Act 3: Chapter 11
Fuggmann
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Lee lets his eyes drift across the lobby, careful to keep his expression bored rather than calculating.
The grunt presence is about what he expected from Brendan's aerial reconnaissance. Ten gangsters and eight visible pokemon. Their pokemon are a motley assortment of Water-types: the Carvanha floating on its little pad of water, the Corphish still idly pulling apart the remains of an office chair, a pair of Lotad waddling between their trainers' feet, a Spheal rolled up in the corner like an oversized beach ball. He spots a Wingull perched on a light fixture, a Marill sitting on someone's lap, and the Tentacool draped over the heavyset grunt's shoulder at reception.
Eight pokemon visible, all of them first-stage and most without signs of veterancy, such as scars or other little weals.
Individually? Not much of a threat. Octillery could down all of them with a sweep of Charge Beam, and Sliggoo's Dragon Pulse would make short work of any who managed to keep their grip on consciousness afterward.
That, however, is not the problem.
Lee's gaze flicks to the hostages huddled in the corner. One, two, seven… twenty, maybe more, pressed together like frightened Wooloo. Lab coats and business casual, pale faces and trembling hands.
With that many hostile pokemon scattered around the room, it only takes one stray attack, the Carvanha lunging at the wrong moment, the Tentacool lashing out with Poison Sting, and someone ends up hurt.
Or worse.
And that's not even accounting for the grunts themselves, who also need to be dealt with, albeit, with the lightest set of kid gloves manageable.
Silently, Lee hopes he never has to see what witnessing the maiming, or Giratina forbid, death of a trainer does to their pokemon. The last thing they need is some grunt's Corphish going mad with grief and stress evolving into a rampaging Crawdaunt in the middle of a room full of civilians.
'We need to hit them hard and fast,' Lee sends through the telepathic link Latias is maintaining. 'Take out as many pokemon as we can before they have a chance to retaliate, but they're too spread out right now. If we start something from here, they might make a run for the hostages.'
Zinnia's response comes tinged with the odd echo of being relayed through a third party. 'So we need to bunch them up first. Get them all looking at one spot.'
'Exactly. But how do we do that without tipping them off?'
A beat of silence. Then Zinnia's mental voice takes on a sharp edge of amusement.
'Follow my lead, Dolittle.'
Before Lee can ask what she means, Zinnia is already moving, sauntering toward the center of the lobby casually. He follows a half-step behind, hyperaware of the illusory uniform wrapped around him, of the borrowed face he's wearing.
They stop near the middle of the room. Zinnia glances around, as if checking that no one is paying attention.
Then, loud enough to echo off the walls: "The hell did you just say to me?"
Lee blinks.
Zinnia rounds on him, her borrowed face twisted into an ugly scowl. "Say it again! I dare you!"
'Oh.'
He catches on.
"I said," Lee pitches his voice louder than feels natural, letting an edge of derision creep in, "that maybe if you weren't such a screwup, we wouldn't have gotten stuck on guard duty in the first place."
"A screwup?!" Zinnia shoves him in the chest, hard enough to make him stumble. "You're the one who let that Zigzagoon get into that fuckin' supply crate last week! Then you dragged me into it!"
"That wasn't my fault and you know it!"
At their feet, 'Buizel' and 'Poliwhirl' bristle, squaring up against each other with hackles raised. Sliggoo plays his part well, the illusion's orange fur standing on end as he lets out a warning hiss. Octillery is equally convincing, the fake Poliwhirl's stubby arms raised in a fighting stance.
Around them, the lobby stirs.
The bored grunts perk up like a pack of Poochyena catching a scent, conversations dying mid-sentence as heads turn toward the commotion. The heavyset man at the reception desk slides off his perch, Tentacool's tentacles twitching with interest. The Carvanha drifts closer in its water bubble, beady eyes gleaming. Even the Wingull flutters down from its light fixture, landing on a nearby chair to get a better view.
"You wanna go?" Zinnia snarls, getting right in Lee's face. "Right here, right now?"
"Maybe I do!"
The grunts form a loose circle around them, their pokemon clustering close. Someone whoops. Another calls out, "Twenty on the big guy!"
"Thirty on Shorty! He looks mean!"
Lee risks a glance around under the guise of sizing up his "opponent."
Every hostile pokemon in the room is within fifteen feet of them. Every grunt's attention is fixed on the brewing fight. The hostages are behind them, forgotten.
Perfect.
Ninetales, still hidden under Feint Attack, creeps close on soundless paws, and nine phantom tails Lee's brain insists are sprouting from his one tailbone tense.
'Go!'
The illusions fall away like shed skin, Lee's borrowed face and grunt uniform dissolving into motes of light that scatter and fade. Beside him, Zinnia's disguise does the same, revealing her true features twisted into a predator's grin. At their feet, 'Poliwhirl' and 'Buizel' shimmer and reform into Octillery and Sliggoo, the Dragon-type's eyeless face somehow conveying eager anticipation.
And in the heartbeat of confusion that follows, before the grunts can process what they're seeing and before a single cry of alarm can leave their lips, Ninetales strikes.
She materializes from nothing like a phantom, her nine tails fanning out behind her, each one sheathed in gleaming steel, and then they shoot out like striking vipers.
Crack. The Carvanha is swatted from its water cushion and driven into the tile floor hard enough to crater it, the fish pokemon's eyes rolling back before it even hits the ground.
Crack. The Corphish goes sailing into the far wall, back-first, the impact leaving a spiderweb of fractures in both the wall and its shell.
Crack. Crack. Both Lotad are hammered flat in the same instant, twin tails sweeping down like lightning bolts.
Crack. The Spheal is launched sideways, bowling over a potted plant before slamming into an overturned couch.
Crack. The Wingull doesn't even have time to squawk before a tail catches it mid-flutter with the ugly sound of bones snapping.
Crack. The Marill is smacked off its trainer's lap like a tee-ball, bouncing once before lying still.
Crack. The Tentacool is torn from the heavyset grunt's shoulder by a pillar of gray and whipped across the room, hitting the wall with a splat.
In a second flat, all eight pokemon are down for the count.
The hostages scream, cowering under the sudden violence.
'Jump!' Ninetales commands to them all.
Ninetales' ninth tail sweeps low in a wide arc that Lee and Zinnia both leap over.
Octillery lifts himself neatly with Psychic, letting the tail miss.
Sliggoo, however, burbles in alarm and presses his squishy body low, letting the attack sail overhead, an inch away from taking off his antennae.
Without any warning of their own, the grunts around them can do little. The steel coating around the tail flickers as NInetales dials back the power, and it catches the grunts across the shins and sends them tumbling like bowling pins, sprawling across the lobby floor in a tangle of limbs and pained grunts.
"What the f-!"
"What's going on-!"
"Who are-!
Red light flares as pokeballs burst open on belts and in pockets. A Grimer oozes into existence near Lee's feet, and a Zubat takes wing near the ceiling. A second Corphish materializes with claws raised, chittering furiously.
"Octillery! Psychic!"
"Sligoo, Dragon Pulse!"
Octillery's eyes flash purple, and the Grimer is seized by telekinetic force and hurled into its trainer, bowling them both over. Sliggoo rears back and unleashes a Dragon Pulse that catches the Zubat dead-center, the crackling beam of draconic energy swatting it from the air like a fly. The second Corphish manages a single snapping lunge before a follow-up Charge Beam from Octillery sends it skidding across the floor, twitching and smoking.
"Stay down!" Zinnia barks, and there's nothing playful in her voice now. Her hand hovers over Salamence's ball at her hip. "Anyone else feeling brave?"
The grunts, groaning and clutching bruised limbs do not feel brave.
Lee is already reaching for Corviknight's ball. "Corvi, I need you."
The massive steel bird materializes in a flash of light, his razor-edged feathers gleaming under the fluorescent lights as he ducks to make room for himself. The huge avian takes in the scene with sharp red eyes and lets out a low, rumbling croak of understanding before Lee even finishes speaking.
"Get the hostages out of here. Lead them toward the treeline, then start ferrying them to Rubello, as many as you can carry safely." Lee turns to the cluster of terrified researchers, who are staring at the carnage with wide eyes and pale faces. "You all! We're with the League! Go with Corviknight and he'll keep you safe!"
'Brendan, Latias,' he sends through the mental link. 'Hostages incoming. Provide overwatch for the evacuation. Make sure no one follows them out.'
'On it,' Brendan's response comes back, serious as can be.
Corviknight spreads his wings and lets out a commanding screech, jerking his head toward the front entrance. The hostages don't need to be told twice. They scramble to their feet and rush for the door, a flood of lab coats and panicked faces streaming past Lee and Zinnia.
"Move, move, move!" Zinnia urges them on, practically shoving the slower ones toward the exit. "Don't stop until you hit the trees!"
The lobby empties in seconds, the last of the hostages vanishing into the storm-dark night with Corviknight's hulking silhouette guiding them forward.
Lee watches them go, then turns his gaze toward the stairwell at the far end of the room. "Someone has to have heard that, and we can't afford to give up the momentum we've got going. Octillery!"
Octillery straightens up, giving Lee his full attention.
