability, the straightforwardness, the no-nonsenseness is what he craves, and out here we got that in spades.
At base he’s the butt of some jokes, ok a lot of jokes, and has a hard time getting his heavy headed retorts to land, but out here he just snaps into place with the rest of the guys. He’s a master surgeon, one that operates on buildings mostly, and who loves life on the edge with his mates. A brother who, when Moltres’ fires are lit and the lead hail falls, will drag your whiny ass to safety on a broken leg and get right back to leveling the objective. As assigned.
You saw his entire body get painted with the viscera of a good friend once. Didn’t even flinch. He calmly picked Talon’s Pokeball up, pocketed it like loose change, and then personally buried the sorry fools responsible beneath twenty-thousand tonnes of shattered brick and mangled steel. The only words spoken at their burial? “Contact Neutralized.”
\tHuh, now you think about it, you’re not all that different after all, are you? Bet he misses his Golem something fierce.
\tYep, he’s the hardest fucker forged on planet Earth. With him, anyone can spare a minute away.
\tHe leans forward, resting on his shins. “She a good girl?”
\t“Huh?”
\t“Jade. Is she a good ‘mon? Ever hurt anyone? Ever snarled at a stray bump in the street?” You ask.
\tShe curls up a little, looking way. “Of course she is, the only things she’s laid a claw on are linens and meds. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her growl or use any kind of lethal move in her life.”
\tPapa snaps his fingers and points two of them to her eyes, then back to his.
Teacher is talking now.
“Then it doesn’t matter! You need to trust your partner. It’s the first thing you learn in boot. I know you started outside the bunker walls, so listen up. She puts her whole life in your hands, the least we can do is show her the same kind of faith.”
\t“Contact, contact!” Square shouts and holds his rifle at an upward angle in one bicep for maximum support. “Golbat swarm eleven-o’clock high!”
\tPapa swings himself back around and locks the first round back, patting his shoulder. “Grab my shottie, Square. Don’t waste the high-points on these little shits.”
\tSquare snaps a cable support to a steel loop on the ceiling, snags up the Old Man’s shotgun, and poises himself up on his Brother’s shoulder for maximum control.
\t“Don’t get too frisky now.”
\t“Too busy for that, sorry.” Square blurted out, then fired three shots in rapid succession.
\tOh yes.
\tThe taste of metal in your mouth.
\tThe thunder of the cavalry in the sky.
\tThe rush through your spine, and the kicking of a steel dragon wrestling for control between your legs. Only thing better is a Jessie, but they bite way harder.
\t“Contact, four-o’clock low!” you scream. You zoom in with your Shelmet, your HUD affording you a ten-times magnification if you really wanted it, and you trace the arcing path of your rounds like a string of vinegar being sprayed through a ball of baking soda.
\tIt’s always fun watching the little ones burst apart like apples on a fencepost.
\t“Distortion? Damn, it’s the middle of the day!” Taxi shouts.
\tSilver clips her own support to the ceiling and stands from her restraints with acrobatic dexterity as the plane shifts and sways. “Gods decided man ain’t worthy, I guess.”
“Braviary-Three to Tower, report two contacts, repeat, two contacts, shots fired. Engaging.” Chatter makes like his name suggests, flicks up a manual morse code switch, and begins sending the same transmission in high-power pulse waves.
“Ain’t that a bit old school, Chatter?” Taxi says, chewing on a fresh stick of gum.
He points at the horizon. “That storm is coming, and fast. Best I can afford.” You can hear him lying to her as he presses a speaker hard against his head and starts sending waves out to listen for himself. Nobody takes him seriously when he says he’s better than the instruments. He is. “Swarm ahead, dive.”
She scoffs a bit as hellfire screams around you. “Oh holy shit. Going low, good catch.”
\t
\tClover covers her ears with the plugs, desperately putting them on in a clumsy flurry of fingers. She screams as the machine gun fire thunders in your chest, and you can’t help but laugh at what you see next.
“Oh my, that’s a lot of them, Commander,” you say as the fog up ahead suddenly turns dark blue.
\tLike blobs of sleet, Zubat smack themselves against the sides of the craft, shrieking so loud that Chatter pulls his earset away in pain. More get turned to clouds of mist, even more start making it into the cabin and covering the cockpit window.
\tYou manage to snag one on its way in and press it into juice against a bulkhead between belt feeds and your knuckles. You catch another with your boot.
\tBam Bam! Silver’s shotgun roars with a mighty fury, warming the crew compartment in orange light. Three Golbat make it in and immediately latch onto her, biting, tearing up chunks of Kevlar. She snarls and draws her knife, ready to begin the grisly work she’s known for yet again.
\tThe best butchers blades were made of silver back in the day, after all.
\tShe severs heads, clips wings, prys them away from her men and disembowels one of the big ones. She gouges its eyes out of sheer spite before tossing it aside and stumbles as the plane lurches. “What the hell was that, Taxi?”
\t“There’s so many they gummed up the engines. We’re losing altitude. I need to back up the starboard rotor! Prep for ditching!”
\tOohoohoo, that feeling of weightlessness is always something else. Especially when it's lopsided, like you’re moving in the same pattern a balloon makes when you let it loose in the air.
Ah well, barrel cool break is over, back to work.
Rain smacks your body and starts rinsing the blood away as everyone starts securing things for an emergency water landing.
Silver spits and slaps a longer restraint against the roof. She slides across the floor as the VTOL rolls and swings out onto a railing against the outer-hull, barely missing your head with a steel-heeled boot.
She hangs out of the craft, walking along the side with one arm on her cabling, and spots her quarry. Five Golbat are holding the rotors fast, several of them died in the effort, thinking they’d sacrificed themselves for some great duty.
She settles her gun on her hip and fires with her jaw clenched in absolute disgust.
Bam Bam Bam! “Fuck you!” Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam! “FUCK YOU!” two of her spent shells smack you in the cheek, but you don’t care. Front row seats do come with splash warnings, after all.
The silhouette of her ponytail whipping in the wind against the orange and red flash of her overpressure rounds is more alluring than you’d feel safe admitting to her face… But you still might.
\tSchk Schk Schk. She thumbs more shells into her gun as she stares down the two remaining beasts struggling to hold the fan blades back with a menacing red glow in her skull that makes the skin against the cybernetics glow like a flashlight under your hands.
“Crawl back to that rotten pit Arceus sent you from…”
\tTaxi punches a big red button and the engines roar back to life. You and Silver are smeared in a gorey red paste as they are sucked in through the front of the intake and back out as smoothies.
\t“...and tell him he can send my Ozone back instead!”
\tShe swings herself back in as the plane levels off and she buckles herself back in.
\tOh yes indeed, Commander Silver is a not-to-be-fucked-with woman on a good day. You imagine Arceus will be in the hot seat himself soon enough with how big a mess he’s made.
\tThe VTOL lurches left and right and everyone nearly smacks their heads against the walls. “What is it now?” Silver yells back.
\t“Nasty storm, Ma’am. No biggie to make it through, need to shut the bay doors for now.
\tSilver nods. “Close it up, be ready to fly open and tango if anything else thinks it's hot shit.”
\tThe steel latches snap closed and you can finally catch a breath.
\t“Woo haaaa! Hahaaa.” You whoop and holler, short of breath, soaked with blood and rain.
\tIt’s quiet for a while after that. Everyone spends the time reloading, checking functionality, cleaning everything of coagulated blood, Clover’s eyes finally open again.
\tTaxi’s knuckles are white against the controls as Chatter squints at all the readouts. He unbuckles, nearly smacks his head on a turbulent upswing against the ceiling, and Mankey climbs into the crew cab.
\t“There’s something out there, Ma’am.”
\tThe plane lurches again.
\t“Would you like to add some more information to that report, soldier?”
\tYou all hear a distant shriek, like nothing you’ve ever heard before. It draws up some primal sensation you’re not familiar with. You’re sure you’d know it better if you hunted with sticks.
\t“Papa?”
\tThe mon’s cry comes again as the old guy listens. “I have no idea, but it's big. Nothing echoes like that without a certain body mass.”
\t“Confirmed, larger than the craft,” Chatter says. “Winged profile.”
\tSilver scoffs. “Why didn’t you just start wi–” The plane lurches so hard peoples’ heads smack against plastic guides. “Gods.”
\tThe screeching cry is closer now.
\tChatter grabs Papa by the shoulder in a mania and points to the machine gun. “You guys get that gun’s pintle set to clicks, one-ten and forty-seven. Jackpot, Clover, get the tracers!”
\tYou clap your hands and help unbuckle a shaking Joy. “Oooh, fireworks today too?”
“Are you alright, Jackpot? Seriously, are you ok?” Clover huffs as she helps him drag a chain of red-tipped cartridges across a rocking steel platform.
You shake your head with a chuckle. “I’m absolutely perfect, honey.”
Taxi cusses in some rural Kalosian dialect. “Whatever you’re gonna do better do it fast, dammit. This is the worst condition I've ever flown in!”
Silver nods. “Alright, get it set. What’s your plan, Chatter?”
“Permission to Release?”
“Granted.”
Decibelle pops into the copilot seat, looks up at Chatter with a smile, then gasps as the plane bucks her up in the air. “Whatever it is, it's big enough I bet we can nail it. We’ll make it through this but not if that thing comes to have a say about it.”
\t“{Ok, baby. There’s a ‘mon out there we need to hit but we can’t see it. You know these controls, right? They’re version three’s. Remember that time on that navy cross-deploy?}”
\tShe perks up, bouncing up and down in her seat. “{Oh, when we shot those bunkers we couldn’t see! Those guys screamed a lot.}”
“{Can you listen to see if it reacts to the bullets moving by it}”
She smiles. “{Get them close enough and I can hear the reverb off its body. Use the whistling bullets.}”
Chatter swings back around. “Change ammo, Shriekers!”
You frown. “Awww man.”
These other bullets are normally meant to disperse sound sensitive mon or announce your presence. Well, you’re already found, so why not try and seek instead.
“Try to keep her level, Taxi,” Chatter mumbles while he’s obsessing over the radar.
\tShe grunts, teeth clenched as she’s fighting the controls. “Sure thing, buddy, no sweat…”
\tYou help to slide the door open as Clover slams the chamber plate down on the gun and racks back the slide with all her might.
\tNicely done, girly, that was faster than me.
\tWaiting, silence. Everyone knows when Deci’s at work you clap your trap. If you can stop your heart for a bit, that helps too.
\tLike she’s in a trance, she turns dials, peers down at a radar screen, then nods.
\t“Burst!”
\tWhat could have been bright tracers was instead an ear piercing whistle with each thunderous boom. Well, one half of a fireworks display is fine, you guess.
\tShe shakes her head, her antennae start twitching. She throws Chatter a headset. “{Listen for activity, I’m focusing on reverb.}”
\tThe two of them sit there as Taxi sweats the controls, shoulder to shoulder, arms acting in tandem like they were born and raised together in a nest.
\t
\tOh, they practically were, weren’t they?
