The Trial of Juno Saga [PG-13]

[Neo Emolga]

Typos and errors first! :]

Chapter 9

Double 'expose to'!

Wow, Coldblood. Drunk much? XD

Chapter 10

I find this wording to be slightly odd. 'into' should be 'on'? Or get rid of "into wanting."

Yeah, I see what you mean, I can doctor that up a little.

The double 'even' in this sentence puts me off a little.

Even #2, you're FIRED! Yeah, having two of them there was a little funky.

Just double "a few seconds." :]

FIX IT, FELIX!

Looks good.

Hearing Coldblood say this makes me wonder how long, exactly, Randy's imaginary world has been around. It was my impression that it's been less than a week, but the way Coldblood is describing it makes it sound like it's been years, or months, or something. If it has been under a week, then saying "nobody has ever beaten him" sounds a little extreme. Also, he says nobody can just go up and challenge Randy willy-nilly, so it sounds as if he'd only have tournaments every so often. Unless it was explained that this world has existed for years, and I just missed that. xD

Hmm... yeah, you bring up a good point there and I'm quite surprised I didn't catch this myself. 50 losing slaves for a week of tournaments would mean roughly 7 tournaments a day (not to mention that doesn't fit with the whole setup that Juno goes through later on). Randy's world is weird, but it can't go that far. Math is still math!

I'm changing the bit about "that's why Randy now has at least fifty slaves" to "anyone that loses to him becomes his slave, and already several challengers have fallen victim to it." I think that does a good job of mopping up the mess, but still keeps the warning about what's at stake.

Chapter 11

"I" was more hopeful?

Yeah, that whole sentence sounds a little junky. Going with:

"It was a long march back to Victory City, but things were looking better than when I had left."

I'm sure you know that the plural of every pokemon species doesn't end with an s. This should be "regular Pikachu never feel," unless you're consciously rebelling against it and stuck an s on there for that purpose. xD

This, I wasn't even all that sure about, so I kind of just made an assumption and rolled with it. But yeah, I fixed it and I'll try to keep that in mind later on.

This whole sentence sounds kind of awkward. The tense is mixed up - unless you mean "I've got" - and "a whole lot of surprise" seems like an odd choice of words. Maybe it's just me. xD Also, if this is him looking back, then I find it a little puzzling, since we have never gotten a hindsight Jake/Juno before. I'm sure it's just a typo though.

WTF... what was I thinking when I wrote that!?

Changed to "And when the next day had arrived, there were a whole lot of surprises I wasn't expecting..."

No, I promise, Jake hasn't been drinking!

Should be its.

And... check!

Should be a.

And gotcha!

Extra "felt" in there!

I guess that wasn't the only strange thing Raichu was feeling!

I love fiercely sticking to things!

LOL, oh man, how one little letter can change so much. XD

Bladed scythe blades. Cool.

Ha, ha, I'm full on laughing and embarrassed now, but it's worth it. XD

Chapter 12

Should be no instead of so.

Yep.

I think that's meant to be in the battle.

Yep, otherwise that's a really weird battle!

Double "away."

And... goodbye to that one!

I believe you require a "that" between 'outside' and 'was.' Or better yet, rewording it would be good!

I think just taking out the second "was" probably did the trick.

You need an 'and' between 'twice' and 'said', and that second 'left' should be 'let,' I think.

Yeah, that one's a mess. Changed it all to "I just blinked twice and said nothing, not that he would have understood what I was saying anyway. I decided to put it behind me and carry on."

All one of Randy have arrived.

>.<

Okay, that one never should have happened.

You need a 'when' before 'Alex.' Probs a comma after 'Jeff' as well.

Yep, agreed on that one.

'forget' should be 'forgetting.'

*Nods.*

'in' should be 'on.'

Yep, you got that right.

There should be a 'be' between 'to' and 'on.'

Well, there is one now!

Get rid of that first 'battle.' xP

But it's a double battle! Just kidding, yeah, that's a silly mistake. XD

Chapter 13

Snipe that first 'their'!

Lordy, that whole sentence is a mess. I decided to change the whole thing to: "They didn’t know what attack it was either, but I could tell by their surprise, they never suspected this unique Pikachu named Juno was capable of highly-powerful forces."

This whole sentence is a little bit muddled. I think rewriting it as this might work better...

Done and done!

Taken aback?

Yeah, that's messy. Just rolling with "Chain Lightning came out exactly as I imagined it and I was pleasantly surprised at how this amazing power worked." I think that does the job just fine.

Should be 'sudden.' Also, repetition of 'dark' here. Not a biggie. x)

It's really dark! Just kidding, changing it to: "Then, all I could see was a sudden storm of dark shadows bursting from where Mewtwo and Arceus were standing, moments before being consumed in a shrouding, black cyclone."

All of those 'he' and 'she's should have lowercase letters.

TRIPLE KILL! That second one got a much-needed "at" as well.

Again, just the repetition of a word (flew).

You can tell repetition is a stalker of mine when it comes to writing. XP

This sentence is either unfinished, or that comma should be a period. x)

Yeah, I think the period works.

It says Juno is further enough away from the giant fissure to avoid it and not be harmed, but then he can hear Jolteon's quiet speech (or what I imagine is quiet, given his physical state), even at the distance, and speak to him back? I think there should be some indication that Juno moved closer to him. I also imagine that anything that isn't yelling would be hard to hear at all in this absurdly noisy arena, given that the crowd is so loud.

Good points, yeah, that's true. I decided to change it around so it makes sense:

“I’m sorry…!” Jolteon cried out to me, looking terribly exhausted, “I wanted to go further, further than this! I wanted… to win together, with you!”

“No, don’t worry about it!” I told him quickly with a reassuring smile, telling him he shouldn’t fear this. “There will be other days. You did an outstanding job, Jolteon. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Jolteon was silent for a moment, nodded lightly with a weak smile, but then collapsed from the exhaustion.

I think that should be okay.

There we go! All errors accounted for...of the ones I saw. Which hopefully were all of them. xD But you never know! Those sneaky little buggers can be hiding anywhere. O:< There were other random little places that I would change personally, but some are too insignificant to bother mentioning, like the occasional comma use. xD

You caught a LOT, and I appreciate you taking the time to flag them all down. I'll admit, very often I'm just thinking in terms of the storyline, description, emotion, and that kind of stuff, and my thoughts are moving faster than my fingers.

I think I like this tale more as it progresses, and now that Jake is getting somewhere with his plan to overthrow Randy and get the heck out of there, I think it's becoming more interesting. I did quite like Coldblood, and the points he raised were quite good--such as Jake having to go in disguise. On that note, I was sort of surprised how quickly Jake accepted the change from a human into a pikachu, especially when he said he would become a pikachu for the rest of his life if it gave him a shot at getting out of there. I can see how he would be quite keen, but it seems just a little extreme that he has little to no issue with it. If that were me, I'd be terrified if I had to become something else for the rest of my life. Your entire life would be morphed, from your family life to your friend life, to your career, future family, etc. I dunno...it was a little unsettling how fast he took the opportunity. I suppose I'm basing it too much on my thoughts, though. Jake obviously isn't me. Also, there hasn't really been much clarification on how the necklace works, which leaves me puzzled at some things, such as how the pikachu-changing would work. I could see how he would be a pikachu for the rest of his life inside Randy's mind, but once they broke free of it, wouldn't he return to normal, because Coldblood's powers wouldn't work outside of it? And if he's just a figment of Randy's imagination as Juno, it seems a little odd that he can become real. I'm not up to when they escape Randy's mind, though, so maybe I'm speaking about things that have already been answered, but I feel like Jake doesn't think enough about it. He could have asked Coldblood how it worked. Asked him a simple "What will happen to me after I leave Randy's mind?" but he doesn't, which is what is weird to me.

Good points. Very good points... but... considering the situation Jake is in, I thought of it more in a terms of "what other choice do you really have?" Also, Jake never thought he'd be stuck as a Pikachu for life, only until Randy's dream world collapsed. That, and after being so desperate for answers and having virtually no other solution present itself, Jake had to make a choice. Take Coldblood's offer, or likely risk wandering Randy's bizarre dream world forever. Never said it was easy...

As for Juno becoming real, that gets explained a little further.

