Username: NobleJanobii
Character Name: Amy Risa
Story Title: True Fear
Word Count: 3001
Rating/Content Warnings: M for terrorists, guns, explosions, a bit of language, blood and corpses.
Story:
Spoiler:
Amy looked through the different kimonos. Laverre City’s boutiques were some of the most famous in the world for their kimonos, furisodes, yukatas, and the like. The kimonos worn by the Kimono Girls in Johto were designed here after all. Amy had been contemplating trying a kimono line herself, or adapting a men’s clothing line to bear some resemblance to yukatas. But given she didn’t know the first thing about these garments, Amy decided to stop by Laverre City first for a little research. There were several boutiques in town so Amy had plenty of places to look for research. Perhaps she’d even buy one herself. They were really popular this time of year. And if Brent could pull of a yukata, then maybe she could pull off a kimono.

As Amy looked over the stitching of a bright yellow furisode, a woman approached her from behind. “Can I help you today?” she asked. Amy looked over her shoulder at the older woman in a furisode. She was one of the boutique employees given the colors of her furisode matched that of the clothes of the other employees.

“Ah I was just studying the make of this furisode. I’m an up and coming fashion designer in Lumiose City, but I don’t know a lot about how many of these style of garments are made, so I was curious how the best of the best made them,” Amy explained.

The older woman smiled. “Ah I see. It’s good to see youth interest in our work. My name is Hiromi Asai. The furisode you’re looking at is one of the ones I designed, so if you have any questions I would be happy to answer them.”

Amy’s eyes lit up as she began to speak with the fellow designer, inquiring about Kitsuke and other rules for when someone designs or wears the outfits. Ms. Asai was even kind enough to help Amy pick out a green furisode that would compliment her well. As Amy prepped to pay, she felt the journey had been well worth it. She even had Ms. Asai’s contact information for future inquiries about her Laverre City inspired line.

All was well.

Until it wasn’t.

A loud explosion echoed throughout the city, sending tremors through the ground and rocking the foundations of the buildings within it. Amy and the other people in the store tumbled to the ground, quickly covering themselves as various racks and clothes began to crash to the earth. As the ground continue to convulse, the power suddenly cut, the only source of light remaining being the sun outside. And then there was silence.

As the ground stopped shaking, a few of the occupants began to stand up and peer out the windows. What could have caused that? Earthquakes weren’t common in Northern Kalos after all. But the silence was deafening. Not even the bird pokemon could be heard outside. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

In all the commotion Amy had gotten covered with several of the window display garments. She was trying to unearth herself from the fabric when she heard it. Bang! Gunshots. Her breathing froze as panic began to course through her system. She had to hide. She had to get out of there! Amy began to try and get herself out of the clothing pile even faster, panic overtaking reason making the situation unintentionally worse for her as her erratic actions just kept her buried. It wasn’t until a hand grabbed hers and pulled her from the pile that Amy saw the light of day. Amy instinctively almost went on the attack until she realized who her savior was, Ms. Asai.

“Come with me,” Ms. Asai said quietly, tugging Amy to her feet and leading her into the back of the store with the other customers and employees. There was a tense air as they all filed into the back room. Amy felt queasy, a wave of nausea hitting her like a rock. It came on so quickly she couldn’t decide if it was her depression medication or sheer terror that caused it. Though it was likely a combination of both.

There was a low mumbling in the room before Ms. Asai spoke up. “Please, everyone, remain calm. I will send out a scout to figure out what is going on.” Opening a Luxury Ball, a small cutiefly took shape next to Ms. Asai. “All of you that have pokemon, remain at ready to defend those who don’t have them. We don’t know if the situation will require it yet, but it always pays to be prepared.” Ms. Asai looked at her kimono. “Angel, if you will.”

“Cu!” the fairy pokemon chirped before buzzing off. With her scout gone, Ms. Asai and the other boutique employees began to make their way through the small crowd of patrons to check on everyone. It wasn’t long before the cutiefly returned to Ms. Asai’s side. “Cu! Cutiefly! Ti ti ti! Cu fly!” it chirped, a worried expression on its small face. Not a good sign.

Ms. Asai quickly brought the focus of the room’s attention back to herself by clapping her hands. “It is as I feared. It appears the terrorist organization, Team Flare, has begun to launch an attack on the town. If I had to guess, it likely has something to do with the Pokeball Factory at the top of the hill in the northern part of town. Still, Angel here noted that all the traditional entry points of exiting the city have been blocked off.”

“So we’re trapped here?” one of the patrons in the back shouted.

“It appears so,” Ms. Asai answered, “unless there are those here willing to fight with me. Perhaps together we may be able to stand a chance at the guards at the closest entrance. Sending someone to Dendemille Town or Lumiose City would be the best option to alert the police while all the Transceiver towers are down.”

