An Old World, A New Regime

Chapters

1: The Beginning of the End
3: Triple the Excitement
2: Double the Action

1: The Beginning of the End

THE FOLLOWING FANFICTION HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR
APPROPRIATE AUDIENCES
BY THE BOGUSFAKE STORY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, CO.

THE STORY ADVERTISED HAS BEEN RATED
M| Mature
FOR DRUG USE, LANGUAGE, SEXUAL CONTENT
AND SEQUENCES OF INTENSE FANTASY VIOLENCE
(which is ironic because Pokémon has all these things and is still rated E)

Chapter One: The Beginning of the End

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear." - Rosa Parks

(--o--)

"I'm gonna kill him."

Soft, labored footfalls made their way up the mountain. Their owner stumbled now and again, half due to exhaustion and half due to the occasional earthquake - it was as though the world itself was a pinball machine, and someone was trying to see how many times they could tilt it before the board shut them out.

In a world where humanity has been left behind...

"I swear... I swear by his name that he'll answer for this."

He could see it now: the top, barren of the sparse remains of what used to be ruins. His vision blurred as he staggered, and just barely managed to keep himself from falling over again. His clothes were worn and tattered, speaking not only of an arduous journey but of the battles fought along the way.

Where the forces of good have been taken, the forces of evil left to rule...

"They'll all pay."

His voice was angry. But it was directed anger, both hot and cold. The blue core drove him forwards, while the red tried and failed to achieve its objective - not that it stopped him. And as the candle - his body - degraded to keep that flame alit, the wick of his soul made sure the flame burned just cold enough to last much longer than one might think.

...the Resistance finds itself poised on the delicate brink of change.

"Leaving us behind..."

Another earthquake juddered its way up the mountain, and the man stood his ground to gather his breath. When the shaking subsided he continued, and after what felt like hours he finally reached the summit. There were ruins here, and the past tense was important: now, all that remained of what once were ruins was a crumbling rectangular depression.

Something big was about to happen, something that would shake the world to its core.

"Why that mother f-"

The man brought a palm up to his head, and slowly removed his hat. He then brought it up to his mouth, and stuffed it in to help muffle the results of him rearing back and screaming his displeasure.

But which world would it be? An old world, under a new regime... or a new world, one which - even now - faces threats its leaders aren't even aware of?

Who was to blame for such a reaction? Arceus, that's who. He is the one at fault.

Soon, the very heavens would tremble with forces the likes of which no one had ever seen before. Which no one, not even the Gods themselves, could predict.

What? Oh no, you heard him. Past all the swears, and the hat he recently vowed to eat, he was cursing the Creator's name up and down.

And one young man, the one who started it all, held the key. But the key to what?

(--o--)

My name is Jonah. I'm a human. Male, age... 20, I believe? The days have gone by so quickly that I've lost track, and given the state of the world, I guess I can be excused for not finding any reason to celebrate another year of still being alive.

Six years ago, roughly, I received a Torchic as my starter Pokémon. I was fourteen, four years late because I had been pursuing higher education at the time. When Professor Birch came to town, my friends urged me to go and see the world - and given my lust for adventure, to see the sights and to unravel the world's mysteries, I eventually gave in. Somehow, this resulted in me successfully being given one of Hoenn's Fire-type starters.

Together, Corignis and I grew and journeyed, both taking the league challenge and seeing the world's most exotic places. As my team grew, so did my knowledge and my ambitions. I became embroiled with the struggle to grow smarter rather than stronger, even though my team and I were some of the strongest contenders - by the time I had all eight gym badges, I might've had my own following if I wasn't so busy trying to figure out the secrets I had stumbled upon.

Arceus' Plates and the Azure Flute. I only had two of the former, and the latter was a gift from a chick whose name I won't mention. Bad memories. Point being, I had no idea what the Plates were until after word got around that this kid, this... 'Ash Ketchum' saved the world from an angry Arceus.

Was I a skeptic? Yeah. It was a massive rumor that circulated for who knows what reason, and which had eventually been proven to be an enormous hoax, but it was still the catalyst that pushed me in the right direction. My Team and I went to Sinnoh, and we found the rest of the Plates, learning of the creation myths and researching the effect the plates had on individual Pokémon - my Team, mainly. And with that came an idea.

Arceus was a Pokémon too, right? And people have caught Legendaries before, right? That weirdo with no real name from the Sinnoh League Conference, for example - he waited until the very last 'mon he could send out before surprising everyone by showing off his Latios. I had no idea how to fight the speed and invisibility, not quickly enough to prevent my team from getting knocked clean out. I thought I came close, though, or at least I'd like to think so - I knew I wasn't anywhere near that level of strength, but I believed that eventually I could be.

Eventually I worked my way up to the top of Spear Pillar, plan in mind and with the power of my Team to back me up. I gathered the Plates, gave them to my Pokémon in hopes of giving them power on par with Arceus himself, and I freed the Ancient One from his prison.

And then I got to watch the world burn.

I was teleported home with my Team, unaware of just what Arceus pulling the God Card meant until I woke up to find my aunt was missing. The townsfolk, my friends that I grew up with, were nowhere to be found. And the Legendaries were gone too. I called out, searching for something, anything that would prove that I wasn't terrifyingly alone.

But nobody came.

The forces of good were all but entirely gone, both human and Pokémon.

The only ones left on the planet, after the mass Exodus out of nowhere, were those who didn't fit Arceus' parameters for travel, and those who had otherwise escaped Arceus' eye - some being locked in Pokéballs, some floating around in the PC System, some otherwise overlooked for whatever reason.

Like my Team and I, somehow. Or at least, the ones I still had access to. A distressingly few dozen that I pulled out of the PC and sent out all at once, just in time to somehow avoid Plasma nicking them all.

I didn't know this was Arceus' fault at the time, mind, but I had an inkling. He was a kid, he was a squid - dammit, now that song was in my head for some reason. Sorry. Point being, the only possible thing that could've caused the nightmare that was my new reality was my summoning of God Pony.

Most of those that remained, I soon discovered, were those that were 'too far gone.' Most were considered evil. And as most of the good humans, the powerful forces that kept evil in check, were now absent... it didn't take much for the entirety of the world to descend into anarchy.

Most of the world is run out of Orre, now, as Cipher had the resources and the technology to build an army. Ghetsis' plan came to fruition, and Plasma seized the entirety of the PC network - except the bits knocked offline by the shift, which they had to manually capture. Rocket became the mob they were always trying to be, and took their place at the top of the social and economical ladder. But in a strange twist of fate, Aqua and Magma united with the remnants of the League to form the Resistance. Searching for solutions, for their scions of primal authority, for alternate universes. For the ability to move things, like the giant meteor travelling towards Earth, with Mega Evolution energy - the giant research bunker managed to shelter all of its inhabitants from Arceus' eye too, since it was built by a very paranoid scientist that had also been taken.

And joining the members of the Delta Project were the scientists from Holon, whose technology in tracking Mew was invaluable in terms of aid. It was with their help that the Resistance was given their own backbone, and a base of operations far from the regions under the control of the evil Teams.

Soon, the brewing tensions erupted into open warfare, if they hadn't already. Alliances were made, which gave us GRiP and the AML. People and Pokémon alike died by the thousands, killed not with Pokémon but with firearms - a paltry effort at putting humans and Pokémon on a level playing field, at least until the humans found themselves putting their technological minds to use in ways they absolutely hated.

In a world where Aura protected both humans and Pokémon from showing so much as scratches, blood was drawn and splattered by the gallon, rivers of deep red drowning the once-pristine fields and forests in death and destruction.

Respect and love for Pokémon was now met with fear.

Society collapsed, social Darwinism meeting actual Darwinism in the most spectacular ways.

Eugenics became commonplace, and breeding for maximum Potential went rampant, its processes flawed with the lack of morality. Bad Eggs began to appear, and with increasing frequency.

The Shadow Type became naturally occurring. In addition, electromagnetic storms formerly limited to Holon started appearing in increasingly large places, resulting in the wider emergence of the Metal type.

The world as humans knew it became harder to understand, drifting closer and closer to the point of no return.

Worlds away, Arceus found it harder and harder to use his power. Not just because of the distance, but because his former realm was dying: no world means no ability to control it.

And as the internal battery powering the world of Pokémon approached the end of its life, I finally came to know all of the above information.

I concluded there was no hope for us, for our Legendaries had deserted us. Arceus, in caring for "his" Pokémon, left "Mew's mistake" to destroy themselves.

So I found myself - the once proud Trainer who stood in the travelling clothes of my youth, modified for my age - releasing muffled screams into what was left of the heavens. I swore I would find some way to do something to help, or I'd eat my hat. It all hinged on Spear Pillar still being where it was. And since Spear Pillar was completely gone, in the mouth my hat went.

I most certainly would not go quietly into the night.

(--o--)

*You tried your best,* came the voice of a Blaziken.

The human had turned right around and sat on the highest steps, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. The only thing he could feel right now was an overwhelming sense of evaporated hope. "I know," came his cracked voice. He looked much the same as how he felt - beaten and battered far beyond any normal Trainer should have been. He wore a pair of Zoroark grey sweatpants which were comfortable and easy to wear, despite the fact there was a layer of graphene sewed into it - nanocanvas fabric like this could easily stop bullets, and it could even hold up to quite a few Pokémon attacks before breaking. Atop a red long-sleeved shirt of a similar make rested a handmade woollen hoodie, which had been ripped and torn but shoddily repaired by the human's own hands - it was a gift from his aunt, and one of the things the human took to remember her by was her knitting equipment. It kept him busy.

His entire Team now stood around him at varying distances - it said a lot about their bond that most of them were very close, and in the case of his starter, gently rubbing one of his shoulders. All of them, the human included, were marked with many scars from prolonged battle... scars that could have easily been healed at a Pokécenter if Arceus hadn't stolen away every single Joy - which was a massive pun, actually, not that it was funny. The only active healing machines were in Holon, since they held the only piece of offline PC network the resistance could actively use; if the human squinted his eyes, he could just barely see faint flashes of light that signified yet another electromagnetic storm.

Hopefully the rest of his Teammates, the ones who he rose, trained, and gave to what were now his closest friends, were still okay. Several had already been killed defending the cause and their freedom, and the thought was enough to make the human swallow with grief past the already-present lump of sorrow occupying his throat. It was all his fault.

*No matter what happens, you know we're here for you,* his Manectric murmured. Once, a long time ago, the Trainer had found an Electrike taking shelter beneath the Cycling Road. It was pouring rain at the time, and the human had bartered with the Pokémon, exchanging food for shelter - which was heartbreaking, because the canine was so malnourished most of it got hacked right back up. Years later, the world got to watch in awe as a ridiculously fast Manectric battled against a bona fide Latios in the Lily of the Valley conference.

"Most of you," came the bitter reply. Immediately Jonah felt worse, as he had no desire to bring them down with him. Anything but that, please.

They all sobered regardless; the still recent-to-them loss of their very close friends, the Breloom and Swellow central to their secondary League team, had taken a toll. Of the Pokémon that had disappeared or were otherwise lost, those two were the ones the group had most sorely missed; their absence left Jonah to scrape by on the skin of his teeth until he could regain their lost combat power. In some cases literally: there were several massive scars across the human's left side that never quite healed from the incident at Mt. Chimney, where Luster was beaten to a bloody pulp and subsequently 'tamed,' for lack of a better word. There were also the emotional scars, both from the losses of their teammates and the loss of innocence, since war was awful like that.

*All of us,* the Skarmory in question firmly replied. He was standing guard. Luster was relatively new: after the exodus and the loss of two main team members, travelling still had to be done in search of the 'good guys,' if there were any left. As the group was passing through Mount Chimney, the steel bird attacked the travelling band with a ferality that spoke volumes of the state of the world. Only after wounding the human and being brutally wounded in turn did the Trainer manage to catch him, curing his violent behavior... by a given definition of the term 'cure,' at least.

"..." Jonah took a deep, slow breath. "...yeah. You don't know how much that means to me."

*We may be alone, but we are together,* Sanic Sandslash grinned. *That's what really matters, y'know? Sure the world's gonna shit the bed soon, but we have each other.* The Sandslash was easily the quirkiest member of the group. He too hailed from the Routes around Mt. Chimney: back when the much smaller, younger group was going through the Hoenn League, they happened upon a Sandshrew who had fallen into a pile of ash and inhaled quite a good portion. They managed to rescue him from his fate of death by lung poisoning, and in reply the Ground-type completely and utterly wrecked Flannery's Gym, Flannery herself included. Apparently his entire battle style involved 'rolling around at the speed of sound,' which simply had to be linked to the comic starring a blue hedgehog that the Ground-type was often seen pouring over.