During all that travelling that Jake did to Coldblood's building, and then the three day trek back, I expected to see a little more of his adventure. It skipped each day with a sentence or two, when I think there could have been an awesome chance for a short little adventure or something, even if it was to show that Jake really was willing to give up everything for a chance to escape. The main thing that disappoints me is that there's never any interaction between Jake and his pokemon. Surely, for the three days that he wandered away from Victory City and towards Coldblood's building, there must have been a time when he let out his pokemon and had them there for company, or needed their help, or whatnot. I would have been satisfied if there was a sentence somewhere saying "Despite how lonely he got, Jake elected not to send out Raichu or Ariados for fear that they may wind up like Jolteon and Weavile" or something. But then on the way back, he sort of had no excuse not to send out his pokemon, especially because he had three days to kill as a pikachu. Instead, I can imagine him being absolutely silent for the entire three day journey, and then, when he's in the middle of a battle that will lead up to his plan, he decides to reveal to his pokemon that he's a pikachu now. Not only that, but he'll "explain it later"? Wouldn't it be helpful if his pokemon knew what they were going up against, and how Jake planned to do it? I just feel like he could have given them a little warning. Why didn't he take advantage of that three day walk to talk to his pokemon, explain what was happening, and even practice some imaginary attacks? It would make a lot of sense if he had done that, especially for the purpose of training with his raichu/jolteon so he could actually learn how to use his electric powers. I get that he's half (or more, or less) Juno now, but surely the Jake in there has no idea what's going on. I think it was pretty irresponsible and rude that he didn't even talk to them once over the span of six days... xD I mean, not even to let out his two pokemon to show them that their bodies had returned to normal? I dunno; it just seems like a wasted opportunity and in that position, I thought that Jake would have wanted all the help he could have gotten.

Hmm, I didn't think about a small Pokémon interaction thing to help ease Jake's loneliness and having them get trained. You make some pretty good points about that.

I'll think it over a bit more, gather my thoughts, and see what kind of options would fit into this. A person on PokéCommunity also felt Victory City really could have used more description, so that's probably another thing I could focus on as well if I'm going to write more into these particular chapters.

Despite that, I'm quite enjoying it. x) I'm still yet to see how this battle ends. The arrival of that latias is cool, though Juno sure does take a reeaallly fast liking to her. I suppose that's him in his excitement and joy that he's got a legendary on his side, though. xD I'm enjoying his made up attacks, too. Also I searched up the height of a lugia and oh my god it's 17 feet tall. I mean, it's no wailord, but it's still huge!

Yup, Lugia is seriously gigantic!

Pst, I could let you in on a little secret. Latias resembles Randy's optimism.

I shall now return to the shadows and continue reading. :3 I really wanna see them get out of here. xD Also I was quite surprised to see that Alex had become one of his slaves. I mean, I expected it, but it sucks that he has to do what Randy commands. I wonder what David's doing. At least he changed them back. xD Jeff seems so smug, too. The 'good guys' really annoy me to be honest. xD I want Randy to lose miserably and for that necklace to break because I'm SUPER lovely.

Ha, ha, yep, it's about turning the tables. The original intention was to have the characters you originally felt sorry for become the jerks and the bullies you wanted to see fail become the heroes.

And you are SUPER lovely. XD

Ah, so we're finally in Kivistal! At least I hope it's still called Kivistal, and I'm honestly a little impressed with myself for remembering the name, but I digress!

Yep, it's still called Kivistal!

I've always believed that you could have focused entirely on the Gray Battlegrounds and the human world that you created alongside Randy's dream world and still have crafted a beautiful series, but I don't think that the rush, the excitement, and the shock would have compared to taking things in a whole new direction by setting them inside a world where Pokemon use guns and fight wars. Even after all these years, the description of Pokemon like Primeape and Ampharos wielding high-powered weapons and working in a prison for warriors from a rebellion still lights up my world. Seriously, Mystery Dungeon eat your heart out!

True, and there's been times when I've felt like trying to pluck out the whole Gray Battlegrounds part and replace it with something that was more similar to the rest of the series, but it never felt right.

I did have to justify Pokémon using guns when a few people felt it was strange they would use weapons like that. Having them be used to overcome type disadvantages seemed like the most logical way to go.

Now, as part of my unofficial duties of my unofficial title of "guy who notices differences", here's what I've got for these last few chapters: First, it was always a little strange in the original tale that the relationship between humans and Pokemon was never entirely explained. There were hints of conflict with humans in the past, as when the Silver Rebellion was hostile to Randy because he bore a "human name" and he was coerced into adapting a new identity, as Blitz I believe. It seemed like there was a lot of potential (perhaps even a prequel I hoped :3) to what happened to wipe out all of the humans of Kivistal and teach Pokemon the art of warfare. This version simply has its benefits, without the lose ends of humanity's fate in Kivistal and the questionable morality of Pokemon keeping other Pokemon in Poke Balls, but it still surprised me a bit when I read that the Skarmory and Ampharos had not known what Poke Balls were.

Hey, I'm glad you remember all this!

The elements of humanity have been plucked out along with Pokémon being unfamiliar with Poké Balls. I noticed this also and I did create several workarounds, as something wasn't clicking with humans in the picture. It's true, in the original version, Juno does fight a few humans, but later on, they just stop showing up. Heck, there were times when the story randomly flipped to third person and those have been taken out also.

And then if that wasn't enough, they killed Jake's Pokemon (and Randy's too I suppose)! I was hoping that they would be set free and join the Silver Rebellion, maybe get caught up in some political intrigue and jockeying for power, but no, they were disposed of. I can't say I was a huge fan of the Crimson Stars during past read-throughs (despite my affinity for jerks, it would appear), but that they would kill eight Pokemon out of ignorance, not even malice, really boils my blood, rustles my jimmys, and grinds my gears! Augh!

THIS totally had to be done. Shen, a very long time avid fan of this series, kept begging to know what becomes of Jake's and Randy's Pokémon. Jake retrieves them in the original version, but then never uses them. And then they're never accounted for ever again. Because they don't appear in the story after this, I had to work in a good reason for that... and this matched well with the fact the Crimsons Stars doesn't know what Poké Balls do and threw them into the fire like everything else they owned.

I'll admit, it was a pretty brutal finish to Jake's and Randy's Pokémon, but it does tie up a loose end that badly got left behind...

Ahem, with that out of my system (and comforted because maybe Alex's supercool Pokemon survived :D), it does raise the prospect of Juno breaking Blazewing's Poke Ball or doing something similar where she isn't confined in it, not only to fit in more with the other members of the Silver Rebellion, but also to give our favorite Latias more screentime. Because honestly, I think you could sell t-shirts with Blazewing's lines on them and make a healthy profit.

Bingo. Blazewing gets truckloads of more screen time. Besides getting a more enjoyable personality to work with, there are a LOT of segments that have been revised where she travels with Juno where before he was completely alone (the Abyss in Trial of Juno II is a BIG one). This has also greatly affected how Juno and Blazewing overcome obstacles together, fight together, and have conversations during their travels. Honestly, I think you'll love the update.

With all of these updating of species, there is one thing that I am hoping won't change, and that's the species of Skepter, especially now that the first Pokemon in Kivistal that Juno battles is an Ampharos it would seem poetic to me if things worked out in a bookends kind of way. I was actually kind of hoping that this Ampharos was either Skepter or one of his relatives, but then Juno set him on fire so I guess that hope went out the window.

Skepter is definitely still an Ampharos. There's also a big twist ending disparity with his son Bartholomew when it comes to differences between this and the original, but I'm not spoiling anything. Read on!

As for that first Ampharos that Juno fights, I never thought of him being related to Skepter in a way. Hmm...

On top of all of my fan theories and geeking out, these battle scenes of yours still have a beautiful pace to them, and almost kind of heartbeat that gets my blood pumping and keeps me addicted to the story. What I delight in most is that you not only bring this kind of energy and cinematic focus to the fights between Juno and big bads like Lugia and Groudon, but even fights with henchmen in the prison cell. I'm not usually one for "soldiering stories" outside of the Star Wars expanded universe, but you definitely have made me look at the more realistic (if you can call it that when the fighters are furry little Pocket Monsters) types of conflicts with a more open mind.

Considering this was written before Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, I'm actually surprised I beat Nintendo to making Pokémon have their own world. Glad you like the way I handled the combat sequences, as it's tough to balance between a fight that feels too fast and one that feels like everything moves in slow motion.

Perhaps my chief complaint was the shortage of music suggestions in these last few chapters. I happened to have Explosions in the Sky playing, and then the score from Batman Returns, and while they worked in some places, it was still clear to me that I am but a novice in finding the appropriate background music for such a thrilling tale!