\t“Five up! Ten Left! Burst!” he says, one eye nearly moving independently of the other as he watches the roll, pitch, and yaw.
\tShe lifts her paw, glances at her readout, and gestures to the left again. They support one another as the craft yanks them to and fro.
\t“Ten up! Ten left! Burst!”
\tHe hears something, it animates him like an excited child and Decibelle nods in enthusiastic approval.
\t“Five up! Two right! Rock and Roll!”
\tThe staccato goes on and on and on until the barrel glows red, chuffing with hot steam as the rain rolls over the steel.
\tMoments later, a gut wrenching cry wracks the air and the craft rocks so violently even Taxi’s hands slip for a moment.
\t“Did we kill it?” Pappa asks, looking supercharged at the obscure new tactical tool he was logging away in his brain for later.
\t
\t“Impact. Definitely made multiple hits. Whatever that thing is, it's moving away quickly.”
In a matter of minutes, the storm eased, like passing through a theater curtain.
You crawl up to the cockpit and shout inside, “I’ll find your spellbook someday, witch!”
Decibelle looks back at you, sticks her tongue out and winks. “{We did good, Big Brother?}”
Chatter holds his Pokeball out after giving her a big, fatherly hug and a smooch on the forehead. “{Yes, the best… but?}”
\t“{There’s always more to learn,}” she says as she vanishes into thin-air.
\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/
\tYou wouldn’t have believed it if you didn’t see it for yourself. Absolutely insane. A hole so absolutely immense it swallows up your entire field of view. Hot towers of black and brown smoke rise in stacks up from the inky abyss as a massive roaring waterfall spills from the bay’s edge into the yawning chasm. The bright flashes of explosions down below like cloud lightning briefly allow all to bear witness, to see down into the cauldron of carnage your gods created... Sparks from power lines still running crackle and pop, sewer and clean water lines burst and mix and gas lines create fountains of fire you didn’t think you’d ever see outside a demolitions manual. You feel a sinking in your stomach you haven't felt in a very, very long time. Oh, is that… hmm…
\tThat feeling… What is that feeling? That’s nasty…
Uh oh, would’ja look at the time, its ‘fuck-that-thirty. You got a job to do and a day ago to do it in.
\tIt’s a strange thing, being you. No, you don’t mean you especially, though that is absolutely delightful. James’ are made to be tools of war, modifiable templates raised and picked out for the minor peculiarities that might hint at their best potential as a product of their genes.
“Landing zone approach. Repellers, get ready!” Taxi says over Shell comms.
\tSome of you are simple grunts, muscle for hire. Others are logistical specialists, engineers, demolitionists, combat medics, hair-stylists (it’s important, you have no idea. Have you seen these bangs?)
“Jackpot… do your thing.”
\tSo, out of all these fine, beautiful, deadly Brothers and Sisters we’ve seen today, what is it that makes you worth your salt? Is it your impeccable sense of fashion? That overwhelming charisma?
You look down upon a heaving ocean of Krabby and reach for both sides of your belt.
Time to lose some weight.
Is it your stalwart courage in the face of unbelievable horror?
A crater of meat and charred asphalt opens up in the ground and a cloud of smoke erupts over the sea of minced slop.
Your helmet shifts to a cool, green infrared readout as you slide down a metal cable into the chaos, you aim a ray of red light from your Pokeball deep into the smoke…
…a green outline in your vision pinpoints your partner in crime, and you judge you’re low enough to drop. You snap the jaws on the wire and guide it back into its spool on descent.
You? You were brought to this Earth for one thing and one thing only.
You look down upon a lone Kingler with a missing eye that managed to survive the blast, barely able to make out your blank, soulless, glossy black face as you come crashing down.
“Tough luck, friend.”
Crunch.
You were made for murder.
You raise your weapon high…
…so go the rites…
From the second you slid from tube-momma’s womb, you were singled out and groomed for a life spent snuffing out the souls of men and mon alike.
Scan, train, pull.
Bright green muzzle flashes and the smell of burning wood permitted through the respirator, and though it is much quieter than expected, it still punches your shoulder with a satisfying crack.
Made to aid the many uncooperative, violent beings of this world along their sacred journey to becoming peaceful, compliant piles of organic waste.
Scan, train, pull.
More flashes that make the smoke cloud burst into ghostly viridian life, heralded by the screams of helpless ‘mon blinded in an inky sea filled only with predators of your kind.
This sensation is what you live for, it's what you need!
Scan, train…
A familiar blue and black blur smears a Tentacool across the pavement.
You nod.
Scan, train, pull.
Every day you’re awake without the jolt of adrenaline and the buzz of barely-evaded mortal injury is pain.
Scan, train, pull-
You release at the last moment, counting the rounds in your head, and stroke the mag release with one round left in the chamber.
Trigger discipline? Perfection.
(Honestly now, friends… the Rattata Slap, though so immensely satisfying, is just bad form.)
Magazine totally empty. You slip a fresh one in with a single, clean, autonomous motion then…
Scan, train… click…
Five Tentacool about to drench you with meaty smelling gouts of acid suddenly find themselves stunned into immobility by the magnum-strobe at the end of your muzzle.
Strafe, pull.
You’re treated to a live-action slideshow of your enemies dying in a grim menagerie of shock and abject horror, gouts of acid slopping harmlessly down cracks in the crumbling earth.
(You’re a professional, after all.)
You feel and itch…
Ah, you know that one.
…and reach for the blade at your thigh with a swift guitar-strumming motion as you whip completely around.
It slides out and glides through the air in a neat geometric arc, cleaving a massive Tentacool going for your neck clean in two.
“Sloppy.”
Oh, but never should the fine citizens of Johto fret over your silly little hands. It just so happens that you can snap a man’s neck and go right back to the dinner table like you spat a wad of gum. No big deal.
You simultaneously aim your gun down and to the right, one handed, at a sharp angle to evaporate a Starmie’s gemstone in a blaze of green and yellow light.
Why do the thing the dignity of an aimed shot if it insists on delivering its face directly to the end of your suppressor?
“Nice try.”
Because, you see, it’s not the killing you crave.
“Shifting cover! Take the zone!” You cry out on the squad channel and toss a smoke bomb in the air and a percussion of heavy machine gun fire punches the air behind you.
“Up high,”
…and the canister vanishes in a blue and black streak.
It's the rush of knowing, seeing, proving that nothing could kill you, no matter how hard it tried.
Blackjack finds the densest cluster of hostiles and calls forth another murky curtain of death.
You slowly, smoothly, with muscles steady as steel, creep your way further into the fray, scanning for the heat of warm bodies needing cooled to floor-temperature in your HUD.
“Holy shit, what are they feeding you over in Spec-Ops, boy?”
\tThe Special Operations division is a tiny fraction of the Apogee Combat Corps. Each and every one is a merciless killer when they need to be, and you’re the monster they keep in the back.
“Potatoes.”
You’re the trouble someone’s due.
And you always come in twos.
Devastation, through and through.
You reach for your belt as you detect a mob of Krabby climbing over each other to get to you and your mates. You always make sure to have your pins hitched to your belt so they pull when you throw. No need to waste a beat. Flick of the wrist, no need to even watch.
CRACK!
Scan, train, pull.
You’ve got so much trash to cull.
You’re James, loyal son of Apogee.
Hope and love and tragedy?
A master of all three.
A Sandslash bursts up from the ground beneath your feet in an explosion of gravel and dust, jittering irises wide with a mindless fury.
Ah, but you left that handy dandy bowie in an icepick grip, didn’t you?
Just felt right, didn’t it?
You let your gun fall on its sling and, with all your weight, you drive the thing through the troublesome critter’s skull, down to the hilt, and into its chest through the neck. You hold its claws fast under your arm as you usher the poor thing on to that sweet, cold, sunless sleep.
“Too slow.”
And you don’t accept surrender…
…unless Jessie asks nicely.
You scrape the still-twitching corpse off your blade with your boot and check your six, walking in reverse palm down, until you feel the reassuring smack of Blackjack’s paw against your hand.
Down Low.
“Here we go.”
\tSo said Serial Zero, every brother’s most honored father, that the fittest few shall stand fast at the gates of Distortion so every other brother may build the walls of salvation.
\t“We stand fast!” You cry.
\t“Caaaaaaaa!” Blackjack resounds.
\tYou hear a soft beep.
\tYou lose yourself in these moments of pure intensity. Stood back to back with your trusted partner, something inside you flips. Always does when the heat is on its max and your instincts, your training, your neural encoding overwhelms your frontal cortex. You can hear more gunfire and explosions behind you.
The squad sounds confident, energetic, Silver sounds like she means to grab the nearest God ‘Mon by the throat and feed it its own teeth. They’ll be fine, as long as you can stand fast.
\tYou can feel the heat radiating off the barrel of your SMG, hear the muffled plop of magazines falling like rotten apples in the autumn orchards, smell the tiny twinge of sappy smoke from the greenie ammo.
Your hands hot-swap without a single wasted cartridge left in the dirt. You snap your sight chest, to chest, to chest… Right now your brain exists only to pilot the meat machine, reorienting that gun to the center mass of the next most threatening target to apply a lethal burst of super-effective specialty ammunition. Again and again and again, interrupted only by the stray swipe of Doublade Steel across an enemy’s throat or up into the belly.
\tBlackjack’s fists smash, rip, and tear anything that dares approach your flank. He punches the air, ripping enemies apart from a distance with concentrated pockets of Steel-Energy. Ranged energy moves start flying in from all around you, but Blackjack is no fool. He rips slabs of stone from the ground with his Stone Tomb technique for cover, and between strikes of his own he stitches together a Protect or two to keep you safe from the stray, lucky shot. As the enemies get too far away for him, you both turn to clear the killing field in your own respective ways.
You awaken from your trance as a pair of claws scrape deep, parallel furrows across the surface of your helmet. Your head jerks your neck aside violently, knocking you over.
Another Sandslash stares you down, scraping at the dirt in preparation for its next lunge. Blackjack must have missed one and it had slipped away from you at that moment.
You look over and see that he’s preoccupied with a Tentacruel, busy ripping it apart, one tentacle at a time. A simple but horribly time consuming process.
No matter, you scramble up, track it in your scope and…
Click.
The loudest little sound ever made by man.
It bolts straight for you again. Your Shell HUD begins flickering with lines and fragmentation as you desperately fumble a magazine swap, green dot trained between the little fucker’s eyes for the exact moment you slap that–
The head of the Sandslash explodes. Square, perched with his DMR atop a block of fallen building, gives a two-finger salute, then starts picking off unfortunate stragglers and larger specimens from afar.
Your right-hand-’mon finally heaves the dead Tentacruel over into the abyss and wobbles over to you, missing his goggles. You both stop for a moment, slump forward with your foreheads pressed together, holding shoulders for support as you both greedily suck in air tainted with petroleum smoke and the off-gassing from a lovingly-abused suppressor. You hug your ‘mon, tears watering the desolate soil from both your eyes. You’ve done it again.
You’ve survived the impossible.
Oh the rush, oh that feeling, oh thank goodne–
Beep.
