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Told in present tense. 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The rest of Part 11 can be found here.

Also, obligatory link to the comic itself to which this is a fanfiction of.", "writing": "Act 72: Titanic Raid\nNow on the dropship once more, Neso's pack and their tag-along human Isaac. The human took that overbearing coat of his off, now what he has on is that typical armored body-tight suit that seems to be typical to where he is from, but he is also strapped with some ammunition for his guns and also has some sort of small portable device on his right wrist that looks like a pretty long bracelet but it has a touchscreen on it. As for the weapons he is bringing. They do look quite different from Jormar's that for sure. it's a dull yellow and black submachine gun and a shotgun that certainly have a pretty high-tech look to them, they even have small screens with ammo counters. The shotgun sure looks to be the most 'experimental' though, the thing has no less than [i]three[/i] laser sights.\n\nIt looks like the sun has been setting too, when they arrive there it might be nighttime, it could be a good thing, perhaps the darkness could be useful to get in as close as possible before things start heating up.\n\n\"Nice gun you got there.\" Neso says to Issac, trying to start up some sort of conversation during the ride.\n\nThe human looks to Neso, the Avali's words sure got his attention as he wastes no time responding.[b] \"Oh, you think so? It isn't made by Jormar but here's hoping that it will prove superior to the submachine guns he makes.\"[/b] If that's the case maybe there's hoping they work as much as they look neat. [b]\"The submachine gun has a built-in suppressor and laser sight. It can even fold to be easier to carry.\"[/b]\n\nNeso nods as he listens to Issac explain his gun. \"Ours runs on railgun tech. It's not quite spec-ops level.* He says as he holds up his blizzard. \"but it'll do.\"\n\n\"Railguns? All of your guns like that? Even that Minigun?\" The human asks. \"We only have one model of railgun that is a long rifle and it's pretty heavy. And not really capable of automatic fire.\"\n\n\"Yup. You can see for yourself if you like.\" He holds the gun up for him to see.\n\n\"Hhhhmmm. I don't have the eye for this stuff like Jormar, but it does look like it can do what it's supposed to do. Say, what is stopping an enemy from making use of those if they get their hands on them? Do you ID lock your guns too?\"\n\n\"Definitely.\" Neso replies.\n\nIssac was more talkative than the last human, that's for sure.\nThey fly high above the bandit base to avoid being spotted. their landing point was a bit to the west of their target, there is no way they were seen. Now they just need to make a walk towards where the bandit's base is and they are sure to end up right on top of the cliff it is being built into, and from there they will have the high ground to start making their way down. The sun has already set too, maybe the darkness of the night will make it easier to get closer without being seen.\n\nIndeed, they wait till the sun has set to make their way towards the cliff.\n\"Let's just hope they don't have any psychics or anything else capable of detecting us.\" Veers, who has yet to pick an espeon name for himself, comments.\n\"Yeah, we Avali typically have drones and other equipment to nullify the night...\" Neso comments back. \"... Not that we need it all that much, with our super-hearing and everything.\"\n\"Yeah, until the advent of augmentation, we avali were almost as bad with seeing things in the day as most of you guys are at night.\" Rali comments as well.\n\nThe team soon comes across a bit of an unexpected obstacle though. It appears that the bandits had the idea of placing a lookout on top of the cliff armed with a rifle, it's a Persian so thankful it's just a normal type. And since he is supposed to be watching what is going on below that also means he has his back turned to Neso and the others.\n\n\"Aaah, bugger.\" Neso grumbles under his breath. \"And we didn't bring silencers.\"\nSeems they didn't have access to them. Guess only the elite squads like Night Witches have those. \nHe looks to issac.\n\"You got silencers on those things?\" \n\nHe holds up his submachine gun, which he had mentioned before that it has built-in suppression. \"Yeah. We might need to do something to try to get him away from the ledge though, killing him quietly is one thing but if he falls the pokemon down they are probably going to notice it, yeah?\" \n\n\"Hmmm... any ideas?\"\n\n[i]\"Well an idea...Does anyone know any noise that will grab his curiosity rather than alert him and make him step away from where he is?\"[/i] Issac asks. [i]\"Could also sneak up and pull him back but it is a bit more risky. Really makes me wish we could just give him a literal kick in the ass to get that over with.\"[/i]\n\n\"That last one... You think you could do that?\" Neso asks.\n\nNow he is wishing he didn't add that last sentence because he now finds himself a little confused on what Neso meant. [i]\"You mean kick him down the cliff or grab him and pull him back?\"[/i]\n\n\"The latter. The former will probably alert them to our presence. And while it's inevitable that we will have our cover blown at some point, it's best not to throw away the element of surprise just yet.\"\n\n[i]\"Alright, I'm gonna do that. Pray that he doesn't turn around.\"[/i] He reaches his free hand in one of his many pockets to get a small knife before he begins carefully stepping towards the Persian.\n\nThe avali nods, they point their weapons up at the mons while hunkering down, ready to open fire upon the unsuspecting mon should something go wrong.\n\nThen he stows his submachine gun on his back before leaping forward to wrap an arm around the pokémon's neck. The feline reacts with surprise and fear and begins struggling. Issac makes him stop by holding the knife to his neck to threaten him. [i]\"Don't go trying any shit now. This is Iron. The strongest and most experienced still fall to it.\"[/i] He then pulls the Persian around to get him away from that ledge.\n\nMeanwhile down below, Neso and his pack sees the cat-person being pulled away from the ledge and out of view. \"Alright, here's our chance. go!\" Neso orders as he waves his talon in a forward motion. The rest of the pack nods, and proceeds forward. They are soon under the base of the watchtower.\n\nAs they get there they hear the sound of a crash and the cat-person letting out a pained yell as the human is dealing with him somehow, Issac probably tossed the Persian down against the floor just now.\n\n\"Sounds like he's got it under control.\" He nods to himself.\n\nIssac had slammed the cat face first on the ground before capturing him in one of those 'pokeballs'. Then after that he went to join the others. [i]\"cat is having a catnap. So...\"[/i] He looked down the cliff, noticing the area down there enclosed by a wall of stone that doesn't look like it was built very well, they must have been in a bit of a hurry to make that. There are also those watch towers for other Pokémon armed with rifles to watch for anything coming in the horizon. And there are some tents in the center too, and by the evidence of some of the bandits taking a couple of mons tied up on ropes...it looks like they indeed have some hostages. Those two particular prisoners look like they are being taken for the base they are building in the cliff, who knows why. Are they being used as slave labor? But the more likely answer is that they are most likely going to be 'used' sexually, that's fore sure.\n[i]\"...You guys ready to rappel down this thing?\" [/i]\n\n\"Yeah, let's get down there and help those poor souls.\" Neso nods. They take out their own ropes, complete with a large stake on one end. Using a hammer, they quickly, yet quietly pound the steam into the ground. They give a few determined tugs on the ropes to check to see if they are secured. Satisfied with the result, he clasps the other end of it to himself, as do the others. except seph, who is way too heavy for this. Instead, he ducks onto the ground wrapping his arms around his knees and curling himself into a ball, and, rather quickly, his form begins to shift from a makeshift ball into a round, albeit spikey one. It seems he has chosen to use the spike sphere tech instead of grappling.\n\n[i]\"All of you can turn into balls, right?\"[/i] Issac also connects his own rope to that stake before clipping the other end of it to the back of his belt. [i]\"Let's go wreck some bandits now.\"[/i] He stepped down unto the cliff wall, with the rope keeping him suspended horizontally he can simply walk down just like Neso and the others, except Seph of course.\n\n\"Well, yeah. Though only he has the spike sphere active. Plus, you're rather vulnerable when your like that.\" Neso explains as he and the rest of the pack follow. Except for Veers at first, who looks a little worried, takes a deep breath, and a few seconds later follows suit. \"If we're like this and they notice us, [i]we[/i] can shoot back. Seph... has to get out of that form and hit the ground.\"\n\n[i]\"Can he fall down from this height with no trouble or is that a little too much? If they see us I'm going to call down smoke as soon as possible.\"[/i]\n\n\"Na. he can actually jump down just fine. He probably just didn't want to attract unwanted attention.\"\n\n[i]\"Right. Well let's start heading down then...\"[/i]\n\nThey start down, repelling down the cliff face, so far so good, without incident.\n\nThey went down some meters before one the bandits down there spotted them. Which in turn led to that bandit warning the others about intruders coming down the cliff towards them. Soon enough Neso's team have to contend with gun fire coming from below, trying to hit them.\n[i]\"Shit, here it comes.\"[/i] Issac fired off a few bursts from his submachine gun down at the bandits, he didn't hit anyone though. Then he stopped shooting and began accessing an interface he has on the bracelet on his wrist.\n\n\"Shit!\" Neso yells. While still holding onto the rope with one hand, he takes his gun from his sling in one hand, and aims it down below at the gaggle of mons shooting back. Bursts of blue flames erupt from the end of his sub mg as he fires down below. \nHis comrades, sans for Seph, quickly do the same, pulling their guns out and doing the same.\n\nAs they are firing one handed, and from sub-optimal range however, their bullets do not hit their mark. Hopefully it is enough to at least suppress the bandits below as Seph quickly shifts out of his ball form, and falls onto the scene below, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process...\n\nThe pokémon bandits noticed that one of their targets seemed to have fallen down hard and kicked up a dust cloud. They believe whoever it is must have been shot and killed so they keep focusing their attention on the enemies that are still up on the cliff.\nIssac inputted a code into his bracelet and from the bottom of it pops out a small throwing disk with a red light in the middle. He also took a bullet to one of his thighs but that didn't interrupt him. \"Took a slight hit.\" He took the disk with his other hand and simply tossed it toward the enemy camp, trying to make sure it landed in the center as much as possible. [i]\"Here come some artillery smoke shells...any second now.\"[/i]\n\nWanting to save his ammunition for the primary target, Seph instead takes out his hammer, using the dust cloud as cover, and whacks one right in the head, easily caving in the skull of one of the bandits. He wastes no time, and runs to the other one, this time delivering a blow to the stomach, sending the bandit flying at high speed into the air, and straight into the cliff wall, causing the beast to splatter against the wall.\n\nPanic begins spreading amongst the bandits when they notice one of their own getting their head carved in, and then another going 'splat' on the cliff wall. Such a brutal display makes most of them focus on Seph in an effort to take him down before he gets too close.