I've been having a tough time trying to come up with a fitting music track for the prison part. Most of the songs I've come across are pretty short, or their tempo, beat, and rhythm doesn't quite match with the setting and the pacing of the story.

I was half-thinking of going with Max Payne 3 - U.F.E. for the battle in the break room, but it only lasts for 1:06. I also haven't found a good enough substitute, but if you have something in mind that kind of matches this, hey, link me and I'll give it a listen.

As always, I'm eagerly anticipating what's up next (especially hoping for that rooftop battle with a Scyther from last time)!

Oh, that still happens. No way would I cut that part out. ;)

[Neo Emolga]

Chapter 22
The City of Symarix

As Randy and I held on tight to Blazewing's wings, we had flown over miles and miles of ruined desert land, cracked and charred with canyons of endless pits lying everywhere. This was the most treacherous land I have ever seen in my life, worst than the driest desert and the coldest of snowy wastelands. It was impossible to even walk on foot, never mind the distance.

As I looked ahead, I saw the fifty Storm Riders, with each of their Pidgeots beating their wings in the hot air. Above us, the crimson sky flared above us with its swirling, dark clouds. I had then suddenly realized the thunder never once hit the ground. I had no idea where I was, and at this moment, I had no idea what the Storm Riders of the Silver Rebellion wanted me to do. Half of me was wondering if following them was even a good idea, but considering how the Crimson Stars showed no compassion to anyone, even those unaffiliated with the Silver Rebellion, we had to have some kind of guide in this strange world we were in now.

"Juno, I tell ya... this vacation you booked... it sucks," Blazewing nudged me with her wing with a teasing, mischievous smile.

"Well, you get what you pay for," I sighed to her with a tired smile before I just had to shake my head in disbelief at all this.

Recommended Listening: Two Steps From Hell - Love & Loss

As we continued to fly on, I saw the ground below us was slowly beginning to change from bottomless canyons to an arid desert, but it was still a wasteland. The endless fissures were less plentiful, and the land could actually be walked on now.

And then, far in the distance, I saw what looked like a massive, metallic metropolis just on the horizon. As we got closer and closer to it, it was absolutely the most gigantic city I’ve ever seen. The circular, spire, and square-shaped buildings towered hundreds and hundreds of stories tall and seemed to shine and gleam in the light of the red sun. I could easily tell metal must have been much more in abundance here considering they were willing to build many structures out of it as opposed to stone or concrete.

As we drew closer to the outskirts, I could see the streets were much wider than most cities on Earth, yet the number of motor vehicles was drastically low in comparison. Plus they didn’t look anything like the ones on Earth, being made of very large mechanical parts with no real concern for exterior aesthetics. All of them looked like they were unpainted with a bare, metallic chassis, and were just manufactured for transportation purpose only rather than appearance.

I had seen the city was well fortified and heavily militarized with a fifty foot wall made of metal surrounding the city and with large, metal cannons mounted on the walls. As we got closer, I saw each of the buildings were also made of black, silver, or dark blue metal, yet I had no idea how they were able to make all of this by themselves, especially under these harsh conditions. Towards the center was one massive and towering building, shaped like a spire, made of a reflective silver-colored metal.

I could look in any direction and just couldn’t believe all of this was actually real…

And yet, everywhere we looked, there were only Pokémon. Somehow, in this world, they built an entire civilization and culture, and now the three of us were sitting right in the middle of it. Here, they lived together, worked together, played together, and essentially replaced humans as the civilized society, bringing forward their own technology and innovation. I had seen marketplaces, courtyards, streets, and even Pokémon children playing some kind of street game that involved one large rubber ball and two smaller ones. A few of them wore a few basic articles of clothing, while it was really the soldiers and guards that were fully dressed in uniform and armor.

I think spellbound was the only fitting word I could come up with to describe how I felt about discovering such a place like this existed.

We had headed toward the center of the city, to an open area just near the giant spire. As we flew downward, I caught sight of what seemed to be a large military base with many bunkers and training grounds. All I did was just follow the Cubone, since he seemed to know the most about this place. I knew I had to be extremely careful about what I said here. I wasn't sure about making the Silver Rebellion my friends, but I sure didn't want to make them my enemy.

Once we arrived at the central spire building, I looked up and saw the spire tower extend high into the red-hued sky like a stairway to the fiery heavens. I couldn’t even tell where the tower ended it was so high up. Shortly after, I had gotten off Blazewing, and Randy had followed me, still getting used to his tiny Pachirisu feet and oversized, spiked squirrel tail. We stood on that warm, metal ground and looked up. He too, seemed amazed at the sight.

Meanwhile, as I was taking this in and looking around, I noticed that the whole city seemed to be designed for those small and large alike. As I looked around me, I couldn’t imagine how something so giant could have been built by Pokémon alone. It seemed like it could have taken forever to construct…

“What… is this place...?” Randy asked in amazement, looking at all the giant buildings around him.

“Symarix,” The Cubone had told Randy. “And I don’t believe I have introduced myself. My name is Sever. And I’d like to welcome you to our city.”

“Well, thanks,” Randy replied sheepishly, still looking curiously at everything with his eyes.

Sever could tell from the look on our faces that we were definitely lost and had no idea what we were doing here. In a way, he seemed happy to answer our questions, but at the same time, he looked at us strangely, seeming a bit surprised we didn’t know this already.

"So... uh, this Symarix..." Randy continued, getting fidgety with his little paws as he looked at Sever with an embarrassed expression on his docile Pachirisu face, "...I don't mean to sound... dumb or weird, but... I don't even think I'm... familiar with this world..."

Sever looked at him very strangely as his eyes narrowed in on him from behind his skull helmet, unable to understand his behavior. Honestly, I had to admire Randy's bravery for asking these kinds of questions. Admitting we were travelers from a whole other world was a very hard and not-so-believable thing to admit in front of these militarized strangers.

"Wouldn't be the first time the Crimson Stars drugged a prisoner with Downsmoke and amnesia was the result of it," Sever muttered with a sigh, shaking his skull-covered head before looking at the Pachirisu like he had a lot of work to do. "I guess they've been upping the dose lately."

I nodded, know it would be unwise to tell him the outlandish truth. If he thought a drug was responsible for it, it might just be better for him to go with that theory.

"This is Kivistal you're on, buddy,” Sever informed Randy, talking to him like he was trying to jog his memory. “Not sure where you're from, but Crimson Stars are vicious to everyone who still has a working conscience in their soul. Say... what's your name, anyway?"

"It's... Randy," he replied, feeling confused.

And then, Sever blinked twice, almost thinking that was absurd.

"That... what kind of name is that?" Sever asked, looking bewildered before he assumed Randy gave him a fake name to protect himself. "Listen, I know it might be hard for you to trust us because you only just met the Silver Rebellion, but you can at least give us your real name."

Randy looked at me for help, really not sure what to do in this case. Between myself, Blazewing, and Sever here, it did seem like the Pokémon of this world weren't accustomed to human names either.

"His name is Blitz," I told Sever, figuring he might as well get a new name just like me if he was getting stuck with a new body to live in. "He's a little on edge with all that's been going on, so don't mind him if he's not so quick to trust others."

"Thank you," Sever told me before turning to 'Blitz the Pachirisu' again. "See? It's not so bad. Really, I don't know how long they've kept you wired to Downsmoke, but you're better off with us than out there on your own."

"Blitz" nodded, although I could tell from the look in his eyes, he still felt totally lost when it came to all this. It also seemed like that oversized squirrel tail was a hard thing for him to get used to.

"So, why do they call this the Silver Rebellion?" Blitz asked. "You're rebelling against the Crimson Stars because... you used to be a part of them?"

"Unfortunately, it's true," Sever nodded. "Things in Crimsonland were looking bleak to begin with before the Silver Rebellion started six years ago, but the whole thing with spilling blood for their new god called Zander to escape the coming apocalypse that only started up recently is a clear sign we made the right choice."

Zander, hmm? I was beginning to wonder if he was walking around with a Pokémon form on in this strange world of Kivistal like Randy and I were just to fit in.

"Oh, not him again..." Blitz muttered, looking at Sever with a faraway look in his eyes.

"That's right," Sever nodded, not even realizing we've run into him already as he was only thinking he was making progress curing Randy of his 'amnesia,' "The Crimsons Stars think he's saving them from an apocalypse, but we know he's a rotten liar and he's responsible for all this!"