*And you can be sure as hell we won't give up, even if you do,* came the cute feminine voice from the water/fairy type. The Azumarill always did have a knack for sounding adorable even while swearing like a sailor - which, coincidentally, was part of her job before she 'ran away' and got caught so Jonah could teach her things. Everyone tended to call her by her species name because of this, which was an affectionate derogatory term. The fact she was found in the wild via Dexnav, knowing Hydro Cannon, spoke volumes of how large a part of the team she was.

Together, Sanic and Azumarill were an unlikely team, but a team that was ridiculously competent. See, with the League regulations having been tossed out the window with no one to enforce them, no Pokémon were limited to four moves anymore. Battles were now beyond unconsciousness - if you could permanently cripple your opponent after they passed out, before they could be returned, then you would be that much better off. This, coupled with the lack of all Joys to run the Pokécenters, left the infrastructure in shambles; more importantly, it meant Pokémon were free to use more of their latent power by using their entire movepools. This meant Jonah's ground and water-fairy "HM Slaves" were currently the most versatile, not just for travelling but also for type coverage and flexibility.

"I know," Jonah started. "I know. It's just... Arceus is - was - the Creator. That was his purpose. With him gone, does that make him the Destroyer?"

*Yveltal-* Luster started.

"Personifies death and destruction, yes," the human interrupted, "But not like this! Arceus is God, but there is no Satan." Well, except maybe Ardor or Greevil, but that might be too kind a metaphor. With the backbone of the evil forces being led by Cipher - how else would you explain the ridiculous amount of Shadow-type Pokémon roaming around? - there really wasn't much that the resistance members didn't already know about their true opponents at this point, especially since they had all been soundly defeated in the past and people had kept track.

"The Gateway to Hell is opened by the incantation of good intentions," the last team member murmured. "And Hell is empty, as all the devils are here. We, too, have our inner demons; the struggle between good and evil depends on how much we let them influence us."

Number six, or 'Triple Six,' was a 'shiny' blue-maned Zoroark with the ability to Fly, who called himself 'Michio Hino' for some inexplicable reason. He had Illusion, Imposter, and the best move of all to have in addition to this: Sketch. It's a darn shame all the Smeargle in existence were taken. But, like Sanic, Michio had a distinct 'flavor' to his techniques that spoke of a love for anime.

See, the anime producers of the time had intended to provide distractions from the war via creative outlets to raise general morale. Basically, people were paid to mock the bad guys by the bad guys, in order to let the bad guys keep control of the media and to make money off of doing so. Since they wanted humans to feel more powerful, a large portion of the resulting new anime involved technology, ranging from powered armor to giant robots, most noticeably reboots and spin-offs of the very old anime known only as Gundam. On both sides of the conflict, people watching the anime of the day saw the battles within for what they were: personifications of the prominent figures fighting in the war, with ZAFT and Blue Cosmos obviously being the people with the 'Iron GRiP.' Many of the protagonists and antagonists were actually human-like Pokémon, of course, and a lot of the design was also influenced by Pokémon. Char's Counterattack made Char and Amuro a Zoroark and a Lucario, respectively, for example; they just lip synced to the scripts of their corresponding human voice actors.

And when Sanic realized that the techniques in those anime could be pulled off in real life - not the least of which was because several of those anime series starred humans with legit superpowers, like the psychics - the Sandslash realized they were just like him and his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog comics. When Michio revealed the fact his 'history' was basically just like said anime, hence his unique but extremely efficient fighting style no one knew how to deal with, Jonah's entire fighting force soon found itself upgraded from predictable and strong to unpredictable and utterly scary in how competent they suddenly were. Unless you were genre savvy, of course, but why would the evil conglomerate give their slaves access to television?

*Not all demons are evil,* Fritz murmured. His blue and yellow fur faintly sparked as he shifted around uncomfortably, though he did crack a faint grin. *You should know that better than anyone.* Zeta Gundam hadn't come out yet since Char couldn't possibly become a good guy, but being part of the Team belonging to one of (if not) the highest-ranking Resistance members came with certain perks. Mainly an enormous amount of untapped, unreleased ideas and anime-related sources of creativity.

The Zoroark pursed his lips, and they fell into silence once again. Michio knew that he was being compared to Char, but he didn't like to be reminded of the past he continued to keep as secret as possible. The whole giant robot thing was uncomfortably familiar to a past life he was desperately trying to keep from showing, and given the occasional moments where his power was released in its entirety, he was failing. The only saving grace was the fact that when he let that side loose, he became so scary that once he went back to normal, everyone was too afraid to ask.

It was a long moment before the human shifted, gazing into the smoky haze of the polluted atmosphere. It was nearing sunset, though it seemed to be coming from the SouthWest tonight. Since the quakes had calmed down, the sight became somewhat beautiful, calm even.

Too calm.

...wait....

Oh Arceus damn it! Silently bemoaning practically everything, sheer exasperation taking the sadness in his gut and warping it into a physical pain, the human stood. "We have company."

*I see it,* Luster said. However, he was looking in a completely different direction.

"Same," Michio murmured, also staring elsewhere while his muzzle curled into a smirk. "An ambush, looks like."

*A last stand,* Corignis agreed, wrist cuffs surging to life - by a given definition of life, mind, as the usual vibrant orange was instead a dark, smouldering red.

*We've spent four years kicking and screaming, fighting to the top then fighting to stay there,* Azumarill said, her voice fierce in its intensity. *There's no way we're gonna let them win now.* However, despite how scary she could be, it was clear the aura she needed to power her vast assortment of moves was largely depleted.

Sanic slowly took his stance next to her, rather than the default of the opposite side. He, too, was similarly out of available strength. *Stand Up to the Victory is our theme song,* he said in a noticeably more serious tone. *Upbeat because that's what we are, despite the over-abundance of death everywhere.*

*That and the fact we've lived for this long despite piloting mass-produced units,* Fritz muttered. That, of course, was a metaphor for the fact they fought without any of the 'cruel enhancements' present in their opponents. While the Manectric was normally the most relaxed out of the group, this effectively made him a very good barometer for the forces they were up against; what worried the group was how nervous he sounded right now. *Looks like a lot of incoming BTEPs.*

Jonah found a hand sliding up to clutch the Pokéball around his neck. It was filled, and it was shaking slightly in reassurance of the fact its occupant was ready and willing to fight if the need arose. She was their trump card, their escape route - just as she was for the asshole that had once enslaved her, used her, abused her. The Team had standing orders to execute the man at fault with extreme prejudice if he or his 'tina fighter was spotted, so fiercely they hated him for what he did to her. Luckily for him, he was currently a long ways away. "They're pulling out all the stops... and all I have left are a few Max Elixirs," the Trainer murmured past a faint grin. "Wait until you're drained completely before getting restocked, and I'll invite our kuudere to the party."

Predictably, this got the Team members to each laugh softly. It wasn't a happy laugh, but it was still full of genuine amusement. *Kamina help us,* Sanic playfully 'swore.' *Seriously. We need someone as badass as him.*

*We'll have to make do with you, Sanic,* The Blaziken snarked. *Let's kick some ass.*

Luster started off with an Autotomize, before dumping the rest of his available move aura into status boosts. *I've been waiting to let loose,* he cried as he shot into the air. *Screw kicking ass, let's send them straight to the Distortion World!*

Then the hordes arrived.

(--o--)

Snap. "AAAAGH!"

The battle was not going well. Even that simple phrase was a polite understatement, perhaps the understatement of the year. You wouldn't think you could apply the term 'ruined' to ruins, but the ruins of Spear pillar were in ruins. And then those ruins were now in ruins. What was once an eerily clean depression, showcasing the complete lack of the very heavy marble that had no business being at the top of Mt. Coronet, couldn't be called a depression anymore.

No, it sounded more like the understatement of the week, considering what the group has been through.

*Sanic, on your right!*

*IKAAYYYYYY!* VOOM. There was a explosion of light, and Michio found himself free of the opponent that had just managed to break an arm.

It was a battlefield riddled with craters and shifted earth from the Sandslash's ground-type techniques, several hunks actually having been torn out and used as cover. Then the slabs of rock were decimated by the onslaught of enemy attacks, resulting in piles of rubble being used as ammunition for rock-type attacks on both sides. None of them could use Earthquake anymore, as there was a cavern beneath them that the entire field would sink into if they did.

"M-Michio!" The Trainer was crying.

Several of those craters were filled with the blood of the fallen, as bodies littered the area from left to right. On both sides of the field, the larger downed 'mons were being used as cover by those small enough to fit. Since some of the Pokémon present were controlled via cybernetics, this meant a very few of those larger 'mon had actually managed to tank a hit and reform mid-battle to turn on their captors.

Every single time this happened, they were cut down with impunity. Either by the enemy forces or the defending Team, the latter of which who couldn't trust the 'converts' enough to pay them any special attention in regards to where the Team aimed.

"S-soh... Nuri kabe... unko no nioi kagu hito, BAKA YAROU!" The Zoroark Roared, cramming the broken bone into place and Thunder Waving the muscles taught, even while he became shrouded in deep red. "KOROSUUUU!" Then Michio's Night Daze fired, and that entire portion of the battlefield was suddenly rendered inhabitable. The massive explosion cleared the way for the 'rark to surge forward, his rage blinding him to pain while his keen mind allowing it to be directed, forged into a new blade wielded by a 'mon who had fought worse odds and survived anyway.

The Trainer did not want to do this, but there wasn't a choice anymore. Not when his friends, his family, were getting hurt. Not when Michio had to let loose that darker part of him just to extend the time they had before they were overrun. Not when they were this close to losing.

Not when losing meant death.

Jonah could tell that the horde of enemy Pokémon wasn't going to let up any time soon, despite how hard his team was beating them back. He shivered at the implications, blind to the world thanks to Michio's illusions. Faced with no other option, he reached into the hammerspace that served as his Bag, empty aside from the tools that he promised he wouldn't use until it was absolutely necessary. The tools that put him on an even playing field, the weapons that dealt indiscriminate death to all they were faced with.

"HEAVY ORDINANCE INBOUND!" Jonah shouted, voice wavering but still strong with conviction, of the knowledge of what needed to be done.The team instantly became more aware of their surroundings, panicked at the code phrase and what it meant. The opponents who turned to the shouting human were rewarded with the sight of the Acting Champion suddenly being exactly where they thought he wasn't, pulling out a firearm and getting into a shooter's stance.

It was a Blitz-522: a semi-automatic pistol, smaller and lighter than its older brother the Colt-77. So named because, unlike traditional gunpowder, this firearm used electricity and magnetism to shoot metal slugs at a very high speed with next to no kick. Due to the intense speed, however, when the human finally aimed and pulled the trigger, those with sensitive ears were momentarily deafened by the loud CRACK that rent the air.

The Bio-Technology Enhanced Pokémon that had been giving Corignis a lot of trouble - a Nidoking, scarred and patched up with cybernetics so many times it should've been dead a year and a half ago - suddenly went still, a visible hole about the width of a dime piercing clean through its skull. There was a moment where you could see the terrified look in the Blaziken's eyes through that hole before the body fell, leaving behind a Starter in the midst of a mega evolution.

The Blaziken knew what that shouted phrase meant. If the circumstances had become so dire that the human felt the need to actively preserve his own life, where the defending group had done so completely up until now, then the fight had progressed to a new stage. Nevermind the fact that if the human had been a few seconds late, the Fire-type avian probably would've gotten his skull crushed like an egg.

This same revelation also saw the release of the Pokéball attached to Jonah's neck, the sound masked by a second loud CRACK as the human hit Fritz' opponent in the arm - giving the Manectric just enough time to lance out a Charge Beam to the face, frying what at one point would've been a grass-type's nervous system. When the white light faded, it resolved into a shiny Gardevoir, whose eyes were closed as she adjusted to the reality that she could only hear while within her Ball.

Then those eyes snapped open, and instantly half of the field fell. ""

This was Ring, the Gardevoir formerly owned by Zero, the man who almost killed Giratina by copying its data and using it to develop a fighter jet with the same abilities. She was named after Ring Mao, who shared her pink color scheme and the whole 'cool head in nigh everything' schtick. True to her telepathy, the group soon became densely packed once again, three more CRACKs sounding out before the human lowered his arms and the 'voir set up a dome composed of a mix of Protect, Barrier, Light Screen, Reflect, and Safeguard.

The human swiftly turned around, ignoring the mix of exhaustion and worry coming from his team-mates as he set his Bag on the ground and began rifling through all of the pockets he had in the thing. "No... no... fuck, no..."

*Jonah...*

The human brought up an arm, wiping the tears out of his eyes... or at least trying to. They just wouldn't stop.

Once upon a time, he saw fighting as a sport, a good test of how to apply the knowledge and experience he got over the years. Now he outright hated it. Jonah understood, of course, the reason why he had to be trained in the use of firearms - in the event his Team couldn't protect him, or in a worst-case scenario like this one, he had to be able to fight in self-defense too. And at this point, the only way to actually do that was to focus all of a human's small power into single strikes from a single weapon.