\nAnd on top of that the fire support that was ordered arrives. There is that telltale whistling in the air getting louder by the second as artillery shells come down from the sky, impacting the ground and detonating their payload of smoke which pretty much covers the whole enclosure is sure to prevent the bandits from judging effectively, be it at Seph or everyone still up on the cliff wall.\n[i]\"We should probably go down fast while they can't shoot us.\"[/i] Issac advises Neso and the others.\n\nNeso agress, and, with the distractions taking the heat off of them, puts his gun back in his sling, undoes his harness and, using his wings as a sort of parachute, glides down to the ground. The rest of his pack soon follows suit, with the sole exception of Veers, who looks around and sees them gliding down.\n\"G... Guys, wait up!\" He yells, as he tries to get down off the cliff faster.\n\nIssac, like Veers, also has no quick way to go down the cliff so quickly. He makes an effort to start hurrying down as well. [i]\"I guess it's just us for now, kid. Let's get down there before they get all the work done.\"[/i]\n\nVeers nods, and hurrys on down, trying to join his comrades in the fight. Meanwhile, said group hits the ground softly. They waste not a millisecond, and take out their weapons and begin to fire upon the bandits.\n\nAlthough firing upon the bandits right now might be a bit more than hard because of the smoke that blanketing pretty much the entire enclosure, that is however if the Avali are needing to use their eyes, surely their ears are not affected by the visual obstruction. There is still quite a bit of weapons fire around, the bandits must be firing blindly hoping they can hit something in all this smoke.\nVeers and Issac got down undo the thick smoke, and then they got to the bottom of the cliff and could detach their ropes to join in on the shootout.\n[i]\"Well, here we are.\"[/i]\nA Flygon comes into their view, he is stumbling around confused, not knowing where the enemy is in all this smoke. And he has one of those old AK rifles on his hands too so he is certainly an enemy. Then he took notice of this Espeon and this other strange creature.\nThey might need to act first before this one bandit gets the chance to shoot them.\n\n[i]\"Take him out!\"[/i] Neso orders upon seeing the Flygon. \nThe others nod, and raise their weapons. Though before they can even fire, Seph quickly leaps behind the confused flygon, and whacks him in the head with the 'tip' of his hammer, not hard enough to kill, but hopefully enough to knock him out.\n\nThe human watched as the Flygon dropped his weapon before falling to the ground unconscious. [i]\"I'm surprised you didn't turn him into another stain on the cliff. Is the last one out here?\"[/i]\n\n\"Didn't feel like it.\" Seph simply shrugs as he puts his hammer away.\n\"I'm not hearing anything.\" Neso says. \"Not out here anyway...\"\n\"I'm not sensing anything out here.\" Veers add in with a few pants, having rejoined his companions. \"Though....\" He looks inside. He doesn't get the word out before Rali joins in. \n\"Yeah, I hear it too...\" she nods sadly.\nThey refer of course, to the sound and misery of slaves inside the base.\n\n[i]\"Careful, the ones inside surely heard everything going on outside.\"[/i]\nSure enough when they step in front of the entrance of the base, some bullets fly past them. Turns out the bandits have started taking defensive positions in there, there are even a couple of small trenches that seem to have been built for them to take cover. Some Geodude and Krokorok armed with pistols and submachine guns are what they are going to have to be dealing with next.\nThings might only get harder from here on out...\n\nThe avali pack quickly looks for cover. \n\nThe only cover where they are is the entranceway, they can take cover in the corners. They will have to pop out of cover to fire back at the pokémon thought, and with them aiming their guns at entrance just waiting for them to pop out...suffice to say it is a bit risky.\nIssac tries to think of what they can do next. \"Well, we could throw something that explodes at them. Actually, Seph, since you are made of space alloy and have a big gun, you think you can take their gunfire while suppressing them?\"\n\nSeph nods. He was saving the minigun for the big one, but then again, the reason he'd brought it along over the railgun is just in case he needed to use it against lighter targets too. He takes out his huge minigun, steps out from the shadows, a few loud pings and bangs coming off from his armored carapace as bullets grace and ricochet from hitting him.\n\"I AM BULLET PROOOOOOOOOOFFF!!\" He yells as he fires the minigun onto the trenches of the defending mons, spraying it with suppressing fire.\n\nA Krokorok that didn't get down on time has its head turned into fine mist by the minigun, the rest of the pokémon ducked for cover and are now suppressed. They won't dare to pop their heads back up so soon against such a show of firepower. Suffice to say they are panicking now.\n[i]\"Just like that.\"[/i] The human decides to ponder on Seph's one-liner later as he grabs the chance to rush at the trench that is to the right. He is firing his submachine gun at it too, but it's mostly to keep the enemy discouraged from firing back with bullets flying over their heads.\n\nNow that both the human and the giant machine snake are pinning down the enemy, Veers reaches into his coat and grabs a grenade. He pulls it out, and, after pulling the pin, leans off and gives it a toss into the trench.\n\nThe grenade bounced on the edge of the trench and fell right in, landing on the head of a Geodude and then between him and a Krokorok?\n\"What is that?!\" One of them asked as he looked at the object that just got tossed in there. The pokemon keeping their heads down for their lives can not quite identify what this object is, so they just stare at it dumbfounded until it explodes in their faces and kills whoever else was near them.\nIssac then jumped into one of the trenches, getting his shotgun from his back and turning on it's triple laser sights which sort of makes an upside down triangle with the dots at whatever it is aiming at. \"Get blasted, motherfuckers.\" In this case it is another Geodude, since it is just a floating rock with arms, it's body got blasted to bits of rock and the only things that were still whole were the arms.\n\n\"Pos that. Let's go.\" Neso turns and nods towards his group, who nod back and they come out from their hiding spot in the corner and make their way deeper into the base, guns at the ready.\n\nThey start heading down a corridor that is sort of dark, it is particularly dark above them too. There are no hostiles straight ahead but the Avali are able to hear heartbeats...coming from above the group.\n\nNeso looks up, followed by the others.\n\nThe human didn't quite understand why they stopped though. \"What?\"\nSome pebbles and dust fell from above...and then down came a Purrloin with a sharpened piece of flint. The cat lets out a battlecry as he tries to stab one of the Avali with his makeshift weapon as he comes down on them.\n\n\"Woah!!\" Rali leaps out of the way just in time, the flint weapon barely misses her. The others turn and ready their weapons, ready to pump the purrloin full of lead in a second.\n\nStill thinking he has the element of surprise on his side, the feline goes for another attempt at stabbing one of them, his next target being Eili.\nAnother Pokémon leaps down from above though, this time it's a Houndour with a dagger. This one is coming to attack in a similar manner to that of the cat.\nIssac processed what was going on, and tried to blast the other dark-type pokemon with his shotgun, as misfortune would have it the dog jumped out of the way at the last moment, so he missed. Before he could successfully pump another shell into the chamber the Houndour managed to thrust the blade right into the man's lower abdomen! [i]\"Moootherfuckeeeerrr\"[/i] His text-to-speech can not express how much that hurt. He then uses his gun as an improvised bludgeon to shove away the pokémon who stuck a knife in him.\n\nBeing way too close to using the minigun effectively, Seph instead opts for a more direct approach, he makes a grab for the houndoor's neck.\nMeanwhile, Eilli likewise dodges out of the way. With all their weapons trained on the Purloin, they open fire, riddling the poor mon full of holes from just about every direction point blank, blood splattering from the shots.\n\nThe Houndoor struggles in the Synth's grip. He still has his dagger in his hand, still soaked in the human's blood, he tries to stab at the Seph's arms to get him to let go.\nMeanwhile the Purrloin let a welp when he saw that he missed his other attack, he realizes how screwed he is but it's too late for him to try anything else as the bullets start piercing his body getting holes pierced through his body from the multiple projectiles hitting him, he was dead before he even hit the ground.\nThat's...another injury on Issac, he realizes that they might get slightly detrimental, at least nothing fatal has been struck. The thing he is wearing is more designed to handle bullets on vital points like the center of his chest and limbs, that's why he didn't complain much about that bullet he took but that stab was definitely a bit more serious.\n\nThe iron blade grazes off the synth's arm. Nonetheless, Seph growls, and throws the mutt hard against the wall as hard as he can before turning his attention back to the others.\n\"Everyone alright?\" Seph asks.\n\"Pos.\" Neso, Rali, and Eili respond in kind. \"Yeah.\" Veers replies as well. They all look to Issac\n\nThere is an audible CRACK! when the canine pokémon slammed again against the wall, and a smear of blood was left where his head hit, suffice to say that must have caused fatal head injury for sure.\nIssac noticed that all eyes are on him now. [i]\"Kind of bleeding here.\"[/i]\n\nRali takes out a bandage, and carefully takes Issac's arm in her own and wraps it up. She takes out a small syringe, and injects the fluid into his arm just above the wound.\n\"Bit of a pain killer. That should suffice for now.\" She tells him.\n\nHe flinched a little when the needle pierced his kin. But it looks like Rali did a good job in taking care of his wound. \"Oh, I see. I won't be feeling this for a while then.\" He puts more shells in his shotgun to make sure it is topped off on ammunition.\nNow they can start moving further into this place, perhaps they should keep their eyes open for trouble like these mons that tried to ambush them with flint and iron.\n\n\"Keep an eye out for those slaves\" Neso orders as they proceed.\n\nGoing deeper down, the team finds themselves in a spacious room, there are few tables and chairs made of stone around the center. On one side there is some sort of kitchen, there is also something noteworthy there...a slab of stone used as a table, it has dried blood on it...\nFurthermore the room is not devoid of presence. There are more enemies hiding behind whatever cover they use here. And there is also those two slaves they were looking for. One of them, a Bunnelby, is tied and gagged on that meat cutting table in the kitchen, thankfully it looks like they haven't started butchering him yet. The other one is an Aipom that is tied upside down to a pole, left hanging there...though she seems to be alive too. So it appears that these bandits are also doing the illegal act of creating 'meat' to be eaten..\n\n\"By the Nexus...\" Neso responds to the bloody scene in front of him. Suddenly his ears perk.\n\"We got-\"\n\"way ahead of you chief.\" Rani finishes as she zeros in on a nearby overturned table, aiming her weapon down. Veers likewise senses a hostile presence, and aims his own at it.\n\n\nThe human wisely decides to take cover with them too.\nThese hostile presences are coming from another overturned table, hiding behind it was a Nickit and a Torracat armed with AKs, they pop up from their cover to and open fire in the direction of their enemies. There are also some other hostiles around to worry about too, it's not just these two.