"Stay here and don't let any of the grunts follow, call for help, or anything else that might foul this up," Lee orders, turning and not waiting for an affirmative.
They take the stairs two at a time, Ninetales flowing up alongside Lee, while Zinnia brings up the rear with Sliggoo in her arms.
The second floor opens up before them, a sprawling workspace that takes up the entire level. Desks cluttered with papers and coffee mugs sit in neat rows, computer monitors dark and dormant. Weather maps and atmospheric charts paper the walls, and a massive satellite image of Hoenn dominates one corner, the region's coastline rendered in stunning detail.
They get little chance to inspect anything else, because someone is already here to greet them.
The woman descends the staircase from the third floor like a slithering Arbok, her long dark hair swaying with each step. Tanned skin, a toned midriff left bare by an outfit that prioritizes style over practicality, and the blue Aqua 'A' emblazoned proudly across her chest. Her face might be pretty under other circumstances, but right now it's twisted into an ugly scowl.
Stomp.
Stomp!
STOMP!
The man who thunders down after her makes Lee blink.
He's huge. Seven feet tall at minimum, with shoulders broad enough to fill a doorframe and arms thicker than Lee's thighs. Every visible inch of him is corded with muscle, the kind of physique that would make comic book artists throw up their hands in defeat. He's clad in what might have once been a wetsuit, though the torso has been ripped away to leave him in a rough pair of pants and gloves, his barrel chest bare and gleaming with rain or sweat.
'Is he part Machoke?' Lee wonders, 'Or just some genetic freak? This guy is almost too big to be fully human.'
The giant palms a pokeball from his belt. In his hand, it looks like a marble.
"Hold it right there," he rumbles, his voice a bass growl that Lee feels in his chest.
The woman's scowl deepens as her eyes flick between Lee and Zinnia, and something like recognition flashes across her face. "Well, well. Lee Henson and Zinnia of the Draconids." She plants a hand on her hip, head tilting. "Boss Archie's mentioned you two. Said you might be trouble." Her lip curls. "What do you think you're doing here?"
Zinnia matches the woman's posture, chin lifted in defiance. "You know exactly why we're here. This little science project of yours is over." She jerks her thumb over her shoulder, toward the lobby below. "Your boys downstairs are already down for the count. You and the beefcake should stand down before you join them."
The big man, Matt, if Lee remembers correctly, throws his head back and laughs. It's a booming sound, far too jovial for the situation.
"Stand down?" He grins, showing too many teeth. "Girly, that's my line."
His pokeball snaps open, and the Crawdaunt that materializes out of it is a bruiser. Its shell is scarred and pitted from dozens of battles, its pincers massive and cruel-looking. The crustacean clacks them together with a sound like snapping bone, eager in the worst sort of way.
Shelly's hand moves to her own belt. "You should have stayed out of this."
Her Tentacruel emerges in a flash of red light, its massive bell-shaped head nearly scraping the ceiling. Dozens of tentacles writhe beneath it, each one tipped with venomous barbs dripping purple, and its eyes, cold and alien, fix on Lee's group with open hostility.
Lee's jaw tightens.
A pair of fully evolved pokemon. Experienced ones, by the look of them.
'Ugh, this couldn't be more simple?'
Allowing himself a half-second to look away, Lee glances at Zinnia.
On her face is a wide, practically manic grin unfitting the current peril that they're in. Like a bear or some other beast, she stands hunched forward, arms dangling and fingers curled into loose claws around a pair of pokeballs. "And you shouldn't have come here!" she retorts, whipping one of the pokeballs in her hand up.
Pop-fssssh!
The mass of white light that hits the ground shapes itself into a tiny dino, and when the light itself fades, Zinnia's Tyrunt stands next to Sliggoo.
Tyrunt's attention snaps to the pair of larger, meaner pokemon across the room, and he bares his teeth with a snarl, enraged just by their challenging stances.
"Zinnia?" Lee questions, looking between her pokemon, then back to her.
"Run up and take the head off this Seviper, Lee," Zinnia practically orders, jerking her head to the stairs behind the pair of scowling Aqua admins. "These two are mine."
"Zinnia, are you sure?" Lee asks, eyes flicking between the two admins and their pokemon. "They can't be pushovers."
"I know." Zinnia's grin doesn't waver. "That's why I want them. Now go!"
Matt's eyes narrow, and he barks a command. "Crawdaunt! Don't let 'em through!"
The crustacean surges forward with alarming speed, pincers spread wide to intercept. Lee tenses, ready to call out to Ninetales, but Zinnia is faster.
"Tyrunt! Bite!"
The little dinosaur launches himself like a scaly missile, jaws yawning wide. He catches Crawdaunt's pincer mid-swing, his fangs sinking into the joint where shell meets flesh. Crawdaunt lets out a gurgling shriek of surprise, trying to shake the smaller pokemon loose, but Tyrunt's grip is ironclad.
Then he twists.
The Crawdaunt goes airborne, ripped off its feet and hurled across the room with a strength that belies Tyrunt's diminutive frame. The crustacean careens toward Tentacruel, who recoils out of the way with a wet slithering sound. Crawdaunt keeps flying and crashes through a row of desks instead, sending monitors and keyboards exploding outward in a shower of plastic and sparking electronics.
"Crawdaunt!" Matt's face twists with fury, veins bulging at his temples. His attention snaps to Lee, and before anyone can react, the massive man plants himself between them and the staircase.
He winds back a fist the size of a Christmas ham.
"You ain't goin' nowhere!"
Ninetales blurs into existence in front of Lee, tails fanned wide and prickling with Iron Tail needles. A snarl rips from her throat, lips peeled back to reveal gleaming fangs, and her eyes burn with barely restrained violence as the carpet around her paws begins to smoke.
Matt hesitates, fist still cocked.
"Are you sure you want to hit me? Sure that you want to let that genie out of the bottle?" Lee asks quietly.
"Matt." Shelly's voice cuts through the tension like a knife. She gives Ninetales a pensive, uncomfortable glare. "Don't be stupid. The boss can handle himself."
The giant's jaw works, muscles jumping beneath his skin. His eyes bore into Lee's with naked hatred. But slowly, grudgingly, he lowers his fist and steps aside, turning back toward the battle proper.
"Sliggoo, Dragon Breath! Tyrunt, Ancient Power!"
Zinnia's commands ring out, and the second floor erupts into chaos. A gout of green flame forces Tentacruel to shield itself with writhing tentacles, while chunks of stone materialize from thin air and pepper Crawdaunt just as it rises from the ruined desks.
Lee doesn't wait to see more. He and Ninetales sprint for the stairs, taking them three at a time as the sounds of battle rumble through the floor beneath their feet. The whole building seems to shake with each impact, dust drifting down from the ceiling tiles.
As they climb, Lee's hand finds Sceptile's ball at his belt.
'Nine, when we get up there, I need you to hang back and protect the Institute employees running the weather machine. If things go south, they're going to need cover to shut it down safely.'
The response that comes back through their bond is sharp with indignation. 'You would have me sit idle while you face yet another challenge? Again?' she demands. The memory of being left out of the Petalburg Gym match flashes in the back of her mind, tinged with a hint of bitterness that he can practically taste.
'It's not like that.' Lee pushes down his own nerves, letting reassurance flow across their link instead. 'We're not trying to win this fight, Love. We're stalling. Steven and whoever else are on their way. All we have to do is keep Archie busy until they get here.'
A pause. Ninetales' presence in his mind roils with frustration, but beneath it, he can feel her grudging acceptance.
'If he so much as singes a hair on your head, I will burn this building to the ground. Backup or no backup.'
'I'd expect nothing less.'
They crest the final step, and the third floor opens up before them.
Rows upon rows of electronics line the walls, bulky towers of metal and wire that remind Lee of photographs from the early days of computing. Floor-to-ceiling power conduits snake up one corner, thick cables feeding into junction boxes that spark and crackle with barely contained energy. Between the machinery, tall windows offer a view of the storm outside, rain lashing against the glass in sheets while lightning splits the sky.
In the far corner, a pair of Institute employees huddle over a terminal, their faces pale and drawn in the glow of the monitor. A grunt stands guard beside them, one hand on the shoulder of a Gligar perched on a filing cabinet. Both tense the moment Lee and Ninetales burst through the stairwell door, the Gligar's tail stinger rising and the grunt's hand dropping to his belt.
But Lee's attention isn't on them.
Archie stands on the far side of the room, silhouetted against the storm-lashed windows. His back is to them, hands clasped behind him as he watches the tempest he's unleashed. The anchor amulet around his neck catches the lightning's flash, gleaming gold against his dark skin.
For a long moment, the only sounds are the hum of machinery and the distant rumble of thunder.
Then Archie sighs, and turns.
"Lee Henson." The Aqua leader's voice is calm, almost conversational. A small, rueful smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Can't say I'm surprised to see you here. I knew if I didn't snag you the first time, then a guy with your kind of good, misguided heart would end up coming at us before long."
He doesn't seem alarmed by the muffled crashes and shouts filtering up from below. If anything, he seems to have expected them.