What set Jonah apart from the rest of the Resistance members was the same reason that got him elected to the position needed to own such an advanced pistol: the fact that Jonah always went that extra mile, owning fifteen badges and placing in the top eight during his home League Conference. And he could do that because he thought very quickly, cleanly, and concisely - he planned on the fly, and he planned well. Combine that with the eye for detail honed over years of archaeology and you had an insanely good marksman.

One that was outright beside himself because he had learned to value life, in all its forms. The feeling of taking a life, of ordering his Team to take those lives, wasn't new to him. It still weighed heavily. It always would.

Heaving a shuddering breath, the Trainer stopped, muttering a weak "I'm out" as he procured the handful of six Max Elixirs - the last of all his medical supplies. As he handed them to Corignis, Fritz limped over - favoring his left paw - and pressed up against his Trainer for comfort. Of course, all this succeeded in doing was getting to human to cling tightly to his electric-type, the dam finally breaking. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Ring was currently holding onto a heavily panting Michio, one arm raised high to fuel the barrier that was currently being pounded on while the other ran a Heal Pulse over his broken arm. Her face was scrunched, cool façade clearly annoyed - she was very concerned over both her love interest and her savior, of course, but there were more pressing matters. ""

The 'quick and easy' approach was using 'brutal Psychic,' since all it took to actually kill something was to bypass their Aura and pinch things, such as major arteries or vital organs. Since psychic types were skilled in relation to the mind, it was easiest for Ring to inflict strokes and/or brain aneurysms. It still took a lot of power to do that though, and by buying the window they needed, she had just burned through the entirety of the move aura she would've normally saved for Future Sight and status moves like Trick Room. In other words, she was already down by about a third of what she could have otherwise contributed.

They all winced as a Hyper Beam lanced out from afar, smacking into the powerfully built barrier - it bounced right back towards the sender, twice as powerful as before, and the source abruptly keeled over in response to the resulting explosion. This was Michio's fault, and he slumped, completely spent... just in time to have the spray-bottle top torn off the top of a Max Elixir, the whole thing being swiftly poured down his throat. One of the downsides to Sketch was the fact he had reduced move aura available for any move he copied, and to cope with this he divided his Aura into two main portions: one for his own abilities centered around his type, and the other for his illusion abilities and all the moves he could do that he normally wouldn't be able to. The latter had been completely drained, and if the former had been too, the 'rark probably would've died. "There's an Absol or something out there," he coughed once his throat was clear. "I could feel the Pressure drain."

*N-no,* came Sanic's voice. *Leave it for Ring.*

*You know you need to stock up, Sanic,* Corignis replied in an exhausted tone. It was true: the Sandslash was struggling simply to stay awake, so much of his aura had been used both to protect himself and to take care of his foes. He had racked up quite a kill count, too, but he had done so quickly enough that he became a prime target - at this point he was sporting quite a collection of scratches and bruises, and a large portion of his spines were outright gone. The bases of where they were happened to be very bloody, which probably meant they were missing because they had been forcefully ripped out.

*I can't,* he blearily murmured, before slumping to the side - he was barely caught by the water-fairy, who was much better off simply due to the fact she constantly had Aqua Ring on. *I need healing, and it takes... too much energy for Ring to patch us up. I'm... better off Returned, give it to Ring or Michio so they can go all out.* Deep inhale. *Whoo I'm fucked up.*

Corignis, still in his Mega form, spared a glance over his shoulder at his Trainer. While he was still crying, the human did manage to reply with a nod before raising Sanic's ball and snatching him up in a red beam of light. "...you did great, Sanic," Jonah muttered. "Better than I ever could anyway."

*You gonna be alright?* The Blaziken asked.

"...no," came the Trainer's honest reply. They all winced as another very hard strike impacted the shield - this time a Giga Impact, or something along those lines. This time a green surge of light blocked the move before shattering, and Ring winced before getting to work forming another layer Mirror Coat behind everything else, a last-ditch defense for when the dome finally broke. "Neither will you, or any of us, soon. We need something big to get us out of here, enough to turn the tides... or at least enough to give us a line of escape." Of course literally the entire mountain was swarming with incoming reinforcements, and they'd probably burn themselves out long before they even came close to making a break for it. Arceus damnit. But maybe-

*Ring, open the shield! Ten o clock high!* Fritz yelled, startled. Only after Ring complied did everyone realize they had completely forgotten about Luster, and in the split second it took for the avian to literally crash-land inside before the shield became a dome again, everyone suddenly felt as if their injuries were paltry in comparison.

The once-proud metal-clad bird appeared to be half-melted, several of his feathers bent or otherwise broken - which said a lot, considering they were made of Steel. His entire right wing had been warped with heat, about a sixth of his second top-most primary having been partially liquefied and fused to the more vulnerable red of the wing below. The top-most primary simply wasn't there. The left wing was crumpled, and couldn't be clearly seen due to the fact the bird had outright landed on it with the force of a falling air conditioner. The coating of blood wasn't new, as they were all in desperate need of bathing except for Ring, but given some of the deep gouges it was clear that most of it was Luster's own. And yet the most shocking thing was the fact he was still conscious, pupils shrunk down to pinpricks and his breath coming in sharp gasps.

Both Michio and Ring responded, the Dark-type willingly shunting a lot of his new strength into a Heal Pulse to join the Psychic-type's own. The Trainer could only approach silently, a hand carefully sliding forward to softly caress along the armored bird's head. As he couldn't do much else, the Trainer's expression was wrought with an expression of pity and intense self-loathing. "Talonflame?"

Luster replied with a weak nod, eyes closing tightly at the feeling of the 'rark forcefully separating the welded feathers of his right wing. This had the unintended effect of causing them to snap right off, liquefying completely and evaporating as the bird smartly used the last of his move aura for another Autotomize. Basically, steel sloughs off him like water and evaporates to be absorbed into the physical aura, resulting in the observed boost in attack; while he couldn't use that power himself, he could do one more thing with all those status upgrades. *Don't... need to worry... about any a-aerial... strikes. A-at least... for a while.*

"Shhh," Michio murmured in a soft tone. "Rest. You've more than earned it."

As the bird replied with another weak nod before going limp, something inside Jonah just... broke. He spent a long time staring at the Skarmory, watching his unconscious form rise and fall in quick, painful breaths. Once the bird was healed enough to recover naturally when the time came - if the time came - the human's arm numbly rose and returned the steel-type, continuing to gaze at the place the avian previously occupied. The sight simply refused to leave his eyes, and it was joined by countless other memories of those who were much worse off and yet still continued to fight - not just on the side of the Resistance, but on the side of the conglomerate.

There were those who should have been dead but continued anyway, as if they felt no pain, as if they had nothing else to lose with their loved ones gone. It was horrifying, but understandable in a way: give it your all and you helped bring your side that much closer to victory. Of course, the conglomerate basically said death was the eventual outcome anyway, so why not pervert their slaves and tools to get the absolute maximum out of them? If they break, they can just make new ones anyway. Thus the term 'zombie soldiers,' and from there the 'Army of Death,' both in the adaption of G Gundam and on the war front.

None of them seemed to have noticed the ball of white signifying a Baton Pass flying into Ring before Luster was returned, with the exception Ring herself, who didn't want to point it out lest she break her Trainer completely.

"Hey Ring?" Jonah eventually said. Yes, Jonah did in fact notice anyway, but it gave him an idea. Possibly the only idea they could use.

"" Now Ring was worried. That tone was entirely too flat for her liking.

"Y'know how Gardevoir are famed for their ability to create black holes?"

The Shiny psychic-type's eyes widened, before her expression hardened. ""

"Might as well." The human swallowed and stood, shakily but with resolve. "I don't see any other way out, and from what I've heard it should be the power we need to break our way out of here. If the rest of us buy you some time-" Another attack rocked the shield dome, the ground beneath them cracking as they very abruptly realized that they literally had no time to buy. "Just do it!" The human reached into his Bag once more, replacing his pistol with a larger SMG of similar make and function; while his movements were still a little shaky, the clear drive to forge onwards was still there.

They had always won before, and had gotten hurt before, but nothing like this... and Jonah had promised himself, promised them, that he would protect his family. It was all he could do - all any of them could do, really. This really was their last stand.

All Ring needed was to see the look in his eyes before she nodded firmly. ""

As soon as the shield dropped, the initial response from the group was a whole mess of Counters and Mirror Coats, giving them the breathing room they needed as the Trainer once again stayed out of the much of the fight. Only this time, Jonah fought back in the only way he could, mowing down any that came close with brutal efficiency. In his mind, all he saw were threats to him and his own, as his tears had already been shed to leave him empty and focused.

The term 'mow down' was accurate too, as his trigger finger tended to stay held down when using larger magazines. With the whole magnetic launching mechanism, there wasn't any recoil, so his aim didn't degrade until it left altogether when the gun clicked over empty. Of course, there was a larger problem with heat, and the noise tended to make you deaf to the world after a while; considering the fact that the human was already drowning everything out, nothing seemed to matter other than what was directly before him.

Point, shoot, aim spray from side to side, reload, repeat.

The entire Team was fighting with everything they had, despite how exhausted they were - and perhaps because of that fact too. There was nowhere to go, and the horde of 'simple tools' continued to seem utterly endless in their numbers. As Ring continued to build up power, the ring of fierce fighters battling for their very lives soon found themselves clustered in a defensive formation directly beneath the stone where - not long ago - one Giratina surged forth and snapped Cyrus up into his steely jaws. Or at least, that was the rumor, since Cyrus was still alive and kicking and part of the group now ruling the world.

"" the 'voir telepathed.

"" the human's thought process ground to a halt as his gaze was momentarily drawn skyward. ""

"This hand of mine is burning red!" Corignis abruptly shouted. "ITS LOUD ROAR TELLS ME TO GRASP VICTORY! TAKE THIS!" His entire body erupted into yellow-white flames. "ERUPTION!" There was a massive explosion of heat that launched the Mega Blaziken into the air, even while dealing damage to the forces below. "BURNING!" All of that flaming aura was focused into his right arm, flaring into a blinding Inferno. "FINGEEERRRRR!" And before the incoming Shadow Latias could dodge out of the way, it found a taloned, flame-wreathed hand clutching at its neck, followed by its Blaziken owner ramming his knee into her back and forcing the pair to the ground. "AND NOW... HEAT END!"

Corignis used Self-Destruct! All of his Aura, or what was left of it anyway, abruptly forced its way out in a massive explosion of light and heat. In the midst of all the force literally shaking the battlefield, a red beam lanced out of the smoke and found home in the first Pokéball on Jonah's belt.

None of the Team had time to see the results, however, because Ring had just succeeded in forcing a massive amount of Psychic-type energy into one point in space, resulting in a singularity.

Or at least, that was the ideal reaction.

Instead, it created an unstable vortex, one that pulsed all that pent-up energy outwards before increasing suction. There was a pregnant moment in which the massive Legendary-killing strike resulted in the mountaintop finally giving up and collapsing inward, the Team and their Trainer falling... before their descent was halted, gravity becoming zero before starting to reverse its pull.

Cramming his rifle into his Bag, as he was halfway towards reaching a new magazine anyway, he shifted just close enough to let Ring cling tightly to him for support as both of the human's arms were used to snatch up the rest of the Team in red returning lasers. His quick mind figured that they'd be safe in there, no matter what happened, and the human looked over his shoulder at the 'voir. Her expression went from worried to panicked as she realized she still couldn't teleport out.

""
""
""

The human flicked off the now-retreating forces with an exhausted smirk, paying special attention to the sight of a Legendary that was no longer breathing.

Then his eyes shut as he leaned into his 'voir, the pair accepting their fates as they found themselves sucked into a sphere of complete darkness...

(--Ω--)

...

<...>

"<...Jonah?>"

...ow.

<...well, I don't feel very dead. I feel like I should be, though....>

Fuck, everything hurt.

Slowly, the human forced his eyes open, having to blink repeatedly in order to get used to the very bright light.

It took a while for the blurs to resolve themselves into things he could recognize: trees, everywhere, his shiny Gardevoir, and what appeared to be a living equine counterpart to the Aile Strike Gundam.

Oh, and the equine also appeared to be very angry. And he had friends. Quite a few friends, actually. They too seemed really pissed off, for whatever reason.

"...aw hell."

These were the only two words the human could get out before he sank back into unconsciousness.

Author's Note

* Plasma, gAlactic, Rocket, Cipher; Aqua, Magma, League. Yes, as a joke, the former is sometimes abbreviated CRAP.