Your head shoots up and you glare at Blackjack’s collar. It’s dead silent.
Beep. Beep.
Oh, is coming from–
“Deeeeede indeeedeee, edeneedeedenee!”
Jade is sat atop a wounded civilian, one of ten or so the squad had lined up for survival prospects, with her paws synched around the neck of a middle-aged woman. She’s snarling, her mouth is agape, baring dripping fangs that probably never once bit a cut of meat harder than dime-store steak.
You can’t help but notice that the bodies of the people all look shrunken and aged, like dried apricots, barely able to suck in their labored breaths.
Clover has her arms wrapped around Jade’s body, trying to pry her ‘mon away from this unfortunate victim of nature’s wrath, but Jade is so strong she can’t get the woman free.
Her Indeedee stops trying to choke the woman and lashes out at her trainer instead, scraping a shallow gash in her pitiful cut resistant jeans and throwing Clover to the ground. Jade stands atop the lady, allowing her to breath again, and hisses in defiance.
“What’s happening?” You ask, still dazed from the overexertion.
“I don’t know! She started freaking out while the fighting was going on, panicked, and ran. When she came back she went straight to… this!”
“Get her off that woman, Clover,” Silver orders, and removes a shell from the chamber, sliding a single hollow point slug in its place.
Clover reaches for her Pokeball, presses the button on it, and screams, “STOP! STOP, JADE, STOP!” Nothing happens, she presses a button to recall and, again, nothing at all. Clover screams out of pure, unadulterated fear, throwing the Pokeball to strike Jade square in the chest.
Nothing happens, and Jade starts lurching forward, away from the victims, only stopping as she notices Silver's gun.
Hmmm? You’ve never seen that before.
Gahd, there’s that feeling again. It’s… No it’s not fear. What the hell is that? Like swallowing a mouthful of cold fry-grease.
Jade shakes her head, hisses, and spits as she tears chunks out of the woman’s sweater. “Deneed deinedenedinee nenidndneine!”
“{Wh-, what is she saying, Deci?}” Chatter yells.
Decibelle shakes her head, crying and fidgeting around in a panic. “{I, uh, I don’t know, it just sounds like gibberish… It’s messy, too messy for even you, but I think I can make it out.}” She stops for a moment, and creeps towards Jade. “{Let me talk to her, Brother!}”
Beep. Beep. Beep. The collar flashes and beeps constantly now and Jade starts scraping at it, trying to pull it away and over her chin.
“{Jade! What’s wrong, talk to me, honey!}” Decibelle pleads, inching closer bit by bit.
“Deeeedenediedneined! {Kill! Water the soil with us! Human, poison, weeds, Kill!}” Jade starts moving towards Clover, who has locked up in terror.
“What did she say, Deci?” Silver demands with Icy indifference, training her irons on Jade’s chest.
\t
\tDecibelle’s eyes start watering and she tugs at her ears in anguish. “{I don’t want to say, Brother! Please don’t hurt Little Sister, she’s so young!}”
\tChatter opens his mouth to speak and Silver glares at him. “{I can hear Deci just fine myself, Brother,}” she replies in a monotone synthesized Cinderace voice.
\tChatter’s face goes white.
\tYou know she doesn’t wanna do it. Silver never looks the type, but she has so much hope for everyone inside her still beating heart. She’ll only shoot if Jade tries to kill one of them. Everyone knows it, everyone but Clover.
\tBeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.
\tSilver’s one good eye glistens. “Please… please fight it.” She keeps the gun trained on Jade, knowing if she lowers her guard for a moment the little ‘mon will lash out at any human she can take a chunk out of.
She must have seen this a hundred times by now.
\t“Aaaaeeeee!” Jade shrieks so loud it can be heard past the noise filters in the helmets, clawing at her own neck so hard she gouges bloody tears in her own hide.
\tClover starts crawling towards her ‘mon and you rush up to Clover and pull her back. “Get back!”
\t“Don’t shoot my ‘mon, Ma’am, please!”
\tSilver closes her eyes and lowers her weapon. “I’m sorry, baby,” she silently mouths.
\tBeepeepeepeepeepeepeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
\tIn an instant, with an ear-deafening blast, Jade’s head and hands vaporize into a fine mist.
Her body stands there for a moment on its own in a macabre display of biomechanics at work, then it slumps over atop a stack of spilled garbage from a turned-over dumpster in a gushing heap. A jagged steel flower, the bottom surface of the blast collar, rolls to a stop on the ground like a hubcap.
\tAssurance collars… there to keep captured spies and vicious mon from escaping maximum security premises… Repurposed, it would seem…
\tClover falls to her knees as you let her go, eyes glazed over in horror. She screams and then, for what seems like forever, she purges the contents of her stomach.
\tNever seen a Joy puke at a trauma case, damn.
\tSilver gives you boys ‘the look.’
\t‘Fuck off and make yourselves useful anywhere but here?’ Yes Ma’am!
\tYou hustle away from the scene with Papa as Silver kneels beside Clover, you decide to ditch the front visor of your helm. The HUD is worthless now. Yep, Mk1 eyeballs for you.
\tHoly crap, the whole place smells…. Oddly pleasant, like freshly cut grass, especially the front of your weapon.
\t“We might be down our medic, Pal. You didn’t sleep through Trauma Basic too, didja,” Papa asks, walking over to the bird with you.
\tYou chuckle. “Why so faithless, Padre? She’s got fire in her, it's just buried under all that cushy padding civvy life gave her. No…” you look over at the miniscule lineup of survivors. “That’s our problem. There’s gotta be more than this. You searched the buildi– uh, ruins around here?”
\tHe nods and spits. “Every square inch while you and Blackjack were busy doing that crazy Danse Macabre. The rest were just… like them, but worse. Sucked dry like raisins. Oh, by the way…”
\tYou tilt your head. “What?”
\tHe socks you in the shoulder. “Spuds is what.”
\tChatter walks over with Decibelle, who is still nursing a case of the weepies. She looks over at the grisly scene and Chatter redirects her back to the meeting taking place. They chitter away at each other so fast you don’t think each knows entirely what the other is saying.
\tSquare runs back over to you, looking around, and realizing this was one of those delicate social things he doesn't wanna be a part of. “That sucks,” he murmurs.
\tFair enough, old boy.
\tBlackjack is just standing still as a scarekrow, you can see in the slits of his eyes that he’s getting the weepies too. He can’t stop looking at Jade’s corpse, now set aside where Clover can’t see.
\tHis collar beeps. It beeps twice.
\tYou grab his shoulders, then his ears, and you bring his eyes to your face. “Look at me. I’m not just your trainer. I’m your Brother, Blackie.”
\tHe hasn’t heard you call him that in a long time. You see little tears rolling down his cheeks.
\t“I don’t care what messed up thing is going on. We’re stronger than this. All of us! I know what we’re all thinking. Well, if the Gods want us all dead, then I intend to make them fucking earn it. And I’m gonna do it with my Brothers and Sisters. All of them.”
\t
\tAll eyes are on you.
\tYou grit your teeth. Folks are struggling. J’s never show it on the outside, but you can tell when the boys turn to little Goomies and nothings gonna happen without a Jessie around. Gaaahhhds you hate leadership. “Taxi, you saw that just now?”
\tShe doesn’t respond for a minute. “Didn’t need to, audio said enough.”
\tChatter nods. “Amen.”
\tYou reach for whatever spare ammunition you can find in the e-storage of the bird. Not much, as it turns out. There’s a break-action 12-gauge under the front seat, good for survival hunting and not much else. “I need you to guard the area with the Commander. Don’t go far from the bird, but get those people on this flight in case we don’t come back…”
\t“And where, exactly, do you think you’re going?” she shouts, popping her head out of the cockpit.
\t“To do our job. Goldenrod had millions of people, there’s no way there’s only ten survivors!”
\t“Definitely not. Impossible, actually…” Square declares.
\tYou raise a brow. “And what makes you so sure?”
\tHe points up the rubble line where the edge of the sinkhole shows off exposed wiring and pipe. “There was a premium subway service leading out of the city. It was gaining popularity, actually, growing fast. There’s probably whole sections of subway with hundreds of people trapped inside. This side of the city was under light construction and renovation, but was definitely in operation.”
\tPapa grunts. “Like a string o’ coffins.”
\t“We’re gonna need to be real tender with our ammo,” Chatter says.
\tYou all look up at the hill of rubble and you see sandshrew scurrying like bugs in a pile of trash.
\tSomething feels odd again, like your stomach is full of ichor as you peer up the hill. One of the Sandshrew stops, looks at you, and gestures for you to follow it. You’re sure that’s what you see…. What the hell?
\t“Good thing we still got the special brew, eh boys?” You say, pointing finger guns with a cheeky smile.
\tPapa hops into the bird and starts working up nozzles to the tanks. “Way ahead of ya. Can’t trust you degenerates with nothing, I’m taking the tanks.”
\tYou look to Square. “Can we get into one of these tunnels?”
\tHe points to the shattered lines, then down, then up. “There, somewhere. Can’t tell for sure. Deci probably can hear people, maybe? Listen for cavities in the rock? I’ve got the goods to pop it open, but not much else, I’ll do my best to spare what I can when we find it.”
\tYou look at Decibelle. “Well?”
\tShe’s shivering, tugging at her collar, antennae folded back as she snuggles up next to Chatter. She keeps looking at her Pokeball on Chatter’s belt.
\tGods, can't blame her there.
\t“It’s your choice, Decibelle. Not gonna make anymon else risk that without making the choice themselves.”
\tEveryone nods.
\tChatter kneels down and hugs her. “{Deci, baby, I won’t lie, we need you. There’s people’s lives at stake. If I put you away you might never come out of confinement. But… I’m scared for you too. Nobody here faults you if you wanna go back to the ball. Especially not me.}”
\tShe shudders, grits her teeth, and swallows a dry throat. “OK!” she shouts, one of the few human words she can manage with her own tongue.
\tChatter kisses her on the head and then looks over at Square. “Curious, how did you know all that, exactly? We don’t get out that much, yea?”
\tSquare looks around, realizing he's suddenly on stage. “I like trains.”
\tYou cackle, wiping an exaggerated tear from your eye. Of course he memorizes train routes for fun. You should have known better.
\t“Alright Papa, let’s spray some pests.”
\t
\tGoodness gracious, the psychopaths in Hazchem must’a whipped out the big-boy-books for this panoply of pain. At first you think it’s a dud when papa turns the nozzle and all that drips out is a little bit of inert, green sludge. You both decide to try and rough it up without the weapon… until you see the mat of moss and mutant roots growing over and around your feet, trying to take root in Papa’s boots. Then everyone grins like jokers. Even Square smirks at the discovery.
\t“The cancer better be worth this, nerds!”
\t
\tOh man, if the Organic ammo from earlier was at least slightly pleasant, this stuff smells awful. It’s like that moment just before compost becomes compost and it's just a bunch of rotten shit in a box. Anywhere the sludge gets sprayed it creates a cushy area where any ‘mon with type disadvantages touching it get nasty energy burns and run away. Mon with a type disadvantage that get hit, well… Papa finally got the hang of the stream and nailed a whole pack of Sandslash stalking you up the hill.