Lee's hand tightens around Sceptile's ball. His mind races, weighing options. He could tell Archie that backup is on the way, that who knows how many league agents are bearing down on this position, that surrender is the only sensible option.
But even as the thought forms, he knows it's probably pointless.
His expression sours. "I don't suppose you'd surrender if I asked?"
Archie chuckles, a low sound that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Men like you and me don't do things halfway, Henson. We both know that." He shakes his head slowly. "I'm not even going to bother asking if you want to change your mind and join up with Aqua. I already know the answer to that one."
"You told me the next time we met, it would be as enemies." Lee holds the man's gaze, refusing to look away. "You were right about that, at least."
Something flickers across Archie's face. Disappointment, maybe, or regret. His shoulders slump just a fraction, and for a moment, he looks less like a psychotic terrorist mastermind and more like a man genuinely carrying a weight he never asked for.
Archie's gaze sweeps across the room, taking in the humming supercomputers, the crackling power conduits, the terrified employees and their equally terrified guard. His eyes linger on the Gligar, still poised to strike, then return to Lee.
"Tell you what," he says, jerking his chin toward the ceiling. "Let's take this to the roof. No need to catch anyone else in the crossfire, yeah?"
Lee's frown deepens.
It's a reasonable suggestion. Considerate, even. But although it seems to come from someplace selfless…
'He's maneuvering us,' Lee realizes, a chill running down his spine that has nothing to do with the damp shirt still sticking to his back. 'Into the rain, where the terrain favors Water-types and dampens Fire-types. Damn it. He's pulling the same trick again.'
Archie is already moving, walking toward a maintenance door on the far wall that must lead to roof access. He pauses with his hand on the handle, looking back over his shoulder.
"Garret." The grunt by the terminal flinches at being addressed. "Recall your pokemon and stand down. There's nothing more you can do here."
"B-but Boss-!"
"That's an order."
The grunt's jaw works, but he doesn't argue. A beam of red light pulls the Gligar back into its ball, and he steps away from the employees with his hands raised.
Lee watches Archie push through the door and start up the stairs, then curses under his breath.
'Nine. If the fighting caves in the roof, I need you to throw a Protect over the workers. Keep them safe.'
Ninetales' hackles rise, and her lips pull back to expose pearly fangs. 'You expect me to sit here while you-!'
'I expect you to make sure innocent people don't die,' Lee cuts her off, gentler than his words might suggest. 'Sylvy nor Shinx have the raw power needed to make it through a building collapsing unscathed while protecting others. If they did, I'd leave the duty to them. Please, Nine. I need to know they're covered.'
A beat of furious silence follows, where Ninetales can't quite hide her rejection of his logic, that the lives of strangers have equal worth to his. Then, grudgingly: '...Fine. But if I sense you're in true danger, I am coming up there, and nothing you say will stop me.'
'You said that already, love. Like I said before, I expect nothing less,' he sends back, rubbing his keystone watch through the sleeve of his jacket. 'Back-up can't be far, and we've got an ace up our sleeves.'
Lee thumbs Sceptile's ball, takes a breath, and follows Archie up into the storm.
The maintenance stairs are narrow and slick with condensation, each step groaning under Lee's weight. Above him, Archie's broad silhouette disappears through a hatch, and a moment later, the full fury of the storm comes howling down.
Lee emerges onto the roof and is immediately battered by wind and rain, plastering his half-dry clothes to him again.
The rooftop is sparse. A large satellite dish dominates one corner, its surface pockmarked by hail damage. Several industrial AC units squat along the edges, their fans still spinning despite the chaos around them. The footing is treacherous, water pooling in every dip and crack of the concrete.
Behind the building is something much more interesting.
A massive spire rises into the churning sky, its skeletal frame reminiscent of a radio tower. At its apex sits a bulbous, donut-shaped apparatus that crackles and sparks, arcs of electricity dancing across its surface. White vapor billows from vents along its housing, immediately torn away by the gale and fed into the swirling clouds above.
'That must be the business end of the weather machine,' Lee realizes, squinting against the rain. 'The computers downstairs handle the calculations, but that thing is what's actually seeding the atmosphere.'
Archie walks to the far side of the roof, putting distance between them. A pokeball gleams in his hand, but he doesn't throw it yet. Instead, he half-turns, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.
"Did you ever think about what I said back in Fallarbor?" he calls out. "About how there are things in nature that just don't make sense? Patterns that shouldn't exist, changes that have no explanation?"
Lee's jaw tightens.
He has thought about it. More than he'd like to admit. Archie's words wormed their way into his brain and refused to leave, surfacing at odd moments to needle at him. The man is a lunatic with a genocidal endgame, but some of his observations about the world's ecological inconsistencies...
Whether it's nerves making him hasty or an unwillingness to entertain Archie's demented logic, Lee isn't sure, but he thumbs the button of Sceptile's ball before any stalling argument can come to mind.
The Grass-type materializes in a flash of light, instantly soaked by the downpour. His eyes narrow against the rain, scanning the rooftop, taking in the terrain and the enemy across from them as he rolls his twig in his lips. Then, with a soft shing, the leaves on his forearm extend and harden, glowing a faint green as his Siphon Blade takes shape.
Sceptile drops into a ready stance, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, blade held low and angled.
Archie watches the display with a half-hearted frown. "Straight to it, then. Fine," he says, throwing his pokeball high.
Pop-fsssh!
The Sharpedo that materializes is a monster, plain and simple.
Seven feet from dorsal fin to ventral fin, and nearly as long from snout to nonexistent tail. Its rough, sandpaper hide is the blue-gray of deep ocean water, broken here and there by pale scars. Fewer scars than Lee would expect from a pokemon this experienced, which is even more alarming than if it had been covered in them. Like the Carvanha from the first floor, Sharpedo floats, suspended in the air on a shaped cushion of water. It's an advanced Water-type trick, and Lee can't help but wonder if Archie is the one who taught it to his underlings.
The shark's jaws hang slightly open, revealing rows of teeth like serrated knives. Each one gleams wetly in the flashes of lightning, pristine and razor-sharp. And its eyes...
Lee has seen what a pokemon looks like when it's being controlled. Maxie's Camerupt was a frightful puppet, flat and empty, moving through the motions of battle without any will of its own until Claydol's psychic stranglehold was broken.
Sharpedo's eyes are nothing like that.
They're red as arterial blood, bright and focused behind their slitted cartilage guards, and Lee's teeth unwittingly grit when Sharpedo affords him a split-second of eye contact.
What lies in the shark's gaze is the same thing he sees every time he peers into the rubies set within Ninetales' head.
I will die for my human.
In a way, it's almost worse than being mindlessly controlled. Sharpedo knows what Archie wants, what victory means, and is willing to put life and limb down to see it done. The idea that pokemon have a knowing capacity for evil is one that leaves his gut in a twist.
Or… does Sharpedo even see Archie's ends as wrong?
Across the roof, Archie sizes up Sceptile just as Lee did Sharpedo, his gaze dragged to the gorget around the gecko pokemon's neck and megastone set within it. The frown on his face deepens into the beginnings of a scowl, forming crags on his cheeks and forehead that the rain runs down. "Hmm. It's not often I'm wrong about someone. Maybe I'm losing my touch," he says with a click of his tongue.
Before Lee can ask what he's talking about, the terrorist makes the first move. "Ice Fang!"
Sharpedo's jaws don't just frost over. Ice spreads across the entire upper and lower surfaces of his head, crystallizing into jagged, razor-edged battering rams that extend a full foot past his natural teeth. The transformation takes less than a heartbeat.
Lee barely tracks the blur that follows. One moment Sharpedo is hovering at Archie's side, and the next he's a blue-gray missile screaming across the rooftop, jaws spread wide to bisect Sceptile at the waist.
The Grass-type twists aside without waiting for an order, the claws on his feet finding purchase on the rain-slick concrete. Sharpedo blows past him, close enough that the displaced air and raindrops dragged along for the ride tug at Sceptile's leaves.
Before either Lee or Sceptile can capitalize on the overshot, jets of pressurized water erupt from vents along Sharpedo's flanks, killing his momentum in an instant. He pivots, reorients, and launches again, all in the span of a single breath, like a torpedo with maneuvering thrusters.
This time, Sceptile meets him head-on.
The Siphon Blade catches Ice Fang mid-lunge. The impact is thunderous, a crack of force that ripples outward and blows the falling rain aside, creating a perfect sphere of dry air for one frozen instant. Lee feels the shockwave in his chest, a physical pressure that steals his breath.
Then the moment passes, the rain rushes back in, and the two pokemon disengage.
"Leaf Blade! Press him!" Lee barks over the thunder.
Sceptile darts forward, his free arm's leaves extending and hardening into a second blade. He comes in low, feinting left before snapping right, both blades singing through the air in a scissoring strike.
"Protect!" Archie kills their momentum with one word.
A shimmering green barrier flickers into existence inches from Sharpedo's snout. Sceptile's blades skid off the surface with a screech akin to metal-on-metal, and the shark retaliates the instant the shield drops.
"Good! Now Crunch!"
Sharpedo lunges, his frosted-over jaws snapping for Sceptile's midsection. The gecko twists, and the man-eating teeth miss, but the jagged ice jutting from Sharpedo's face carves a deep groove into the Grass-type's thigh, gliding through the green scales like a knife parting paper.