\n\nThe Avali and Espeon take cover, the bullets flying all over in the cave and bouncing off the walls, one of them narrowly missing the Aipom on the pole.\nThey wait for a small lul in the fire for one of them to reload, get ready to shoot back. \n\nThe tied up pokémon screams in panic when she almost got hit by that stray bullet.\nIssac noticed a Zorua to their left coming out of cover to try to shoot them, he pointed his shotgun at him and fired before he did but he couldn't hit that fox.\nMeanwhile the Nickit begins trying to go around out in the open for a flanking maneuver while the Torracat is still keeping up suppressive fire on the Avali...at least until his magazine runs dry.\n\nUnfortunately for the Nicket, Veers notices it out of the corner of his eye.\n\"No you don't!\" He yells while shifting his sub mg towards it, and opening fire. \nOnce the Torracat is out of ammo, Neso pops up, and returns fire, hopefully taking him out before he gets the chance to reload for another round.\n\nThe Nickit was very out in the open and had no chance to defend himself from the bullets, so Veers managed to shoot him down by riddling his body with bullets.\nIssac fired two more times and stopped on the third, trying to bait the Zorua into thinking that he was out of shots...and it worked. He was able to turn the other fox's face into a mess with the next shell he fired off.\nNeso managed to nail the Torracat in the chest with a shot, making him scream in pain and fall back down unto his cover. That might not have been enough to kill him though, but it is unknown if he is out of action yet.\n\nNeso nods to his pack, and with his talon motions forward. Rali and Eili nod back in return. Veers trains his gun on where the Torracat went down, while Neso, Rali, and Eili advance upon the bandit's position, coming at it from three different directions.\n\nIssac looks towards the rest of the dining area, making sure that it is clear and no one else will be popping out.\nThey can hear the Torracat groaning in a lot of pain, but he picks his gun back up only to notice that he is being flanked from one side, the one Eili is coming from. When he noticed the Avali coming he looked like he was going to try shooting her, not having seen the others coming in from the other two sides.\nThere is also something crawling around the kitchen. It looks like a sky-blue mammalian Pokémon with dark-blue patches. She is holding a dagger but it looks like she is trying to get away from all the fighting.\n\n\"Drop it, cat.\" Neso orders as he comes over the front, his, Eili, and Rali's guns all pointed at him. \"Raise your gun and you're dead.\" \nRali's ears twich from hearing the other thing crawling around. with their gun still trained on the cat, she slowly turns her head towards the source of the noise. \"We got something else here.\" She says.\n\n\"D-damn you...\" The Torracat drops his AK and raises his hand, or at least one of them, doesn't look like he can quite hold up the other one.\nThat other presence here with them is a Nidorina, she is crawling towards those two prisoners in the kitchen.\n[i]\"Stop or I will shoot you.\"[/i] Issac trains his shotgun on her and demands that she doesn't move.\nThe pokémon stopped in her tracks and looked back at them.\n\n\"Good catch, Issac.\" Neso replies without even looking in that direction.\n\nIssac decides to begin questioning this Nidorina. \"What's with these two hostages?\"\nShe glares up at him. \"Well if it isn't obvious...they were going to be turned into meat.\"\nBut not anymore, so those two pokémon that are tied up can breathe a mutual sigh of relief.\n\nNeso nods to Rali, who puts her gun over her shoulder, and takes out a large knife and heads over to the table where the Bunnelby is still tied up.\n\n[i]\"So you bandits eat meat then? You are all sick.\"[/i] Issac stated.\nThe Nidorina growled a little at Rali. \"Heavens no! We don't dabble on that shit!\" She sighs. \"Not all of us at least...You should know that there are some people in towns that really have a thing for meat of pokémons, specially now that it's harder to obtain, so we sell it at a premium by getting it past the eyes of the guards at the entrances\" She explained.\nThe rabbit tied down to the stone stable got visibly nervous and the Avali began approaching him with that large knife. She is here to free him, yes but he almost had to deal with a very similar situation which would end with his flesh being cut rather than the ropes tying him down.\n\n\"I'd ask for names, but that's a little above my paygrade.\" Neso growls in return to the Nidorina. \n\"And you didn't even have the common decency to kill them first.\" Eili growls. \"We should plug this bitch and-\"\n\"Eili, no.\" Neso replies to her. \"Command will want a few bandits for interrogation.\"\n\"Shh shh, calm down bunny. I'm here to get you out.\" Rali tells him as she gets to work cutting the straps tying him to the table, one by one.\n\n\"I-I know where most of the prisoners are going to.\" The Nidorina let out, trying to convince them not to kill her by saying that she knows something they might want to know.\n\"So this is not the primary reason why you captured these pokémon?\" Issac asks.\n\"No.\" She answers. \"Meat smuggling gives some good profit on the side but for obvious reasons we need to keep it going slow and irregular so the so called 'Republic' doesn't get wind of it. And the meat needs to be shipping as soon as possible before it starts going bad...\"\nWhen that rabbit pokémon was freed he rolled out of the table and onto the ground before taking off the gag covering his mouth. \"O-oh gods...i thought i was going to die...!\"\n\n\"We get the picture.\" Neso growls a bit as he interrupts her. \"Once we square these two away, you will show us where the rest of the prisoners are kept. Understand?\"\n\"Shh-shh.\" Rali hushes the bunny down, not wanting the bunny to attract too much attention, as they still don't know who else is running around here. \"Make your way out of the cave, and our dropship will pick you up and take you back to base for debriefing.\"\n\n\"We haven't gotten to building 'prison', or well...more of a cage, yet.\" The Nidorina says to them. \"You so they are still all being kept in a tent outside...you must have missed it somehow.\"\n\"Drop...ship?\" The Pokémon that was rescued doesn't quite understand what the Avali means with that.\n[i]\"It will get you out of here, trust us okay?\"[/i] Issac said to the rabbit.[i] \"You can't miss it, just look up when you are outside.\"[/i]\n\n\"Oh...\" Neso feels a bit embarrassed now. They had simply assumed they'd keep the prisoners inside of the base itself somewhere as it was probably the most secure, not outside in a tent somewhere. \n\"But... if they're all in a tent and not a cage, what's keeping them from running off?\"\n\"Yeah, what the robot man said.\" Rali confirms.\n\n\"There weren't any plans to hold on to them for long, or at least for us to hold on to them for long since we don't have prison yet. So instead we keep them tied together with someone watching over them to make sure they don't run away.\" The Nidorina then looks to the pokémon that they have freed now. \"Those two just drew the short straw and were to become food to be smuggled. There are sick fucks out there that believe that eating the meat from pokémon can make them stronger, can you believe the things the superstitious ones come with sometimes?\" She then shrugs. \"It's total rubbish to me, but hey, it brings good poké...\"\n[i]\"Where were the prisoners being sent to then? Do you know that?\"[/i] Issac asks her this now.\n\"Oh, I might...\" She glares up at him. \"But I'm not gonna tell you until I know for sure you won't just kill me as soon as I say it...\"\nGiven that right now they don't have time to force the answer they want out of her...[i]\"Fair enough.\"[/i]\n\nAt the same time, Rali has shifted focus on the monkey hanging on the pole. She cuts the ropes binding the upside-down Aipom. \"Watch the drop.\" She warns as she cuts the last rope.\n\nThe Aipon drops down to the ground with a thud. She is alright though. \"T-thank you for freeing us. I thought we were going to die for sure...\" The simian pokémon is grateful for the rescue. She and the Bunnelby start making their way out of here.\n\"Okay now, you meat chef, you are going to get down on the floor.\" The human commands the Nidorina.\n\"Why? You are not going to kill me are you? You still need me after all...\" She starts getting a little bit nervous.\n\"I'm just going to tie you up.\" It's kind of a lie because there is going to be no tying involved but is going to apprehend her.\n\n\"If we were going to kill you, we would have just done it already.\" Neso grumbles in response to the Nidorina's question.\n\n\"Just lie down and curl up into a ball. Now.\"\nShe doesn't know how they plan to tie her like this, but she complies and lies down on the floor in front of them. It made it easier when Issac stuck her in a pokeball for easier transportation.\nThe Avali can hear the sound of something...mechanical? It's faint and it's above them. It's another one of those spherical camera drones that seems to want to spy on them again...\n\n\"I am still not very comfortable with that.\" Veers admits as he sees the mon simply disappear into the ball. \n\"Yeah.\" Rali replies. \"I shudder to think what could happen if they modified those to catch avali.\"\nNeso notices the sphere. But rather than spook the sphere and/or whoever's on the controlling end of it, he simply sends a DM to Issac via his built-in augments.\nIssac, I don't mean to alarm you, but it's another one of those weird drones. Do we take it out here, or try to catch it intact?\n\nIssac stood there for a moment, reading the message before turning to Neso. \"If we bring it back we might as well be telling them where Sandgun is, just blast it.\"\n\nGood point.\nNeso slowly reaches for his gun. Once he's halfway to it however, he rapidly grabs it, turns towards his target, and opens fire.\n\"Woah!\" Veers shouts, having neither heard nor sensed the drone himself, having been taken completely by surprise by Neso's sudden bout of violence.\n\nAs the broken drone sputters to the ground, Issac speaks. [i]\"For the record, pokéballs only work on pokémon. I wouldn't know how to fit Avali or you other people from the stars in these, I don't know if it's possible and I'm not really a scientist. Also these are heavily outlawed where I am from.\"[/i] He picks up the Pokéball to store it.\n\n\"I can see why,\" Rali replies. \n\"Well.\" Neso gets the attention of the rest of the pack. \"As much as we'd probably like to go back to free the prisoners, we'll have to press on. We cannot afford to let our enemies regroup and reinforce their position further down the cave anymore than we already have.\"\n\n[i]\"Yeah, let's keep going, there might now be much further for us to go in now i suppo-.\"[/i]\n\"Well well well...looks like these 'gun' things weren't enough to stop you huh?!\" They hear a overbearing female voice talk to them, however the source of it is not in this room with them, looks like it's coming from deeper within this cavern base. \"Just who do you think coming in here unannounced and killing my man?!\"\n[i]\"...Okay i think that's the big bad boss lady.\"[/i]\n\n\"Ya think?\" Neso replies back sarcastically. \"\n\n\"You think you can leave here alive after what you did?!\" Now the unseen pokémon sounds both angry and confident. \"You have no idea of the power that has been granted to me...I thought these 'guns' were good but I was given something that made me even stronger!~\" She then begins laughing. \"It's a shame you had to come in here and ruin my plans to build my palace...no matter, I can always find more fools to worship me, the goddess of destruction! HAHAHHAHAHAHA!~\"\n[i]\"Well, i suppose it would be expected for that power to send her off the deep end like this.