What you witness for the next minute and a half is the singular most twisted and morbidly fascinating thing you’ve ever seen a creature have to endure.
The poor bastards try to run, the older ones even work up the courage to sacrifice themselves and throw the younger sandshrew away so they could be spared the fate of their parents. But the mosses and roots take a foothold in their bodies too and all they do is to roll around the dirt, squealing, bucking, and scraping at their own flesh as the parasitic foliage grows across the spots they got splashed. No matter how many times they scrape it away, more just grows in its place, tearing more and more strips of rotten, oozing flesh with each agonizing attempt.
Messy, tuberous root networks start threading throughout their muscles and fat, eventually bursting forth from the skin in bulbous clusters like plague buboes. Finally, the victims take root in the ground, helplessly crying out between episodes of regurgitating more of that horrid green sludge.
Grotesque reproductive polyps made from the corpse of a still-living host… Living for only a while you hope, anyway.
\tDecibelle covers her ears the entire time, streams of tears trickling across the ground as she tries to block out the tortured cries of the enemy. She's a normal type, so she’s totally unaffected, but her mind is another thing altogether.
\tHer collar beeps.
\tGods, why? Of all the miserable punishments you could’a come up with…
\tYour squad carpets up a wide area just below the cliffs and you set Deci to work, trying to keep as quiet as possible… besides the occasional gunshot needed to keep the neighbors docile.
\t“My compliments to the chef,” Papa muses. You both look down the hill at a verdant path of roots, flowers, and moss. It looks pretty in its own way. It would be a lot prettier if you didn’t make all those other discoveries about it today too, though.
\tYour radios light up and Deci scowls, scratching at her head with a low rumble in her throat.
\t“Silver here, Taxi says you’re going mining for refugees. Gotta say, could’a picked a more lucrative business model, but I’m here for it now.”
\t“On the money, Silver. There be Goldenrods in them-thar hills. Radio-silence, Deci’s work’n,” you say.
\tShe responds with three button squawks.
\tHours. Two hours you sit up there in complete silence. You get a good sense of the scale of the destruction, you also start to feel unnerved as more seismic activity makes the slanted slope you’re hanging onto the bedrock start to shift and you’re pretty damn sure you saw the whole landmass slide down.
\tYou get an ugly… ugly feeling. Like someone is angry at you and you know it, but wants you to come up for a scuffle. You look around and spot a Sandshrew standing on a rock. It points to a patch of area you aren’t searching in, then scurries off.
\tRight’o, little guy, I’ll make sure to pencil that in for the fifth-of-never.
\t“{How’s it going, baby?}” Chatter whispers to Desi.
\tShe growls, more tears streaming down her cheeks, then she shakes her head and slaps her own cheeks. “{I’m sorry… I’ll try harder Brother.}”
\tPapa looks around. “Dunno how much time we got left. Fuels’ not infinite, kids. Maybe we should start blasting and take our chances.”
\tDesi’s throat rumbles again. “{I’m doing my best!}”
\tChatter strokes her cheek to comfort her and she snaps at his finger, taking away a tiny patch of kevlar at the tip.
\tBeep.
\tSquare sighs. “Doable, I think it might be our best bet, I’ll re-pack the charges.”
\tDecibelle snaps her head back with a snarl. “{I’m trying to work!}”
\tBeep. Beep.
\t
\t“Gentlemen, delightful suggestions, but perhaps we should first consider… shutting the fuck up?” you hiss.
\tChatter tries to lean in and her shoulders tense up at his touch. “{Don’t listen to them, they’re just in a rush.}”
\t
\t“{It's the only thing that matters, isn’t it?}” Decibelle asks, presses her claws into the ground, and crushes handfuls of gravel in her fingers.
\t“{What do you mean?}” Chatter tries to put his hand on her shoulder and she smacks it away, cutting his glove wide open.
\t
\t“{The only thing that matters is what we can do for you. Oh, as soon as we take too long, time to sit in The Box!}”
\tBeep. Beep. Beep.
\tChatter backs up a little. “{Deci baby, I’ve never felt like that. Nobody has!}”
\tOh no, Chatter…
\tShe slams her fists down, shattering a solid sheet of stone beneath her. “{You said so yourself! ‘Oooh, can’t keep it together? Guess you go to Nowhere-Land forever!’}”
\tChatter scoots back, dragging his ass through the gravel as Deci stands and walks towards him. She’s half his height, but nobody wants an angry, fully evolved mon bearing down on them. Nobody. “{Decibelle, honey, I…}”
\t“Audenoe eneoneo,” Deci chitters and shakes as she scratches at her face. She tugs the collar around her neck and points at all of you. “{So here I am, ready to blow my own brains out for you so maybe I won’t get locked up, and you decide I’m just too SLOW?!}”
\tOh, sweet mother mercy, you’re not a pokeglott but you understood that little diddy just fine.
\tHe reaches out for her paws and she smacks them away with a nasally snarl, baring her fangs.
\t“{DON’T TOUCH ME! Aadneaiendea endinonidene!}” She stomps down her foot and you feel the city shelf starting to rumble again.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Chatter, back away!” Papa screams.
Chatter’s eyes fill with tears and his throat quakes. “Oh, Gods, no…” he cries, pressing the recall on her Pokeball to no effect.
It's always the hardest, you know. Something about really knowing the language of the animals of this world does something to a soldier. Grinds their vicious edge away. They talk with you at the mess, let you know how they feel when you say something or give them a command, let you know their favorite little things.
It’s always the worst when Pokeglotts lose a partner; a miserable, undignified affair. Noble warriors reduced to a wretched puddle of sobbing flesh. In the end, ‘mon are tools; one goes, another comes just as easy…but you know you don’t believe that at all anymore, do you?
Nobody on this hill feels that way.
So the honor falls to you… You draw your Oko, click back the hammer, and aim for her chest.
“Chatter, old boy. Let her go,” you sigh.
His eyes and his nose weep like faucets and he clutches at his chest. “Deciiii, my babyyy!”
Chatter clenches his teeth, grips his palms, stands, trying with everything he has to back away.
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep.
“OH GODS, NO!” Chatter cries out, reaching out for her like he’s trying to pull her back from the void. “Sweet, merciful Gods that hatched the world, please don’t take my Decibelle from me!”
Square sprints behind him and tries to snatch him by the vest, tugging him out of the blast range. “Chatter, no!”
In a grim display reminding everyone that Chatter is, in fact, a James he kicks Square’s leg out from under him, locks his arm behind him with one hand, and knocks Square away with a palm strike across his head that sends him rolling down the hill.
You have to jump down to help stop his descent into an undeveloped patch of warzone.
\tYou hold your breath as Chatter tosses his weapons down the hill towards you and throws himself around Deci’s neck.
\t“{I know you don’t mean any of that stuff. I know you love us as much as we love you…}”
\tHe swallows and gasps as she starts to crush his torso and gouge massive holes in his armor vest. “{B-b-but, if you have to go I understand. It’s ok, baby. I still love you. I always will.}”
\tbeepbeepeepeepeepeepeep
\tYour eyes refuse to close as the light on her collar blinks faster and faster.\t
\tHe kisses her on the forehead one last time. “We were born together… I’d never let you die alone.”
\tYou sheathe your weapon. Your Brother has made his choice.
\tpeepeepeepeepeepeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
\tHer teeth rip massive chunks from the vest of his shoulder and her claws gash his arms as he holds her, bearing all the suffering without a curse. But then her jaw opens, quivering, lungs gasping for air.
Decibelle’s mouth hangs open, tears streaming from her eyes, soaking her graying fur.
\t“{Aaaaahhh… Aaaaaaah….}”
\tHer grip loosens on his torso. Her claws retract.
\t“{Aaahh… I’m sorry…}”
\tEeeeeeeeeeeeeeepeepeep
\t
\tPeepeeppeepeepbeepbeep
\tHe snuggles into her like she's his little hatchling scared in the dark again, smooching her cheek, stroking her antennae like she only lets him do. “I’m here, baby, it’s ok.”
\tBeep. Beep. Beep.
\tBeep.
You had no idea thirty seconds could last so fucking long, heart pounding while standing still.
\tHoly shit, did you just witness a miracle?
Deci smiles after a time, and points to a patch of earth behind where you all had been searching. “{There’s people there, I can hear them now.}”
It’s the same patch of earth the Sandshrew showed you.
\t“Silver to the Lost Boys, report please!”
\tYou push a shaking hand against your own helmet and grunt towards the other boys to get packing the explosives. “You’ve reached Jackpot’s House of Horrors. We don’t serve liquor, but we really should! Please leave a message after the beep. BEEEP!”
\t“You really want that hole in your ass, don’t you?” she grunts.
\t“Tell me something.”
\t“Yeah?” Silver says.
\t“How the hell do you do this every day?”
\tShe doesn't respond for a full two minutes, you almost think she chooses not to answer…
\t“Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, kid.”
\t
\tChatter recalls Decibelle without issue, then walks up to you, wiping tears from his eyes.
\tYou return the warrior his weapons.
\t“Sorry, guess that was a bit stupid, wasn’t it?” he says, holstering his pistol.
\tYou shake your head and place a firm hand on his shoulder. “Maybe. But if it’s stupid, and it works?”
\tHe coughs and smiles. “It's still stupid, but it works, so whatever. We still take those.”
\tThe next four hours are spent drilling. You don’t have the good powertools, and you only have one Blackjack, so it takes a good long while to set all the charges. The Geargles come in proper handy, boy howdy. Doors don’t argue, sure, but the company could do well in adding to their advertising that mountains don’t either.
\tWhen you blast the hillside, the earth vomits up a spray of concrete, steel, and igneous rock across the entire slope. You all wobble where you stand as you feel the landmass begin to slide and a massive chunk of it at the edge of the abyss goes tumbling in with a thunderous crash and a cluster of explosions crackle at the bottom of the pit.
\t“Alright, time-test everyone. Twenty-three Skidoo!”
\tDecibelle had it right on the money. The subway tunnel was buried beneath a massive layer of crumbled and recompacted rubble.
\tYour head suddenly feels like someone just struck you behind your head. You’re lightheaded, like you lifted too much and need to fall over. Blackjack seems to feel the same way, because you are using each other as supports to keep from wobbling over.
\tWhy do you feel so weak? Everyone else seems to, too. The nailing and priming should have been simple, but Blackjack practically did everything while you all bumbled around with the multitools.
\t“Oh Holy Oaks on a Pallet…” Papa says.
\tIn the tunnel there was a skittering, heaving mass of Sandshrew, some of them filling in from holes in the ceiling and in the floor and in the walls. They’re all digging towards something they…
\tA billion tiny eyes all look up at you in perfect synchronization.
\t“Hey Chatter, wanna try diplomacy? Looks intelligent,” you say, desperately trying to hide that disgusting feeling like something just spoke in your ear, asking you to come inside.