"Where... is he now...?" Blitz asked with anxiety, wondering where he might be hiding.

"Now that we don't know, my friend," Sever replied, looking up to the sky as he was really wishing he did. "Heck, we're not even sure what he looks like. We were never really friends with Crimsonland to the north, but ever since we starting hearing his name while getting attacked by Crimson Stars zealots, we're seeing more and more of the world falling apart. We're not sure if he's a powerful dictator or some kind of demigod for all we know."

I nodded, trying to get in on this conversation to at least sound and act like I knew what I was doing. For some reason, the Silver Rebellion was treating Blazewing and I like we were VIPs and I still had no idea why.

"And that's not the least of it," Sever continued, figuring he might as well share this piece of information. "Rumor has it that some of his followers believe this is the end of days for Kivistal, and Zander wants to save them by taking them to a new world to live on. He just hasn't found it yet, but they trust in his otherworldly power. They think all this is just some untimely Armageddon."

"There's no way that could be right," I told him as I shook my head in disbelief, figuring I knew Zander enough not to be the generous and life-saving type of person that would be out to save Pokémon. "Skies like that? That's not a natural occurrence."

"Well, tell that to the Crimson Stars, Juno," Sever told me. "Somehow this false god 'Zander' has the people of Crimsonland believing if they fetch enough blood and cause enough death for Zander, he'll be able to use that sacrifice to work some kind of dark ritual to bring them to a new world."

"Oh yeah, I'm sure a portal created by blood, guts, and good ol' fashioned death has just GOT to be the gateway to the good life!" Blazewing replied, nearly laughing. "Let me guess, did he talk them into buying a timeshare in there as well?"

Sever looked at Blazewing curiously, almost chuckling a bit before getting back to business.

In the meantime, not knowing what happened to Alex was a problem. Just where was he, and was he even still human? I knew the later was probably no considering what had become of Randy, and how I needed to keep thinking of him as "Blitz" to avoid any suspicion. It pretty much seemed like no one here was human, which was definitely an odd occurrence. In the meantime, I questioned myself with the thought of exactly how long we were going to end up staying here…

“We need to talk to Emperor Jamac,” Sever told the three of us, knowing he felt this was more of a pressing issue than Randy's 'amnesia.' “I’m quite sure he will want to know of your arrival.”

“Where does he usually stay?” I asked Sever, blinking twice in wonder as I was looking at him in the eye.

Sever had turned to face the tallest, towering building in Symarix, and then he pointed with his bone to the area all the way on the top. I had looked up, and saw the top of that one, giant tower was strongly built and extremely well-defended. At first, I thought it would be suicide to be so high up in a tower that would not be easy to escape from, but then again, when I saw the Storm Rider patrols flying overhead, the huge number of sentry turrets, and the reinforced armor plating the tower used, it was a death wish to try and sent aerial forces up there to attack it.

Meanwhile, it seemed like such a long way up…

“He has surveillance over the entire city," Sever told me and I imagined it had to be quite a view up there. "Come, the sooner we see him, the better.”

"Right behind you," I told him, walking alongside Randy the fidgety Pachirisu and Blazewing the witty Latias.

After a small march through the city, it seemed like just about everything used metal, even the streets. As I looked around and glanced at the shiny metal buildings, I could only guess metal and iron ore were in such a massive abundance that they made entire cities out of it easily. Meanwhile, the vehicles that passed around through the streets were like tanks, being about ten feet tall and completely armored. It made me wonder if they served another purpose than just transportation…

"Thanks for saving my butt back there," 'Blitz' the Pachirisu told me as we were just out of earshot of Sever. "I dunno, I kind of like 'Blitz' as a name."

"Well, good, because I think you're stuck with it," I told him with a mischievous smirk. "A decent Pachirisu deserves a decent name."

He nodded with a confident smile. As we continued walking through the city, somehow, for reasons I couldn’t fathom why, my presence beside Blazewing was enough to stop traffic, and turn the heads of Pokémon just walking down the streets. I just kept looking forward, but out of the corner of my eye, they just stared at me and began talking among themselves. Nonetheless, we just kept walking… though I tried to listen in a bit on their conversations. However, there was only so much my long, black-tipped ears were able to tell me.

It was going to be hard to get used to a city made up of nothing but Pokémon when I had gotten so used to cities composed of people. It almost seemed like… everything had been flipped upside down. I wasn't even sure why Zander brought us here anyway. My only guess was he was hoping we would either slowly die from his power, or surrender and be forced to worship him as some false deity. As for why Blitz and I were turned into Pokémon, I wasn't sure. If he kept us as humans, I figured Zander would need to explain it to the Crimson Stars, and that might tear a hole in his plan.

After a long walk, we had finally arrived at the massive tower, but it actually didn’t look so tall when we were right next to it. I was guessing it was just my perspective. Sever hadn’t waited one moment before we approached the entrance, made of glass windows and sliding glass doors encased in dark metallic frames. To my surprise, the doors were electronic, and slid open with proximity detection. As we stepped inside, I had no idea what I was just about to face…

Immediately, we had entered the massive lobby of this giant tower, which was also completely metal with many metallic doors leading to other rooms, except for two very large metal doors on the opposite side of the room. Throughout the red carpeted room, there were various statues and busts made of metal on the walls, on pedestals, as well as one in the center of the room. I had looked at the ones off to the sides, which appeared to be Pokémon that once ruled this city, dressed in these prestigious uniforms while in a proud, standing upright position. There was a Slowking, a Swampert, a Garchomp, and many others, and again, not one depiction of a human in sight. Then, my eyes had caught sight of the one statue in the center just as I was passing by it...

...and it nearly shocked the life out of me…

“What the…?” Blitz asked as he looked up at the bronze statue.

It was statue larger than life, made of shiny bronze with a polished wooden mount. But it wasn’t that which had shocked me. It was a statue of a fully geared-up Pikachu with a determined and steadfast look in his eyes, riding a fearless Latias that looked brave and willing to head right into wicked combat. The statue did a fantastic job of capturing the wind that was blowing past his ears and through his fur as the Latias seemed to be heading forward at a thunderous pace. Both of them looked so lifelike that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they just flew off the wooden mount and started flying around the room. Meanwhile, on a small plaque that was nailed onto the wooden mount, it read:

Juno and Blazewing, protectors of the righteous Silver Rebellion. May their paths one day cross ours.

My jaw nearly dropped off my face and I suddenly wasn’t sure whether I wanted to cheer, scream, or panic. Blazewing gasped as her eyes went totally wide and Blitz couldn’t believe it either, covering his mouth with his tiny Pachirisu paws while rendered totally speechless.

"You have got to be kidding me...!" Blazewing gasped, not sure whether to be thrilled or freaked out of her mind. "Do I... really look that epic!? Oh man, who made this thing!? Let me know and I'm treating them to dinner for the rest of the month!"

"Just... just... how!?" I exclaimed, having no idea this was even possible. "It's amazing..."

The Silver Rebellion believed we were already heroes, and we barely even knew them! They made the two of us look more important than even their own rulers! I didn’t understand any of it whatsoever, and I was beginning to sweat, thinking they were expecting me, just an ordinary guy thrown into a ridiculous series of circumstances, and Blazewing, who I hadn't even known only a month ago, to be capable of impossible valor and triumph. Did these guys... did they... did they really expect me and her to fix all of problems!? They made us look like the toughest soldiers ever when in reality we've never even been through boot camp!

“As you can see, we have been waiting for your arrival for some time,” Sever told the three of us as we just stared at the statue. "We need to press on, however."

And then he continued moving on, just beckoning for us to follow him. After snapping to our senses we had to keep moving, despite how much that statue wanted our eyes to be totally affixed to it. We headed toward two massive doors without handles, but I couldn’t help but take once last glance at the statue. I was really worried now. Were they really expecting Blazewing and I to become soldiers? I was anxious about the thought of having to plunge into lethal warfare and I really doubted I was ready for it...

Then, I just faced forward, and I realized what the doors were. It was a giant elevator, probably the only way to the top. I had turned to Sever as he put in a security access code on a keypad on the wall. Suddenly, the elevator roared to life, and the two giant, steel doors slowly opened. I just shrugged and walked into the elevator like there was nothing to it.