\" Issac commented. \"We should probably get ready to run though, if really intents to bury us, it might mean bringing this place down on us.\"[/i]\n\n\"Right!\" Neso and the rest of the pack shout in response, getting ready to run at a moment's notice.\n\nAfter she is done laughing she lets out a roar, and everything starts to shake. Just like clockwork...\nIssac looks up, noticing that the ceiling above them is about to crack. What's more he and the others can also hear that the Tyranitar is coming their way, as the earthquaking only gets worse. He just has one word on what they should be doing now. \"Run\" The human is already bolting back the way they came, they need to get out of here fast...\n\nThe avali waste no time, double-timing it back outside along with the human, as the quakes and roaring grow ever more and more intense.\n\"Dropship!\" Neso yells over his equipment, \"We've encountered Big Mama, and we are double-timing it back outside to regroup, get ready with that fire-support!\"\nRoger Pack 1 The response comes over their built-in radios. Dropship is already outside, we've picked up the two you freed earlier. Arming weaponry, and getting ready to fire upon command.\n\"You'll know the target when you see it, you can't miss it.\"\nAnother roar comes from behind him.\n\"No, literally, you can't miss it, it is BIG.\"\n\nThey room they all just left quickly collapsed, and they had to keep running, having to go fast but being careful not trip on the corpses of the bandits that they killed. The Torracat that they had with them tried to follow but he didn't have much luck in getting out alive. They managed to get out of there as the cave collapsed behind them. That's strange though, the Tyranitar also brought the whole place down on herself? It would appear that the Aipom and the Bunnelby also took the time to free the other prisoners while they were escaping, so there are both of them and about four other pokémon with them already in the dropship.\n\nNeso and his pack make it just outside handily, and turn around, ready to make their stand with the dropship behind them. Seph readies his minigun, he begins to spin up the barrel in preparation to fire the minute the Tyanitar shows her head... when the cave collapses. They all watch in disbelief as the \n\"Did...\" Neso says in disbelief, \"did she just... Terminate herself?\"\n\"Let me check.\" The pilot responds, while scanning for a signature. \nVeers meanwhile also tries to use his psychic power to check for any sort of signature.\n\"I sure hope no other unfortunates were in there.\" Rali adds in while they check.\n\nIssac is with his guard up, rightfully so as things begin quaking, and it's only getting worse. The human then frantically points to the former prisoners of the bandits. \"Move them back further, the cliff is going to blow.\" Maybe they should probably get some distance from it as well too.\nThere is sandstorm brewing as well...might make it difficult for air support to help them.\n\n\"She's still alive!\" Veers suddenly yells, his psychic sense picking up her presence before the sensors do.\n\"He's right,\" The pilot replies. \"I'm picking up one very large, very angry, and very much alive life form in the cave ruins\"\n\"Right, guys.\" Neso, and the rest of the pack ready their weapons as the dropship rises into the air to give itself some distance and keep itself out of attack range. \"It's time to do what we came here to do...\"\n\nThe part of the cliff around the cave begins cracking and breaking... [i]Move back. Move back.[/i] Issac once more before turning around and running. part of the cliff looks like it exploded from within and debris start flying about, this is why Issac was telling them to back away. The sandstorm picks up even more and there is booming laughter coming from where the bandit camp once was.\n\"I'm gonna [b]BURY [/b]you all!~ I don't care anymore, when I'm done here I'm going to [b]MASSACRE[/b] Sandstone! Every last pokémon buried under their precious sand!\" She is there somewhere, seeing her might not be easy but the same can be said for that monstrously powerful Tyranitar, but that's fine for her, she is just going to throw strength around so they need to deal with her before she gets lucky and hits them hard.\n\"This Sandstorm is gonna hurt us, not just prevent us from seeing...Can any of you see through it somehow? This might be our chance to hit her. Hopefully not even a Mega is able to stand against your ordinance or we will be in trouble. Real trouble\"\n\n\"Right. OPEN FIRE!!\" Neso shouts, the avali and Espeon open fire, their hearing impared and sensors are somewhat impaired by the sandstorm however, so not all of the bullets make their mark.\n\"Firing!\" Seph shouts as he unleashes the might of his minigun in the general direction he belives the large beast is in.\n\"Firing!\" The dropship pilot shouts over the intercom, the hiss of a missile can barely be heard over the raging sandstorm as it flies, they cannot see whether they hit their target or not.\n\n[i]Firing. Whatever.[/i] The human opens fire too, using his submachine gun.\nNot all of the shots start off hitting her right away, and the Tyranitar is quick to use this to find out where they are based on the sounds of the gunshots.[b] \"THERE YOU ARE!!\"[/b] Before she could send a wave of sand upon them though, she started getting hit by some of their ordinances, be them bullets or even the missiles from the dropship. There is a roar that is drowned out by the explosions and gunfire.\nEveryone probably had emptied their whole clips in the direction of the enemy, and then the Sandstorm begins to dissipate...\n\nAs the roars and the sandstorm dies down, only a question is on the mind of the pack, and it is Rali that voices it.\n\"Is... Is it over?\"\n\nWhen the sandstorm finally cleared out outright, they could see what remained of the Tyranitar, all those shots and missiles really did a number on them. Though there also seems to be these strange dust particles lingering in the air, they seem to change colors too.\nIssac is here explaining what they are seeing though. [i]\"I guess that was going to happen one way or another. The object that she used to unleash all of that power has been destroyed, reduced to that 'emera dust'. It can still be reformed so it would be prudent to not just leave it there.\"[/i]\n\n\"So... how do we collect it? It's not like we can just grab dust in our talons, and we left our vacuum cleaner at home.\" Neso replies back sarcastically.\n\nThe human stows his weapons on his back and brings out a large plastic bag. No need to worry, I came prepared. Just tell the dropship to land and secure the hostages and I will be back with you shortly. He separates for them to collect that colorful dust lingering in the air near where the Tyranitar was killed, he catches a portion of it in the bag.\n\nNeso nods, and does exactly that, his pack soon leaving for the dropship to leave Issac to his work.\n\nWhen Issac was done collecting the dust in the bag, it was time for the team to go back to base in the dropship, they would need to content with having five others with them, those being the pokémon they rescued from captivity. The team has worked quite a bit today, haven't day? The sun is practically setting right now and it should be night time soon.\n\nOnce Issac returns, the dropship beams him up.\n\"You done now?\" Neso Asks. \"If so, I trust we can get going...\"\n\nHe nods to the Avali. \"Yeah, the Emera dust is secured. Let's return to base and I will hand over the bandits that I captured.\"\nThe dropship takes them back to the Sandgun base to drop the team off to their debriefing, while the mons they have rescued or captured now are going to be the problem of someone else.\n\n[i]\"No, I do not think so, you can never be over prepared to fight Pokémon.\" Issac says. \"Besides, with things like firearms involved, if we are not careful and they get lucky all they need to do is hit you in the head to take you out. Anyways, I suppose you guys can go report to Mattias and the base's commander now, I will just drop off the prisoners.\"[/i]\n\nMattias was pacing back and forth in there, and he was the first to see them come in. \"Ah, you made it back, good.\" He sounds pretty relieved for some reason. \"You didn't notice anything odd on your way back here, right? Earlier I saw something a bit unusual on my end. An aircraft signature popped in for a moment on the radar, I thought it was you flying back to base but it disappeared, then your aircraft signature appeared...\"\n\n\"Eh?\" Neso replies, tilting his head questioningly. \"No, we didn't pick anything up. Why?\n\n\"Hhhmmm, perhaps it was a glitch? possibly.\" The human thinks for a moment and shrugs. \"I just thought it could have been trouble approaching our location. So how did the mission go? Was that powered-up bandit chief dealt with?\"\n\n\"Could be.\" Neso shrugs.\n\"Well, it went well.\" Rali replies to his question. \"We had little to no trouble with the other bandits... the really big one went down a lot easier than expected.\"\n\n\"Hhhmmm. You did made use of everything you had right? Fire support from the airship and even the minigun? I suppose that's the natural outcome of this, i suppose even that saying about iron applies to it...even the strongest and most experienced still fall to it.\" He says. \"Still though, i don't think firearms were just the advantage you had. That one bandit made it very obvious because he could track her to her lair due to the tremors she was causing, and we managed to deal with her before she could settle herself. And while i don't think this might have been her plan, dealing with her might have provided a distraction for the other bandits to act. And unlike her they seem to be far more mindful, i do not know the location of their base and they seem to be mostly operating in places that we can't touch...in or around towns for the most part. They are up to something...\"\n\n\"Well, in our case, the rest of the bandits were either too dead already or were too busy trying to get out of the cave as she collapsed it.\" Neso replies. \n\"Needless to say they did not succeed.\" Rani chimes in. \"We were lucky to get out of there alive ourselves.\"\n\n\"So she went that far trying to kill you?\" Mattias raised a brow for a moment and then nodded. \"Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. You have all done very well today, but right now we need to try to figure out some leads to the other bandit. That means that there won't be any more missions tonight. If anything comes up I shall call upon you and your pack again.\"\n\n\"Pos that.\" Neso briefly gives a small salute, as does the rest of the pack, before they disperse to take some much needed rest after today's adventure.\n\nNeso's pack might be going to rest for now, but that doesn't mean the job is done for the rest of the occupants of the Sandgun base. And things might get more complicated... \n\nRight now it's time for more prisoner questioning to take place, this one with one of the most recently captured ones from today. And Easani is the one who will be doing the questioning this time, they got the Nidorina waiting for him in the interrogation room.\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Act 72: Titanic Raid
Now on the dropship once more, Neso's pack and their tag-along human Isaac. The human took that overbearing coat of his off, now what he has on is that typical armored body-tight suit that seems to be typical to where he is from, but he is also strapped with some ammunition for his guns and also has some sort of small portable device on his right wrist that looks like a pretty long bracelet but it has a touchscreen on it. As for the weapons he is bringing. They do look quite different from Jormar's that for sure. it's a dull yellow and black submachine gun and a shotgun that certainly have a pretty high-tech look to them, they even have small screens with ammo counters. The shotgun sure looks to be the most 'experimental' though, the thing has no less than three laser sights.