I'll admit, this is the first time I've ever wrote and submitted something resembling a story. Even if it is heavily influenced by the work this is based on - it's designed to be a standalone story, the 'other side of the mirror' as it were, which is why the summary of the world's history is as similar as it is. It is, after all, part of the same pane of glass.
Not that I'd ever claim my ideas are original. I know it's not entirely my work, as it's a fan work of a fan work.
To be fair, I'm working out the idea as I go. Feedback would be a wonderful aid, hence why the story has reached you without any proofreading or outside editing. That, and since the world is collapsing, it stands to reason that many things won't make complete sense until they're explained.

3: Triple the Excitement

Chapter Three: Triple the Excitement

Author's note: today, the TV in your head is going to be working overtime trying to process imagery... as in, the literary device. For this reason, I heavily suggest you take the time to read the descriptive portions like you're supposed to: mentally saying the words as they come, at a pace you'd be comfortable with saying/reading out loud. That's the pace I operate at, or rather the pace 67 words per minute can actively support, more or less.

"War doesn't determine who is right, war determines who is left." - Bertrand Russell

(--o--)

A globe is a device meant to do quite a few things. Mainly, it demonstrates the fact that yes, the world is indeed round. However, it's not quite as round as you might expect, since the rotational force effectively squishes the North and South Poles closer together. The first world that comes to mind when you think 'globe' is the Earth, though: primarily blue and green, maybe with wisps of white meant to mimic clouds.

Or maybe all the mountains are red because you have one of those topographical globes, complete with 3D indents and bulges corresponding to height above sea level.

Point is, you need to take that globe in your head and then draw marker all over it, because it's wrong. The Earth that Pokemon call home is completely different; similar, yes, but the sites that you might recognize - Italy's boot, Japan's islands, the shape of the US or Europe - aren't where you might think they're supposed to be, and in some cases are absent altogether.

The place in the Pokemon world most similar to the Earth as you know it is Japan. Imagine it in your minds eye: a group of mountainous islands surrounded by ocean, with Asia a ways to the upper left. You might think that the sight is green, and if you zoomed in on Google Earth you might come to recognize that all of the greens, browns, and blues would form a breathtaking landscape.

Scribble with marker all over that too, because that's also wrong.

The current state of the Earth home to Pokemon meant the map of Japan had basically been drawn on a piece of college-ruled paper, crumpled up, flattened out, then crumpled up again and tossed overhand as hard as possible into a wood chipper, before someone did a half-ass job of taping the pieces together. You could still recognize that it was Japan, if barely, because you knew that it was Japan at one point and you could kinda see the way that one lopsided mass, with the enormous chunk missing, could've been Mt. Fuji.

That missing chunk was the result of the first and only use of a helium warhead by the conglomerate organization of Cipher, Rocket, Galactic, and Plasma. Bomb detonated, radiation flew, it's 'snowing' on Mt. Fuji. With their control of the media, they painted the blame on the Resistance, and then to prove their power they stole all of the radiation. No one knew how, and no one wanted to know how, so the hole's just kinda... there, now.

Not that you could see any of that anyway, because at the moment most if not all of the Earth Sphere was covered in bad weather. The Perfect Storm basically had a kid with The Day After Tomorrow, which left half the world frozen and the other half dealing with hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and in the case of Japan, a large amount of electromagnetic storms.

And while all of these were the fault of the humans living there, only the purple lightning was a man-made phenomenon.

Zoom in on your Google Earth plane and eventually you might come across what looks like a wheel at high altitude. Zoom in further, and the wheel is revealed to be a city - and then your plane gets shot down by more purple lightning, straight from the massive tower in the city's center. Serves you right for using Google Earth.

This is Holon. The first and last stronghold for the forces of the Resistance. The buildings in the city proper were all half old and half new, as it was originally a small town meant to house only the essential research personnel that massive tower needed in order to function. But recently, those buildings became taller, and more buildings were built around them. The construction was functionally shoddy, clearly a rush job, yet even now the framework for several more buildings had been put up for another batch of either housing or facilities.

Now if you looked at it from an isometric perspective, none of the curved geometry would really make any sense until you upped the quality on your SimCity 2000 settings. Then you'd be able to see the hundreds of both people and Pokemon milling about, traveling in close-knit groups because sticking together was safer. It was an amazing sight to see, really, considering how the small little hamlet responsible for tracking Mew had become in a short three years.

Three years with basically no funding from anyone, much less the people who could actually supply the manual labor for construction, at least until the growing Resistance found the sparse pockets of the other good people.

"Look out, coming through, got people to do and things to see!" Came the voice of a certain blond-haired adult. He was special in regards to the beautiful sight, because just by being there he made it chaotic and interesting: he was running through the most densely packed portions of the city, closest to the tower, and forcing people out of the way as he had to navigate through yet another close-knit knot of conversation. He was one of dozens who were rushing towards the city center at any given time, but unlike them, he moved with less urgency than barely repressed panic.

And yes, you read that correctly. Nolan had one of those senses of humor.

"Sorry bruh!" The blond no-longer-a-youth shouted as he ran halfway up a wall, tucked into a roll, and knocked a much less youthful man to the side as he came back up in a renewed sprint. On a first-story roof in the middle of getting a second story.

"Watch were yer rollin,' Nolan! Ya might smash into someone who won't forgive ya!" Holy shit that was a clever pun that no one would ever get. I'm going to leave that realization in just to make you readers wonder about it.

Ignoring that, it was Nolan's boundless energy that had made learning parkour a very natural-feeling progression in line with his position as Trainer. Occasionally, the young man would glance up to see his Staraptor pointing his blond star in a different direction, leading his Trainer to the center building in as quick a route as possible. Coincidentally this also meant that the Trainer had picked up just enough speed to jump and grind his way down a railing with a loud SCREECH.

The reason for all this urgency and epic parkour, and the reason he could be forgiven for knocking people over left and right in his mad dash? Nolan had a briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist, and it was most certainly sturdy enough to handle nigh anything it was confronted with, even a point-blank Hyper Beam. In comparison, using it as a stand-in for a skateboard was no big deal. The only reason you'd even have a briefcase like that was if it had intelligence in it, and that was a very big deal considering how cut off from the rest of the world that the Resistance was.

All it took was another few wall runs, wall jumps, somersaults, barrel rolls, and a single double overhand reverse immelman jump into a 5-0 grind before the human came to a halt. It was almost comical in the sense that 'halt' meant 'plaster entire body against revolving door in order to make it turn.' It also meant the human missed his initial window and had to go all the way around a single time before he was finally in the bottom floor of the tower.

"Whew. Now, let's-"

"Nolan."

Nolan sighed. "Not now, Horrace. Please, this is an emergency! I don't have time for your useless security checks!"

Where Nolan was a thin, wiry man around nineteen years old, the main security officer for Holon was of a much larger build. It was like comparing an olympic sprinter to an olympic shotput guy, the gap in obvious muscular strength was so large. Horrace was the day guard for the Tower, here since before the whole Exodus thing and here now because he and the rest of the very secret group at Holon - so secret that Arceus apparently missed them entirely - had been left behind. Some protocols were still in effect to provide a sense of order and stability, and one of them was the job of human guards monitoring the human building meant for humans to track Legendaries - not like they were trying to be speciest or anything, it's just that powerful 'mon near sensitive electronics was a pretty big no-no.

And while Horrace did have half a mind to punt the Trainer right back out the door to join his Pokemon, he was willing to give Nolan the benefit of the doubt; all he had to do was point and take on an exasperated scowl. Nolan looked over his shoulder, and had to do a double-take before facepalming and tossing a Pokéball into the still-rotating door. As his Staraptor landed, it quickly pecked the Ball to get sucked in before the door brought it back around by pushing it with the continued rotation - tiny wobbles from the Staraptor inside got the Ball up and over the little groove and eventually to a stop within his Trainer's reach.

"There, problem solved," Nolan dramatically posed with a smirk, before reaching down and attaching said Ball to his belt. "Can I go now?"

"...might as well," Horrace grumbled past the palm on his face.

"Yes! Finally!" The Trainer whirled right around, and dashed directly - ow - into another person. Had said person not known that Nolan was in the building, she wouldn't have braced herself for an impromptu 'budge' by the infamously single-minded parkour enthusiast.

"There's a line," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Wha...? Oh, now that's just not fair!" The one universal constant that Nolan could do without: receptionists.

'We had the technology to scan chips, why not just install a scanner that detected a chip and forwarded the data to a computer in order to figure out whether or not the chip's data was wrong? If you included passwords and where you wanted to go, moving from place to place would be a snap!' Everyone always said one of three things: too complicated, too expensive, or 'fuck you Nolan, trying to get me out of a job.' Said last one was also only ever said by the receptionist he was complaining in front of, and while it tended to get Nolan sent into a laughing fit, it also tended to get him slapped. So instead of complain, the Trainer just hauled himself to his feet and proceeded start jogging in place, clearly very antsy.

No one wanted to tell Nolan that there was an emergency override code he could shout to get people to move, because if they did Nolan would use it constantly, even if it wasn't an emergency.

"Hey there sweetcheeks," came his voice once it was his turn. It was answered by Horrace groaning and muttering complaints under his breath, something along the lines of 'why.' "I've got an urgent missive regarding the whereabouts of the Acting Champion."

"Oh, it's you." Came the decidedly unimpressed receptionist lady. "You have an appointment?"

The blonde suddenly stopped in place, and leaned in close. "He's missing. We lost all contact - radio, cellular, tracking, everything - about an hour ago." Which, coincidentally, about a third of which was spent waiting in line for the permission he needed to enter the building proper.

She blinked slowly, before going wide-eyed as she belatedly realized he was very serious. "Room 403." Error: Forbidden, at least to the general public.

"Thanks." Cue him rearing back dramatically and then running left... and then around the corner, going up the stairwell as he couldn't be assed to wait for the elevator.

(--o--)

"So, as I was saying, we need t-"

All conversation was suddenly halted as the door was kicked open and breached by a sneakered leg. This was then followed by the rest of the human at fault, and a declaration. "Houston, we have a problem!"

Whitney 'Houston' proceeded to loudly facepalm. "Dammit Barry, I told you not to call me that!" Just because she shared the same first name as the Normal-type Gym leader and had a love for country music didn't mean that it gave Nolan the right to call her the name of her favorite 20th century singer. The Barry thing was an an inside joke - he was a long-lost twin to the blond of the same name that a certain Ash Ketchum once met.

"Well, it is the apocalypse," came Nolan's flippant reply. It was punctuated by the briefcase being slammed down at the head of the table. "So we need to find amusement in whatever we can. Especially now, 'cause I'm not wrong: we do have a problem. A very big one. Do we have any Delta Project staff in here?" A few people raised their hands, just as the door finished swinging shut - and the latch went with it, which meant this was now serious business. So as the blond proceeded to begin undoing the handcuffs and from there unlatching and unlocking the case, he dropped the bomb. "Jonah is missing. As in, officially."

The quiet conversations going on in the background were immediately silenced. "What do you mean?"

"I just came back from Delta Project HQ. Every feed we had from him just up and disappeared, and the last images we got were so distorted the only thing we could make out was a distortion in spacetime. Ironic, I know. My Staraptor ran an Ethered Aerial Ace all the way there and back, and this suitcase has all that was left behind - psychic-sourced report of the site included." Pop! Hiss. Yes, the suitcase was vacuum sealed.

And even Nolan had the chance to stare in complete and utter shock. "...oh you have got to be kidding me."

"What? What is it?!"

The blond turned the suitcase around to reveal a haphazard collection of a manilla folder, a holographic projector tablet, a smaller black case labeled 'Possible Evidence' and...

...and what looked like a ring. To be specific, a ring with a rather large garnet inset within, polished and glimmering with the latent psychic power imbued inside. It served to highlight the much smaller design held inside, twin swirls of repressed energy the hue of Gardevoirite.

Nolan carefully held it up between two fingers. "This was his mother's. He was... he told me this was for a special someone. And since I know none of us in here are really against Poképhilia, I can readily say that he meant his shiny Gardevoir." Not that Nolan knew he was wrong, of course; that was the original plan, but Jonah quickly found himself embroiled in a love triangle which meant he had to rethink everything.

The guy nearest Nolan proceeded to part the folds of the folder and find the folded-corner mass marked for distribution, which he then started passing out to the people sitting 'round the table. His name was Joey, and he was in possession of one of the top percentage of Ratatta, whatever that meant. Said purple rat was currently laying atop his Trainer's hat, and looked so at home there that his presence was widely ignored.

A few minutes of furious mental churning passed before that same guy summed up their thoughts: "So... what does this mean?"

"It means that there's a connection between his disappearance and that Gardevoir. Which is impossible, because..." Nolan's eyes widened as he finally finished booting up the tablet. "...oh fuck. Forget what I said, this is more important."

As Nolan set down the tablet and turned on the 'camera,' or rather the holographic projector, the entire room suddenly went dark as it wirelessly interfaced with the projectors on the war room planning table. Lights went off in places and on in other places, and eventually this resulted in the entire war room computer system running its money's worth trying to bring up thousands upon thousands of files.