Being so close, however, lets Sceptile swing both of his blades in another scissor strike.
The shark catches the Leaf Blade in his teeth and bites, shattering the hardened leaf like a brittle hunk of pig iron.
The Siphon Blade, however…
Schink!
…sinks into Sharpedo's side, passing through his thick, rough hide and leeching all that it can. The leaf eagerly drinks both blood and glowing globules of TE forcefully ripped from Sharpedo's body.
The wound on Sceptile's flank knits slightly, scales pulling together until the bleeding slows to a trickle, but Archie's ace doesn't let Sceptile have much and bucks, sending Sceptile skittering back across the concrete.
"Aqua Jet."
"Detect!"
Sharpedo becomes a blur of water and fury. Sceptile's eyes flash gold for an instant, and he bends around the charge like smoke, the attack missing by millimeters. He retaliates with a rising slash that opens a thin line across Sharpedo's belly.
Like last time, the shark doesn't even flinch.
'How is he this fast?' Lee's mind races even as he calls out the next command. Sceptile is the fastest pokemon Lee has ever seen, bar none. His speed is the stuff of Battlenet highlight reels and disbelieving opponents. Somehow, somehow, though, this Sharpedo is keeping pace. 'The Sharpedo line doesn't have Swift Swim as an ability, do they?'
Sharpedo isn't matching him in maneuverability. That would be impossible. Sceptile flows even faster and smoother than the water all around them, pivots on a dime, changes direction mid-stride without losing an ounce of momentum. Sharpedo is a brute-force instrument by comparison, all straight-line speed and crushing power.
But the shark never lets them exploit it.
Every time Sceptile tries to circle, to flank, to get behind him, Sharpedo adjusts. Those water jets fire in precise bursts, keeping the shark squared up, always presenting his armored front and those devastating jaws.
"Ice Fang!"
"Double Team, then Bullet Seed!"
Sceptile blurs, and suddenly there are six of him, each one with their glowing maws open. Sharpedo's ice-sheathed jaws tear through two clones before the real Sceptile unleashes a staccato of botanical bullets.
BRRRRRRRRRRT!
The attack catches Sharpedo full in the face. The seeds ping off of his icy armor, tearing chunks away with loud cracks, but the ice just regrows more angry and knife-like in milliseconds. Sharpedo powers through it, snapping at where Sceptile was a heartbeat ago with a sound like a steep trap closing, and finds only empty air.
"Crunch! Follow your nose, not your eyes!"
'He's tracking by smell in this rain?'
Sharpedo's nostrils flare, and he whips around, jaws closing on Sceptile's trailing arm. The gecko hisses in pain as teeth sink deep, grinding against bone.
'Shit!' Lee growls. "Siphon Blade!"
A green-yellow leaf shortened into a knife stabs deep into Sharpedo's side, under a fin. The shark releases his grip with a pained snarl before Sceptile can extract his price for the bite, blood mixing with rainwater as it streams down his body.
Both pokemon separate, circling and breathing hard.
Between exchanges, Lee steals a glance at Archie.
The Aqua leader gives his orders with cool precision, mirroring Maxie to a degree. His voice never rises above what's needed to be heard over the storm, and that frown hasn't left his face. If anything, it's deepened. His eyes keep flicking to the tarnished gorget around Sceptile's neck, to the gleaming megastone set within.
'What is he thinking?' Lee wonders. 'Was he not expecting us to keep up? And what was with that comment about being wrong about me?'
The questions nag at him, but he can't afford the distraction. Not now.
'Where is our backup?' Lee reaches through his bond with Ninetales, borrowing her eyes for a split second.
Down on the third floor, the Institute employees huddle over their terminal, fingers flying across keyboards as Nine watches over them. Warning messages flash across the screen. Progress bars inch forward, then stall, then inch forward again.
'They're trying to reverse the storm sequence,' Nine reports, a dour expression pulling at her muzzle, 'but the system is fighting them. Whatever Aqua did to the machine, it wasn't designed to be easily undone.'
Damn.
Lee shifts focus, reaching out through the little hook Latias left in the back of his brain. 'Brendan. Status on the evacuation?'
The response comes back tinged with exhaustion but steady. 'Going good. Corvi just dropped off another group. One more trip and we'll have everyone clear.'
At least something is going right.
'Stay safe. We're holding up here, but I don't know for how long.'
'You too.'
The connection fades, and Lee returns his full attention to the battle just in time to see Sharpedo launch another Aqua Jet.
"Detect!"
Sceptile is there one moment and gone the next, retaliating with a slash that carves a furrow across Sharpedo's dorsal fin. The shark twists, snapping, and the two pokemon crash together in a snarling tangle of scales and teeth and blades.
Even with a type advantage, Sceptile just can't edge out the insane Sharpedo in any category.
Somewhere below, Lee hears a muffled explosion. The building shudders.
'Zinnia...'
He can't let this drag on. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is for something to go wrong in a way that can't be undone.
The searing pain and choked gasp struggling past a spear of stone isn't his own.
Without any idea how long it's going to be until the cavalry arrives, the options begin to draw in, coalescing down to just a tiny handful.
'I hope I'm not jumping the gun.'
With a shuddering breath, Lee pulls up his left sleeve, casting rainbow light over the rooftop.
Zinnia is having the time of her life.
Lee and Brendan and their pokemon are superb sparring partners, of that there is no doubt. They push her and her pokemon, challenge them, force them to grow in ways she never expected.
But there's a thrill that comes with real stakes that training just can't replicate.
In the end, it's the only wager that really matters.
The Tentacruel is a slippery little shit, just like his trainer. Shelly fights smart, keeping her pokemon behind Crawdaunt's bulk, waiting for decisive moments to lash out with Poison Jab or Hex when Zinnia's guard slips. They've landed a few good hits on Sliggoo that way, the Dragon-type's membranous body shuddering each time the venom seeps in.
But the Crawdaunt and the meathead? Oh, they're fun.
Matt fights like he looks: loud, aggressive, all forward momentum. His Crawdaunt is the same way, pincers snapping and slashing with reckless abandon, trusting its armored shell to weather whatever comes back. It takes a real badass to go head-to-head with a Dragon-type, even one as small as Tyrunt.
Claw meets tooth. Crabhammer meets Ancient Power. The little dinosaur is giving as good as he gets, his stubby legs planted wide as he tears chunks out of Crawdaunt's shell with every bite.
The Dragon in Zinnia's blood sings.
Every nerve ending is alive in a way that only comes from real battle. Her heart pounds, her breath comes fast, and a savage grin splits her face as she calls out the next command.
"Tyrunt! Dragon Claw! Sliggoo, cover him with Dragon Breath!"
Tyrunt roars and charges, claws on his feet wreathed in draconic energy that tear up the carpet with every step. Sliggoo rears back and unleashes a gout of green-tinged flame that forces Tentacruel to shield itself, buying Tyrunt the opening he needs to jump and rake his claws over Crawdaunt's midsection.
The crustacean staggers, one pincer cracked and leaking fluid.
"Crabhammer!" Matt bellows.
"Hex!" Shelly snaps.
Crawdaunt's good claw lights up with watery energy just as Tentacruel's eyes flash an ugly purple. Zinnia opens her mouth to counter-!
!!!!
The air ripples, distorting like heat haze rising off summer asphalt. The building groans, a deep, structural sound that Zinnia feels in her bones more than hears. Dust sifts down from the ceiling tiles.
Crawdaunt falters mid-swing, his Crabhammer guttering out as his legs buckle. Tentacruel sags, dozens of tentacles going limp, the Hex dying in its eyes. Both pokemon shudder, fight or flight broken in favor of freezing.
Sliggoo goes perfectly still, his eyeless face turned upward as if he can see through the ceiling to whatever is happening above. Tyrunt does the same, except his reaction is pure fury. His tiny body trembles, teeth bared in a snarl, desperate to challenge the thing making him feel so small.
But he can't move. None of them can.
The pokemon aren't the only ones affected.
Shelly pitches forward with a gasp, catching herself on a desk before she falls. Her face has gone pale, sweat beading on her brow despite the climate-controlled air. Matt's eyes bug out, his head swiveling wildly as he looks for the source of the pressure.
"What the fuck?!" he demands. "What the fuck is that?!"
The singing in Zinnia's blood turns into a deafening shriek.
She knows this feeling. She's felt it before, standing beside Aster in the sacred caves, watching the elders commune with Rayquaza's lingering presence. She felt an echo of it when she held Salamence's megastone in her palm for the first time, and knew the true euphoria of her second heartbeat just days ago.
Zinnia's grin stretches so wide it hurts. A laugh bubbles up from her chest, wild and sharp, echoing off the walls of the ruined office space. She laughs even as something small and hollow pings in her chest, a longing. Her hand falls to Salamence's ball without meaning to.
"What's so funny?!" Shelly demands, straightening up with visible effort. Her composure is cracked, fear bleeding through the edges. "What is that? What's happening?!"
Zinnia takes a breath, forcing herself to calm down just enough to speak.