Silence settled over the room before a few of the employees began to shout their support. “You know I’ll stand with you, Ms. Asai!” “We’ll fight for our freedom!” “We’ll show them our Laverre City fighting spirit!”

Ms. Asai seemed content knowing her employees were willing to stand with her. She turned to the patrons, scanning over the terrified faces of the bystanders caught in the crossfire of this awful situation. “I can’t force you to fight alongside me,” she said, “but we could use any help we could get.”

After a few moments of silence, Amy stepped forward. “I don’t have any pokemon, but give me a blunt enough object and I’ll smash someone’s head in if I need to.”

This seemed to rally the others, with a few of the other patrons offering their pokémon or just sheer strength. Amy was feeling more confident with each person that stepped forward. Ms. Asai did too, a smile spreading across her wrinkled face. However, before she could speak again, the windows in the main part of the store shattered. Everyone froze, the confidence in the room quickly morphing into terror.

“With me,” Ms. Asai said to one of her employees and she sent out an Aromatisse. The employee unleashed a Granbull and the two prepared to exit the room. As soon as the door opened, smoke began to flood the back room. A loud bang cracked through the silence, and Amy’s heart stopped as Ms. Asai collapsed, blood pouring from her forehead. Someone shrieked.

“Everyone on the ground now!” someone yelled. Amy wasn’t sure if it were friend or foe giving that command, but she did as she was told, dropping to the floor so quickly she busted open her chin on impact. Wincing, Amy started to move only to freeze up when she saw soldiers armed with guns enter the room. No, not soldiers, terrorists. Those were Team Flare uniforms.

The terrorists began to make their way through the room. Amy closed her eyes as someone else was shot. Then another. She heard someone try to fight back on for them to be shot too. The gunshots echoed in her ears, one right after another. And then, she felt them beside her. Tears squeezed out of her eyes. This was where she died. All for a stupid furisode. Sure she had contemplated suicide for years, but this wasn’t how she had wanted to go. She had wanted to go out as she lived, dangerously, not terrified.

Amy felt one of the terrorists tap her arm with his foot. “Still alive,” he said to one of his companions.

Amy opened her eyes a little to see another set of feet approach. “Bring her. We need at least a few alive.”

Before Amy could react, she was hoisted to her feet with her arms restrained and quickly searched for any pokeballs or weapons. Then, she was escorted outside. Amy averted her eyes from the corpses as she exited the building. And yet the scene outside was just as bad. Bodies of people and pokemon were littered everywhere. The Pokemon Center was being consumed in a roaring fire and distant smoke told Amy that other buildings in the city were suffering similar fates.

Amy was lead towards the northern part of town and taken inside the Pokeball Factory. So Ms. Asai had been right, that was what the terrorists were here for. The place was crawling with Team Flare grunts. Amy tried to see what they were doing as she was taken to the upper levels, but all she could make out was some purple pokeball. She couldn’t think of any pokeball types she knew of that were purple, leaving her perplexed as to Team Flare’s true purpose here.

Amy didn’t much time to think on it further as she was shoved into another room with hostages. The door slammed shut behind her. Looking over the other occupants, Amy recognized them to be boutique and café employees, other random patrons, and even a few gym trainers. Amy’s stomach sank when she realized the Gym Leader was nowhere among them. She hadn’t even thought about it before, but surely the leader would be able to save them, right?

“Where’s the Gym Leader?” Amy asked quietly. One of the gym trainers being on the verge of tears at the question was all Amy needed to know the answer. They wouldn’t be rescued by her.

“We’ve tried contacting the outside world and busting our ties or the door,” one of the other hostages explain. “But Team Flare has guards stationed right outside constantly listening to use.” He looked over at the two corpses in the corner. “They don’t take insurgence lightly.”

“We outnumber them though,” another hostage said, “next time we open the door let’s charge them!”

“With our hands tied behind our backs? They have guns, Jerry! We’re just sacks of meat at this point! Barely even collateral!”

“Well you might be giving up so easily, but I won’t!”

Murmurs began to ripple across the group of hostages. Amy had to agree with the first hostage, Not-Jerry. The images of Ms. Asai and all the others’ dead bodies littering the floor of the boutique was burned in her brain. Perhaps it was just better to sit and accept their fates. Unfortunately, not everyone agreed. The group of hostages quickly became split.

“They’ve already killed two of us, Jerry! Was that not indication enough!”

“They didn’t have support! But if all of us band together we’ll have the numbers, Leonard!”

Amy watched as the two continued to argue, with some of the other hostages joining in. She just wanted to go home. She wished for nothing more than to just wake up in her bed and realize this was all just an awful awful nightmare.