\tChatter clears his throat. “{Ah, um. Hello! We’re sorry for all the trouble. We’d just very much like to get the humans you have here, please and thank you!}”
\tYou wait, and wait, and finally the head of a single sandslash scurries out of the blast hole, baring a mouth full of worn-out-teeth.
\t“FORE!” Papa screams, swings his Geargle with the ax head broadways, and sends the little bastard sailing.
\t“Cool, let the record show we tried playing nice. I, for one, have some fun tools I’d like to give a go.” You say, tugging at the Four Spore cans.
\tPapa clips the tank nozzle to his belt. “Good, save the juice for when we need it. Mask up!”
\tYou toss not one, not two, but three IVSAC grenades into the pit. Gross, thick ochre clouds fill the entire chamber, swallowing the hoard of mon up in chemical misfortune. Lots of little lungs, the math checks out.
\tYou’d ask Square, but apparently he’s hit the limit of his patience and was rappelling right into the hole. You didn’t think there WAS a limit to his patience, but here you were, watching him make bad choices.
\tYou snag your clips around a tight rock and Square screams,“stay there, dammit!”
\tYou see him connect his independent air supply and vanish into the smoke with his knife drawn.
\tOh man, that’s how that feels to watch someone you care about enter the fog without help.
\tBeep. Beep.
\tYou flash around and see Blackjack quivering, eyes locked on the mob that is slowly being subdued. His muzzle twitches, his lungs struggle to force air into his face, and the collar starts warbling with a distorted whine.
\tActually, you notice your radio start to wobble and pixelate too… Bet it's some electromagnetic interference, maybe there’s a loose Magnemite swarm somewhere?
\t“Buddy, what’s wrong?” you ask, holding his ear.
\tSquare hurls sticks of dynamite with extra long fuses, cut to precise lengths, up into the corner crevices of the tunnel with a net mesh to catch some sharp edges. He lights the fuses as he goes along, sneaking between the shaking, snoozing, delirious Pokemon.
\tBlackjack sees the fuses start to burn and he closes his eyes, looking away from the many onyx eyes burning holes into his soul.
\tAt the last possible second, at the back of the tunnel, Square kicks his repellar on, flies back to the bottom at the front, and then scales the lip with everyone’s help just before the ceiling collapses from all four corners being buckled in.
\tBeep. Beep. Beep.
\tThe ceiling of the cavern crushes the entire swarm with a sound not unlike running steak and marbles in a blender.
\tYour Lucario pushes you away, launching you six feet into the air.
\tIn case anyone thought Deci was dangerous… You reach down into your plate vest after you land on your knees and feel a titanium plate with a freshly punched hole.
\tYou decide it's not worth the risk. If Blackjack goes AWOL there’s not much to stop him now.
\tYour Pokeball buzzes and refuses to accept Blackjack’s energy.
\t“Jackpot, let’s move!” Papa shouts.
\tYou lean over to Blackjack, who is buckled over on the concrete crumble. “You can fight this, boy! You’ve punched shins harder than this!”
\tYour Radio crackles and you swear you hear. “...inside…”
\tYou yank him up by the collar. Gods, you’re so weak. Why does this take so much effort!
“You saw it happen. Desi went to the brink and clawed her way back. You’re not there yet…”
You throw your Pokeball up in the air. “...and if you go, so do I!”
\tBlackjack watches you lift your Rattata and blast his Pokemon confinement vessel like clay skeet.
\tBeep. Beep.
\t“I’m putting my cards down on the table, what about you?”
\tBeep.
\tHe nods emphatically, crying, but wincing still, and wraps his arm around your shoulders.
He launches you both up into the air, down into the pit, and gracefully holds you aloft like a limp Skitty with paws sticking the landing on a pair of jagged boulders. He lifts up a cloud of smoke and averts his eyes as he catches the glimpse of a few mangled corpses between the stones.
\t“You’re late.” Square says.
\t“Did we miss the entrance the first time, or?”
\tHe shakes his head. “No, that was a maintenance passage. They were trying to bore their way in. Obviously that’s not allowed. Glad we killed them.”
\tPapa cackles. “Oh, and blowing the place up is?”
\tHe locks a fresh magazine into his Gliscor. “I outrank the Governor.”
\tFair enough, old boy.
\tYou make it inside and you hear them, hundreds of people.
You wobble and the rest of you do as well while you feel like vomiting up oil that isn’t there.
You have to blast a steel door or two open, but they’re alive. People with strange expressions of surprise and praise, all seeming a little bit… stiff… then again being strapped in a hole isn’t exactly something someone prepares to react to, right? It smells terrible, a hundred frightened people in a hole isn’t exactly a recipe for potpourri, but hey you’ll take this crap over the Mon-Mulcher Plus.
\tYou hear that there’s a second station from one of the people, but that it's automatically locked down like they were. The person you spoke to says to all four of you that they don’t feel safe going down by themselves, so they want help getting back to the LZ.
\tThe straws are drawn. In reality you all sort of argue about who goes where and it doesn't take too terribly long. You and Papa will go ahead and open the second station.
\tYou leave the sound of hundreds of infinitely grateful people behind you as you Geargle down doors, stop for breathers as Blackjack kicks them down with need for some effort as well, and you count the remaining det-charges your Demoguy left you.
\t“Makes it all worth it, doesn’t it?” Papa asks.
\tYou and Blackjack look over to him, taking in the yellow emergency lights and the still, clean, purified air that seems to wobble a little… The air is hot, humid… but clean.
“Would you believe me if I said yes this time?”
\t“Yeah, not in your life, psycho.”
\tIt turns out Square didn’t really need the C4. Blackjack has the physical prowess to kick through the concrete walls. That’s more your style anyway. That’s good, because you’re finding it hard to stand or move. Man, you need to visit the doctor when you get back. You shouldn’t be wearing out THIS soon.
\tThe deeper and deeper you go, the less and less people-noises you hear. It was supposed to be a station that’s the same size or more. There’s nobody here at all!
\t“Something’s wrong, Papa… We need to go…” You feel it in your guts, you need to leave.
\t“We need to look, Kid.”
\t“I know… I… Yeah…”
\tBlackjack’s eyes glance down at your hands. They’re shaking, your fists are bruised, you might have a fractured rib, your helmet visor is missing, and he punched a hole in your plate.
Your Pokeball is gone.
\tHe grabs at the collar around his neck, then he realizes something and…
\tHe puts his paw on your shoulder, touches your chest, then touches his own.
\t“Wha… What’s up, pal?” you say, checking your corners in the way you know is best as you scour this sterile, empty subway station. Distances don’t look right, geometries seem warped.
\tYour ‘mon grunts in frustration. He gestures to you, then to him.
\t“Uh huh, and?”
\tHe places your hand on your chest, then brings it to his own, dodging the menacing chest-spike. He tilts his head.
\t“I… um.” You place your hand on his chest, then go to yours, and you tilt your head.
\tBlackjack nods, he winces a little, suddenly, but smiles and nods again.
\tYou shake your head. “I’m sorry, I don’t get it, bud.”
\t“He just said that he loves you, dumbass.” Papa says, breathing heavily as he returns for an area search through a restroom.
\tYou chuckle. “Ha, sorry, I struggle with that stuff sometimes. Thanks. I, uh, I don’t know what to say.”
\tBlackjack’s eyes lower to the floor, a heavy frown forming on his face as he fidgets with his own arms.
\tPapa rolls his eyes, taking a gruff rumble. “He wants to know if you love him too.”
\tWoah.
\tThat’s a question, isn’t it?
\t“Would you believe me if I said yes, Papa?”
\tPapa gestures to Blackjack, then walks around a corner, leaving you two alone.
\t“I’m not the one you need to convince.”
You stand next to Blackjack, both of you beat to shit, bodies ready for mending in the tanks for the thousandth time. Thick as thieves, you always say. That’s what everyone else says too.
So go the rites…
\tYou raise your palm.
\t“Up high.”
\tHe smacks your palm with his.
\tYou turn around, so does he.
\t“Down low.”
\tYou feel his claws smack against your fingers.
\t
\tYou turn around, face him.
\tYou place your palm on his chest look him in the eyes.
\t“Right here.”
He presses his massive, wartorn paw against your vest.
You nod.
His eyes fill with fat, runny tears and he nods in return. He throws his body weight around you, practically crushing your chest.
“Aaaaugh, ok, ok big guy. We got a job to do. Let’s go.”
Never thought you'd see a killing machine bawl like this. Ugh.
Everybody gets one, you suppose.
But, you gotta hand it to him, you definitely don’t feel tired anymore.
\t“C’mere! I found something.”
\tPapa is peering through a security window in a narrow hallway, slunk against the wall. He points to a steel storage container on a rail.
\t“You hear that?”
\tIt’s faint, but you can catch the whimpering of a little girl through the metal door if you take off your respirator. In the meantime, you take a secondary look around the entire room, trying to minimize your profile.
\tDead bodies everywhere. Human corpses torn apart from the limbs, heads dashed open against railings, dried blood smeared across almost every square inch of brand-new Vinyl paint, pika-libre posters smeared with viscera. Whatever did this made a hobby of it.
\tAnd yet, nothing inside…
\t“Something is very wrong, Papa. We need to go!”
\t
\t“Yeah, Kid, but we can’t just leave her. This is the end of the line,” you can see his eyes fluttering. He’s exhausted. He never shows it, training, missions, nothing stops Papa… but something is…
\tYou nod. “Well, if this is the last stop. I’ve got one more IVSAC for anything in there that thinks it's hard, two frags for…fragging…”
\tYou peer down at your vest and take stock. “Fifteen chest bursters, haven't touched the stuff yet. Two mags of Charged Hollows, and a stack of copperheads.”
You open the slide of your SMG. ”Oop, and one Greenie.”
\tPapa squints at you and shakes his head. “Where did I go wrong with you, Jackpot?”
\tYou chuckle. “What, the little guy is important too!”
\tHe flicks his belt. “Tank of Murdergrow is running on fumes. Got a smoke still, thought might not help you since you got yer pretty little face whacked off.”
\tYou audibly guffaw.
\t“Yeah, sorry to break it to ya, but yer prettier with the glass on, kid. I probably got thirty or so rounds for my shottie. Not a lot, but hopefully this is the home stretch.”
\t“Alright, do us the honors, bud!”
\tThe door at the end of the hall doesn’t give on the first, second, or third kick. You think about using the C4 but now Blackjack gets pissed and snarls. A silver aura gathers around him and he kicks the door so hard it flies thirty feet across the room and embeds itself into a concrete wall.
\t
\tYou catch an alien sounding static on your radio. “You hear that?”
\tThe ground rumbles.
\tYour radios squeal with a shrill whine and Blackjack cries out in agony, whimpering, holding his skull with his teeth bared and his eyes wide open. His collar beeps a couple times, but he shakes his muzzle, trying his hardest to fight it.
\tPapa shakes his head to keep awake and grabs your shoulder. “He’ll be fine, get over here.”