The elevator floor was carpeted by an ornamental rug, and the walls were actually paintings, all scenes depicting Storm Riders flying through the fiery sky in combat with the Wind Strikers, a dark counterpart of the Storm Riders where the riders were each mounted on a Skarmory rather than a Pidgeot. In the paintings, the Wind Strikers were losing quite miserably. Not one Storm Rider was seen dying, and there were some who were wounded but in a charismatic way.

“We will soon be meeting Emperor Jamac,” Sever said as Blitz and Blazewing entered the elevator and the heavy metal doors closed behind them. “No doubt he will be most pleased to see you have finally arrived.”

Again, I felt that anxious, butterflies in my stomach feeling as I thought over what this Emperor Jamac was going to expect Blazewing and I to do. Was he really expecting us to become a hero Storm Rider or something? The one time I fought Randy’s Pokémon and the incident that happened at the jail were my only instances of me really getting into a fight. But I’ve never actually led someone else into combat. And I hated to say it, but when these guys realized how little Blazewing and I actually knew about the Silver Rebellion, it was going to look awfully sad and embarrassing.

As the elevator continued to ascend higher and higher, all I could do was wait and wonder why we were seen as such saviors to the Silver Rebellion. I knew I had rescued one of their Storm Rider regiments, but really, I think they were all expecting a little too much out of us. Despite all that was going on, I was still just looking for a way to get home, and I mean the real home, where my real family was. It was never really my intention to get involved with war in the first place…

And then, we had reached the top floor, and the elevator stopped. The metal doors had slowly opened to reveal another long, carpeted hallway with many wooden doors, and then at the end of the hallway, there were two very fancy and ordinate-carved doors with golden trim. At the end of the hall, two guards were stationed there, a fully armored Braixen with a tough attitude holding a heavy machine gun and stout and steadfast Cinccino in full Silver Rebellion riot gear held a smaller-sized submachine gun.

As Sever had continued walking, right toward the two fancy doors at the end of the hallway, all we could do was just follow him, and then, he had arrived at the doors. The fiery colored bipedal fox and the fluffy chinchilla Pokémon looked at Blazewing and I, and it looked like both of them were suddenly lost in a dream.

"Sever... are you...?" The Braixen asked, her breath nearly stolen away.

"It is really...?" The Cinccino gasped.

"They're the ones," Sever proudly acknowledged, bowing his skull-covered head in reverence. "Fifty Storm Riders saved from Black Bay Prison. First mission success without even a formal assignment. They are the ones."

At that moment, both the Braixen and the Cinccino saluted us, placing their closed fists over their hearts before closing their eyes and bowing their heads down. Once they returned their hands to their sides did they open their eyes and look up again.

I didn't know what came over me, but the salute looked really easy to learn, and out of respect, I performed it before the two of them as well, clenching my paw over my heart, bowing before them before closing my eyes. I then put my hand back at my side and looked up at the two of them, and they both were in a bit a surprise, but were respectful about it.

Sever pulled down on the metal levers, and pushed open both doors at the same time.

When the doors had opened, we were greeted with amazement. There was a giant throne room opened before us, with the floor made of white marble with a red carpet leading from the door to the mounted thrones. The walls and ceiling were made of white stone and golden chandeliers were suspended from the ceiling. On the two side of the red carpet, there were masses of soldiers waiting. On the throne, a regal Excadrill sat down, while a battle-hardened Vigoroth in a highly decorated military uniform and a seemingly shady Zangoose stood by his side, wearing a gray and white formal-looking uniform. Sever continued on, and we just followed him.

It had looked like we suddenly walked in on some kind of military ceremony of sorts, but Sever felt this was important enough to interrupt it. As we passed by the various ranks of uniformed Pokémon soldiers in Jamac’s council, they saluted me with the same fist over heart salute. Despite their reverence for me, I still felt like I was going to be the biggest disappointment ever when they saw me in action. I was definitely not the soldier they thought I was! And heck, I felt embarrassed to be butt-naked in front of all these formally dressed and uniformed Pokémon!

However, from the looks of things, I had the feeling that if I was going to even have the slightest chance of getting out of here, it was likely going to have to be done by working with these guys and stop Zander, if that was at all possible. As I got closer and closer to regally dressed Excadrill, I saw he had a very stern and serious look on his white face while the serrated blade above his head and the blades he had for hands looked like they could brutally eviscerate just about any Pokémon in a heartbeat. I knew I would need to treat Jamac with ultimate respect. Being branded as a traitor or an outcast would only make things far worse, especially if these guys had such extremely high expectations for me. With Blitz and Blazewing at my side, I finally arrived at Jamac’s throne, and I kneeled down, and Randy did the same, trying to show Jamac respect in the only way we knew how. I bent down my head, looking down toward the floor. I knew we were already deep into this and even though I wasn't entirely sure about the Silver Rebellion being friends and allies, I knew I had already gone far beyond the threshold at this point. Better I get on their good side now than make a lousy first impression.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the High Silver Rebellion Military Command and the Silver Rebellion Royal Council," Sever proudly spoke before everyone in the lavishly-decorated throne room, "I present to you, Blazewing the Latias and Juno the Gold Rider."

There were murmurs among the uniformed soldiers while a few of the others were taken back in shock. Meanwhile, I just kept my head bowed. I was nervous as all hell, but yet, somehow my will and spirit kept me from trembling.

"I seriously hope you have some proof they're the ones," The Zangoose spoke to him in a dubious tone.

"Ask any of the fifty Storm Riders Juno saved from Black Bay prison just a few hours ago," Sever replied, nodding.

And that got them really talking. Blazewing and I just exchanged quick but slightly worried glances, knowing we were seriously in deep with all this.

"Yeah..." Blazewing whispered to me, knowing exactly what I was thinking also. "Sure hope you've been working on those push-ups."

I slightly nodded with a bit of unease as I was a little bit afraid of what this was about to turn into. I really, really didn't feel ready to be admitted as a soldier.

Jamac the Excadrill then motioned with his claw for the audience to be silenced. While the red-eyed, white and red-jagged furred Zangoose still seemed a bit doubtful, Emperor Jamac looked at us, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he definitely believed we were the ones.

“You have come at last, Juno,” Jamac the Excadrill smiled strongly. “I can't tell you how long we've waited for your arrival. This Zangoose is the chancellor Sinis, the Vigoroth is High General Kamax, and I am Jamac, the ruling Emperor of the Silver Rebellion. It is an honor to finally meet you.”

No way...

“No,” I told him quickly, trying to get on this guy’s good side and show a good first impression. “That honor is mine. I want to thank you for accepting me into your ranks and welcoming me into your amazing city. I've been treated with kindness, respect, and honor ever since I first stepped into Symarix, and I greatly appreciate it.”

Sinis the Zangoose crossed his arms with his long, black claws sticking out, and looked down upon me. For some reason, it seemed like he really didn’t believe I was the one, or there was something wrong with me. Even so, I still didn't understand... how did they anticipate my arrival? What told them I would be coming and that I was supposed to be some incredible hero or something? I was beginning to think this Zangoose could be right. Who was I kidding, I was no soldier.

“We have been fighting the Crimson Stars for a long, long time,” Jamac told me in a firm tone. “They have massacred endless amounts of our finest soldiers and they’ve ruined many of our great cities. The Divine Prophecy states that you would one day come to our aid and help us turn the tide of this war.”

Divine Prophecy!? Now I was really getting worried. How could anyone foresee we would be coming? And what made them think we were...

...special...?

I almost gasped at that moment. Someone knew... someone here knew Blazewing and I were born from dreams and imagined with supernatural power. They knew our names and they knew what we were capable of. When I became Juno... and when I connected and saved Blazewing... they felt that signal within space and time and knew something powerful had been pulled out of a dream in the form of a blessed in power Pikachu and Latias. And somehow... they knew we would end up here. Juno's charisma... his capabilities... his genuine selflessness... someone could see that.

My heart was racing out of control.

"And so I have come," I told him almost impulsively just to say something without succumbing to sheer fright and panic.

And then, Sinis just turned away, not looking very pleased. I didn’t know it was about him, but he still felt there was something wrong about this whole picture. Only then did he suddenly have the courage to speak up about all this.

"We are in grave times, but I strongly urge the Council not to solely rely on a mere prediction to win this war," Sinis warned the others, pacing about the throne room. "It will not replace proper military tact, strategy, and preparation. The Crimsons Stars would be laughing if they saw we were resorting to this."