"Holy shit," Rosa breathed. She was an anthro Zoroark, and she was currently out in the field, using a 3D camera in order to project a holographic likeness of her buxom self into her otherwise-empty chair. "Where the hell did he get this?"

"Half of this isn't even his," said one of the Delta Project guys. His name was Ben, and he thought shorts were comfy and easy to wear. "From what I'm seeing, a lot of these have Galactic headers. Makes sense because he was in Sinnoh, but what worries me are these." The teenager rose a finger and began poking at the hologram, which served the purpose of highlighting several clusters out of the still-populating mass in red. "Galactic somehow knew Jonah was coming."

"...bruh, everyone knew Jonah was leavin'. He made a freakin' tidal wave just to get out of port!" Came the voice of some unnamed scientist with an amazing accent.

"We also swore never to talk about that ever again," Nolan said with a shudder shared by half the room.

"They're dated about a week in advance," Ben deadpanned. "That means the conglomerate now has access to some kind of computer, or a psychic capable of actually seeing the future."

The implications of that did not bode well. Most of GRiP's forces were either slaves, zombies, or both, which meant that any psychic-types that they did have were utterly useless in regards to tactical measures. Something about Rocket's insistence that Psychic-types simply weren't the way to go, probably. But provided they did have one that they could actually use, the fact they could use it to predict the future was very bad news; the Resistance had psychics that could predict the future, but they all claimed that their predictions were utter shit if they pointed to a time more than a day forwards. Which made sense, since time had gotten all wibbly-wobbly without the Legendaries keeping it stable. It stretched, contracted, bent, and in some places reverted just to fast forward twice the time it went back. There was even a large area of desert that had become a prehistoric forest, directly across from an empty void of space where the planet no longer existed - or maybe it did, blurry and indistinct but pure and welcoming. And since no one wanted to think about what that might mean, the Resistance conveniently never had any staff who could go explore and/or research such places.

While the group of a dozen people and Pokemon sifted through the mass-produced papers detailing the report, they spent merely a small moment trying to either prove Ben wrong or to help find evidence towards that theory in a way they could use. They gave up soon after, focusing more on the report itself.

According to the scouting team, the peak of Mt. Coronet simply didn't exist anymore. There was absolutely no trace of marble to point towards the presence of Spear Pillar, and it had been that way before at least a thousand enemy grunts swarmed the area, both by land and by air. After that, the marks of battle were readily apparent, and the entire far right quadrant was an eerily flat circle that spoke of the Acting Champion's Zoroark having used Night Daze. Or rather, what portion of the expanse hadn't sunken inward. Unfortunately, the report wasn't complete as the psychic forensics experts - valued because they could turn their foresight into the past, in order to get clearer pictures - couldn't actually use their talents, because there was a massive amount of interference from leftover Dark- and Ghost-type residues. As the normal forces were Shadow-types, this meant that the conglomerate had to send out a lot of their 'purer' BioTechnology Enhanced Pokemon instead; this spoke of a very high-priority operation.

Whitney sighed. "The fact they couldn't get a reading probably meant GRiP also knew about Jonah's Ring. Why else would they send out non-Shadow types, and ones specifically meant to counter Psychics?"

"Mmh." Nolan's lips curled into a scowl. That pointed towards evidence of his own theory - that ring (as in what he was holding) meant something special, and in this case it probably pointed towards something happening that had to do with Ring (as in the Gardevoir herself).

Considering the report also said the scouting group had to reach the peak from the second-highest exit, as the peak had collapsed inward far enough that they didn't have a choice otherwise, high-ranked operation it had to have been. There wasn't any other explanation for the sheer amount of destruction. What's more was the fact that, in addition to the amount of bodies found by sifting through the pile of wrecked stone and rock, there were the occasional 'flashes' where the conglomerate's forces couldn't block out a point in time. One of those was faint image of a trainer holding some sort of weapon that could only be a firearm.

"Can we see the rounds?" Joey quietly asked.

Nolan nodded, trying to hold a brave face but failing as he lifted a ziploc bag. Inside were the only tungsten rounds that they could salvage, the perfect caliber for the Acting Champion's custom SMG. Considering the fact the Resistance had trusted Jonah with a nigh infinite amount of ammo for a complete selection of armaments, which included an M14 of all things, the fact that he would actually use his SMG despite violent decries of 'never needing it' spoke volumes of the fight he must have felt the need to join in himself. For a tactician who had to be drugged to get into firearms training, because he valued life too much to go that far....

"It's been three years since Jonah freed Arceus," Whitney started, "And since then he's done everything he could to help save humanity - not just us, but the so-called 'bad guys' too... for... whatever reason. He's stronger than I could ever be in that respect." Of course everyone suspected the reason: all of this was technically his fault for freeing Arceus, so he must have felt he had to atone.

"Stronger than all of us, to carry the burden he has for so long without breaking," the present Lucario said. He had blue chest fur instead of the normal tan, nubs instead of spikes because he had only evolved halfway, and his hair - yes, he had hair - kinda-sorta looked like a girl's. This was Camille, and while he was young and different, he was still a high ranking general for their Pokemon forces and a part of a secret project meant to give Pokemon powered armor, like the BTEPs but without the invasive nature of their upgrades. He was also - wait for it - a 'Newtype,' having sacrificed his greater physical potential for greater mental potential. But only Jonah and his Delta Project people had access to the details of what that meant.

Some of the anime producers of this day and age were members of the Resistance, obviously.

"Wait a minute... the hell is an 'Erupting Burning Finger?'" That same unnamed scientist said with a very curious tone.

Nolan snickered before sifting through the files until he found a folder labeled 'technique inspirations,' pointing and tapping the air until he could open a video.

"...you're telling me," Joey muttered, "That he got his Blaziken to do that? I mean, that's fucking awesome, but why?"

"Because no one expects it, and because it's freakishly effective," Rosa said with a grin. "He hasn't lost any battle in which he's had to use an anime-derived technique, because literally no one has any idea how to fight that. We've all tried, and we've all lost. It's honestly infuriating."

"Hey Nolan," Ben spoke up. "I found something in here with your name on it." Almost as if on cue, all of the files suddenly - finally - began to sort into recognizable clumps, images whirling and flying here and there as the computers finished the process of 'virus scan individual files before putting them back.' The end result was easily evidence of the Acting Champion's slight OCD, and the document Ben indicated was right at the top of a folder marked 'outsourced tactics.'

Nolan poked at it and blew it up. "In the event something happens to me, I'll probably leave behind a massive hint as to the cause." The green-clad Trainer blinked and held up the ring he had been rolling around in his off hand, before his eyes went wide and he kept reading out loud. "And if something happens, and you get this, that means it was something big that might or might not mean I'm considering myself dead weight, as in literally. In this folder is a complete collection of the techinques and ideas my Team and I have come up with. But be warned, some of these ideas are both bat-shit insane and probable given what resources the Resistance has or can otherwise get."

The entire room went silent at that. Okay, learning that Jonah freed Arceus was something that was okay, because Jonah promised he'd do everything he could to clean up after his mess - even though it wasn't his fault. Learning that he had sourced most of his techniques out of anime was okay too, because it looked amazing and was amazingly effective. Learning that he had a contingency plan for in case he got captured was something that made sense. But this? Learning that had made a contingency plan for in case he felt he was going to die? That made sense too, but to actually be holding the results of that contingency plan in the palms of their hands...

Joey slapped his hands down on the table, eyes wide. Ben looked, and he went similarly wide-eyed. "What."

"What?"

Joey widly gestured with his hands and blew up the document he got from Sanic's folder.

Then everyone went wide-eyed. "Ho. Ly. Shit."

They were the blueprints for the Gundam RX-78, and its upgrade into the Gundam Alex. But what made it ridiculous and which drew everyone's attention were the five pages of notes included with it, which outlined the facilities they needed to take in order to secure the needed resources. Included within were not just the directions on how to fabricate the parts, but also directions on how to fabricate the Gundarium Alloy they needed in order to make it a Gundam. After all, it was widely known that Team Rocket had access to giant robots, and that those three idiot white shirts used them so often that they weren't taken as seriously as they should have. But with anime being what it is now, and with the proof present in Jonah's tactics and techniques, the destructive potential present in these designs was....

Basically, shit just got real. Really real, more real than anime had any right to be.

Nolan pinched the bridge of his nose as Joey dived into the folder and pulled out blueprints for the Gundam Sisquiede too, which was captioned 'for Jonah's use, don't let him see these,' as well as the blueprints for the equipment needed to mass-produce the Methuss. If you have something as advanced as those in mass production, then given the rapid repair ability on each unit you'd have an extremely good army. Or at least that's how the theory went in Sanic's eyes. "This is insane," the green-clad Trainer grumbled. "But it's better than anything we have and, given it's insane, that means it'll work. Make it happen. What do we have to lose, besides everything?"

"Consider it done," Joey and Ben both chorused.

"There any other surprises in there?" Whitney said, massaging her temples and muttering something about ibuprofen. How the hell does a Sandslash even know how to build a 'minovsky ultracompact fusion reactor,' much less how to get those mass-produced too?

"Let's finish looking over what we got already before we delve into the stuff Jonah's team has. Given the mind-blowing shit his Sandslash has ready, I don't think I'm prepared for any more insane bullshit today. All in favor?" Nolan rose his hand, and everyone else just as quickly rose their appendages too. "Motion carried. Now, the report: what do we make of it?"

"Jonah got ambushed," Rosa immediately said. "It's the only way to explain the reason why so many forces converged on one spot, all of them specifically designed to negate his usual escape routes."

"Judging by the fact the cavern beneath him caved in, he and his team fought them to a standstill. Not without injury though, because why else would Jonah draw the firearms he swore never to use?"

"UH-" Nolan started, his face now a stark white. Slowly, he reached into the 'evidence box' and withdrew a feather: it was Shadow purple, but what got everyone else to go stark white was the fact it turned invisible if tilted just right into the ambient lighting. "Okay, I understand that the report said an Erupting Burning Finger was used to take down a very high priority target. But a Legendary?!"

"We're fucked," Camille bluntly muttered, "because that means GRiP's gotten into Altomare's secret garden and stole DNA of the Latis. And, knowing them, they've already figured out how to breed their own."

"None of Jonah's blood was found at the scene, though, so-"

Tink. Clatter clatter.

"Nolan?"

Sorry, Nolan wasn't here at the moment, please leave a message after the beep. 'Weegee' had just read the little footnote at the very bottom in small print that said forensics thought they had found heavy psychic residue concentrated in a single point in space, as well as certain instances of wreckage that appeared to be picked up and dropped or otherwise torn. They didn't think that it meant anything, and thus wasn't included in the official summary; as the green-clad Trainer's mind kicked into overdrive, only one conclusion could possibly have resulted in all of this, footnote included.

"Gardevoir were famed for causing black holes," he muttered out loud at a frantic pace. "The only reason one of them would be able to do that revolves around the prerogative of 'protecting their Trainer by any means necessary.' Combine that with the contingency plan we're holding and freaking out over, the report I got from Delta Project HQ concerning the last data we got from Jonah's feed, and the hint in the form of Ring's ring, Ring must've made a black hole big enough to affect the surrounding environment. The only way that could happen is if we have a literal singularity, and the only Pokemon Moves theorized to cause such have Hyperspace in the name. So if Ring used the fairy-type Hyperspace Hole in order to protect her trainer, and now Jonah's nowhere to be found, and he thought he was going to die right then and there-"

"Hyperspace implies travel," Camille pointed out.

Nolan slammed his hands down on the table, before dramatically pointing towards Camille. "OBJECTION!" Then his arms started flailing everywhere over-dramatically to emphasize his points. "Hyperspace is travel! That's what happened! Jonah must've gotten himself sucked into a use of Hyperspace Hole and ended up somewhere else!"

"How is that-" Joey started.

"Theoretically speakin'," the now-awesome unamed scientist said, "The last place Arceus was seen happened to be Spear Pillar. Then Arceus left, and all the Legendaries left with 'im. Arceus naturally would've taken Spear Pillar along for the ride, judgin' by its absence - but'cha can't just leave with so much without causin' a massive power vacuum, both figuratively with the war and literally given the eerieness we all feel when we look at those pictures."

"So you're telling me that Jonah's Gardevoir got him and his team sucked through not a black hole, but a wormhole?" Whitney asked in a flat tone. "One that leads directly to wherever Arceus fled to?"

"We know that Jonah is a fan of making the impossible possible," Ben pointed out. "And as of right now that's the only explanation that makes sense. The only other explanation that makes sense is that the black hole killed them all, but that's no good, because we would've found Jonah's team one way or another. He would've seen what was going to happen and both tried and succeeded in getting them out of harm's way somehow, which would mean we'd have evidence of their failure in trying to fight the Conglomerate."