It looks like the sun has been setting too, when they arrive there it might be nighttime, it could be a good thing, perhaps the darkness could be useful to get in as close as possible before things start heating up.

"Nice gun you got there." Neso says to Issac, trying to start up some sort of conversation during the ride.

The human looks to Neso, the Avali's words sure got his attention as he wastes no time responding. "Oh, you think so? It isn't made by Jormar but here's hoping that it will prove superior to the submachine guns he makes." If that's the case maybe there's hoping they work as much as they look neat. "The submachine gun has a built-in suppressor and laser sight. It can even fold to be easier to carry."

Neso nods as he listens to Issac explain his gun. "Ours runs on railgun tech. It's not quite spec-ops level.* He says as he holds up his blizzard. "but it'll do."

"Railguns? All of your guns like that? Even that Minigun?" The human asks. "We only have one model of railgun that is a long rifle and it's pretty heavy. And not really capable of automatic fire."

"Yup. You can see for yourself if you like." He holds the gun up for him to see.

"Hhhhmmm. I don't have the eye for this stuff like Jormar, but it does look like it can do what it's supposed to do. Say, what is stopping an enemy from making use of those if they get their hands on them? Do you ID lock your guns too?"

"Definitely." Neso replies.

Issac was more talkative than the last human, that's for sure.
They fly high above the bandit base to avoid being spotted. their landing point was a bit to the west of their target, there is no way they were seen. Now they just need to make a walk towards where the bandit's base is and they are sure to end up right on top of the cliff it is being built into, and from there they will have the high ground to start making their way down. The sun has already set too, maybe the darkness of the night will make it easier to get closer without being seen.

Indeed, they wait till the sun has set to make their way towards the cliff.
"Let's just hope they don't have any psychics or anything else capable of detecting us." Veers, who has yet to pick an espeon name for himself, comments.
"Yeah, we Avali typically have drones and other equipment to nullify the night..." Neso comments back. "... Not that we need it all that much, with our super-hearing and everything."
"Yeah, until the advent of augmentation, we avali were almost as bad with seeing things in the day as most of you guys are at night." Rali comments as well.

The team soon comes across a bit of an unexpected obstacle though. It appears that the bandits had the idea of placing a lookout on top of the cliff armed with a rifle, it's a Persian so thankful it's just a normal type. And since he is supposed to be watching what is going on below that also means he has his back turned to Neso and the others.

"Aaah, bugger." Neso grumbles under his breath. "And we didn't bring silencers."
Seems they didn't have access to them. Guess only the elite squads like Night Witches have those.
He looks to issac.
"You got silencers on those things?"

He holds up his submachine gun, which he had mentioned before that it has built-in suppression. "Yeah. We might need to do something to try to get him away from the ledge though, killing him quietly is one thing but if he falls the pokemon down they are probably going to notice it, yeah?"

"Hmmm... any ideas?"

"Well an idea...Does anyone know any noise that will grab his curiosity rather than alert him and make him step away from where he is?" Issac asks. "Could also sneak up and pull him back but it is a bit more risky. Really makes me wish we could just give him a literal kick in the ass to get that over with."

"That last one... You think you could do that?" Neso asks.

Now he is wishing he didn't add that last sentence because he now finds himself a little confused on what Neso meant. "You mean kick him down the cliff or grab him and pull him back?"

"The latter. The former will probably alert them to our presence. And while it's inevitable that we will have our cover blown at some point, it's best not to throw away the element of surprise just yet."

"Alright, I'm gonna do that. Pray that he doesn't turn around." He reaches his free hand in one of his many pockets to get a small knife before he begins carefully stepping towards the Persian.

The avali nods, they point their weapons up at the mons while hunkering down, ready to open fire upon the unsuspecting mon should something go wrong.

Then he stows his submachine gun on his back before leaping forward to wrap an arm around the pokémon's neck. The feline reacts with surprise and fear and begins struggling. Issac makes him stop by holding the knife to his neck to threaten him. "Don't go trying any shit now. This is Iron. The strongest and most experienced still fall to it." He then pulls the Persian around to get him away from that ledge.

Meanwhile down below, Neso and his pack sees the cat-person being pulled away from the ledge and out of view. "Alright, here's our chance. go!" Neso orders as he waves his talon in a forward motion. The rest of the pack nods, and proceeds forward. They are soon under the base of the watchtower.

As they get there they hear the sound of a crash and the cat-person letting out a pained yell as the human is dealing with him somehow, Issac probably tossed the Persian down against the floor just now.

"Sounds like he's got it under control." He nods to himself.

Issac had slammed the cat face first on the ground before capturing him in one of those 'pokeballs'. Then after that he went to join the others. "cat is having a catnap. So..." He looked down the cliff, noticing the area down there enclosed by a wall of stone that doesn't look like it was built very well, they must have been in a bit of a hurry to make that. There are also those watch towers for other Pokémon armed with rifles to watch for anything coming in the horizon. And there are some tents in the center too, and by the evidence of some of the bandits taking a couple of mons tied up on ropes...it looks like they indeed have some hostages. Those two particular prisoners look like they are being taken for the base they are building in the cliff, who knows why. Are they being used as slave labor? But the more likely answer is that they are most likely going to be 'used' sexually, that's fore sure.
"...You guys ready to rappel down this thing?"

"Yeah, let's get down there and help those poor souls." Neso nods. They take out their own ropes, complete with a large stake on one end. Using a hammer, they quickly, yet quietly pound the steam into the ground. They give a few determined tugs on the ropes to check to see if they are secured. Satisfied with the result, he clasps the other end of it to himself, as do the others. except seph, who is way too heavy for this. Instead, he ducks onto the ground wrapping his arms around his knees and curling himself into a ball, and, rather quickly, his form begins to shift from a makeshift ball into a round, albeit spikey one. It seems he has chosen to use the spike sphere tech instead of grappling.

"All of you can turn into balls, right?" Issac also connects his own rope to that stake before clipping the other end of it to the back of his belt. "Let's go wreck some bandits now." He stepped down unto the cliff wall, with the rope keeping him suspended horizontally he can simply walk down just like Neso and the others, except Seph of course.

"Well, yeah. Though only he has the spike sphere active. Plus, you're rather vulnerable when your like that." Neso explains as he and the rest of the pack follow. Except for Veers at first, who looks a little worried, takes a deep breath, and a few seconds later follows suit. "If we're like this and they notice us, we can shoot back. Seph... has to get out of that form and hit the ground."

"Can he fall down from this height with no trouble or is that a little too much? If they see us I'm going to call down smoke as soon as possible."

"Na. he can actually jump down just fine. He probably just didn't want to attract unwanted attention."

"Right. Well let's start heading down then..."

They start down, repelling down the cliff face, so far so good, without incident.

They went down some meters before one the bandits down there spotted them. Which in turn led to that bandit warning the others about intruders coming down the cliff towards them. Soon enough Neso's team have to contend with gun fire coming from below, trying to hit them.
"Shit, here it comes." Issac fired off a few bursts from his submachine gun down at the bandits, he didn't hit anyone though. Then he stopped shooting and began accessing an interface he has on the bracelet on his wrist.

"Shit!" Neso yells. While still holding onto the rope with one hand, he takes his gun from his sling in one hand, and aims it down below at the gaggle of mons shooting back. Bursts of blue flames erupt from the end of his sub mg as he fires down below.
His comrades, sans for Seph, quickly do the same, pulling their guns out and doing the same.