Even though I kept my head bowed down, he was right in a way. It was pessimistic, but it was also a realistic way of looking at things. That, and maybe he could tell I was definitely not a properly trained soldier.

"And who’s the tiny Pachirisu?” Sinis asked, glaring down at Blitz. “Does the prophecy mention this as well?”

“He’s my companion.” I told him, really not seeing why that would be a problem.

“Enough, Sinis,” Jamac said firmly. “Tell me, what is your name?”

And now, all eyes were on Blitz. Surprisingly, he seemed even more brave now than I did! Just outside the tower, he was a sheepish mess who looked like he just wanted to bury himself in his own giant squirrel tail, but now, he really didn't seem all that afraid.

“My name is Blitz…” He said proudly, bowing before Jamac, "...happy to be of service."

I wasn't sure if he was relaxed because it wasn't him they were expecting to become a master soldier, or if he just felt really attached to the new name I gave him. In either case, if he was still worried, he was certainly doing a fantastic job hiding it. Either that, or for him, the pressure of the situation was simply like jumping into a cold swimming pool: shocking and chilling at first, but after a while, it was easy and comfortable to relax once he got used to it.

In either case, I sighed, and figured he probably had the right idea. We were definitely going to be expected to be here for a while, so I knew if they expected me to be a soldier, I was going to need to get prepared to be one.

[Suicune's Fire]

You caught a LOT, and I appreciate you taking the time to flag them all down. I'll admit, very often I'm just thinking in terms of the storyline, description, emotion, and that kind of stuff, and my thoughts are moving faster than my fingers.

Good points. Very good points... but... considering the situation Jake is in, I thought of it more in a terms of "what other choice do you really have?" Also, Jake never thought he'd be stuck as a Pikachu for life, only until Randy's dream world collapsed. That, and after being so desperate for answers and having virtually no other solution present itself, Jake had to make a choice. Take Coldblood's offer, or likely risk wandering Randy's bizarre dream world forever. Never said it was easy...

As for Juno becoming real, that gets explained a little further.

Hmm, I didn't think about a small Pokémon interaction thing to help ease Jake's loneliness and having them get trained. You make some pretty good points about that.

Nah, no worries. :] I just spot them as I go, so it's not like I go over it the second or third time I read with a fine-tooth comb and pick them all out. Good for you, good for me--it's all good! I love how you respond to every one of the corrections, too. Oh, you.

Yeah, that's what I figured it was. Of course I agree with his overall decision, but I expected to see a little more inner conflict before he made the choice, I guess.

As for pokemon and trainer interaction, well, that can be some of my favourite parts of pokemon stories. xD I love reading about a trainer's pokemon. For me, the pokemon make the stories much more than the humans do. (Well, my reason for reading, I mean.)

I'll think it over a bit more, gather my thoughts, and see what kind of options would fit into this. A person on PokéCommunity also felt Victory City really could have used more description, so that's probably another thing I could focus on as well if I'm going to write more into these particular chapters.

Yup, Lugia is seriously gigantic!

Pst, I could let you in on a little secret. Latias resembles Randy's optimism.

Ha, ha, yep, it's about turning the tables. The original intention was to have the characters you originally felt sorry for become the jerks and the bullies you wanted to see fail become the heroes.

And you are SUPER lovely. XD

No worries. :] I know it can be a little discouraging to go back and edit old chapters. It's kind of like, "well I know YOU'RE just reading it for the first time now, but it's been around on my computer for so long that the older ones don't matter as much." I went back and had a look at the first chapter of Through the Eyes of a Flareon, my longest pokemon story so far, and sort of frowned at a lot of its wording and whatnot. xD I write completely differently to how I did then. But at the same time, I can't really be bothered going and rewriting the whole chapter again. I sort of rely on people's faith in me to push through the first few chapters until the writing gets better, haha.

SERIOUSLY. I never knew how big. xD

OH MY GOSH THAT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE NOW. Ahaha. Good old optimism. :] What a gem.

Well you did perfectly in that area! :D

I try. ;D

[Neo Emolga]

Chapter 23
The Last Prison

All I kept thinking about was this Divine Prophecy. What did it really say about me? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized they had to have predicted it. I had only been Juno for a few weeks now. There was no way this whole prophecy could have been written and spread like this in the few weeks I've been this way.

"Sever..." Chancellor Sinis the Zangoose questioned the proud Cubone.

"Yes, sir?" He asked, looking up curiously at the white and red mongoose.

"You mentioned something about Juno rescuing Storm Riders from Black Bay?” Sinis asked, looking directly at Sever in the eyes. "How did you find out about this?"

Sever had looked at me for a moment, and I just took a slight and curious glance at him back. He looked somewhat worried, and then he looked back at Sinis.

“That was... my Storm Rider squad had been captured and thrown into Black Bay Prison, sir,” Sever told Sinis, ashamed to admit they had been captured in the first place. “It was Juno who rescued us in the first place.”

“Juno rescued you?” Kamax the Vigoroth asked Sever, a little surprised that I was the one who bailed him out.

“Yes, sir… that’s right...” Sever replied, seeming somewhat embarrassed. "I... I mean we were outnumbered when trying to..."

"Alright, enough of the excuses," Kamax interrupted him.

Sever remained silent after that while the white-furred monkey in the highly decorated Silver Rebellion military uniform looked at him questioningly.

In the meantime, I hadn't forgotten that I still needed to find Alex, wherever he was. If he wasn’t at the Black Bay Prison, then where was he? Was he even in this world?

“One of my other companions is missing,” I told them all, knowing I still had a problem on my hands. “Since he wasn’t at the Black Bay Prison, do you know of another place where he would be held?”

They had all looked at me strangely, and then Sinis had put his hands at his side.

“No, there is no other prison…” Sinis replied with a dark expression.

There was hesitation and silence. From the way Sinis was looking, I could tell he was hiding something. And then, Kamax looked at me with a forlorn expression.

“Sinis, you know that's not true...” Sever spoke up, feeling it wasn't right to keep secrets. "Just because Macomb is an impregnable fortress and a maximum security facility never made it stop existing."

“Sever, we will not speak of that place,” Jamac told him seriously, not even wanting to talk about it.

“But if Juno is looking for his companion, there isn’t any place left. He would have to be there...” Kamax told Jamac, looking off to the side as his thoughts seemed to be distracted.

"Do you know how many lives were lost trying to take that hellhole!?" Kamax shouted. "Count yourself lucky you didn't wind up in there yourself!"

I was sincerely hoping Alex wasn't actually there in Macomb, but it was very possible if the Crimson Stars had a central prison for all their detained prisoners of war. And I figured it was no laughing matter when it came to how well-defended it probably was.

“Macomb isn't just a fortress and a prison either,” Kamax reminded him as he turned his back to the Cubone. “It’s a weapons factory, foundry, steel mill, military camp, and a torture chamber where they use prisoners like you for weapons and drug testing. Every one of our soldiers that have been there has only been used to advance the one thing that Crimson Stars know how to do best. Kill other Pokémon.”

I couldn’t afford to let Alex die in a place like that, but attacking it sounded like suicide. If it was a military camp, then the moment they spotted us, they could unleash an army of Wind Strikers and whatever other military monstrosities the Crimson Stars possessed. If Alex was really there, I knew I probably didn't have much time. And in the meantime, I wasn't sure how many Silver Rebellion soldiers were there, but every passing minute was one of them getting killed in likely some of the most brutal ways possible.

If I really was special and capable of things no other Pikachu was, I had to forget about not being formally trained as a soldier and just focus on doing the right thing. Inside, my heart just told me not to worry about being inexperienced. My head, on the other hand, was thinking if I really wanted to avoid Zander and escape from this war-torn world, there were probably better solutions than getting myself killed. In the end, I just didn't feel right if I didn't at least try. And with a high potential of Alex being there, it was beginning to feel like the decision had already been made.

"I want to shut it down," I told the others, figuring a place like Macomb had to stop existing. "If what you're saying is true, then this is a matter of fact."

"Just what we need..." Sinis told me doubtfully, crossing his arms again as he was looking at me straight in the eye. “This would make for the seventh black ops strike to hit Status Black to that place. May I inform you that in Macomb, there are acres and acres of factories, warehouses, weapons production lines, and jail cells. These maniacs are constantly developing weapons there. They will attack you with everything they’ve got fresh off the block.”

I nodded, understanding what he was saying. Still, leaving all those soldiers, and potentially Alex, to just be used as meat puppets for weapons and drug testing was just sick and twisted.