"And right now we have nothing," Nolan concluded. "Other than the means to strike back in ways that they'll never see coming."

"Well, like Whitney said," Not-a-Youngster Joey said, "It's been three years; long enough for us to finally have come up with a giant ace in the hole."

"Assuming Sanic's stuff will actually work, you mean."

Nolan turned his attention back to the 'possible evidence' box, and pulled out another feather. A moment passed as the Trainer looked it over, trying to gauge just what kind of Pokemon it went to.

"...smells like Axe. Dark Temptation," came the voice of Hilda. The fact she was currently a scolipede in Trainer's clothing didn't seem to phase anyone either. "But what's weird is that it looks like a primary feather off a Reshiram's wings."

"Weird because it's black-" Nolan started.

"Looks more like a Dark Taupe to me," Joey interrupted.

The blond sighed. "Weird because it's 'dark taupe' or weird because it's from a legendary?"

"Both. Can I see that?" Hilda asked. Nolan obliged and passed her the feather, and she carefully turned it over in her claws while her brows lowered in concentration. Something didn't seem right. "We're going to have to run DNA on this to make sure."

"Assuming we can actually find someone who knows how to run the machines," Joey began to list off. "And amass the funds. And not get attacked. And-"

"Relax, man." Ben sighed. "We're building up our resources at a steady pace, we haven't had a potent attack in weeks from either side, and we finally have... well, this news. There's no way things could get any worse, right?"

Far away, in the depths of the ocean, a man cried out in triumph.

For he had discovered the remnants of New Island, and years of searching through wreckage finally uncovered everything he would ever need to become famous. Sure, when you look at it from an abstract perspective, it seemed like it wasn't that big a deal.

If you knew the significance of a perfectly preserved room, containing a broken cloning vat in the same room as an old, intact tablet - a tablet with a certain pink feline being's likeness engraved within, however....

(--o--)

"No," came Hilda's deadpan response. "Nothing could possibly go wrong."

"Startup sequence complete," A feminine voice chimed.

"Perfect." Came the voice of a male. "How are we with mass production?"

"Over three hundred units are completed, and the remaining estimate of four thousand and seven hundred are approaching the final stages of construction ahead of schedule."

"Good, good." The man's lips curled upwards into a vicious smirk. "I'll finally be able to teach those kids to finish the job."

Zero thought,

(--o--)

Whitney groaned. "Will you two please stop tempting fate? I swear to Arceus, you're going to make things so much worse."

"Pfft-" Nolan started, just to trail off into a humorless chuckle. "What do you think swearing to Arceus will accomplish?"

"Hey, maybe if we all take his name in vain he'll catch a cold!"

"It's worth a try. Besides, given the news, we need some way to raise morale despite the rumors that'll eventually come out anyway."

And so another day in the Resistance HQ wound to a close. As it happened, everyone went to sleep grinning because of how loose their tongues became, and how liberating it was to swear up and down without being judged. From that day on, June 29th was officially recognized as 'the best fucking holiday ever.'

Knocks rang against a door.

"Come in," came a quiet voice. It was low in volume, yes, but it didn't need to be loud to have its full effect.

"Sir. I have a report."

"Just leave it on my desk."

The faceless man nodded before gently setting the manilla folder down, and then politely exiting the room as quickly as possible.

"The best holiday ever," came the quiet musing. "...I suppose it is. After all, that's one less Champion I have to worry about."

The lapcat purred in response.

(--Ω--)

Roaring echoed out of the Everfree forest. This wasn't really an uncommon situation, but given the fact it was uncommon to find a Hydregion on the side of good, then you could easily blame the fact that nothing was common when ponies and/or Pokémon were involved. Simply enough, this fact was made worse because humans were involved too: two in the bodies of Pokémon, and one who's simply being himself.

Oh, and he happened to be in a state of medical emergency.

"Alright, you know the plan?" Michio said.

Doc Hemlock nodded. "I go out there and 'rescue' my Hydregion that the Guards attacked for no reason other than the fact he was causing a disturbance, and you escape in the confusion."

"And you?" The 'rark asked the stallion.

2nd LT. Jenkins sighed. "I'm supposed to lead you to the hut of the zebra shaman Zecora so she can give you medical aid. You're then going to then use me as a hostage in order to negotiate a meeting with a representative of my government, since the Legendaries of which you'd normally defer to appear to hate humans, and you don't want to risk them doing whatever it is they might do to you."

"And you're okay with this... why?" Jonah asked with a raised brow.

The stallion just shrugged. "You don't seem like a threat. And even if you were a threat, you seem like a pretty stand-up stallion... er, whatever you call male humans." And his entire Squad was composed of enormous assholes, so it was about time he got back at them somehow.

"Guy," Jonah said with an incredulous eyebrow raise. In fact, his normal raised eyebrow just evolved into a Dwayne Johnson Raised Eyebrow. "The plural of man is men, and the plural of woman is women. The prefix 'wo-' refers to the female gender. For younger humans we use the term boys and girls, and while the term 'guy' usually refers to a male, the word 'guys' is used as a gender-neutral term to refer to a group of people."

Corignis facepalmed. *Let's talk about grammar after we're in a safe place?*

"Sorry," the human apologized. "I get kinda verbose when I'm in life-or-death situations, in order to distract myself from the fact I'm dying!" That last word was stressed, and it resolved into more deep coughing. This time the blood was very visible, and it resulted in the human beginning to wheeze.

"Go now!" Hemlock hissed, honestly panicked, before he rushed off to rescue what was actually starting to sound like a Hydregion in pain. The Gardevoir, Zoroark, Blaziken, and stallion all shared a glance before the stallion set his jaw and began to lead the group away from the battle.

In order to help keep their stealth, Michio proceeded to cast an illusion around his Trainer, making his Zoroark-themed clothes shift and warp in order to result in the appearance of an actual 'rark. The ease of this made it clear that the human's clothing choice wasn't just for aesthetics, because this was a tactic that worked very well in the past and would hopefully continue to work now. Not that this was expressly needed, but together and posed like this, it was made rather obvious to any who looked on that the group were moving away from the noise. And when the others of the human's team arrived, Ring was the one who silently gave the telepathic 'all clear' to return them; in order to make the illusion believable, Corignis allowed himself to be returned as well while Azumarill had agreed to stay with Doc Hemlock for the time being, giving them a line via Ring to figure out what his condition was.

"" Jonah mumbled, ""

"" Ring deadpanned. ""

"" Jonah shivered. "<I'm beginning to feel cold, and this Lum Berry isn't helping. I need human medicine, and from what Hemlock says we're not gonna get any of that. But seriously? The closest we can get is a zebra shaman?> What the actual fuck is this place?"

"This is Equestria," the stallion answered. That tail-end of the human's thought process had made it into actual speech, so Jenkins took it upon himself to answer. "A peaceful land populated by ponies like myself. We live in harmony with each other, using magic to keep the world safe."

"What do you mean by 'magic?'" Michio 'innocently' asked.

The group skirted around a group of shrubbery home to a few Weedle, the sight which put the Team on edge and which stressed the Trainer out enough that he nearly had a heart-attack. He had a crippling fear of bees from an incident with a Beedril swarm he had as a kid; normal bugs were okay, and Scythers were fucking badass, but bees? No. Nope. No way. Not even the buzzing noises were okay, at least not when they occurred en masse."Well, ponies are divided into three types," Jenkins started. "We have the Earth Ponies who're good at farming and harmonizing with nature, Pegasi who can fly and can manipulate the weather, and Unicorns who can actively manipulate magic itself. And Equestria is ruled by the Princesses, immortal Alicorns who have access to all three types of magic."

"" Ring mumbled.

"I'll be honest, I don't actually have much in the way of magic. The most I can do is pull off the Royal Canterlock, which is basically yelling so loudly my voice has physical force. Otherwise I'm good for rallying calls and then charging in like a madman, or so my Cutie Mark says."

"...your what." The 'zoroark' leaning on Michio's side deadpanned.

""

"Right. It signifies a pony's special talent, and is up for interpretation." Jenkins sighed. "Combine what you see with my name and no one in the Guard takes me seriously, even though I've got the highest survivability ranking in my division. I'm a second lieutenant, but does anyone care? Noooo...."

"Well they're gonna care soon," Michio grumbled. "How much access to classified material does your rank give you?"

Jenkins paused as he realized exactly what the zoroark was implying. "Enough that your plan is suddenly certain to work, 'cause I know all about the leaders of our squads and what their armor is sourced from."

ΩΩ
ΩΩ

Aile suddenly felt a chill. His gut replied with a feeling of warning; someone was talking about him, and it wasn't in a good and/or playful way. That would result in him sneezing.

"Roll call?"

Everyone was here, except for Jenkins. Well, that was okay, because nobody liked Jenkins. But if it was really okay, then why was he feeling a chill?

"So, who's Jenkins and why does everyone hate him?" Vent asked as she approached, having come up with nothing but a group of Pokemon doing... questionable things that no one wanted to investigate. Did they always mate that loudly?

"Sergeant Leeroy Jenkins," Aile started.

"Oh, him. He's the guy you keep saying you put at the very back of all your formations, right?"

"Yeah..." Suddenly, Aile had a sinking suspicion where this was going.

"Well," Vent said with a slightly worried expression. "Last time I checked, which was directly before we split up, the only stallion that fit that description and position happened to be wearing butter bars. And I can tell you right now that I can't see that golden gleam on any of your group."

Aile chuckled nervously. "Well, it's not that big a deal. I mean, Second Lieutenant doesn't really mean too much, right?"

Vent's expression became flat. "It means that if you get indisposed, he's the one that gets put in charge."

Aile's mind went blank as he suddenly realized two things. One: that meant that ser- Second Lieutenant Leeroy Jenkins was qualified to wear any of their project's armor prototypes if he ever got promoted. One and a half: Leeroy Jenkins in one of those prototypes! Two: that rank meant Jenkins also had access to all of the documentation needed to actually use those armor prototypes effectively. And three: now that Jenkins was missing, Jenkins could be considered a liability. Aile technically had full authorization to launch not a search and rescue mission, but a search and destroy mission.

Aile refused to hold that power in his hooves.

He rounded on his squad and affixed them with a glare. "You all called him by a lower rank than what he had, and when I followed suit because I trusted you, none of you corrected me. None of you showed him the respect he deserved. I get to do that because I'm a Lieutenant, but Jenkins had the full capability of getting you all court marshaled!"

Only most of them realized that yes, he could have, and the only thing keeping them employed was the fact Jenkins was of the understanding type. Or maybe he was biding his time to do something insane but completely justified, possibly like... well, what's happening right now.

"When we find that stallion, we will all apologize. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes sir," came the begrudgingly unanimous reply.

"Luna damnit, you're lucky I need you," Aile hissed. Suddenly, every single stallion under his command went ramrod straight as they realized that yes, they had managed to get their commanding officer very angry.

"Say, you wouldn't happen to know where my big brother's missing stallion is, would you?" Came Vent's voice.

"Oh sure," Doc Hemlock replied with a barely hidden smirk, both physically and in his voice. "I believe his words were something along the lines of 'help' and 'Zecora,' whatever that means. I was too far away and too worried for my teammate to focus on what he was saying, but he sounded pretty scared of something." Bending the truth was just way too much fun.

The sound of stampeding hooves proceeded to move in that direction.

*Wow, you're an asshole,* Azumarill said once Vent had left to join them.

"Sorry."

*Oh no, I'm actually really impressed! We're going to get along just fine, you and I.*

the Hydregion mentally groaned.

Author's Note

And so ends my... no, my hiatus is still here. But I've finally decided 'screw it, I'm uploading the rewrite in progress' because I can't leave all of you without knowing what ideas have been floating around.

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2: Double the Action

Chapter 2: Double the Action

"A slow rot... it is said that under the guise of peace, the government - no, the entire world - becomes corrupt, little by little. Peace breeds complacency and ultimately leads to decadence. But if struggle is a part of daily life, then people will never fall into that trap." -- Lamia Loveless, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 2

ΩΩ
ΩΩ

Swift "Aile" Striker wasn't your everyday Royal Guard pony.

Equestria was largely a peaceful realm. It had been that way for a thousand years, and according to everyone's beliefs, it would stay that way.

Aile thought differently. And lo and behold, he was being proven all sorts of right.

He couldn't voice these thoughts, as they amounted to treason and would get him fast-tracked to border patrol - or worse, out of the Guard in general - but to put it simply, Aile knew that there had to be reasons why the nation's peace was able to be held for so long. Especially when history proved that conflicts tore apart other nations while Equestria did nothing. And when history didn't prove such because - for some reason - that history was 'lost,' Aile found a very suspicious consistency in all of the dead ends he was led into. Even more suspicious was the fact that when he tried to go around them to get information from elsewhere - like, say, the Crystal Empire's ancient and uncensored libraries - his commanding officers never gave him the required leave, which resulted in the welcome side-effect of building up his vacation days.