As they are firing one handed, and from sub-optimal range however, their bullets do not hit their mark. Hopefully it is enough to at least suppress the bandits below as Seph quickly shifts out of his ball form, and falls onto the scene below, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process...

The pokémon bandits noticed that one of their targets seemed to have fallen down hard and kicked up a dust cloud. They believe whoever it is must have been shot and killed so they keep focusing their attention on the enemies that are still up on the cliff.
Issac inputted a code into his bracelet and from the bottom of it pops out a small throwing disk with a red light in the middle. He also took a bullet to one of his thighs but that didn't interrupt him. "Took a slight hit." He took the disk with his other hand and simply tossed it toward the enemy camp, trying to make sure it landed in the center as much as possible. "Here come some artillery smoke shells...any second now."

Wanting to save his ammunition for the primary target, Seph instead takes out his hammer, using the dust cloud as cover, and whacks one right in the head, easily caving in the skull of one of the bandits. He wastes no time, and runs to the other one, this time delivering a blow to the stomach, sending the bandit flying at high speed into the air, and straight into the cliff wall, causing the beast to splatter against the wall.

Panic begins spreading amongst the bandits when they notice one of their own getting their head carved in, and then another going 'splat' on the cliff wall. Such a brutal display makes most of them focus on Seph in an effort to take him down before he gets too close.
And on top of that the fire support that was ordered arrives. There is that telltale whistling in the air getting louder by the second as artillery shells come down from the sky, impacting the ground and detonating their payload of smoke which pretty much covers the whole enclosure is sure to prevent the bandits from judging effectively, be it at Seph or everyone still up on the cliff wall.
"We should probably go down fast while they can't shoot us." Issac advises Neso and the others.

Neso agress, and, with the distractions taking the heat off of them, puts his gun back in his sling, undoes his harness and, using his wings as a sort of parachute, glides down to the ground. The rest of his pack soon follows suit, with the sole exception of Veers, who looks around and sees them gliding down.
"G... Guys, wait up!" He yells, as he tries to get down off the cliff faster.

Issac, like Veers, also has no quick way to go down the cliff so quickly. He makes an effort to start hurrying down as well. "I guess it's just us for now, kid. Let's get down there before they get all the work done."

Veers nods, and hurrys on down, trying to join his comrades in the fight. Meanwhile, said group hits the ground softly. They waste not a millisecond, and take out their weapons and begin to fire upon the bandits.

Although firing upon the bandits right now might be a bit more than hard because of the smoke that blanketing pretty much the entire enclosure, that is however if the Avali are needing to use their eyes, surely their ears are not affected by the visual obstruction. There is still quite a bit of weapons fire around, the bandits must be firing blindly hoping they can hit something in all this smoke.
Veers and Issac got down undo the thick smoke, and then they got to the bottom of the cliff and could detach their ropes to join in on the shootout.
"Well, here we are."
A Flygon comes into their view, he is stumbling around confused, not knowing where the enemy is in all this smoke. And he has one of those old AK rifles on his hands too so he is certainly an enemy. Then he took notice of this Espeon and this other strange creature.
They might need to act first before this one bandit gets the chance to shoot them.

"Take him out!" Neso orders upon seeing the Flygon.
The others nod, and raise their weapons. Though before they can even fire, Seph quickly leaps behind the confused flygon, and whacks him in the head with the 'tip' of his hammer, not hard enough to kill, but hopefully enough to knock him out.

The human watched as the Flygon dropped his weapon before falling to the ground unconscious. "I'm surprised you didn't turn him into another stain on the cliff. Is the last one out here?"

"Didn't feel like it." Seph simply shrugs as he puts his hammer away.
"I'm not hearing anything." Neso says. "Not out here anyway..."
"I'm not sensing anything out here." Veers add in with a few pants, having rejoined his companions. "Though...." He looks inside. He doesn't get the word out before Rali joins in.
"Yeah, I hear it too..." she nods sadly.
They refer of course, to the sound and misery of slaves inside the base.

"Careful, the ones inside surely heard everything going on outside."
Sure enough when they step in front of the entrance of the base, some bullets fly past them. Turns out the bandits have started taking defensive positions in there, there are even a couple of small trenches that seem to have been built for them to take cover. Some Geodude and Krokorok armed with pistols and submachine guns are what they are going to have to be dealing with next.
Things might only get harder from here on out...

The avali pack quickly looks for cover.

The only cover where they are is the entranceway, they can take cover in the corners. They will have to pop out of cover to fire back at the pokémon thought, and with them aiming their guns at entrance just waiting for them to pop out...suffice to say it is a bit risky.
Issac tries to think of what they can do next. "Well, we could throw something that explodes at them. Actually, Seph, since you are made of space alloy and have a big gun, you think you can take their gunfire while suppressing them?"

Seph nods. He was saving the minigun for the big one, but then again, the reason he'd brought it along over the railgun is just in case he needed to use it against lighter targets too. He takes out his huge minigun, steps out from the shadows, a few loud pings and bangs coming off from his armored carapace as bullets grace and ricochet from hitting him.
"I AM BULLET PROOOOOOOOOOFFF!!" He yells as he fires the minigun onto the trenches of the defending mons, spraying it with suppressing fire.

A Krokorok that didn't get down on time has its head turned into fine mist by the minigun, the rest of the pokémon ducked for cover and are now suppressed. They won't dare to pop their heads back up so soon against such a show of firepower. Suffice to say they are panicking now.
"Just like that." The human decides to ponder on Seph's one-liner later as he grabs the chance to rush at the trench that is to the right. He is firing his submachine gun at it too, but it's mostly to keep the enemy discouraged from firing back with bullets flying over their heads.

Now that both the human and the giant machine snake are pinning down the enemy, Veers reaches into his coat and grabs a grenade. He pulls it out, and, after pulling the pin, leans off and gives it a toss into the trench.

The grenade bounced on the edge of the trench and fell right in, landing on the head of a Geodude and then between him and a Krokorok?
"What is that?!" One of them asked as he looked at the object that just got tossed in there. The pokemon keeping their heads down for their lives can not quite identify what this object is, so they just stare at it dumbfounded until it explodes in their faces and kills whoever else was near them.
Issac then jumped into one of the trenches, getting his shotgun from his back and turning on it's triple laser sights which sort of makes an upside down triangle with the dots at whatever it is aiming at. "Get blasted, motherfuckers." In this case it is another Geodude, since it is just a floating rock with arms, it's body got blasted to bits of rock and the only things that were still whole were the arms.

"Pos that. Let's go." Neso turns and nods towards his group, who nod back and they come out from their hiding spot in the corner and make their way deeper into the base, guns at the ready.

They start heading down a corridor that is sort of dark, it is particularly dark above them too. There are no hostiles straight ahead but the Avali are able to hear heartbeats...coming from above the group.

Neso looks up, followed by the others.

The human didn't quite understand why they stopped though. "What?"
Some pebbles and dust fell from above...and then down came a Purrloin with a sharpened piece of flint. The cat lets out a battlecry as he tries to stab one of the Avali with his makeshift weapon as he comes down on them.

"Woah!!" Rali leaps out of the way just in time, the flint weapon barely misses her. The others turn and ready their weapons, ready to pump the purrloin full of lead in a second.

Still thinking he has the element of surprise on his side, the feline goes for another attempt at stabbing one of them, his next target being Eili.
Another Pokémon leaps down from above though, this time it's a Houndour with a dagger. This one is coming to attack in a similar manner to that of the cat.
Issac processed what was going on, and tried to blast the other dark-type pokemon with his shotgun, as misfortune would have it the dog jumped out of the way at the last moment, so he missed. Before he could successfully pump another shell into the chamber the Houndour managed to thrust the blade right into the man's lower abdomen! "Moootherfuckeeeerrr" His text-to-speech can not express how much that hurt. He then uses his gun as an improvised bludgeon to shove away the pokémon who stuck a knife in him.

Being way too close to using the minigun effectively, Seph instead opts for a more direct approach, he makes a grab for the houndoor's neck.
Meanwhile, Eilli likewise dodges out of the way. With all their weapons trained on the Purloin, they open fire, riddling the poor mon full of holes from just about every direction point blank, blood splattering from the shots.

The Houndoor struggles in the Synth's grip. He still has his dagger in his hand, still soaked in the human's blood, he tries to stab at the Seph's arms to get him to let go.
Meanwhile the Purrloin let a welp when he saw that he missed his other attack, he realizes how screwed he is but it's too late for him to try anything else as the bullets start piercing his body getting holes pierced through his body from the multiple projectiles hitting him, he was dead before he even hit the ground.
That's...another injury on Issac, he realizes that they might get slightly detrimental, at least nothing fatal has been struck. The thing he is wearing is more designed to handle bullets on vital points like the center of his chest and limbs, that's why he didn't complain much about that bullet he took but that stab was definitely a bit more serious.

The iron blade grazes off the synth's arm. Nonetheless, Seph growls, and throws the mutt hard against the wall as hard as he can before turning his attention back to the others.
"Everyone alright?" Seph asks.
"Pos." Neso, Rali, and Eili respond in kind. "Yeah." Veers replies as well. They all look to Issac

There is an audible CRACK! when the canine pokémon slammed again against the wall, and a smear of blood was left where his head hit, suffice to say that must have caused fatal head injury for sure.
Issac noticed that all eyes are on him now. "Kind of bleeding here."

Rali takes out a bandage, and carefully takes Issac's arm in her own and wraps it up. She takes out a small syringe, and injects the fluid into his arm just above the wound.
"Bit of a pain killer. That should suffice for now." She tells him.

He flinched a little when the needle pierced his kin. But it looks like Rali did a good job in taking care of his wound. "Oh, I see. I won't be feeling this for a while then." He puts more shells in his shotgun to make sure it is topped off on ammunition.
Now they can start moving further into this place, perhaps they should keep their eyes open for trouble like these mons that tried to ambush them with flint and iron.

"Keep an eye out for those slaves" Neso orders as they proceed.