Amy nearly jumped out of her skin as the air duct panel above her suddenly flattered to the floor in front of her. The argument between the hostages was loud enough it seemed only those right near her noticed the noise, or the large woman exiting the duct.

She was tall, really tall, at least six feet with black hair tied back into a bun. And she was absolutely beautiful. Her blue eyes scanned the room quickly before she noticed Amy at her feet. Motioning for Amy to keep quiet, she pointed at the duct above her. Amy noticed another person in the duct and relief flooded her system when she realized these were police officers. They were safe!

Amy nodded and stood up, understanding that these officers were there to help them escape through the duct if they could. The female officer helped hoist Amy up to the duct where the male officer pulled her in. He then helped point her in the opposite direction. “There’s another officer at the end of the chute that leads outside. Just keep going that way.”

“Thank you,” Amy replied. She started to crawl away when she felt the male officer grab her foot.

“Wait a moment!” He pointed to her wrist. “Leave your X-Transceiver. We believe they’re using the towers to track everyone based on them.”

Amy looked down at her wrist in worry. Had that been why they were able to ambush the boutique so easily. Reluctantly, she nodded and took it loose from her wrist, passing it over to the officer. Then, she climbed through the chute.

The ducts were an extremely tight squeeze for her, especially with how wide her hips were. She always knew it made finding pants a pain but she never imagined it’d also hinder her ability to escape terrorists. “I need to work out with Ian more,” she mumbled as she continued to crawl. Eventually she saw light towards the end of the duct and leaned over the open end of the chute. Another officer was waiting below, waving their arms to Amy once they saw her. They signaled two more officers he prepared a tarp for her to jump into. Taking a deep breath, Amy slipped out into the tarp. It hurt like hell, but she’d take abrasions from a tarp any day over the death.

A few of the other hostages soon followed, everyone corralled by the police to ensure they didn’t tip off the terrorists. It didn’t last long though, as gunshots began to echo through the air duct. The radios of all the officers began to crackle. “BACKUP! WE NEED BACKUP NOW!”

One of the officers sent out and Ariados and used it to climb in the duct. It appeared, however, that the other officers were too big, thus stuck outside guarding Amy and the other escaped hostages. More garbled voices came from across their radios, causing the officers to have panicked looks. They rushed over to the hostages and began to move them towards the hedge maze next to the factory. “Move move move!” They shouted.

Amy didn’t have to be told twice. Taking off in a dead sprint, she was around the first turn in the maze when another explosion rocked the earth, sending Amy tumbling. She ate dirt. Chin already bleeding, Amy was pretty sure she bit her tongue this time, and definitely had some scrapes from her hard landing. But worst of all, she was still too close to the explosion. Her ears were ringing loudly and she could barely make out any other sounds. She tried to stand up but her ringing ears also made for awful balance, so she didn’t get very far before she was back on all fours on the ground. Then she began to vomit, the contents of her stomach going everywhere.

Dizzy and unstable, Amy collapsed against the bushes as the ringing continued to fill her ears. She stared at the smoke rising from the factory and felt her consciousness closing in on her. Perhaps this was the end of the nightmare. She’d wake up in Lumiose and all would be well. None of this would ever really happen, she thought. And then, she passed out.

***

Amy awoke to shouts and the smell of smoke. Her stomach turned a little, the feeling of nausea sweeping over her quickly. She could feel she was moving. Was… someone carrying her? Amy opened her eyes to see her knight in shining armor, the female police officer from before, carrying her away from the factory and towards the group of paramedics nearby. She glanced down when she noticed Amy was awake and smiled a little. Amy smiled back, and then she vomited again.

The officer quickly let Amy down and held her hair back while Amy threw up into the nearby bushes. After a couple minutes, it was only drive heaves, and Amy’s body began to calm down. She glanced over her shoulder at the officer, giving her an ashamed look. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

The officer chuckled and offered Amy a smile. “Just warn me next time. Come on, let’s get you to the paramedics. You are bleeding all over.” Picking Amy up again, the officer took her over the nearest paramedic who immediately began to treat Amy’s various wounds. The officer lingered a few moments longer before starting to turn away to get back to work. “Stay safe now,” she said to Amy before turning away.

“W-Wait!” Amy shouted, reaching out and grabbing the officer’s arm (much to the chagrin of the paramedic who was trying to treat her). “I never got your name,” she said quietly.

The officer turned back around and took off her hat. “Officer Theresa Cambridge of the South Lumiose division, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you.”

God she was so hot. “I-I live in South Lumiose,” Amy managed to stutter out. Wow good going. So smooth. Much wow.

Even so, this brought a smile to Officer Cambridge’s face. “Well, then maybe we’ll see each other again, Miss…”

“Amy Risa.”

“Right, Miss Risa. Now if you do not mind, Miss Risa. I need to get back to work. But I look forward to meeting again in the future.”