"Your boss," she says, "is fucked."
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Lee lets his eyes drift across the lobby, careful to keep his expression bored rather than calculating.
The grunt presence is about what he expected from Brendan's aerial reconnaissance. Ten gangsters and eight visible pokemon. Their pokemon are a motley assortment of Water-types: the Carvanha floating on its little pad of water, the Corphish still idly pulling apart the remains of an office chair, a pair of Lotad waddling between their trainers' feet, a Spheal rolled up in the corner like an oversized beach ball. He spots a Wingull perched on a light fixture, a Marill sitting on someone's lap, and the Tentacool draped over the heavyset grunt's shoulder at reception.
Eight pokemon visible, all of them first-stage and most without signs of veterancy, such as scars or other little weals.
Individually? Not much of a threat. Octillery could down all of them with a sweep of Charge Beam, and Sliggoo's Dragon Pulse would make short work of any who managed to keep their grip on consciousness afterward.
That, however, is not the problem.
Lee's gaze flicks to the hostages huddled in the corner. One, two, seven… twenty, maybe more, pressed together like frightened Wooloo. Lab coats and business casual, pale faces and trembling hands.
With that many hostile pokemon scattered around the room, it only takes one stray attack, the Carvanha lunging at the wrong moment, the Tentacool lashing out with Poison Sting, and someone ends up hurt.
Or worse.
And that's not even accounting for the grunts themselves, who also need to be dealt with, albeit, with the lightest set of kid gloves manageable.
Silently, Lee hopes he never has to see what witnessing the maiming, or Giratina forbid, death of a trainer does to their pokemon. The last thing they need is some grunt's Corphish going mad with grief and stress evolving into a rampaging Crawdaunt in the middle of a room full of civilians.
'We need to hit them hard and fast,' Lee sends through the telepathic link Latias is maintaining. 'Take out as many pokemon as we can before they have a chance to retaliate, but they're too spread out right now. If we start something from here, they might make a run for the hostages.'
Zinnia's response comes tinged with the odd echo of being relayed through a third party. 'So we need to bunch them up first. Get them all looking at one spot.'
'Exactly. But how do we do that without tipping them off?'
A beat of silence. Then Zinnia's mental voice takes on a sharp edge of amusement.
'Follow my lead, Dolittle.'
Before Lee can ask what she means, Zinnia is already moving, sauntering toward the center of the lobby casually. He follows a half-step behind, hyperaware of the illusory uniform wrapped around him, of the borrowed face he's wearing.
They stop near the middle of the room. Zinnia glances around, as if checking that no one is paying attention.
Then, loud enough to echo off the walls: "The hell did you just say to me?"
Lee blinks.
Zinnia rounds on him, her borrowed face twisted into an ugly scowl. "Say it again! I dare you!"
'Oh.'
He catches on.
"I said," Lee pitches his voice louder than feels natural, letting an edge of derision creep in, "that maybe if you weren't such a screwup, we wouldn't have gotten stuck on guard duty in the first place."
"A screwup?!" Zinnia shoves him in the chest, hard enough to make him stumble. "You're the one who let that Zigzagoon get into that fuckin' supply crate last week! Then you dragged me into it!"
"That wasn't my fault and you know it!"
At their feet, 'Buizel' and 'Poliwhirl' bristle, squaring up against each other with hackles raised. Sliggoo plays his part well, the illusion's orange fur standing on end as he lets out a warning hiss. Octillery is equally convincing, the fake Poliwhirl's stubby arms raised in a fighting stance.
Around them, the lobby stirs.
The bored grunts perk up like a pack of Poochyena catching a scent, conversations dying mid-sentence as heads turn toward the commotion. The heavyset man at the reception desk slides off his perch, Tentacool's tentacles twitching with interest. The Carvanha drifts closer in its water bubble, beady eyes gleaming. Even the Wingull flutters down from its light fixture, landing on a nearby chair to get a better view.
"You wanna go?" Zinnia snarls, getting right in Lee's face. "Right here, right now?"
"Maybe I do!"
The grunts form a loose circle around them, their pokemon clustering close. Someone whoops. Another calls out, "Twenty on the big guy!"
"Thirty on Shorty! He looks mean!"
Lee risks a glance around under the guise of sizing up his "opponent."
Every hostile pokemon in the room is within fifteen feet of them. Every grunt's attention is fixed on the brewing fight. The hostages are behind them, forgotten.
Perfect.
Ninetales, still hidden under Feint Attack, creeps close on soundless paws, and nine phantom tails Lee's brain insists are sprouting from his one tailbone tense.
'Go!'
The illusions fall away like shed skin, Lee's borrowed face and grunt uniform dissolving into motes of light that scatter and fade. Beside him, Zinnia's disguise does the same, revealing her true features twisted into a predator's grin. At their feet, 'Poliwhirl' and 'Buizel' shimmer and reform into Octillery and Sliggoo, the Dragon-type's eyeless face somehow conveying eager anticipation.
And in the heartbeat of confusion that follows, before the grunts can process what they're seeing and before a single cry of alarm can leave their lips, Ninetales strikes.
She materializes from nothing like a phantom, her nine tails fanning out behind her, each one sheathed in gleaming steel, and then they shoot out like striking vipers.
Crack. The Carvanha is swatted from its water cushion and driven into the tile floor hard enough to crater it, the fish pokemon's eyes rolling back before it even hits the ground.
Crack. The Corphish goes sailing into the far wall, back-first, the impact leaving a spiderweb of fractures in both the wall and its shell.
Crack. Crack. Both Lotad are hammered flat in the same instant, twin tails sweeping down like lightning bolts.
Crack. The Spheal is launched sideways, bowling over a potted plant before slamming into an overturned couch.
Crack. The Wingull doesn't even have time to squawk before a tail catches it mid-flutter with the ugly sound of bones snapping.
Crack. The Marill is smacked off its trainer's lap like a tee-ball, bouncing once before lying still.
Crack. The Tentacool is torn from the heavyset grunt's shoulder by a pillar of gray and whipped across the room, hitting the wall with a splat.
In a second flat, all eight pokemon are down for the count.
The hostages scream, cowering under the sudden violence.
'Jump!' Ninetales commands to them all.
Ninetales' ninth tail sweeps low in a wide arc that Lee and Zinnia both leap over.
Octillery lifts himself neatly with Psychic, letting the tail miss.
Sliggoo, however, burbles in alarm and presses his squishy body low, letting the attack sail overhead, an inch away from taking off his antennae.
Without any warning of their own, the grunts around them can do little. The steel coating around the tail flickers as NInetales dials back the power, and it catches the grunts across the shins and sends them tumbling like bowling pins, sprawling across the lobby floor in a tangle of limbs and pained grunts.
"What the f-!"
"What's going on-!"
"Who are-!
Red light flares as pokeballs burst open on belts and in pockets. A Grimer oozes into existence near Lee's feet, and a Zubat takes wing near the ceiling. A second Corphish materializes with claws raised, chittering furiously.
"Octillery! Psychic!"
"Sligoo, Dragon Pulse!"
Octillery's eyes flash purple, and the Grimer is seized by telekinetic force and hurled into its trainer, bowling them both over. Sliggoo rears back and unleashes a Dragon Pulse that catches the Zubat dead-center, the crackling beam of draconic energy swatting it from the air like a fly. The second Corphish manages a single snapping lunge before a follow-up Charge Beam from Octillery sends it skidding across the floor, twitching and smoking.
"Stay down!" Zinnia barks, and there's nothing playful in her voice now. Her hand hovers over Salamence's ball at her hip. "Anyone else feeling brave?"
The grunts, groaning and clutching bruised limbs do not feel brave.
Lee is already reaching for Corviknight's ball. "Corvi, I need you."
The massive steel bird materializes in a flash of light, his razor-edged feathers gleaming under the fluorescent lights as he ducks to make room for himself. The huge avian takes in the scene with sharp red eyes and lets out a low, rumbling croak of understanding before Lee even finishes speaking.
"Get the hostages out of here. Lead them toward the treeline, then start ferrying them to Rubello, as many as you can carry safely." Lee turns to the cluster of terrified researchers, who are staring at the carnage with wide eyes and pale faces. "You all! We're with the League! Go with Corviknight and he'll keep you safe!"
'Brendan, Latias,' he sends through the mental link. 'Hostages incoming. Provide overwatch for the evacuation. Make sure no one follows them out.'
'On it,' Brendan's response comes back, serious as can be.
Corviknight spreads his wings and lets out a commanding screech, jerking his head toward the front entrance. The hostages don't need to be told twice. They scramble to their feet and rush for the door, a flood of lab coats and panicked faces streaming past Lee and Zinnia.
"Move, move, move!" Zinnia urges them on, practically shoving the slower ones toward the exit. "Don't stop until you hit the trees!"
The lobby empties in seconds, the last of the hostages vanishing into the storm-dark night with Corviknight's hulking silhouette guiding them forward.
Lee watches them go, then turns his gaze toward the stairwell at the far end of the room. "Someone has to have heard that, and we can't afford to give up the momentum we've got going. Octillery!"
Octillery straightens up, giving Lee his full attention.