Going deeper down, the team finds themselves in a spacious room, there are few tables and chairs made of stone around the center. On one side there is some sort of kitchen, there is also something noteworthy there...a slab of stone used as a table, it has dried blood on it...
Furthermore the room is not devoid of presence. There are more enemies hiding behind whatever cover they use here. And there is also those two slaves they were looking for. One of them, a Bunnelby, is tied and gagged on that meat cutting table in the kitchen, thankfully it looks like they haven't started butchering him yet. The other one is an Aipom that is tied upside down to a pole, left hanging there...though she seems to be alive too. So it appears that these bandits are also doing the illegal act of creating 'meat' to be eaten..

"By the Nexus..." Neso responds to the bloody scene in front of him. Suddenly his ears perk.
"We got-"
"way ahead of you chief." Rani finishes as she zeros in on a nearby overturned table, aiming her weapon down. Veers likewise senses a hostile presence, and aims his own at it.


The human wisely decides to take cover with them too.
These hostile presences are coming from another overturned table, hiding behind it was a Nickit and a Torracat armed with AKs, they pop up from their cover to and open fire in the direction of their enemies. There are also some other hostiles around to worry about too, it's not just these two.

The Avali and Espeon take cover, the bullets flying all over in the cave and bouncing off the walls, one of them narrowly missing the Aipom on the pole.
They wait for a small lul in the fire for one of them to reload, get ready to shoot back.

The tied up pokémon screams in panic when she almost got hit by that stray bullet.
Issac noticed a Zorua to their left coming out of cover to try to shoot them, he pointed his shotgun at him and fired before he did but he couldn't hit that fox.
Meanwhile the Nickit begins trying to go around out in the open for a flanking maneuver while the Torracat is still keeping up suppressive fire on the Avali...at least until his magazine runs dry.

Unfortunately for the Nicket, Veers notices it out of the corner of his eye.
"No you don't!" He yells while shifting his sub mg towards it, and opening fire.
Once the Torracat is out of ammo, Neso pops up, and returns fire, hopefully taking him out before he gets the chance to reload for another round.

The Nickit was very out in the open and had no chance to defend himself from the bullets, so Veers managed to shoot him down by riddling his body with bullets.
Issac fired two more times and stopped on the third, trying to bait the Zorua into thinking that he was out of shots...and it worked. He was able to turn the other fox's face into a mess with the next shell he fired off.
Neso managed to nail the Torracat in the chest with a shot, making him scream in pain and fall back down unto his cover. That might not have been enough to kill him though, but it is unknown if he is out of action yet.

Neso nods to his pack, and with his talon motions forward. Rali and Eili nod back in return. Veers trains his gun on where the Torracat went down, while Neso, Rali, and Eili advance upon the bandit's position, coming at it from three different directions.

Issac looks towards the rest of the dining area, making sure that it is clear and no one else will be popping out.
They can hear the Torracat groaning in a lot of pain, but he picks his gun back up only to notice that he is being flanked from one side, the one Eili is coming from. When he noticed the Avali coming he looked like he was going to try shooting her, not having seen the others coming in from the other two sides.
There is also something crawling around the kitchen. It looks like a sky-blue mammalian Pokémon with dark-blue patches. She is holding a dagger but it looks like she is trying to get away from all the fighting.

"Drop it, cat." Neso orders as he comes over the front, his, Eili, and Rali's guns all pointed at him. "Raise your gun and you're dead."
Rali's ears twich from hearing the other thing crawling around. with their gun still trained on the cat, she slowly turns her head towards the source of the noise. "We got something else here." She says.

"D-damn you..." The Torracat drops his AK and raises his hand, or at least one of them, doesn't look like he can quite hold up the other one.
That other presence here with them is a Nidorina, she is crawling towards those two prisoners in the kitchen.
"Stop or I will shoot you." Issac trains his shotgun on her and demands that she doesn't move.
The pokémon stopped in her tracks and looked back at them.

"Good catch, Issac." Neso replies without even looking in that direction.

Issac decides to begin questioning this Nidorina. "What's with these two hostages?"
She glares up at him. "Well if it isn't obvious...they were going to be turned into meat."
But not anymore, so those two pokémon that are tied up can breathe a mutual sigh of relief.

Neso nods to Rali, who puts her gun over her shoulder, and takes out a large knife and heads over to the table where the Bunnelby is still tied up.

"So you bandits eat meat then? You are all sick." Issac stated.
The Nidorina growled a little at Rali. "Heavens no! We don't dabble on that shit!" She sighs. "Not all of us at least...You should know that there are some people in towns that really have a thing for meat of pokémons, specially now that it's harder to obtain, so we sell it at a premium by getting it past the eyes of the guards at the entrances" She explained.
The rabbit tied down to the stone stable got visibly nervous and the Avali began approaching him with that large knife. She is here to free him, yes but he almost had to deal with a very similar situation which would end with his flesh being cut rather than the ropes tying him down.

"I'd ask for names, but that's a little above my paygrade." Neso growls in return to the Nidorina.
"And you didn't even have the common decency to kill them first." Eili growls. "We should plug this bitch and-"
"Eili, no." Neso replies to her. "Command will want a few bandits for interrogation."
"Shh shh, calm down bunny. I'm here to get you out." Rali tells him as she gets to work cutting the straps tying him to the table, one by one.

"I-I know where most of the prisoners are going to." The Nidorina let out, trying to convince them not to kill her by saying that she knows something they might want to know.
"So this is not the primary reason why you captured these pokémon?" Issac asks.
"No." She answers. "Meat smuggling gives some good profit on the side but for obvious reasons we need to keep it going slow and irregular so the so called 'Republic' doesn't get wind of it. And the meat needs to be shipping as soon as possible before it starts going bad..."
When that rabbit pokémon was freed he rolled out of the table and onto the ground before taking off the gag covering his mouth. "O-oh gods...i thought i was going to die...!"

"We get the picture." Neso growls a bit as he interrupts her. "Once we square these two away, you will show us where the rest of the prisoners are kept. Understand?"
"Shh-shh." Rali hushes the bunny down, not wanting the bunny to attract too much attention, as they still don't know who else is running around here. "Make your way out of the cave, and our dropship will pick you up and take you back to base for debriefing."

"We haven't gotten to building 'prison', or well...more of a cage, yet." The Nidorina says to them. "You so they are still all being kept in a tent outside...you must have missed it somehow."
"Drop...ship?" The Pokémon that was rescued doesn't quite understand what the Avali means with that.
"It will get you out of here, trust us okay?" Issac said to the rabbit. "You can't miss it, just look up when you are outside."

"Oh..." Neso feels a bit embarrassed now. They had simply assumed they'd keep the prisoners inside of the base itself somewhere as it was probably the most secure, not outside in a tent somewhere.
"But... if they're all in a tent and not a cage, what's keeping them from running off?"
"Yeah, what the robot man said." Rali confirms.

"There weren't any plans to hold on to them for long, or at least for us to hold on to them for long since we don't have prison yet. So instead we keep them tied together with someone watching over them to make sure they don't run away." The Nidorina then looks to the pokémon that they have freed now. "Those two just drew the short straw and were to become food to be smuggled. There are sick fucks out there that believe that eating the meat from pokémon can make them stronger, can you believe the things the superstitious ones come with sometimes?" She then shrugs. "It's total rubbish to me, but hey, it brings good poké..."
"Where were the prisoners being sent to then? Do you know that?" Issac asks her this now.
"Oh, I might..." She glares up at him. "But I'm not gonna tell you until I know for sure you won't just kill me as soon as I say it..."
Given that right now they don't have time to force the answer they want out of her..."Fair enough."

At the same time, Rali has shifted focus on the monkey hanging on the pole. She cuts the ropes binding the upside-down Aipom. "Watch the drop." She warns as she cuts the last rope.

The Aipon drops down to the ground with a thud. She is alright though. "T-thank you for freeing us. I thought we were going to die for sure..." The simian pokémon is grateful for the rescue. She and the Bunnelby start making their way out of here.
"Okay now, you meat chef, you are going to get down on the floor." The human commands the Nidorina.
"Why? You are not going to kill me are you? You still need me after all..." She starts getting a little bit nervous.
"I'm just going to tie you up." It's kind of a lie because there is going to be no tying involved but is going to apprehend her.

"If we were going to kill you, we would have just done it already." Neso grumbles in response to the Nidorina's question.

"Just lie down and curl up into a ball. Now."
She doesn't know how they plan to tie her like this, but she complies and lies down on the floor in front of them. It made it easier when Issac stuck her in a pokeball for easier transportation.
The Avali can hear the sound of something...mechanical? It's faint and it's above them. It's another one of those spherical camera drones that seems to want to spy on them again...

"I am still not very comfortable with that." Veers admits as he sees the mon simply disappear into the ball.
"Yeah." Rali replies. "I shudder to think what could happen if they modified those to catch avali."
Neso notices the sphere. But rather than spook the sphere and/or whoever's on the controlling end of it, he simply sends a DM to Issac via his built-in augments.
Issac, I don't mean to alarm you, but it's another one of those weird drones. Do we take it out here, or try to catch it intact?

Issac stood there for a moment, reading the message before turning to Neso. "If we bring it back we might as well be telling them where Sandgun is, just blast it."

Good point.
Neso slowly reaches for his gun. Once he's halfway to it however, he rapidly grabs it, turns towards his target, and opens fire.
"Woah!" Veers shouts, having neither heard nor sensed the drone himself, having been taken completely by surprise by Neso's sudden bout of violence.

As the broken drone sputters to the ground, Issac speaks. "For the record, pokéballs only work on pokémon. I wouldn't know how to fit Avali or you other people from the stars in these, I don't know if it's possible and I'm not really a scientist. Also these are heavily outlawed where I am from." He picks up the Pokéball to store it.