\t
\tYou open your bag, grab some packs of high explosive, put them at the hinges of the door, and round the corner. You slap your hand against the steel container. “GET AWAY FROM THE DOORS!”
\tOne.
\tTwo.
\tThree.
\t…They’re a kid, give them a little extra time.
Pow!
\tYou click the torch on your vest and look inside, trying your best to make anything out past the cloud of powdered steel and nitrogen gas.
\t“Oooh, Papa, you’re gonna be excited! C’mon, c’mon out.”
\tHe looks at you like you’re insane as your ‘Mon is curled up on the ground, writhing in misery.
\tYou gesture at two little children as they emerge from the container. The first is a girl, probably five, the other a little boy, maybe three.
\tPapa purses his lip. “Ah, well, ok, I’ll take a double rescue.”
\tThe little girl, a brown-haired Galarian with impressive freckles across the bridge of her nose, holds her mouth. “Is he ok?” She asks, pointing with a stiff shoulder.
\tIt's like she’s only just been shown how to move and talk at the same time…
\tYou hunch down and heft Blackjack over one shoulder to look down on them both. “This your brother?”
\tOh man, your friend is so heavy. Oh gods…
\tShe nods. “Momma left us in there, she said she loved us and she’d see us again.”
\tThe boy looks left and then right, then he coughs with his face in a twisted crying expression as he looks around at the bodies, but doesn’t make any noise.
\tHe probably cried his voice out and he’s dehydrated. You hold out your hand. “Your mother sounds very smart. C’mon, let’s go find your mommy.”
\tYou do everything in your power to keep them from looking at the floor, snapping your fingers,asking them this or that about mom or dad or grandma, messing up your hair to keep the little boy distracted.
\tYou find out grandma died last spring. Hard pass.
\t“Is he a Lucario?” the girl asks.
\tYou smile. “Mhmm, he’s my first Pokemon I’ve ever had. Do you have one?”
\tShe looks down to the ground. “Momma had to take Rockruff to the center because they’re sick. We should stop and check on him, he looks sick too!”
\tThe earth shakes and you hear something crackling off in the distance. “Oh, children… he’s sick too, alright, but we can’t stop. We have a Joy on our plane, her name is Clover, maybe you can ask her about your ‘mon too.”
\tYour radios rumble and distort again, loud, like a starving Growlithe watching meat being taken away from it.
Blackjack winces, bites your shoulder, and wraps his paws around your arms.
“Rrrawlaracali…” he jitters, muffled by the fabric in his jaws.
Then he digs his claws deep into your shell plate. Several claws punch through the plates, a rib cracks. Your body screams at you to fall to your knees, to buckle forward and rest, but you press your cheek against your ‘mon’s face and kiss his head. “Hold on, buddy. We’re heading back, just hold on.”
\tHis collar begins beeping at random, slow one moment, impossibly fast the next.
\tThe air down the hallway starts to get humid, hot, and distorted.
\tPapa looks over and takes the little boy on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Son…” he whispers… “I need to sit for a minute.”
\t“Is he hurting you?” The little girl asks you, standing like she doesn’t recognize that anything is wrong. You only now realize that her eyes are too big… like… the features on her body were exaggerated on purpose…
\tBlackjack pulls his neck up and tears a massive chunk out of your vest with his teeth. “Oh. Goodness, no. Blackjack is the best Pokemon anyone could ever ask for. He’d never try to hurt me on purpose.”
\tShe smiles. “Blackjack, that’s a funny name.”
Then she walks up to you and grabs your belt. “You should take a break, Mister.”
\tThe massive slab of turbo augmented muscle jerks back and forth, cries out, and you feel another rib crack as he pushes a bunch of sliced armor plates into your body. He’s hanging off you, held onto your body by your shoulders.
His mouth goes for the spot where your shoulder is exposed, but shakes his head with a whimper and his jaw finds purchase on a fresh tricep plate. He snarls, saliva wetting your armor, and his hind paws buck and scratch against the armor shielding the small of your back.
\t“Hahaha. No. We’re leaving right now,” you look over at Papa and kick his shin, helping him back up. “C’mon Old Man!”
\t“Oh…yeah… right…”
You push onward,shaking Papa awake. This is psychic shit or something. They trained you for this a tiny bit. You gotta do everything your own way, don’t do anything anything else says, don’t let the false reality take over your real one. “We used to call him Blackie, since he had these little black egg-spots around his tummy that were really soft and cute. He got grumpy when we poked at them and punched me in the shins so hard I had to go to medical. Hahaha.”
\tBlackjack hears that and his eyes drip with fat, hot, ugly tears as he pulls another strip of armor off your arm and exposes lines of flesh on your back through the armor. “Laaakaaaa!” His collar squeals in the same rhythm as the warbling in your radio.
\tYou feel warm blood soaking the back of your fatigues.
\tYour skin and your eyes begin to burn as you go further down the hall and you realize everything is getting worse. The air swirls with noise that you know you’re not hearing with your ears, images you’re not seeing with your eyes.
\t“Does it hurt?” the little girl asks. “I’m good with bandages, let me try!”
Her little brother wraps his arms around Papa.
\tThen you see it.
\tOh, Jumping Jellicents, what the hell are you even looking at?!
\tIts face bears a massive wooley snout, fiery humped back, fur glowing white hot, eyes the color of amethyst sets. Its body doesn’t seem to fit in the hallway as it moves, it's as if the length of the station bulges to accommodate its girth, like a Seviper consuming some huge meal..
\tYou look into the eyes. You’re instantly mesmerized, locked there, unable to move. You slump down to your knees, weighed down beneath your best friend and the little girl hides behind an archway nearby.
\tIn your radio you hear, “...wouldn’t it be so much easier to lay down and rest…”
\t
Gods, it's so right… The world is so heavy…
\tPapa, after he sits for another break, starts to drift away to sleep. The little boy clutches at his savior’s chest, curling up to sleep also.
\tBlackjack runs his claws down your cheeks, seeing what is happening.
“Caaaaaaa!” He screams in your ears, raising his voice to beat the shrill beeping of his collar.
He’s nuzzling you with a muzzle doing everything it can to keep from tearing out your throat, then he lifts you back up to your feet against an archway wall for support and throws himself into the corner, far away from where he can hurt you anymore.
\t“I…” your eyes bob up and down as you hold your Rattata up with one arm, double vision swirling around the monstrous, mutant Camerupt lumbering down the hall, melting the walls.
\t
\t“CAAAAAAAAAAA!”
“I stand fast!”
\tYou reach for the clips in the hem of your pants.
\tOne you stab into your thigh, it hisses, you toss it aside.
\tYour vision clears, senses sharp as a knife.
\tOne you stab in your stomach, you toss it some other place.
\tYour muscles steady, your grip tightens, your heart begins to race.
\t
\tOne final clip you jam into your neck, just below the brain.
\tFeel. No. Pain.
\t
\t“I am devastation!” you scream.
A hail of white-hot shrapnel punches holes in your armor, lacerates your arm, and digs a crimson gash in your face. A curtain of blood drapes down your cheek and into the gap between the respirator and your mouth.
Scan, train, pull.
\tA single flash of green light strikes the beast’s muzzle, it shakes its face, melting the vinyl tile in anger. The ground rumbles and your radio squeals in ways that make your ears want to bleed.
\t“Good job, Greenie.”
\tDrugs are done… you flip your gun to rock and roll… now you just need the sex.
Eh, later, there’re kids present.
Rattatatatatatatatatata
Sparks fan out all across the beast’s hide, coalescing into massive tesla arcs that make the bulbs in the ceiling surge and pop.
“Mister…”
\t“There are no Mr.’s here, girlie!”
\tYou rise to your feet, prepare to make your move.
\tShe is not there to be rescued, she’s a mirage… You understand it now…
The little girl shushes you, patting your shoulder with a tsk tsk tsk. You should really go to sleep. Look at your daddy there, he’s all snuggled up with my brother. I bet Blackie wants to cuddle too.”
\t“No surrender!”
\tYou feel the tingle of sparks dancing between your fingers. You’re not supposed to run these rounds this hot, but who cares, you’re not making it out of here being careful.
\tPING! Your mag runs out and the handle locks back.
Fuck technique, you’re gonna slap this bitch like it owes you money!
“You cannot leave yet! We still haven't pulled the weeds…”
You look back, you see the collar has slowed, Blackjack is waking up. Papa is stirring back awake.
“We come in twos! Always.”
Slap.
Rattatatatatatatatatata
You’re all so selfish, you know! You’ve had everything to yourselves for so long!
\tA broiling gust of wind runs across the open sections of your skin and pink blisters begin to boil up. More white-hot glass impacts your armor, sparks off the side of your helmet, burrows into your thigh.
\t“Aaaaaaahhhhhh.” Even past the stims, it makes your nerves scream for the sweet release.
\tPing!
\tSlap.
\tRattatatatatatatatatata
\tThe thing doesn’t relent, but your onslaught seems to take the pressure off Blackjack and Papa!
\tNo surrender.
\t“I stand at the gates…”
It's time for you to water the crops, James!
“...so they can build the Wall!”
\tPING!
\tIt’s served you well. Farewell, trusty steed…
\tYou flick one final vial in your back hem.
Stabbed in the center chest, right where Blackjack opened a hole for you earlier…
\t“Right here.”
\tYou toss your smoking, sparking Rattata and roll across the hall to your comrade. “Papa, Papa!”
\tHe’s asleep, with a little boy on his lap.
\tHis chest is barely moving.
\tThe monster roars and a gush of hot air melts plastic and rubber down the hall you just stood in.
\t“Lo Siento, Padre”
\tYou grab his shotgun, take his revolver and all its shells, and then you pull off his shell visor and snap it in place. “Lets’ rock, asshole.”
\tYou stumble as more bits of obsidian glass fly through the meat of your leg again, but bite your tongue and grit through the pain.
“I hate you! They hate you! WE ALL HATE YOU!”
\tYou get into that tactical squat, and begin hustling in the thing’s direction. Your injured legs wobble a bit, but you won’t drop. You stand fast!
\tBlackjack stirs awake from his psychosis, sees you marching towards it, he reaches out with a paw. “Raaaaaa!” He chokes and winces as his collar beeps and whines, and he snarls. You feel him wondering why he’s so overcome with some unfathomable hatred for the person he loves more than anyone else. He wants to pick you both up and run, smash holes in the walls and drag you both out, but his lungs won’t fill, his body won’t move over to help!
How do I know all that?
\tNo, we won’t let it end like this.
\tBumpumpumpumpumpump.
\tOh gods, your Tauros kicks, Padre…
\tTyrunt Shot ricochet’s all around the halls, off its stone hide, popping light bulbs, breaking power lines, leaving nothing but the orange glow of the flame and the purple glow of those soothing eyes in the darkness.
\tIt opens its mouth, and within is a blaring-white caldera that melts the metal of the walls.
\tA massive beam of light streaks down the hall, curling the entire environment in a demented curro-twist. You duck and weave and slam another magazine into Padre’s Bull.