"Stay here and don't let any of the grunts follow, call for help, or anything else that might foul this up," Lee orders, turning and not waiting for an affirmative.
They take the stairs two at a time, Ninetales flowing up alongside Lee, while Zinnia brings up the rear with Sliggoo in her arms.
The second floor opens up before them, a sprawling workspace that takes up the entire level. Desks cluttered with papers and coffee mugs sit in neat rows, computer monitors dark and dormant. Weather maps and atmospheric charts paper the walls, and a massive satellite image of Hoenn dominates one corner, the region's coastline rendered in stunning detail.
They get little chance to inspect anything else, because someone is already here to greet them.
The woman descends the staircase from the third floor like a slithering Arbok, her long dark hair swaying with each step. Tanned skin, a toned midriff left bare by an outfit that prioritizes style over practicality, and the blue Aqua 'A' emblazoned proudly across her chest. Her face might be pretty under other circumstances, but right now it's twisted into an ugly scowl.
Stomp.
Stomp!
STOMP!
The man who thunders down after her makes Lee blink.
He's huge. Seven feet tall at minimum, with shoulders broad enough to fill a doorframe and arms thicker than Lee's thighs. Every visible inch of him is corded with muscle, the kind of physique that would make comic book artists throw up their hands in defeat. He's clad in what might have once been a wetsuit, though the torso has been ripped away to leave him in a rough pair of pants and gloves, his barrel chest bare and gleaming with rain or sweat.
'Is he part Machoke?' Lee wonders, 'Or just some genetic freak? This guy is almost too big to be fully human.'
The giant palms a pokeball from his belt. In his hand, it looks like a marble.
"Hold it right there," he rumbles, his voice a bass growl that Lee feels in his chest.
The woman's scowl deepens as her eyes flick between Lee and Zinnia, and something like recognition flashes across her face. "Well, well. Lee Henson and Zinnia of the Draconids." She plants a hand on her hip, head tilting. "Boss Archie's mentioned you two. Said you might be trouble." Her lip curls. "What do you think you're doing here?"
Zinnia matches the woman's posture, chin lifted in defiance. "You know exactly why we're here. This little science project of yours is over." She jerks her thumb over her shoulder, toward the lobby below. "Your boys downstairs are already down for the count. You and the beefcake should stand down before you join them."
The big man, Matt, if Lee remembers correctly, throws his head back and laughs. It's a booming sound, far too jovial for the situation.
"Stand down?" He grins, showing too many teeth. "Girly, that's my line."
His pokeball snaps open, and the Crawdaunt that materializes out of it is a bruiser. Its shell is scarred and pitted from dozens of battles, its pincers massive and cruel-looking. The crustacean clacks them together with a sound like snapping bone, eager in the worst sort of way.
Shelly's hand moves to her own belt. "You should have stayed out of this."
Her Tentacruel emerges in a flash of red light, its massive bell-shaped head nearly scraping the ceiling. Dozens of tentacles writhe beneath it, each one tipped with venomous barbs dripping purple, and its eyes, cold and alien, fix on Lee's group with open hostility.
Lee's jaw tightens.
A pair of fully evolved pokemon. Experienced ones, by the look of them.
'Ugh, this couldn't be more simple?'
Allowing himself a half-second to look away, Lee glances at Zinnia.
On her face is a wide, practically manic grin unfitting the current peril that they're in. Like a bear or some other beast, she stands hunched forward, arms dangling and fingers curled into loose claws around a pair of pokeballs. "And you shouldn't have come here!" she retorts, whipping one of the pokeballs in her hand up.
Pop-fssssh!
The mass of white light that hits the ground shapes itself into a tiny dino, and when the light itself fades, Zinnia's Tyrunt stands next to Sliggoo.
Tyrunt's attention snaps to the pair of larger, meaner pokemon across the room, and he bares his teeth with a snarl, enraged just by their challenging stances.
"Zinnia?" Lee questions, looking between her pokemon, then back to her.
"Run up and take the head off this Seviper, Lee," Zinnia practically orders, jerking her head to the stairs behind the pair of scowling Aqua admins. "These two are mine."
"Zinnia, are you sure?" Lee asks, eyes flicking between the two admins and their pokemon. "They can't be pushovers."
"I know." Zinnia's grin doesn't waver. "That's why I want them. Now go!"
Matt's eyes narrow, and he barks a command. "Crawdaunt! Don't let 'em through!"
The crustacean surges forward with alarming speed, pincers spread wide to intercept. Lee tenses, ready to call out to Ninetales, but Zinnia is faster.
"Tyrunt! Bite!"
The little dinosaur launches himself like a scaly missile, jaws yawning wide. He catches Crawdaunt's pincer mid-swing, his fangs sinking into the joint where shell meets flesh. Crawdaunt lets out a gurgling shriek of surprise, trying to shake the smaller pokemon loose, but Tyrunt's grip is ironclad.
Then he twists.
The Crawdaunt goes airborne, ripped off its feet and hurled across the room with a strength that belies Tyrunt's diminutive frame. The crustacean careens toward Tentacruel, who recoils out of the way with a wet slithering sound. Crawdaunt keeps flying and crashes through a row of desks instead, sending monitors and keyboards exploding outward in a shower of plastic and sparking electronics.
"Crawdaunt!" Matt's face twists with fury, veins bulging at his temples. His attention snaps to Lee, and before anyone can react, the massive man plants himself between them and the staircase.
He winds back a fist the size of a Christmas ham.
"You ain't goin' nowhere!"
Ninetales blurs into existence in front of Lee, tails fanned wide and prickling with Iron Tail needles. A snarl rips from her throat, lips peeled back to reveal gleaming fangs, and her eyes burn with barely restrained violence as the carpet around her paws begins to smoke.
Matt hesitates, fist still cocked.
"Are you sure you want to hit me? Sure that you want to let that genie out of the bottle?" Lee asks quietly.
"Matt." Shelly's voice cuts through the tension like a knife. She gives Ninetales a pensive, uncomfortable glare. "Don't be stupid. The boss can handle himself."
The giant's jaw works, muscles jumping beneath his skin. His eyes bore into Lee's with naked hatred. But slowly, grudgingly, he lowers his fist and steps aside, turning back toward the battle proper.
"Sliggoo, Dragon Breath! Tyrunt, Ancient Power!"
Zinnia's commands ring out, and the second floor erupts into chaos. A gout of green flame forces Tentacruel to shield itself with writhing tentacles, while chunks of stone materialize from thin air and pepper Crawdaunt just as it rises from the ruined desks.
Lee doesn't wait to see more. He and Ninetales sprint for the stairs, taking them three at a time as the sounds of battle rumble through the floor beneath their feet. The whole building seems to shake with each impact, dust drifting down from the ceiling tiles.
As they climb, Lee's hand finds Sceptile's ball at his belt.
'Nine, when we get up there, I need you to hang back and protect the Institute employees running the weather machine. If things go south, they're going to need cover to shut it down safely.'
The response that comes back through their bond is sharp with indignation. 'You would have me sit idle while you face yet another challenge? Again?' she demands. The memory of being left out of the Petalburg Gym match flashes in the back of her mind, tinged with a hint of bitterness that he can practically taste.
'It's not like that.' Lee pushes down his own nerves, letting reassurance flow across their link instead. 'We're not trying to win this fight, Love. We're stalling. Steven and whoever else are on their way. All we have to do is keep Archie busy until they get here.'
A pause. Ninetales' presence in his mind roils with frustration, but beneath it, he can feel her grudging acceptance.
'If he so much as singes a hair on your head, I will burn this building to the ground. Backup or no backup.'
'I'd expect nothing less.'
They crest the final step, and the third floor opens up before them.
Rows upon rows of electronics line the walls, bulky towers of metal and wire that remind Lee of photographs from the early days of computing. Floor-to-ceiling power conduits snake up one corner, thick cables feeding into junction boxes that spark and crackle with barely contained energy. Between the machinery, tall windows offer a view of the storm outside, rain lashing against the glass in sheets while lightning splits the sky.
In the far corner, a pair of Institute employees huddle over a terminal, their faces pale and drawn in the glow of the monitor. A grunt stands guard beside them, one hand on the shoulder of a Gligar perched on a filing cabinet. Both tense the moment Lee and Ninetales burst through the stairwell door, the Gligar's tail stinger rising and the grunt's hand dropping to his belt.
But Lee's attention isn't on them.
Archie stands on the far side of the room, silhouetted against the storm-lashed windows. His back is to them, hands clasped behind him as he watches the tempest he's unleashed. The anchor amulet around his neck catches the lightning's flash, gleaming gold against his dark skin.
For a long moment, the only sounds are the hum of machinery and the distant rumble of thunder.
Then Archie sighs, and turns.
"Lee Henson." The Aqua leader's voice is calm, almost conversational. A small, rueful smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Can't say I'm surprised to see you here. I knew if I didn't snag you the first time, then a guy with your kind of good, misguided heart would end up coming at us before long."
He doesn't seem alarmed by the muffled crashes and shouts filtering up from below. If anything, he seems to have expected them.
Lee's hand tightens around Sceptile's ball. His mind races, weighing options. He could tell Archie that backup is on the way, that who knows how many league agents are bearing down on this position, that surrender is the only sensible option.