What he did know was that Equestria was an isolationist nation, kept alive and afloat because Princess Celestia did anything and everything in her power to keep Equestria safe. This included going through and manipulating backdoor channels in order to keep the peace. She was the velvet glove to her sister's iron fist, and the 'fingers' of that glove were wormed in practically everywhere. It was the only possible explanation that made sense - Princess of the Sun or not, regardless of that immense amount of power, there simply wasn't enough of that power to conceivably rule an entire nation and keep it so peaceful for so long a time period.

And then the series of 'coincidences' that just so happened to result in the Elements of Harmony saving her sister? The only prophecy given was the return of the younger sister in a thousand years, and the only mare - Celestia's personal student, no less! - who made the connection to what Celestia already knew, was sent to the town that just so happened to be in walking distance of the old castle? How curious was it that Ponyville, a quite recently founded settlement, was the place where Nightmare Moon first returned? Where Twilight Sparkle made the first six true friends in her life, as opposed to the friends she could've made in Canterlot had Celestia pulled Twilight out of her books sooner?

Heh, funny joke, that. Making 'friends' in Canterlot. Aile could at least let that one slide.

Aile didn't believe that Celestia was a tyrant. She was a pleasant, benevolent ruler. It was only her methods that grated, her machinations and planning that went way over everyone's heads, his included. He and his fraternal twin sister, Swift "Vent" Impulse, were a part of one of those 'fingers' as - in the face of the growing number of threats and the sheer incompetence of the guard in comparison, Luna had decided that they needed an equalizing factor.

Like Aile, Luna knew the world was different. Like Aile, she also knew that it was fault of her sister. And, like Aile, Luna didn't dare bring it up, because Celestia probably did all of this peace-mongering in response to Nightmare Moon. Luna suspected that Celestia wanted to give her sister a home to return to, not too unlike the one present a thousand years ago. Aile knew deep down, in the same perceptive mentality that kept him from all sorts of higher ranks in the Guard, that such a prolonged peace resulted in stagnation. It was this lack of development which pointed to the facts that A.) Celestia continued to play neutral isolationist, in an effort to avoid a war Equestria wouldn't win, and B.) the isolationist doctrines kept the ponies far behind the times, so ancient in their ways that by Celestia keeping Equestria safe from everything that could be a threat, everything could now be a threat. And both of those points resulted in a single conclusion: Celestia couldn't start openly trying to catch up to correct this pitiful deficiency, not without other nations suddenly realizing that they should have invaded Equestria a long time ago, and thus causing a war anyway.

Currently, this meant that Aile and Vent were both part of a project meant to test out the concept of 'modular powered armor.' One of the things Luna was very familiar with was combat, and a method similar Celestia's 'fingers,' this allowed for the creation of several 'Black Projects' that no one was allowed to know about. Luna commissioned them in order to do things behind closed doors, things that Celestia Mc.Peacenik wouldn't be very happy about if she found out. Due to all of those fingers, she found out about quite a few anyway - or at least, the fingers Luna allowed her sister to find, which were either willingly disbanded 'cause Luna knew they wouldn't work, or were covers absorbed by Celestia's influence to hide the real projects.

The operative theory in the case of Aile and Vent's project was this: armor itself was a weapon, so if you had a baseline armor design and swapped out the parts that acted as weapons, you could adapt to any conceivable situation that arose. What neither of them knew was the fact this basically meant the pair were massive parodies of Gundam SEED. At least neither of them were Coordinators or Extended, though the option of genetic manipulation had been proposed... and then shot down by Celestia, vehemently. While the Sun Princess could support the creation of new weapons in order to put ponies on a level playing field with the other nations, she did so under the thought processes that ponies wielding weapons were instead wielding tools to protect the nation and the ones they loved. She would not allow her little ponies to become weapons themselves.

The closest 'level playing field' at this point was 'getting ponies on par with Pokémon,' however. Kinda hard to do when they're already living weapons by default. That and the whole '

Right now, Aile was adjusting the mechanical connectors attaching the red wingblades of his Striker Pack to the shiny white under-armor, muttering quiet obscenities over the lack of the power source needed to make this sort of thing automatic. 'Why, with the right crystal, you could fight in my armor for weeks!' the project leader had told him. 'Sadly we don't have one capable of that yet, but soon I'll be able to go to the Crystal Empire! Surely they have something we could use.'

Those were the last words Aile heard from 'Giro,' before the Pokémon came, Sombra returned, and the project group got a missive from Cadence herself, apologizing for the loss of his life. No one knew his real name, much less the name of any kin, as that was part of the project's parameters: secrecy. The end result was the fact his loss hit the team hard, the pegasus siblings crying for days. Giro was like the father they never had, and he lost his life in trying to be the good guy. Nice guys finished last, and naturally someone with good karma was the easiest target for a great evil like Sombra. A common pony, his life no different than any other, struck down simply because he was there.

Because all of his life, all he ever did was to make others better, even at the cost of his self.

That was what Aile and Vent swore to do in his name, and that's why they were currently decked out in their respective armor sets, designed by his hoof. Both pegasi, both ready and willing to launch themselves into the fray at a moment's notice. The problem lied in the fact that there was no fray to be had, as their mission right now was to discover the origin of a 'disturbance in the force.' Luna had sent them out with a squadron of reserve guards, as the rest were off dealing with some sort of massive conflict that they didn't have the clearance to know about. Apparently, in comparison, this disturbance in the fabric of spacetime was a small annoyance. 'Small potatoes,' in the words of their mission dispatcher.

It would probably fix itself anyway, or maybe one of Arceus' kids would take it upon themselves to actually... y'know, do their jobs. They had gotten complacent, and as such a lot of the untapped potential was currently sitting around unused.

Personally, Aile thought that was a good thing. While he wanted a change in the status quo, he didn't want the delicate balance of the world to be upset any further - he was naive in just what he thought that meant, but his theories so far had all been proven true. Follow his instincts, his combat professor had taught him, and that's what Aile did. That, and it just made more sense for Equestrian ponies to deal with problems in the Equestrian world. With the Pokémon here causing problems, Pokémon trying to fix those problems might very well end up causing more problems.

Aile and Vent had swiftly arrived in the area of the Everfree Luna had directed them to, and even they knew that something was amiss. Something was wrong, something was sincerely out of place. Of course no one who could easily solve this issue seemed to have the time to deal with whatever it was, otherwise there wouldn't be a feeling of unease trickling down the spines of the siblings and their squads, as the problem would've already been dealt with.

And they were all pissed off as a result. The whole lot of them had recently been startled into combat readiness by the sight of a pink Gardevoir holding tightly to what they assumed was someone very important to her, as upon sight they had witnessed the pair nigh immediately teleporting away. Something didn't seem right about whatever it was that 'voir was kneeling over, though, and the logical conclusion was that it was related to whatever this... discordant feeling in the air was.

"Let's split up," the voice of Mu La Flaga eventually said. He's the man that can make the impossible possible, and since Aile was as far from the sissy-but-overpowered 'Jesus Yamato' as you could get, the pilot of the Aile Strike after Kira got the Freedom seemed like a good fit.

"You sure about this?" The voice of Ashe from Megaman ZX Advent replied. Pegasi were natural Hunters, after all. "We're all feeling the same thing. Something's not right."

"Which means we need to cover as much ground as possible, as quickly as possible. The best way for us to actually do that is to split up. The sooner we find whatever it is that's causing this, the sooner we can leave and get back to safety."

"Given all the Pokémon everywhere," One of the grunts in the back piped up, "You might need to redefine 'safety.'"

"Shut up, Jenkins!" Came the reply from literally everyone within earshot.

"Your group goes left, mine goes right?" Aile suggested, completely ignoring the exchange.

"Red right returning," Vent agreed, "And the terrain looks flatter over here, so I'll be that much better better off when whatever this thing is eventually shows its face."

Vent always did have a problem with thinking three-dimensionally, so giving her the chance to fight somewhere flat and open made perfect sense to Aile. "Right," he affirmed.

"No, Left," she joked in reply. But at that point they had already started moving.

(--Ω--)

When the human next awoke, he had trouble realizing he had. It was dark, so dark as to rob him completely of vision when he opened his eyes. What really gave away the fact he wasn't sleeping was 'alien' japanese muttering, in a voice that could only belong to a certain Zoroark. While the human had managed to avoid being captured, he was still trained in what to do if he was, and as such Jonah already knew that he was currently blindfolded.

He also knew that he wasn't captured, as he was free to shift around, and a paw was gently rubbing his shoulder. "Michio?" The human coughed. O-ho-ly shit, that hurt.

"Shh. You're going to be okay, Jonah." The rubs became just a little more firm, as if the 'rark was trying to convince himself more than his Trainer.

"What the fuck happened?" Jonah tried to sit up, but the 'rark's paws carefully held him down. Not that he could move much anyway with the sudden agonizing pain lancing through every part of his body.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," came another voice. This one was new, foreign, and it immediately set the Trainer on edge.

"Who-" More coughing robbed him of any chance to voice the question, and Jonah had to relax, all of the energy suddenly leaving and rendering him exhausted. "Right in the diaphragm..." It was the deep sort of coughing you only got when something was in your windpipe that shouldn't be, and your body had to try very violently to get it out.

"I'm Doctor Hemlock. Field surgeon, or at least I used to be. Technically my license isn't any good here." Approximately three years ago from Jonah's perspective

But there were all sorts of medical professions in the old world now, and considering Jonah had no idea he wasn't in a new world yet, the idea of getting treated by a field medic was both a very welcome one - easily trusted, since Michio wasn't already trying to punch the Doctor's face in - and a little disconcerting, for what reason would a field surgeon have that required a blindfold? "...You're not operating on me right now, are you?"

"Oh no!" The doctor quickly reassured. "No, I'm just trying to get a diagnosis of what happened to you. Scared the bajeezus out of me, with you and your Gardevoir literally dropping right into my lap. Scared my team too, or what members I've found so far anyway."

"Jonah," Michio slowly began, "You're not going to like this."

"I'm already not liking it," the human groused. "Can you take off my blindfold?"

"" came the telepathic voice of the nearby Gardevoir. ""

The human just kinda... laid there for a few moments. Literally, his mind completely ground to a halt as he tried to process the sheer ridiculousness of that statement. Oh no, he knew it could be done, but then why was Ring being out and calm too? "Blindfold, off. Now."

Michio complied, and the human found himself blinking his eyes clear to see the night sky in all its glory. It was, of course, an alien night sky, something his mind noticed right off the get-go. And standing before him was a Dragonite decked out in a much-too-small doctor's vest, ripped but repaired into something still reasonably recognizable. It went well with the stereotypical stethoscope, and combined with the dragon's soft demeanor... well, the human couldn't find any fault with the doctor's presence nor his current predicament. You just couldn't fake a concerned face like that.

"What happened to you?" The Dragonite said in concise english. It was hard, due to his vocal chords being different from a human's, but with enough practice learning to speak it was relatively easy... especially when you knew enough about them to operate on them, if need be.

"I could ask you the same question," Jonah muttered.

"Apparently, Arceus brought all of the Pokémon and the humans he deemed worthy to this new world of Equestria, turning the humans into Pokémon in the process. That was quite some time ago, about three weeks give or take."

There was a pregnant pause, the disbelief tangible in the air. Mentally, the Trainer asked, <...he's not lying, is he?>

"" Ring sighed. ""

"Oh no, it makes perfect sense," Jonah groaned. "Just fucking perfect. Fucking great. Fuck this shit, I swear to fuckin-" The rest of his tirade was muffled by the Zoroark's paw.

"What's so hard to believe?" Doc Hemlock asked, complete with an instinctive head tilt he had even before the whole turned-into-a-Pokémon thing.

In reply, Michio simply removed one of the Trainer's Pokéballs and released his Sandslash. The doctor glanced over, and had to do a double-take as his expression became a look of utter horror. "What happened!?"

"We've been fighting in a war for three years," the Dark-type intoned, watching as the dragon swiftly unpacked nigh every single medical supply he had. "When Arceus took all the good humans and Pokémon away, you can imagine what happened to the world left behind. All the Teams - Rocket, Cipher, Plasma, and Galactic - united and took over basically everything."

"Wh-what about Creatures Incorporated?" The field surgeon asked, his tone skeptical as well as slightly distracted.

"Dead within the first six months." What you might not understand is that the ancestral home to all of the Legendaries is Japan. It was there that the Pokémon first settled and then spread from. Japan is only a small island nation, however, part of a much larger planet home to humans, Pokémon, and the animals that fell under neither category. The further away from Japan you got, the less frequent Pokémon were, until you got to somewhere like Madagascar which was inhabited entirely by these lemurs that liked to move it, move it. Or at least, that was the theory, as no one had actually been there and returned to tell such a tale.