"I can see why," Rali replies.
"Well." Neso gets the attention of the rest of the pack. "As much as we'd probably like to go back to free the prisoners, we'll have to press on. We cannot afford to let our enemies regroup and reinforce their position further down the cave anymore than we already have."

"Yeah, let's keep going, there might now be much further for us to go in now i suppo-."
"Well well well...looks like these 'gun' things weren't enough to stop you huh?!" They hear a overbearing female voice talk to them, however the source of it is not in this room with them, looks like it's coming from deeper within this cavern base. "Just who do you think coming in here unannounced and killing my man?!"
"...Okay i think that's the big bad boss lady."

"Ya think?" Neso replies back sarcastically. "

"You think you can leave here alive after what you did?!" Now the unseen pokémon sounds both angry and confident. "You have no idea of the power that has been granted to me...I thought these 'guns' were good but I was given something that made me even stronger!~" She then begins laughing. "It's a shame you had to come in here and ruin my plans to build my palace...no matter, I can always find more fools to worship me, the goddess of destruction! HAHAHHAHAHAHA!~"
"Well, i suppose it would be expected for that power to send her off the deep end like this." Issac commented. "We should probably get ready to run though, if really intents to bury us, it might mean bringing this place down on us."

"Right!" Neso and the rest of the pack shout in response, getting ready to run at a moment's notice.

After she is done laughing she lets out a roar, and everything starts to shake. Just like clockwork...
Issac looks up, noticing that the ceiling above them is about to crack. What's more he and the others can also hear that the Tyranitar is coming their way, as the earthquaking only gets worse. He just has one word on what they should be doing now. "Run" The human is already bolting back the way they came, they need to get out of here fast...

The avali waste no time, double-timing it back outside along with the human, as the quakes and roaring grow ever more and more intense.
"Dropship!" Neso yells over his equipment, "We've encountered Big Mama, and we are double-timing it back outside to regroup, get ready with that fire-support!"
Roger Pack 1 The response comes over their built-in radios. Dropship is already outside, we've picked up the two you freed earlier. Arming weaponry, and getting ready to fire upon command.
"You'll know the target when you see it, you can't miss it."
Another roar comes from behind him.
"No, literally, you can't miss it, it is BIG."

They room they all just left quickly collapsed, and they had to keep running, having to go fast but being careful not trip on the corpses of the bandits that they killed. The Torracat that they had with them tried to follow but he didn't have much luck in getting out alive. They managed to get out of there as the cave collapsed behind them. That's strange though, the Tyranitar also brought the whole place down on herself? It would appear that the Aipom and the Bunnelby also took the time to free the other prisoners while they were escaping, so there are both of them and about four other pokémon with them already in the dropship.

Neso and his pack make it just outside handily, and turn around, ready to make their stand with the dropship behind them. Seph readies his minigun, he begins to spin up the barrel in preparation to fire the minute the Tyanitar shows her head...  when the cave collapses. They all watch in disbelief as the
"Did..." Neso says in disbelief, "did she just... Terminate herself?"
"Let me check." The pilot responds, while scanning for a signature.
Veers meanwhile also tries to use his psychic power to check for any sort of signature.
"I sure hope no other unfortunates were in there." Rali adds in while they check.

Issac is with his guard up, rightfully so as things begin quaking, and it's only getting worse. The human then frantically points to the former prisoners of the bandits. "Move them back further, the cliff is going to blow." Maybe they should probably get some distance from it as well too.
There is sandstorm brewing as well...might make it difficult for air support to help them.

"She's still alive!" Veers suddenly yells, his psychic sense picking up her presence before the sensors do.
"He's right," The pilot replies. "I'm picking up one very large, very angry, and very much alive life form in the cave ruins"
"Right, guys." Neso, and the rest of the pack ready their weapons as the dropship rises into the air to give itself some distance and keep itself out of attack range. "It's time to do what we came here to do..."

The part of the cliff around the cave begins cracking and breaking... Move back. Move back. Issac once more before turning around and running. part of the cliff looks like it exploded from within and debris start flying about, this is why Issac was telling them to back away. The sandstorm picks up even more and there is booming laughter coming from where the bandit camp once was.
"I'm gonna BURY you all!~ I don't care anymore, when I'm done here I'm going to MASSACRE Sandstone! Every last pokémon buried under their precious sand!" She is there somewhere, seeing her might not be easy but the same can be said for that monstrously powerful Tyranitar, but that's fine for her, she is just going to throw strength around so they need to deal with her before she gets lucky and hits them hard.
"This Sandstorm is gonna hurt us, not just prevent us from seeing...Can any of you see through it somehow? This might be our chance to hit her. Hopefully not even a Mega is able to stand against your ordinance or we will be in trouble. Real trouble"

"Right. OPEN FIRE!!" Neso shouts, the avali and Espeon open fire, their hearing impared and sensors are somewhat impaired by the sandstorm however, so not all of the bullets make their mark.
"Firing!" Seph shouts as he unleashes the might of his minigun in the general direction he belives the large beast is in.
"Firing!" The dropship pilot shouts over the intercom, the hiss of a missile can barely be heard over the raging sandstorm as it flies, they cannot see whether they hit their target or not.

Firing. Whatever. The human opens fire too, using his submachine gun.
Not all of the shots start off hitting her right away, and the Tyranitar is quick to use this to find out where they are based on the sounds of the gunshots. "THERE YOU ARE!!" Before she could send a wave of sand upon them though, she started getting hit by some of their ordinances, be them bullets or even the missiles from the dropship. There is a roar that is drowned out by the explosions and gunfire.
Everyone probably had emptied their whole clips in the direction of the enemy, and then the Sandstorm begins to dissipate...

As the roars and the sandstorm dies down, only a question is on the mind of the pack, and it is Rali that voices it.
"Is... Is it over?"

When the sandstorm finally cleared out outright, they could see what remained of the Tyranitar, all those shots and missiles really did a number on them. Though there also seems to be these strange dust particles lingering in the air, they seem to change colors too.
Issac is here explaining what they are seeing though. "I guess that was going to happen one way or another. The object that she used to unleash all of that power has been destroyed, reduced to that 'emera dust'. It can still be reformed so it would be prudent to not just leave it there."

"So... how do we collect it? It's not like we can just grab dust in our talons, and we left our vacuum cleaner at home." Neso replies back sarcastically.

The human stows his weapons on his back and brings out a large plastic bag. No need to worry, I came prepared. Just tell the dropship to land and secure the hostages and I will be back with you shortly. He separates for them to collect that colorful dust lingering in the air near where the Tyranitar was killed, he catches a portion of it in the bag.

Neso nods, and does exactly that, his pack soon leaving for the dropship to leave Issac to his work.

When Issac was done collecting the dust in the bag, it was time for the team to go back to base in the dropship, they would need to content with having five others with them, those being the pokémon they rescued from captivity. The team has worked quite a bit today, haven't day? The sun is practically setting right now and it should be night time soon.

Once Issac returns, the dropship beams him up.
"You done now?" Neso Asks. "If so, I trust we can get going..."

He nods to the Avali. "Yeah, the Emera dust is secured. Let's return to base and I will hand over the bandits that I captured."
The dropship takes them back to the Sandgun base to drop the team off to their debriefing, while the mons they have rescued or captured now are going to be the problem of someone else.

"No, I do not think so, you can never be over prepared to fight Pokémon." Issac says. "Besides, with things like firearms involved, if we are not careful and they get lucky all they need to do is hit you in the head to take you out. Anyways, I suppose you guys can go report to Mattias and the base's commander now, I will just drop off the prisoners."

Mattias was pacing back and forth in there, and he was the first to see them come in. "Ah, you made it back, good." He sounds pretty relieved for some reason. "You didn't notice anything odd on your way back here, right? Earlier I saw something a bit unusual on my end. An aircraft signature popped in for a moment on the radar, I thought it was you flying back to base but it disappeared, then your aircraft signature appeared..."

"Eh?" Neso replies, tilting his head questioningly. "No, we didn't pick anything up. Why?

"Hhhmmm, perhaps it was a glitch? possibly." The human thinks for a moment and shrugs. "I just thought it could have been trouble approaching our location. So how did the mission go? Was that powered-up bandit chief dealt with?"

"Could be." Neso shrugs.
"Well, it went well." Rali replies to his question. "We had little to no trouble with the other bandits... the really big one went down a lot easier than expected."

"Hhhmmm. You did made use of everything you had right? Fire support from the airship and even the minigun? I suppose that's the natural outcome of this, i suppose even that saying about iron applies to it...even the strongest and most experienced still fall to it." He says. "Still though, i don't think firearms were just the advantage you had. That one bandit made it very obvious because he could track her to her lair due to the tremors she was causing, and we managed to deal with her before she could settle herself. And while i don't think this might have been her plan, dealing with her might have provided a distraction for the other bandits to act. And unlike her they seem to be far more mindful, i do not know the location of their base and they seem to be mostly operating in places that we can't touch...in or around towns for the most part. They are up to something..."

"Well, in our case, the rest of the bandits were either too dead already or were too busy trying to get out of the cave as she collapsed it." Neso replies.
"Needless to say they did not succeed." Rani chimes in. "We were lucky to get out of there alive ourselves."

"So she went that far trying to kill you?" Mattias raised a brow for a moment and then nodded. "Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. You have all done very well today, but right now we need to try to figure out some leads to the other bandit. That means that there won't be any more missions tonight. If anything comes up I shall call upon you and your pack again."

"Pos that." Neso briefly gives a small salute, as does the rest of the pack, before they disperse to take some much needed rest after today's adventure.

Neso's pack might be going to rest for now, but that doesn't mean the job is done for the rest of the occupants of the Sandgun base. And things might get more complicated...

Right now it's time for more prisoner questioning to take place, this one with one of the most recently captured ones from today. And Easani is the one who will be doing the questioning this time, they got the Nidorina waiting for him in the interrogation room.
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