But even as the thought forms, he knows it's probably pointless.
His expression sours. "I don't suppose you'd surrender if I asked?"
Archie chuckles, a low sound that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Men like you and me don't do things halfway, Henson. We both know that." He shakes his head slowly. "I'm not even going to bother asking if you want to change your mind and join up with Aqua. I already know the answer to that one."
"You told me the next time we met, it would be as enemies." Lee holds the man's gaze, refusing to look away. "You were right about that, at least."
Something flickers across Archie's face. Disappointment, maybe, or regret. His shoulders slump just a fraction, and for a moment, he looks less like a psychotic terrorist mastermind and more like a man genuinely carrying a weight he never asked for.
Archie's gaze sweeps across the room, taking in the humming supercomputers, the crackling power conduits, the terrified employees and their equally terrified guard. His eyes linger on the Gligar, still poised to strike, then return to Lee.
"Tell you what," he says, jerking his chin toward the ceiling. "Let's take this to the roof. No need to catch anyone else in the crossfire, yeah?"
Lee's frown deepens.
It's a reasonable suggestion. Considerate, even. But although it seems to come from someplace selfless…
'He's maneuvering us,' Lee realizes, a chill running down his spine that has nothing to do with the damp shirt still sticking to his back. 'Into the rain, where the terrain favors Water-types and dampens Fire-types. Damn it. He's pulling the same trick again.'
Archie is already moving, walking toward a maintenance door on the far wall that must lead to roof access. He pauses with his hand on the handle, looking back over his shoulder.
"Garret." The grunt by the terminal flinches at being addressed. "Recall your pokemon and stand down. There's nothing more you can do here."
"B-but Boss-!"
"That's an order."
The grunt's jaw works, but he doesn't argue. A beam of red light pulls the Gligar back into its ball, and he steps away from the employees with his hands raised.
Lee watches Archie push through the door and start up the stairs, then curses under his breath.
'Nine. If the fighting caves in the roof, I need you to throw a Protect over the workers. Keep them safe.'
Ninetales' hackles rise, and her lips pull back to expose pearly fangs. 'You expect me to sit here while you-!'
'I expect you to make sure innocent people don't die,' Lee cuts her off, gentler than his words might suggest. 'Sylvy nor Shinx have the raw power needed to make it through a building collapsing unscathed while protecting others. If they did, I'd leave the duty to them. Please, Nine. I need to know they're covered.'
A beat of furious silence follows, where Ninetales can't quite hide her rejection of his logic, that the lives of strangers have equal worth to his. Then, grudgingly: '...Fine. But if I sense you're in true danger, I am coming up there, and nothing you say will stop me.'
'You said that already, love. Like I said before, I expect nothing less,' he sends back, rubbing his keystone watch through the sleeve of his jacket. 'Back-up can't be far, and we've got an ace up our sleeves.'
Lee thumbs Sceptile's ball, takes a breath, and follows Archie up into the storm.
The maintenance stairs are narrow and slick with condensation, each step groaning under Lee's weight. Above him, Archie's broad silhouette disappears through a hatch, and a moment later, the full fury of the storm comes howling down.
Lee emerges onto the roof and is immediately battered by wind and rain, plastering his half-dry clothes to him again.
The rooftop is sparse. A large satellite dish dominates one corner, its surface pockmarked by hail damage. Several industrial AC units squat along the edges, their fans still spinning despite the chaos around them. The footing is treacherous, water pooling in every dip and crack of the concrete.
Behind the building is something much more interesting.
A massive spire rises into the churning sky, its skeletal frame reminiscent of a radio tower. At its apex sits a bulbous, donut-shaped apparatus that crackles and sparks, arcs of electricity dancing across its surface. White vapor billows from vents along its housing, immediately torn away by the gale and fed into the swirling clouds above.
'That must be the business end of the weather machine,' Lee realizes, squinting against the rain. 'The computers downstairs handle the calculations, but that thing is what's actually seeding the atmosphere.'
Archie walks to the far side of the roof, putting distance between them. A pokeball gleams in his hand, but he doesn't throw it yet. Instead, he half-turns, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.
"Did you ever think about what I said back in Fallarbor?" he calls out. "About how there are things in nature that just don't make sense? Patterns that shouldn't exist, changes that have no explanation?"
Lee's jaw tightens.
He has thought about it. More than he'd like to admit. Archie's words wormed their way into his brain and refused to leave, surfacing at odd moments to needle at him. The man is a lunatic with a genocidal endgame, but some of his observations about the world's ecological inconsistencies...
Whether it's nerves making him hasty or an unwillingness to entertain Archie's demented logic, Lee isn't sure, but he thumbs the button of Sceptile's ball before any stalling argument can come to mind.
The Grass-type materializes in a flash of light, instantly soaked by the downpour. His eyes narrow against the rain, scanning the rooftop, taking in the terrain and the enemy across from them as he rolls his twig in his lips. Then, with a soft shing, the leaves on his forearm extend and harden, glowing a faint green as his Siphon Blade takes shape.
Sceptile drops into a ready stance, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, blade held low and angled.
Archie watches the display with a half-hearted frown. "Straight to it, then. Fine," he says, throwing his pokeball high.
Pop-fsssh!
The Sharpedo that materializes is a monster, plain and simple.
Seven feet from dorsal fin to ventral fin, and nearly as long from snout to nonexistent tail. Its rough, sandpaper hide is the blue-gray of deep ocean water, broken here and there by pale scars. Fewer scars than Lee would expect from a pokemon this experienced, which is even more alarming than if it had been covered in them. Like the Carvanha from the first floor, Sharpedo floats, suspended in the air on a shaped cushion of water. It's an advanced Water-type trick, and Lee can't help but wonder if Archie is the one who taught it to his underlings.
The shark's jaws hang slightly open, revealing rows of teeth like serrated knives. Each one gleams wetly in the flashes of lightning, pristine and razor-sharp. And its eyes...
Lee has seen what a pokemon looks like when it's being controlled. Maxie's Camerupt was a frightful puppet, flat and empty, moving through the motions of battle without any will of its own until Claydol's psychic stranglehold was broken.
Sharpedo's eyes are nothing like that.
They're red as arterial blood, bright and focused behind their slitted cartilage guards, and Lee's teeth unwittingly grit when Sharpedo affords him a split-second of eye contact.
What lies in the shark's gaze is the same thing he sees every time he peers into the rubies set within Ninetales' head.
I will die for my human.
In a way, it's almost worse than being mindlessly controlled. Sharpedo knows what Archie wants, what victory means, and is willing to put life and limb down to see it done. The idea that pokemon have a knowing capacity for evil is one that leaves his gut in a twist.
Or… does Sharpedo even see Archie's ends as wrong?
Across the roof, Archie sizes up Sceptile just as Lee did Sharpedo, his gaze dragged to the gorget around the gecko pokemon's neck and megastone set within it. The frown on his face deepens into the beginnings of a scowl, forming crags on his cheeks and forehead that the rain runs down. "Hmm. It's not often I'm wrong about someone. Maybe I'm losing my touch," he says with a click of his tongue.
Before Lee can ask what he's talking about, the terrorist makes the first move. "Ice Fang!"
Sharpedo's jaws don't just frost over. Ice spreads across the entire upper and lower surfaces of his head, crystallizing into jagged, razor-edged battering rams that extend a full foot past his natural teeth. The transformation takes less than a heartbeat.
Lee barely tracks the blur that follows. One moment Sharpedo is hovering at Archie's side, and the next he's a blue-gray missile screaming across the rooftop, jaws spread wide to bisect Sceptile at the waist.
The Grass-type twists aside without waiting for an order, the claws on his feet finding purchase on the rain-slick concrete. Sharpedo blows past him, close enough that the displaced air and raindrops dragged along for the ride tug at Sceptile's leaves.
Before either Lee or Sceptile can capitalize on the overshot, jets of pressurized water erupt from vents along Sharpedo's flanks, killing his momentum in an instant. He pivots, reorients, and launches again, all in the span of a single breath, like a torpedo with maneuvering thrusters.
This time, Sceptile meets him head-on.
The Siphon Blade catches Ice Fang mid-lunge. The impact is thunderous, a crack of force that ripples outward and blows the falling rain aside, creating a perfect sphere of dry air for one frozen instant. Lee feels the shockwave in his chest, a physical pressure that steals his breath.
Then the moment passes, the rain rushes back in, and the two pokemon disengage.
"Leaf Blade! Press him!" Lee barks over the thunder.
Sceptile darts forward, his free arm's leaves extending and hardening into a second blade. He comes in low, feinting left before snapping right, both blades singing through the air in a scissoring strike.
"Protect!" Archie kills their momentum with one word.
A shimmering green barrier flickers into existence inches from Sharpedo's snout. Sceptile's blades skid off the surface with a screech akin to metal-on-metal, and the shark retaliates the instant the shield drops.
"Good! Now Crunch!"
Sharpedo lunges, his frosted-over jaws snapping for Sceptile's midsection. The gecko twists, and the man-eating teeth miss, but the jagged ice jutting from Sharpedo's face carves a deep groove into the Grass-type's thigh, gliding through the green scales like a knife parting paper.