Creatures Inc. was a global corporation that acted as the background framework for all the Pokémon world's governments, like a privatized version of the United Nations. The people at the UN made the rules, and Creatures Inc. disseminated those rules to the masses in addition to the policies concerning Pokémon. Naturally, the main bases of Creatures Inc. were also in Japan. "When all of the Teams united," Michio continued, "it was there that the attacks were focused on first. With all of the good humans and Pokémon suddenly gone, it didn't take long at all for all of the infrastructure to get wrapped up in the iron GRiP of the conglomerate of 'bad guys' left behind."

"" Which made sense, as bad guys squabbling would easily result in such a massive rift. ""

"B-but Holon is just a myth!" The Dragonite retorted, almost dropping his scalpel. Not that he did, though, and luckily enough the motion didn't hurt the Sandslash any.

"It's not," Jonah muttered. "I was there. Called there because, being one of the only good humans left behind that qualified for Champion status, I was the only one capable of being named a commander. I got control over the entirety of the remnants of both the Hoenn and Sinnoh leagues due to my twin sets of badges... which equated to only a couple hundred people." And a couple hundred thousand Pokémon, by the time Jonah had left Holon for Spear Pillar.

At this point, Doc Hemlock had to stop, his eyes wide and his gaze distant at the implications. He knew, deep down, that there was no way any of them could make this up: it was too realistic, made too much sense, and was too detailed to be a hoax nevermind the fact it was being told by three completely different people acting in concert. "H-how...?"

"" Ring telepathed. Her voice was still calm, but there was an undercurrent of steely rage that was felt more than heard. ""

"I would've been consumed by guilt a long time ago, and almost had been, until Sanic told me something." The human took a few deep breaths, looking over to the konked-out Ground-type with a weak but fond smile. "Arceus created Mew, and Mew created the humans. Since the humans were the ones who eventually imprisoned Arceus, technically Arceus imprisoned himself. When I freed him and he took all the good humans away, I thought, 'Holy shit, what a selfish bastard.' Technically, he also freed himself, for am I not a human?"

Michio smirked. "And then Sanic called Arceus a glorified Hitler, and we all burst out laughing because none of us could find a way to disprove him. We tried, but the laughter just got worse; it wasn't happy laughter, but any laughter helps, y'know?"

Doc Hemlock sighed, getting back to work on patching up the Ground-type as best he could. Which, as it happens, was very well - he was already looking so much better. "I believe you, it's just... could three years of war really happen in the course of three weeks?"

"" Ring murmured. ""

"..." The human opened his mouth, then closed it, heaving a massive sigh. "We don't belong here."

""

"We belong back at home, fighting for a better tomorrow... if there even is a tomorrow. If we're here, what does that mean for... for the rest of the resistance? How much time-" As stressed as he was, it didn't take much to get Jonah coughing again. Like last time, it was due to something welling up in the throat, and like last time, it took deep coughs that heavily strained the diaphragm and resulted in a stitch in his side. Only this time, the human found a tissue being held up to his mouth, and it came away bloody. "...that's not good."

""

"...hyperspace implies travel," Michio muttered. "And since we're here and not dead..."

*Ring latched on to the connection between this world and our home, sucking us through the same trail Arceus forged in order to get here,* came a fourth voice.

"Corignis!" Jonah cried, before immediately sinking into another coughing fit, this one even worse.

The human was beginning to look rather pale, and at this point the Dragonite had to go back to him, expression clearly worried. The doctor traded places with Ring, who went to the downed Sandslash and got to work with her Heal Pulse, as he had succeeded in clearing away enough of the damaged tissue to allow the psychic-type freedom in her repair methods. "Given humans still aren't as sturdy as Pokémon, it's no surprise you got hurt in the transfer, provided that's what happened. It's certainly likely. Given that cough, you probably have some internal bleeding; I didn't want to disrobe you without your permission, since your Gardevoir said you'd be waking up soon, and I can only imagine what would happen if you did so while a dragon was taking your clothes off."

*He'd probably pop a stiffy,* the Blaziken joked. *I know I would.*

At the Doctor's expression, both Corignis and Michio burst out laughing. Jonah would have too, if he wasn't being accused of homosexuality again. The worst part about that was Ring was also smiling.

The real issue here was the fact that Corignis was probably right, and what made it even more awful was the fact the human had been struggling with the revelation he had happened upon almost a year ago: while his team was his family and he deeply cared for them, he was especially close to his starter. Quite often, the only way the either of them could sleep during the war was to occupy the same sleeping bag, clutching to each other in order to ride out the night terrors in the company of someone who cared.

The human loved his family, but he loved his starter more.

With no one around to enforce the anti-Poképhilia laws during the war, and given the general anarchy that was 'crime everywhere, survival of the fittest, all the prisons have already been burned to the ground,' no one really cared anyway - the social stigmas were still there, and that was it. Several of the friends Jonah had in the Resistance were in very open relationships with their comrades, and given Holon was never meant to house an entire organization, a lot of those relationships were... ahem, very 'loud.' By that same notion, Jonah was also familiar with a whole lot of people who reformed by seeing the error of their ways.

A lot of those people were then completely crushed by the loss of those loved ones in the fighting. Those people, too, were quite loud: in their grief, in their sorrow, in their rage, both on and off the battlefield.

Logically, the Acting Champion would already be in a relationship with at least one member of his Team. It's just that Jonah was raised by a blatant anti-Poképhile, and everyone he knew growing up either agreed or kept focused on other issues, such as homosexuality and how it was a sin. Combine both and take away all the excuses keeping him from the male Starter he loved, and....

"Healing first, questions and laughing at my expense later. I am not gonna drown in my own blood," Jonah muttered, succeeding in getting the doctor to progress with carefully stripping the human of his clothes.

Of course, Ring sighed at that thought. ""

"And the rest of the Team?" Oh no, that came out in more of a wheeze.

*I'm fine,* Corignis said. *A little over-cooked, but you know that sort of thing doesn't bother me. Fritz is off foraging for berries because Arceus brought those here too, Azumarill is standing guard with Hemlock's team, and Luster's still in his ball. We already had the kind Doc look at him once he introduced himself and Ring gave him the okay; all he said was that we seriously need a hospital. Apparently his burns got through to the skin, and if we tried treating him out here he'd doubtlessly get an infection, even with the berries everywhere.*

"Goodness. What happened here?" Said doctor asked. The human had to flinch away at the feeling of the Dragonite's claws touching the quartet of scars running across his left side.

"The Skarmory happened," Michio replied. "If it weren't for some extremely generous psychic-types, Jonah would've lost a kidney, and given the lifestyle everyone was being forced into it's likely he wouldn't be here today."

The Dragonite's eyes narrowed. "And why would you still have that Skarmory with you if that was the case?"

"Why do you still have that Hydregion of yours?" Michio countered. The sheer animosity in the 'rark's tone was enough to shut everyone right up, making it clear that no one wanted to go down that line of accusation any time soon. In the mind of the Team, the Skarmory was steadfast and loyal, even to a fault; he was as much a part of their family as the human was, especially because that human was willing to kill in order to keep them safe. Just as they would do for him. And considering Luster's current state, brought on by his fight against literally all of the forces in the sky at the time - which he won no less - none of them could really be assed to deal with the circumstances involving the ethics of his capture.

"Point taken," the doctor eventually mumbled.

It was in this lull of silence, broken only by the sounds of the doctor trying to save the unusually calm human, that Michio's ear perked and his expression hardened. He gestured quietly to Ring, who blinked and then nodded, before the 'rark lifted his arms high in the air. To the group, nothing happened, though the Dragonite did flinch.

Before he could question what that was, Ring answered via a more localized version of her telepathic speech. ""

At the doctor's questioning gaze, he opened his mouth just to find it held shut by a zoroark's paw. "No talking," Michio's other paw tapped a claw his own forehead, then circled around the four of them before pointing to Ring. "We're in a mental network made by Ring so we can be quiet." Then he pulled both paws away from the dragonite, so one mime speaking while his claw returned to the forehead. "Think what you want to say instead." Of course Michio could only mouth out the words rather than think them himself, because he was a Dark-type.

"" The doctor tried, nodding to show he understood despite a growing scowl. ""

"" Ring murmured. ""

"" Jonah butted in.

"<We all went down guns blazing,>" Ring firmly retorted. ""

"" The Dragonite blinked, clearly alarmed.

The response was a mental image, one that could only hold its cohesion for a moment before the doctor clutched his head and managed to shut it out. It was a still frame of the battle from Luster's aerial perspective: the flash of Jonah's pistol going off, the line of the bullet tracing its way into the skull of a Shadow Haxorus about to slice its axe into Corignis' back. The depression signifying the absence of Spear Pillar brought with it a sense of dread, even in the memory - it was a noticeable background feeling, one that didn't manage to get muted in favor of the horror that was Pokémon fighting and dying, blood spraying from wounds and limbs being crippled. In Fritz' case, a lot of it was in its gaseous state, evaporating due to the intense heat of his electricity being thrown around. Sanic was hell on wheels, flying through the air at completely unsafe speeds and slicing and stabbing whenever he could. Which was constantly. And near him, Azumarill was busy launching glittering jets of water, combining her types into moves that arced through the air in distinctly unnatural yet very beautiful ways. If you could call drowning and exploding due to overpressure beautiful.

As this was after Michio had his arm broken and hastily re-set, his side of the battlefield made the rest look peaceful by comparison. The problem lied in the alien knowledge calling the 'rark's head home: Michio's line of work spoke of a very disturbing amount of brutality, one that meant Ring was extremely hesitant to use Miracle eye in the Zoroark's vicinity. Wherever the 'rark went, death followed - while Sanic used his claws efficiently, Michio let himself sink into the most violent mindset you could imagine. Every strike was meant to kill in the most painful way possible, and every counter was meant to cause the most damage instead - this was often in the visible sense, and as a result the few who died from his initial Night Daze could be considered the lucky ones. In several cases, Michio had conjured a Shadow Ball with a Dark Pulse contained within, and detonated the result inside his opponents stomachs; this completely disintegrated everything within the orb's area of influence, leaving the natural results to realistically follow behind.

Simply put, no Doctor would be able to heal that.

That didn't stop many of the corrupted 'mon from getting right back up and continuing to fight regardless, of course. The sheer depths to which Cipher went to in order to get the most out of their army...

"..." Doc Hemlock swallowed, suddenly feeling too clammy to work. "<I've seen so much in my time as a field surgeon, but that... three years... what was Arceus thinking?>"

"" Jonah replied with a physical sigh of bone-deep weariness. ""

ΩΩ
ΩΩ

"I hear something up ahead," Aile muttered. "Be on your guard."

"I hear something to our right," one of the guards murmured.

"Shut up, Jenkins," several of the nearby guards retorted in annoyed tones.

"No, seriously!" Said Guard was, actually, picking up on the faint noises of a Dragonite doing medical work. "We should-"

"Stick to the formation, Sargeant!" Aile hissed in a no-nonsense tone.

Leeroy Jenkins sighed. You'd think that just because his parents gave him this name, and because he had a Cutie Mark that apparently meant he was good at charging in as loudly as possible, other people would be mature and not take his name at face value. Everyone always assumed he was disposable, until he somehow ended up the only pony in his squad with a level head. Despite his butter bars, or maybe because of them, he was still unable to convince anyone that he was, in fact, a Second Lieutenant because of that survivability. Not that anyone really cared.

So the Second Lieutenant silently rose the middle portion of his hoof - the sharp, armored point, meant to cut those he punched - to the Lieutenant Commander and stood stock still. They wanted him to shut up? Oh he would alright. And he'd happily investigate what he knew to be something of importance - those noises were too orderly, too concise, and too ringed by silence to be part of the randomness that was their environment.

The Everfree Forest, or rather its southern portions. Were plants grew, clouds moved, and animals cared for themselves... all on their own! Ooooh, so scary. Of course, Sgt. Jenkins was in the same school of thought as one Element of Kindness: 'animals' wouldn't be a term put in use anymore, simply by virtue of the fact the Pokémon were so genetically superior in every way to the native species. And that they took offence to being called animals. Not that it stopped the nobles from making sure that such 'filthy animals' stayed out of much of the Royal Guard's military ranks, anyway. They were an all-pony unit for that reason.

"Hydregion!" Came the roar from ahead, followed by a Flash Cannon that Aile easily blocked with his shield.

"Holy shit!"

"ATTAAAAAAACK!!"

Battle ensued. Of course, all of these loud noises completely masked the sounds of one of their own being taken out.

(--Ω--)

"So, what should we do with him?"

Jonah hmmmed in thought. "What did he say his name was?"

"Sgt. Jenkins."

The human, leaning on his Gardevoir but clearly willing and able to move, raised an eyebrow. "As in Leeroy Jenkins?"

The bound and gagged guard hesitantly nodded, and the human broke out into a wide grin.

This could only end well.

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