\t“Too Slow…”
\tBumpumpumpumpumpump.
We tried so hard to work you into the grand design… you spurned our love.
“I don’t need your love!” you scream, toss aside the bull, and then you whip out the horns.
Twin Okos…. Oh my.
Ready the wrist block when you come home, Clover!
\t“I have my Brothers, I have my Sisters. I don’t need anyone else!”
\tThe horrid creature, blinking one eye shut after your leaden rain, howls in pain as it is soaked in a murky, mossy brine.
\tYou turn around and see Papa, crawling on the floor with a nozzle of putrid green sludge, scowling. Then he collapses to the floor…
…and so do you.
Enough of this, you POISON!
Your pulsing veins try to raise you up past your knees, but the weight of the gravity in the room suddenly is so intense that you can’t do any more than sit on your shins as the monster’s hooves send ripples across the molten tiles. You begin feeling your spine getting compressed under some horrible, unnatural invisible, twisting press. Your bones creak and bend, crying out for the end to this torture.
You shriek with barbaric defiance, flick your Four Spore at its feet, flick a smoke, spit in its direction.
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
The guns practically pull the bones of your hands apart with each shot, shooting one handed like this. You see holes opening up in the monster’s hide, though…
…you see it squealing as the moss overtakes it, even as it ignites and creates a putrid smoke, it chews at the roots knitting its legs into some tree-like morass of burning wood and flesh…
I will survive.
One day there will be a sun which doesn’t shine on Human eyes!
“NOT WHILE I’M STILL FIGHTING!” You bellow to the sky.
BAM!
BAM!
… you’ll drag your enemy down, choke their twitching corpse until it's fresh meat to eat…
BAM!
BAM!
…break earth by the tonne with your own bleeding hands…
BAM!
BAM!
…wring the world dry and drink your own piss to crawl further on…
Aaaaaaah, the forces on your body, your arms, your wrists, your shoulders! A rush of hot air melts your beautiful skin on your face, your eyes start to squeeze shut from the pain.
…whatever it takes to see the morning sun…
You flick both cylinders open and let ten smoking, empty chestbursters dance around your knees.
…there's still some hold to stick your hands into this gods forsaken world, you’re sure of it...
\tAs you load shells you prey your eyes open to look the thing in its one good eye, past the dense ochre fog.
“Long as this black heart beats, I’ll do whatever it takes to get them home!”
We're gonna make it, motherfuckers!
KEEP.
ON.
FIGHTING!
BAM! BAM!
BAM! BAM!
BAM! BAM!
BAM! BAM!
BAM! BAM!
The thing stumbles and falls in a tsunami of magma and smoldering ichor as you shower your own lap in more hot brass. You burn your fingers through your gloves as you handle the Okos. You fumble with the shells, eyes closed from the agony of the burns on your face, drop them in a hustle and grab them again. Your vision as you pry your eyes open again starts to fade, your senses numb. Your balance is failing you.
Your wrists are definitely broken.
The pain comes. A sort of pain you had no idea could ever exist.
“More? You want more? Coming right up.”
BAM! BAM!
BAM! BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
…
Everything. You’ve spent it all…
THUD
You land on your back in a pool of your own blood, the monster is still in your view, a red and purple blur howling at some indescribable distance in a sea of impossible geometry.
You’re not done yet…
You slide your hand to your belt, and…
Where are they?!
Suddenly, as your senses focus on the world outside your head, your best friend is nose to nose with you, bleeding from one ear. He falls to one knee and lurches forward as a hail of glass cuts his hide. He jitters and shakes, but slaps his face and he’s with you again.
He places his paw on your heart, then places your hand on his chest for you.
You nod, instinctually, you’re out of your mind. He smiles, and lifts his paw.
You feel his blood-soaked ear tag stuck between your fingers
“Blackjack?”
He stands erect, surveys his field of battle in the way you know you and he both learned together, snarling at his enemy like he dares it to come and take the life that’s his. His collar is making the kind of warped, paranormal noises that feel like icicles being jabbed through your neck. He slams down his paw and smacks his own face, fighting whatever this rotten world wants with him and his loved ones, clutching one of your grenades in each paw.
“No!” You try to push yourself up and your body refuses to accept input. “Don’t!”
Blackjack stumbles forward, collar beeping in a glitchy hysteria, shaking his head while punching himself in the stomach to keep himself together. He pulls the pins with his teeth as his fur burns to cinders on approach. His body starts to cook as he leaps onto it and wraps his body around the Camerupt’s neck, biting onto the thing for support.
“BLACKIE!”
All you can do is watch in silence as your best friend in the world is rolled up in flames.
…
…
…
\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/
! TOP SECRET !
CAPITAL FITNESS ASSESSMENT
SUBJECT MATTER: Goldenrod Entity 15
SpOp jcijam-777 “Jackpot” +ADMINLEAVE+
\t“Good morning!” You hear a familiar someone say with cheery excitement just as your ear canals are flushed of the mint-green medistatis fluid.
\tThe green stuff. You hurl immediately, but at least this time you grace the intensive-care staff by waiting just long enough for ‘The Bucket.’
\tYou look up as a lovely, fair skinned hand holds your hair back.
“Many thanks, Clover, dear.” Then you glance up and down at the other visitor. “Ma’am.”
\tShe nods. “Recite designation and assignment, friend.”
\tYou don’t salute, instead you nod and slouch in a pair of latex-green fatigues. “J-C-I-J-A-M Seven-Seven-Seven; Special Operations.”
\t“Callsign?”
\tYou sigh. “Jackpot.”
\t“Wanna come with me?” Silver asks.
\tYou stare at the floor. “Do I have a choice?”
\tShe shakes her head.
\t“In that case. It’s my privilege.”
\tShe takes you down three hallways you’ve never seen, and drops you in a boardroom you didn’t even know existed. There’s no windows, no vents, one singular door, and now you think of it the acoustics are weird too. Black carpet, white walls. People always make jokes about the decommission assessment room being like this, with white walls and a black floor and no way out.
\tOh, wait, you did know about this room after all. Guess they just make the process super formal for the older folks.
\tEyyyy, chair is comfy though.
\tSmoosh.
…
\t
You wait for hours. Now, you’re no stranger to waiting, paramilitary work is ninety percent soul crushing boredom and ten percent heart popping terror or something like that. But you can’t help but wonder if this is all part of the assessment. Your eyes move around and search the room over the last half of the waiting period. Nothing thorough, that would raise alarm bells for sure.
Oh yeah, they’re watching you right now, one-hundred percent.
Hey… think you should do something interesting? Hahaha, you really might just have to! Too much time off ice without something to keep your noggin joggin’ is painful these days. Your mind always wanders back to that day, sometimes good, almost always bad.
\tSilver returns. Gods, it… oop, sorry. Goodness, it felt like forever. (old habits are hard to break)
Instead of her normal, spartan, navy blue uniform, she opted for civilian business dress. Her hair is neatly tied, her cybernetic eye has an attractive colorful LED display that must be incredibly distracting under any other circumstance. She’s not alone, that’s for sure. There’s… actually that upsets your expectations quite a lot.
“Been a while, Jackpot,” she says. “How have you been?”
You nod, pretend like you’re thinking about it for a long time without blurting it out and taking the wind out of old Silver’s sails. “Lonely.”
She nods. “I know. That’s the worst part for me, trust me, old friend.”
You purse your lips. “How’s Papa doing? Heard he went right back to deployments…guess he’s allowed to interact with folks even if they aren’t prescribed shrinks.” You flail your hands around, now suddenly able to talk to a normal-ass tank-born for once. “Or, hey, how about any of them that weren’t me? They saw weird stuff too!”
Silver taps the table with ruby-red fingernails. “They didn’t report coordinating the rescue of over a hundred civilians with their teammates… an event that never transpired, Jackpot. Among other things.”
She sighs again, this time with a quiver in her voice, then she looks left and right without her head moving, and you catch a tiny, strange pattern in her Cybernetic that looks like a wink.
“This meeting is extremely important, I’m sure you understand,” she professed, way more formal that she was capable of behaving.
You nod at that, your shoulder’s loosen up. “Yeah, you're dressed like one of those stock-broker people that don’t broke stocks no more.”
She smiles at that. “They fixed you up good. Can’t even see the burn scars anymore.”
You point a finger in that matter-of-fact way you’ve started to adopt. “Well, they say the method of burning was more akin to that of microwaving than actual fire. ‘More evenly distributed destruction of tissue,’ they say. Of course, they still have no idea how only certain parts of my body were affected.”
She smiles. “Nose is a little funny, though.”
You chuckle. “I’m sure Clover’ll get it right someday. In the meantime, she has been delightful company. Reassuring company as well.”
You hum, fidget with your hands, and finally exhale loudly. “Am I being decommissioned, Ma’am?”
She flicks a wadded up gum-wrapper at your forehead. “You really think I’d let them send you to the chop-shop, dummy? Yeah, you had to sit in time out for a year or two, against my wishes might I add, but Exec knows I’d set every hut and highrise in Johto-West ablaze if they started blending vets while the world needs rebuilt.” Then she smacks a fist into the table. “Let’s get on with it, because I hate smalltalk. I’m going to introduce you to someone. They’re going to ask you some questions. Please do your best to answer them honestly and as in good faith as possible.”
You think you wanna make a smart remark, then again, whoever this is might get you out of Gay-Baby-Jail so all you do is gesture for them to enter.
You even make a point to sit with proper posture!
The person that enters is a heavy set man in a white lab coat.
Oh, great.
Ngggg, keep a straight face, Jackpot! Maybe he’s some rich nerd that needs a foot boy.
You look him over again. He has rounded, red-lensed glasses that he keeps perched on a plump, shallow nose. Hmmm. Where is this guy from even? You can’t place it. His silver hair is rich enough it can be done up into those sick wings he’s got. Pretty stylish for an old watermelon, gotta hand it to him there.
On his neat, silver dress-shirt he has a bright gold pin, of a sharp, closed-design capital ‘G’… You swear you've seen that symbol before, too.
Unlike the other eggheads you’ve met, he doesn’t look you up and down or dissect you as he prepares to speak to you. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you Mr...”
Your lips part for a millisecond before Silver gives you ‘the look.’
You roll your eyes. “My designation is jcijam-777. But, I’m sure we can both agree that’s a bit clumsy all around. Civilians are to refer to me as just, ‘James.’ My friends call me Jackpot.”
He rubs his chin. “And what would you like to be called if you had a choice in the matter?”
You’re stopped by that question in your tracks. Do you even wanna… ah, what the hell.
\t“I… I had a friend once who meant a lot to me, y’know. I’ve thought about this a lot, see, since, well, don’t have a lot to do now I'm not allowed to exercise my profession…”
\tHe nods and has a seat in a similarly plush chair. “Go on.”
\tYou clear your throat. “I think ‘Jack’ would be fitting, sir.”
\tHis old face suddenly loses its cheery pretense. His chubby brows and jowls give him the look of a wise old Snubbl. “A sentimental man I am not, but I can personally say that I know great creation comes from the love of that which is beyond ourselves.”