"Prepare me however you think would be best," I told Sinis, figuring I wanted to at least know everything about this place and how best to use Silver Rebellion weaponry. "But if I just stay here doing nothing, what good am I to any of you?"

"Hey, I'm in," Blazewing smiled, liking my sense of having the guts to go in there. "Living to be old, tired, and cranky is overrated anyway. And Bingo is lame."

I had looked to Blitz the Pachirisu, and I knew he wasn’t going to like any of this. I looked at him closely.

“Blitz, if you don’t want to be a part of this, I understand,” I told him, assuring him I wouldn't think less of him for not wanting to be a part of this mayhem.

"It does sound scary, but..." Blitz stated, getting a bit fidgety again, "...if we don't do this, no one ever will. I don't want everyone locked up there to die because we never even wanted to try."

Blitz sure had a lot of guts. No, he definitely wasn’t the wimp I remembered from Scottville Middle School. For a moment, it felt strange to take the plunge into fully supporting this Silver Rebellion faction, but there was something about it that just kept urging me on to do it. They welcomed us in, we had a temporary home here, and it seemed like the better side to fight for in this war. I had a feeling there was going to be a time I was going to need their help in return, and I highly doubted they would do me a favor if I just turned their backs on them.

Meanwhile, Blitz and I really weren’t the way we used to be. It seemed that the whole incident with the Quista necklace changed both of us. Sure, I was stuck as his fantasy Pikachu and Zander had turned him into a plushy, electric squirrel, but it ran deeper than that. He seemed to have started to realize his potential and making taking on a whole new name and identity seemed to give him a fresh start. That, and he was trying to push away his fear and doubt. Not a whole lot of other people would have agreed to go along with this whole idea.

"If this mission fails and you all end up dead, I'm throwing this 'Divine Prophecy' into the nearest bonfire," Kamax spoke, really disliking this whole idea, but deciding to go with it anyway. "If you all want to put it to the test, fine, but you will be examined and trained before you throw yourselves to the mercy of that hellhole."

I nodded, knowing he was just being very stern and serious about his warning and still felt Macomb was too dangerous of a mission to risk. Having failed six prior missions against Macomb, I could understand why part of him seemed to think this was just another suicide mission to a lost cause.

* * *

After all the formalities had concluded, Kamax found it essential that our skills should be measured and that we at least got basic training. As much as I wasn't looking forward to the true, hardcore life of a soldier, I knew it would be stupid to risk this kind of mission without the minimum training needed.

Otherwise, with no preparation, we would definitely be getting a bit too ahead of ourselves...

We were given basic gray and white Silver Rebellion combat uniforms, and ironically, it was like they were made to be a perfect reflection of that metallic statue they had in the Central Spire ground floor. From what I heard, there were many that wanted to witness us in training, but they were told everything would be done behind closed doors. Seeing Blazewing and myself in combat Storm Rider uniforms was a bit unsettling.

But, nonetheless, all three of us had been formally admitted into the Silver Rebellion army under the Storm Rider aerial Division. Since we were a special case, we had a Captain Nidoqueen named Halen in charge of personal training. While she wasn't a Storm Rider herself due to the fact she was huge and could never ride a Pidgeot, she was still more than capable of training prospective Storm Riders.

Meanwhile, Halen herself was intimidating and definitely the no-nonsense type. As a battle-hardened Nidoqueen, her large, bipedal pale blue and cream-colored rhino-like body looked like it had seen plenty of injuries. She looked even more serious while she was wearing a full combat armor as well, along with carrying a heavy machine gun.

We had been trained hard for weeks, running, climbing, crawling, and learning to best use our own natural attacks and use Silver Rebellion weaponry. As we quickly learned, Halen was a deadly serious, didn't take crap from no one trainer, but while our bodies cried from exhaustion, she pushed harder. To her, she obviously didn't think any kind of Divine Prophecy merited giving us any kind of special treatment. If there was any kind of doubt we still weren't used to our new Pokémon bodies, Blitz and I were totally forced out of that for good as we were pushed hard to use this physical form in every way possible.

I wasn't sure what kinds of missions it took to become a Captain, but I could imagine they had to be extremely difficult if this was the kind of Pokémon soldier that the process produced. Meanwhile, despite being some prophesized warrior, we started from the very bottom at the "Recruit" rank training to become "Cadets." From there, promotions went to Ensign, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, General, and then the position of High General at the very top was reserved for one Pokémon only.

The way rank badges worked was Recruits had a blank metal square. Cadets then had a large silver ring placed in the center of the square. The next five ranks from Ensign to Major entailed placing one smaller metal ring laid above the large one, which at the Major rank would link to become a full circle of smaller rings overlaid on top of the large one. At the General rank, the whole metal square was replaced by a six-pointed metallic star mounted below the ring formation. And at the High General rank, the six-pointed star was replaced with a ten-pointed one. I couldn't help but look at my own blank, metal square badge and wonder just how far this whole prophecy was going to take it.

As the weeks went by, I was worried about Alex, but the physical exercises were enough to push my mind off of it. Meanwhile, all three of us were trained on how to use Silver Rebellion firearms. Both Randy and I were handed a small submachine gun called a Firefang. It wasn't anything special to look at, as it was mostly a crude, metallic machine-pistol that was made for smaller Pokémon to use to supplement their own attacks when faced with enemies that were resistant to their standard attacks. The guns were still shaped similar to what we were used to, but the trigger was a flat bar and magazines were typically drum-shaped for higher bullet capacity.

Meanwhile, Blazewing had to undergo the same range training, given the same kind of heavy, double-drummed machine gun called a Flamelance. There was definitely no way I'd be able to hold it, but it seemed to fit her just perfectly. Like the Firefang, it was also a dirty and dark-colored machine gun made of crude metal. Usually, because the Silver Rebellion used Pidgeot mount to fly, there wasn't any gun training for mounts, but Blazewing could now be the exception.

"How am I supposed to listen to music and shoot this thing at the same time!?" Blazewing asked, looking bewildered after she had tested it on one of the many firing ranges. "It's so loud!"

"Heh, ya better git used to it, miss," Halen grinned, knowing she used the same exact same gun. "It's a sound you're gonna be hearin' a lot."

"Guess I'm just going to need to imagine they hired a really loud percussionist during the recording," Blazewing replied, flashing a small but smug grin.

Well, there was one good thing about being on the Silver Rebellion side. At least we wouldn't be on the receiving end of one of these things...

[Neo Emolga]

Chapter 24
Boot Camp

As the weeks carried on with more unusual military training for Pokémon, I was getting concerned about Alex and I was losing sleep over it. I understood the training was necessary, but they still felt going in there without preparation was suicide, even despite the urgency.

I was really beginning to wonder if we'd ever see him again.

In the meantime, we were worked hard. Running, shooting, climbing, and even swimming were part of this harsh training. Running for miles was something I always hated, but now I had to do it on this tiny track. And one mile for a human is like five miles for a Pikachu and a Pachirisu. Both of us were showing improvement with using Firefangs will Blazewing seemed perfectly comfortable with the Flamelance. We had to learn how to climb rock walls, metal fences, and removed a type of barbed wire, which looked like circular pizza cutter blades on a string.

Blitz and I were also trained on how to use Torchclaws, the rifle variant that were usually reserved for bigger Pokémon. They made us learn how to use them as heavy, mounted weapons in case our own Firefangs were broken, jammed, lost, or simply ran out of ammunition.

Being a part of this Silver Rebellion wasn’t easy…

While I was trained to ride Blazewing and work alongside her, Blitz had to raise his own mount from Pidgey to Pidgeotto to Pidgeot. Usually, it took Pokémon trainers a bit of time to accomplish that, but the Silver Rebellion had mount training worked down to a science. It was grueling, tough, and even dirty at times, but I figured if they all used the same mount, coming up with the perfect regimen must have been a lot easier.

Besides the various ranks of Storm Rider squads we were about to enter, there were many other weapons and machines of war that the Silver Rebellion used. While the aerial division were referred to as Storm Riders, the armored ground division was referred to as the Thunder Battalion and ground infantry were referred to as Thunder Runners. When it came to armored vehicles, they had their own style of warfare.