Being so close, however, lets Sceptile swing both of his blades in another scissor strike.
The shark catches the Leaf Blade in his teeth and bites, shattering the hardened leaf like a brittle hunk of pig iron.
The Siphon Blade, however…
Schink!
…sinks into Sharpedo's side, passing through his thick, rough hide and leeching all that it can. The leaf eagerly drinks both blood and glowing globules of TE forcefully ripped from Sharpedo's body.
The wound on Sceptile's flank knits slightly, scales pulling together until the bleeding slows to a trickle, but Archie's ace doesn't let Sceptile have much and bucks, sending Sceptile skittering back across the concrete.
"Aqua Jet."
"Detect!"
Sharpedo becomes a blur of water and fury. Sceptile's eyes flash gold for an instant, and he bends around the charge like smoke, the attack missing by millimeters. He retaliates with a rising slash that opens a thin line across Sharpedo's belly.
Like last time, the shark doesn't even flinch.
'How is he this fast?' Lee's mind races even as he calls out the next command. Sceptile is the fastest pokemon Lee has ever seen, bar none. His speed is the stuff of Battlenet highlight reels and disbelieving opponents. Somehow, somehow, though, this Sharpedo is keeping pace. 'The Sharpedo line doesn't have Swift Swim as an ability, do they?'
Sharpedo isn't matching him in maneuverability. That would be impossible. Sceptile flows even faster and smoother than the water all around them, pivots on a dime, changes direction mid-stride without losing an ounce of momentum. Sharpedo is a brute-force instrument by comparison, all straight-line speed and crushing power.
But the shark never lets them exploit it.
Every time Sceptile tries to circle, to flank, to get behind him, Sharpedo adjusts. Those water jets fire in precise bursts, keeping the shark squared up, always presenting his armored front and those devastating jaws.
"Ice Fang!"
"Double Team, then Bullet Seed!"
Sceptile blurs, and suddenly there are six of him, each one with their glowing maws open. Sharpedo's ice-sheathed jaws tear through two clones before the real Sceptile unleashes a staccato of botanical bullets.
BRRRRRRRRRRT!
The attack catches Sharpedo full in the face. The seeds ping off of his icy armor, tearing chunks away with loud cracks, but the ice just regrows more angry and knife-like in milliseconds. Sharpedo powers through it, snapping at where Sceptile was a heartbeat ago with a sound like a steep trap closing, and finds only empty air.
"Crunch! Follow your nose, not your eyes!"
'He's tracking by smell in this rain?'
Sharpedo's nostrils flare, and he whips around, jaws closing on Sceptile's trailing arm. The gecko hisses in pain as teeth sink deep, grinding against bone.
'Shit!' Lee growls. "Siphon Blade!"
A green-yellow leaf shortened into a knife stabs deep into Sharpedo's side, under a fin. The shark releases his grip with a pained snarl before Sceptile can extract his price for the bite, blood mixing with rainwater as it streams down his body.
Both pokemon separate, circling and breathing hard.
Between exchanges, Lee steals a glance at Archie.
The Aqua leader gives his orders with cool precision, mirroring Maxie to a degree. His voice never rises above what's needed to be heard over the storm, and that frown hasn't left his face. If anything, it's deepened. His eyes keep flicking to the tarnished gorget around Sceptile's neck, to the gleaming megastone set within.
'What is he thinking?' Lee wonders. 'Was he not expecting us to keep up? And what was with that comment about being wrong about me?'
The questions nag at him, but he can't afford the distraction. Not now.
'Where is our backup?' Lee reaches through his bond with Ninetales, borrowing her eyes for a split second.
Down on the third floor, the Institute employees huddle over their terminal, fingers flying across keyboards as Nine watches over them. Warning messages flash across the screen. Progress bars inch forward, then stall, then inch forward again.
'They're trying to reverse the storm sequence,' Nine reports, a dour expression pulling at her muzzle, 'but the system is fighting them. Whatever Aqua did to the machine, it wasn't designed to be easily undone.'
Damn.
Lee shifts focus, reaching out through the little hook Latias left in the back of his brain. 'Brendan. Status on the evacuation?'
The response comes back tinged with exhaustion but steady. 'Going good. Corvi just dropped off another group. One more trip and we'll have everyone clear.'
At least something is going right.
'Stay safe. We're holding up here, but I don't know for how long.'
'You too.'
The connection fades, and Lee returns his full attention to the battle just in time to see Sharpedo launch another Aqua Jet.
"Detect!"
Sceptile is there one moment and gone the next, retaliating with a slash that carves a furrow across Sharpedo's dorsal fin. The shark twists, snapping, and the two pokemon crash together in a snarling tangle of scales and teeth and blades.
Even with a type advantage, Sceptile just can't edge out the insane Sharpedo in any category.
Somewhere below, Lee hears a muffled explosion. The building shudders.
'Zinnia...'
He can't let this drag on. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is for something to go wrong in a way that can't be undone.
The searing pain and choked gasp struggling past a spear of stone isn't his own.
Without any idea how long it's going to be until the cavalry arrives, the options begin to draw in, coalescing down to just a tiny handful.
'I hope I'm not jumping the gun.'
With a shuddering breath, Lee pulls up his left sleeve, casting rainbow light over the rooftop.
Zinnia is having the time of her life.
Lee and Brendan and their pokemon are superb sparring partners, of that there is no doubt. They push her and her pokemon, challenge them, force them to grow in ways she never expected.
But there's a thrill that comes with real stakes that training just can't replicate.
In the end, it's the only wager that really matters.
The Tentacruel is a slippery little shit, just like his trainer. Shelly fights smart, keeping her pokemon behind Crawdaunt's bulk, waiting for decisive moments to lash out with Poison Jab or Hex when Zinnia's guard slips. They've landed a few good hits on Sliggoo that way, the Dragon-type's membranous body shuddering each time the venom seeps in.
But the Crawdaunt and the meathead? Oh, they're fun.
Matt fights like he looks: loud, aggressive, all forward momentum. His Crawdaunt is the same way, pincers snapping and slashing with reckless abandon, trusting its armored shell to weather whatever comes back. It takes a real badass to go head-to-head with a Dragon-type, even one as small as Tyrunt.
Claw meets tooth. Crabhammer meets Ancient Power. The little dinosaur is giving as good as he gets, his stubby legs planted wide as he tears chunks out of Crawdaunt's shell with every bite.
The Dragon in Zinnia's blood sings.
Every nerve ending is alive in a way that only comes from real battle. Her heart pounds, her breath comes fast, and a savage grin splits her face as she calls out the next command.
"Tyrunt! Dragon Claw! Sliggoo, cover him with Dragon Breath!"
Tyrunt roars and charges, claws on his feet wreathed in draconic energy that tear up the carpet with every step. Sliggoo rears back and unleashes a gout of green-tinged flame that forces Tentacruel to shield itself, buying Tyrunt the opening he needs to jump and rake his claws over Crawdaunt's midsection.
The crustacean staggers, one pincer cracked and leaking fluid.
"Crabhammer!" Matt bellows.
"Hex!" Shelly snaps.
Crawdaunt's good claw lights up with watery energy just as Tentacruel's eyes flash an ugly purple. Zinnia opens her mouth to counter-!
!!!!
The air ripples, distorting like heat haze rising off summer asphalt. The building groans, a deep, structural sound that Zinnia feels in her bones more than hears. Dust sifts down from the ceiling tiles.
Crawdaunt falters mid-swing, his Crabhammer guttering out as his legs buckle. Tentacruel sags, dozens of tentacles going limp, the Hex dying in its eyes. Both pokemon shudder, fight or flight broken in favor of freezing.
Sliggoo goes perfectly still, his eyeless face turned upward as if he can see through the ceiling to whatever is happening above. Tyrunt does the same, except his reaction is pure fury. His tiny body trembles, teeth bared in a snarl, desperate to challenge the thing making him feel so small.
But he can't move. None of them can.
The pokemon aren't the only ones affected.
Shelly pitches forward with a gasp, catching herself on a desk before she falls. Her face has gone pale, sweat beading on her brow despite the climate-controlled air. Matt's eyes bug out, his head swiveling wildly as he looks for the source of the pressure.
"What the fuck?!" he demands. "What the fuck is that?!"
The singing in Zinnia's blood turns into a deafening shriek.
She knows this feeling. She's felt it before, standing beside Aster in the sacred caves, watching the elders commune with Rayquaza's lingering presence. She felt an echo of it when she held Salamence's megastone in her palm for the first time, and knew the true euphoria of her second heartbeat just days ago.
Zinnia's grin stretches so wide it hurts. A laugh bubbles up from her chest, wild and sharp, echoing off the walls of the ruined office space. She laughs even as something small and hollow pings in her chest, a longing. Her hand falls to Salamence's ball without meaning to.
"What's so funny?!" Shelly demands, straightening up with visible effort. Her composure is cracked, fear bleeding through the edges. "What is that? What's happening?!"
Zinnia takes a breath, forcing herself to calm down just enough to speak.
"Your boss," she says, "is fucked."
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