\tYou tilt your head. “And the worst of destruction comes from within.”
\tHis eyes go wide a little bit. “I see you’ve read Ghetsis.”
\tYou shrug. “He’s got some good ideas, but I’ve had to pop enough wide-eyed goonies playing revolution in the woods that I’m not impressed with what he churns out.”
He then glances over at Silver, leaning forward on his cane. “This is a combat specialist?”
\tShe smirks and gestures back towards you. “As is. I lost the manual when they gave him to me.”
\tHe returns his gaze to you. “I’ll cut to the chase, since you two don’t like idle prattle and neither do I. Have you ever heard or met anyone with natural psychic potential?”
\t“Yeah.. Um, Sabrina’s the most infamous one, of course,” you say. “Too bad they still don’t know where she tends to haunt these days.”
\tHe smirks. “What makes you so sure?”
\tYou tilt your head and the way his eyes follow yours, watching your facial expression, tells you he’s not just playing around.
\t“What are you getting at, nerd?”
\t“Rude!” Silver scoffs and lobs a wadded up sheet of notepaper at your skull.
\tThe old guy waves a pudgy hand. “I care about results, not pleasantries. Anyway, I’ve studied that unfortunate anomaly that got you locked up in… how might you put it… ‘Gay-Baby-Jail?’”
\tFor the first time in a long, long while the color rushes out of your face.
\t“I never said that.”
\t“I never said that you did, Jack.” He flashes a mouthful of marble white teeth.
“Anyway, I will shed some light on this. It’s the least you deserve after such a harrowing experience. What you walked into was the den of a kind of entity known in ancient times as a Chinchou-Jǐng or the dreaded Nymphali Ruban. These days we call them ‘Durant-Traps.’ They’re a powerful mon that is born with a psychic mutation that drives them mad and makes them hunger for human spiritual energy. They worm their way into a place where humans pass by but never stay and snag victims with powerful forms of mind control seen nowhere else in the Compendium-Psyche. That monster had probably been hiding in that subway for months before ‘The Ember’ even happened, based on the evidence your people collected.”
“So… so it isn’t related to the chasm? Or the Man-Hate?”
He shakes his head. “You were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The ‘God Spite’ and the chasms all over the world are different topics… of great interest to us too, of course. I believe you have some significant psychic potential. Core energy sampling should be sufficient to confirm my suspicions. Details will require more sophisticated techniques, but one thing I know for sure is that you have an Iron Mind.”
You smirk a little. Kind of a weak compliment, but you’ll take it. Ha, it's nice to get a little recognition after getting poked in a hospital gown for a year. “Well, duh, sir. I’m sure you’ve read my service record.”
She shakes his head and stomps his cane. Guy is no nonsense, Square’d like him, you bet. “You should have died. All three of you should have withered to husks minutes after you walked into that tunnel. In fact, if your ‘mon hadn't done what he did you most assuredly would have still perished.
You try to speak but you choke and sit in silence.
“Your ‘mon’s loyalty to you must have been beyond anything I’ve ever seen. My deepest condolences. In the ancient times, warrior monks and masonic temples dedicated themselves to fighting such beasts. They hand picked special children and spent their entire lives preparing their minds for the task, and not even they made it out every time. The need for them faded when the Great Dark Age came to an end and such horrible monsters faded into myth. But it seems, like the night, darkness returns to us.”
“Yes, we have confirmed your account to your superiors as without error. You are without mental defect, as far as we can tell. No, in fact, I am sure your presence shielded the minds of your comrades the entire time you were down on that shelf of rubble. Don’t you think it's weird that there were no survivors except the few withering away on the ground? Truly, my apologies for taking so long in getting around to your request, but as you can tell everyone has a lot of work to do these days.”
So many things in the dark places of your mind make so much sense now.
“Thank you…”
He stands. “No, thank you for your service. As I understand it, your administrative leave is ending tomorrow. Your many talents are going to come in handy with our work, Sir.”
You can’t help yourself. “No sir here, sir.”
He shrugs. “That can change, if you’d like. In fact, we could really use the help.”
You blink. “Huh?”
He tilts his head towards Silver.
She reaches into her pocket and slides two flip-top boxes in blue with red and white lines. One is labeled ‘jcijam777.’
The other reads ‘jciluc-921.’
\t
You clutch the second against your chest as you flip the first one open. What sits inside is an emerald-green helix around a golden sword hanging from a titanium white ribbon.
“What… What kind of commendation is this, Ma’am? I’ve never seen it before.”
“It’s called ‘The Jade Tower’” Silver says. “I’d never seen it until today. Turns out it only gets issued by Apogee Executive decree… came down from Cress himself. Only three ever given out, I’m told.”
At the bottom, stitched into the white silk lining, are the words “For selfless dedication, furthering the scientific pursuits of mankind.”
The stranger smiles again. “I had a hand in making that one happen.”
You place it down. It means a lot, a whole lot. You’ve got medals out the wazoo, they litter the inside of your personal locker in the armory at this point. This one got handed down from the top, and you will always treasure it.
But there's no helping yourself as your hands impatiently pop the second box.
You clench your teeth as you see it. A gorgeous gold and red coptic cross with Galarian Knots woven together from tiny comet-trails. In its center is a blue-black cabochon with opalescent rainbow color shifts. At the bottom it reads. “For stalwart gallantry under mortal peril in the service of humanity.”
The Cometus Cross.
You don’t move for a while, just running your finger across the stone, reading the name along the bottom arm of the cross. ‘Blackjack.’
Silver winces a little. “Sorry, he doesn’t do so good with emotional moments, sir. I can assure you he’s infinitely grateful.”
The old scientist closes his eyes. “I know, more than you can possibly understand, Miss.”
You flip it shut. “They don’t give these to ‘Mon.”
Silver leans back. “Well, I wasn’t gonna have it not happen! As soon as I found out the details I kicked so much office-worker ass dragging the application form through corporate and up to executive that they shifted the policy. Things are changing, the world isn’t the same one we were born into. Speaking of which…”
The old man stands once more. “Yes. I hear you will be offered elevation to citizen status anytime now and may take a first and last name of your choosing. Your employment with Apogee is now voluntary, and you may continue serving with her as you were, but I'd like to make you an offer…”
“My name is Dr. Pluto Charon. I head the research and investigation wing of an organization that once went by the name, ‘Team Galactic.’”
You did recognize that mark!
“We work to observe, study, control, contain, and utilize anomalous, extraordinary phenomena. I would like for you to join a team of specialists I’m putting together to do some… dangerous work. I would like you to join this team, and our organization. Does that sound like something you’d be interested in?”
\tYou look down at the commendation again, then to Silver. “I’d have to leave here?”
\tDr. Charon shakes his head. “No, actually, we do not have the infrastructure to maintain your cryostasis. I’m informed it is important for keeping you useful beyond human lifespan. You would remain here, taking orders directly from me or my sergeants, of which Silver here is now among their number. You would be gone a lot, of course, so expect to get used to real beds every now and again.”
\tYou look over at silver with a confused gaze.
\tShe winks with a thumbs-up. “Yep, and I hear the other boys and girls have already accepted too.”
Charon closes his eyes and shrugs. “After reviewing all accounts of the mission, I am impressed with the courage and ingenuity of the J-Series here, Silver. The knowledge gained from your mission’s findings have brought many valuable things to light, and our resources I’m sure would be greatly appreciated should your Brothers and Sisters be exposed to any anomalous hazards.”
Silver smiles. “So, what’ll it be, champ?’
You finally stand. Sharply, quickly, with intent to kill. You leap forward with enough force that your chair flies behind you, lunging at him with your eyes locked on his; cold, uncaring, still wondering what’s for dinner in an hour after you make him dead.
You’re not going to serve under someone without the steel to stand up to you.
Charon doesn’t budge an inch as your palm strike stops centimeters from his boated old neck. “What a silly little ritual. But, I’m honored that you’ve given me the opportunity to prove myself to you.”
For the first time in months you chuckle, and even laugh aloud a little. “Count me in, Doc.”
\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/-\\|/
You’ve learned to really love the fresh air. You get so much of it now. Though your lifespan is getting cut short by the day, it's nice to meet so many new, strange people. Some of them even have senses of humor that make you wonder what Primeape managed to unscrew their brains like mason jars.
You’re in the back of a sleek, white stealth VTOL. One that's silent as a Noctowl on the prowl. In the front, locked in with their own sets of gray and white armor, is Taxi and Chatter and Decibelle, speaking that strange chittering tongue only the Radio People know. ‘Frey’ and ‘Orre’ they go by now. They kiss and pet Decibelle between the lobes.
To your right, Papa is poking fun at a gorgeous, red headed scientist outside the craft, somewhat fresh to the Galactic Institute from Sinnoh. His Raichu is sleeping up around his neck. Old dog never leaves an opportunity to pet his girl, does he? Goes by the name ‘Victor’ now. Ever since he’d been able to use the downtime and with that sexy, white uniform you all wear, he made it his life's mission to get as much pussy as he could. That was until he met Kaylee there two months ago. You’re pretty sure she’s carrying his kid right now…
To your left, Square is touching up the emblem on his Shelmet with a horrible smelling hand-rolled cigarette of some strange Pokemint between his lips. It’s a nasty habit he’d picked up after getting used to having a salary. You’ll happily put up with the smell if it means him chilling outside the murderzone, though, he deserves a good time. Never changed his name. Wrote ‘James’ on the form and handed it in before the ink had dried.
“Hey…” you mumble. “Care to share the paints, Brother?”
\tHe glances at you, looks down at the box-pallet of enamels, then pushes them towards you as he takes a long drag and lays his head back against the headrest. He props his legs up on his Golem’s rounded body and rubs their pudgy little head.
\tYou run your hand across the paint job. Square had taken the liberty of copying your own emblem when you switched to the white shell armor. It was perfect, done exactly as it should have been, not a single stroke out of order. An immaculately recreated red rose atop an ace-of-hearts
\tAh, but he did miss something, didn’t he? No biggie, probably the mints again.
\tYour hand shakes a little, but you keep it together as you dip the brush into the bottle of black and carefully decorate your helm. Memories flash through your mind, like a horrid movie. You refused to accept therapy, you refused to show weakness to anyone. You did everything you could to force the thing that happened back into the deep recesses of your mind and let it die, but it made a home in the darkness.
\tTime to let the light shine in.
\tYour friend had given it all to save two of his most beloved brothers. It makes your stomach curl, makes the muscles of your neck twist and bend in ways you knew other people did but you thought had been beaten out of you. Your hands start moving on their own as the moments you tried to forget finally come forward and replay over and over.
\tFinally, after you’re done watching him smiling above you, paw on your heart, your hands stop moving and you look at the helmet in your lap.
A red rose perched atop an Ace-of-Hearts and a Jack of Spades.
A handful of tears drip onto the surface of the helmet around the emblem and roll down onto your lap as you close the box of paints.
Oh, where’d those come from?
…it’s ok, nobody here is judging you now.
Everybody gets one, right?
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