One of them was a heavy metal tank, called the Colossus. These tanks were even bigger than ones used by humans, completely clad in heavy, metal armor, and painted a white and silver, traditional Silver Rebellion colors. On the front there was one, giant chrome cannon, as well as two smaller ones on the side and a caliber rifle on the top by the square metal hatch. There were also four small, rectangular ventilation holes for infantry to fire from. I had never been inside one, but a fellow Patrat who used to reload the cannons told me it gets awfully hot in there.

And then, a really cool device I was trained to use was the Land Splitter. They looked like mini dragsters with a machine gun, and boy, were they fast. Again, covered with light armor and protected the driver with a cage like structure. Like before, I was trained with these only just in case I was dismounted and needed to use them. Learning how to fly and fight at the same time were my main training areas. From what I could tell, the Silver Rebellion didn’t have planes, so they used flying Pokémon mounts instead. And since they were experts on how to breed, care for, and raise Pidgeys, Pidgeottos, and Pidgeots from the moment they were born to the moment they were made combat-ready, they stuck with what worked for them. It was rare to see a Silver Rebellion Storm Rider soldier use something besides a Pidgeot.

It had been nearly two months since Blitz, Blazewing, and I had been in Kivistal now. We had spent those many days training our butts off, and we were pretty experienced now. I could only hope that Alex was still alive after all this time, but I still had no clear indication. I hated to leave him in that dark prison of Macomb for so long, but I had no choice. I couldn’t come walking to their front door and ask to have him, and we weren't combat ready to take on a strike that had already claimed so many Silver Rebellion lives.

We were also trained to know how to react to the weapons and machines of the Crimson Stars. Apparently, they use all caliber weapons of varying sizes. The small, sub-machine guns they reserved for smaller Pokémon were called Scabs. I wasn't sure what metal these were made from, but it was made from a strange black and maroon-tinged metal and seemed to have a very jagged look to it. Unlike Silver Rebellion rifles, to fire a Crimson Star firearm, you had to press a black, metallic button in the place where a trigger would have gone. Also, their ammo magazines were block or box-shaped.

The next step up were Leadhammers, the Crimson Star equivalent to the Torchclaws. The chances of us having to use one of these were low, but we were trained on them anyway. Lastly, Sluggers were the big, heavy machine guns that bigger, heavier Pokémon would use. Only Blazewing would ever be able to use one of these. For Blitz and I, it was simply impossible.

When it came to Crimson Stars troops themselves, Wind Strikers were Pokémon flying Skarmories, as Sever had explained earlier. Just like the Storm Riders, only Pokémon who stood upright and had hands could fly them. Halen told me that since Wind Strikers are actually quite small and lightweight, they are designed for quick maneuverability. However, if they got shot just a few times, it was usually fatal. All the time, the rider was dismounted and could do nothing but plummet hundreds of feet in the air toward the harsh terrain. Unfortunately, this wasn’t too far off from what a fellow Storm Rider like me could go through.

Somehow, the Silver Rebellion managed to get their hands on a Crimson Stars Talon, which looked like a three rider motorcycle, probably either through stealing it or finding it left behind from a previous battle. The first cab, which was in the middle, was the largest, with two smaller ones on its side. It was jet black, with violet windows on each of the cabs. The riders fired their own caliber Leadhammer rifle, while the center rider fried two at the same time. On the back was an anti-air gun called a Skythrasher for a forth rider who would be on the back, only there they were fully exposed. Honestly, I didn’t see this as an effective fighting tool, but Halen told me they were very vicious and very fast. I wasn’t about to doubt her word.

A third nightmare of the Crimson Stars were the Versatile Armored Transports, or VAT’s for short. Halen had shown us only a model of it, and they looked like moving buildings nearly two stories tall with four giant metal wheels and a body like a trapezoid. I had no idea how I would even go about stopping that thing. Halen told me a Storm Rider had to go under the whole machine and tear apart as much of the pipes, pumps, and other machinery under the VAT. The only other way of stopping it was to use the environment to have it get pushed into a ditch or trench. Both cases looked quite risky with all those gun emplacements all over the whole thing. But she told me that was the only way to do it.

“VAT’s are constantly being manufactured at Macomb,” Halen warned us, letting the two of us know to expect them there. “You have only one advantage, and that is they won’t be loaded with any Crimson Star troops once you get there. You would be better off to destroy their manufacturing facilities before you try and get the prisoners out.”

“Wow…” Blitz replied in sarcastic disbelief. “Can’t wait…”

This sure wasn’t going to be easy. Halen showed me more weapons that the Crimson Stars used, all designed to fire ammunition. I just grimaced at all of them, not wanting to imagine what would happen if I got shot by one. Not to mention the fact that they were really loud as well in the test firing range…

“Well, that’s about it,” Halen told the two of us, feeling confident about what we've been exposed to during this training session. “They’ve wanted us dead for eons now, and they’ve come pretty close to it. Already, many of our cities, such as Cyphex, The Bend, and Ashmarch are been torn to pieces. We’ve lost thousands of good soldiers out there. Each day, we keep losing our forces and it hasn’t been getting that much better. We’re down to only two major cities left, Symarix and Kalen.”

Kalen was a supply city, the Silver Rebellion’s equivalent of Macomb, only Kalen wasn’t even half the size. It was true though, the Silver Rebellion was fighting a very losing war against these guys. If it kept up at this pace, I could expect Symarix to be completely overrun in very little time.

“Sure doesn’t look pretty,” I told Halen and Blitz, seeing how easily things were getting desperate…

"Well, there are some who think you're here to fix all that," Halen told me, obviously referring to the whole Divine Prophecy. "I'd say you make a decent soldier, but I don't see all that much of a difference. I'd say you're upper 80th percentile, but you're definitely no one-man army."

I couldn't argue against that. I was honestly happy she felt confident I was good enough to be a soldier in the first place and took me from being totally inexperienced to at least being somewhat prepared to deal with combat at its most ruthless level. And it was different now. Pokémon wouldn’t just be fighting each other, they would be killing each other on the same hideous scale that humans used. It was a disturbing thought, but as time had shown again and again, words and negotiation only go so far.

A month later, after more rigorous training, they finally believed we were ready.

I had heard only a small squad was going to be deployed to attack Macomb, myself included. They told me it was all they could afford to send. I had seen albums of pictures that showed the horror after each terrible conflict. I had even seen it myself with my own two eyes, the city near Black Bay prison was torn to sheds, a graveyard of buildings and society. I can easily expect something similar if I laid my eyes on The Bend or Cyphex. Further and further the Silver Rebellion was being pushed back, and here they were making their last stand against an enemy that couldn’t even respect itself.

Tomorrow, we would be flying to Macomb. Randy and I as well as four other Storm Riders were going to have to take on that entire facility all by ourselves, hoping to use stealth instead of a front-on invasion. Instead of going with a head-on assault, we were going to try and sneak our way in, disable as much as we could at the facility, release its prisoners, and try to get out alive. Just the sound of it already made my heart twist in anxiety.

Already, an enormous amount of expectation was placed on me even though Halen tried to explain that I was simply a soldier like any other. Given my past experience and expectations, they had promoted me to Ensign, though there were many that felt I was a special case. In truth, I didn’t want them to think I suddenly became a miracle worker here…

Blitz had been making every effort to improve his skills. Even though he had a rough start, as time went by he got drastically better. Even his Pidgeot mount was now ready, and he was confident he could handle this delicate mission.

We had no idea how big Macomb really was, or what kind of force they really had, but from what we had heard, it sounded like a lot. I was hoping it would be quickly in and quickly out, but I had no idea where to head to first, since the Silver Rebellion had no layout of the facility to go by. The only thing I could go by was the architecture of the buildings. That was it. Every scouting mission against this place had failed, and the lack of intel really showed. We were definitely going to need to know how to improve solutions.

Regardless, Randy and I tried not to show fear, even though deep inside we were nearly scared to death about this. There was no other way to get Alex out of there if this is where he was really being held. We needed his support as soon as possible, and any Silver Rebellion prisoners were greatly needed to join the ranks of soldiers already prepped for combat. We needed to take apart Macomb’s assembly lines and production facilities if we wanted to cripple the Crimson Stars’ war effort. Of course that was far easily said than done.

We had trouble sleeping that night, just trying to think about how we were going to handle this. I could only hope that I would be back in these barracks by tomorrow’s end…

[Neo Emolga]

Chapter 25
Industrial Thunderstorm

Recommended Listening: Final Fantasy VIII - SeeD

It was only going to be the five of us, and that was it. It was what they called a "surgical strike" as opposed to an all out assault, simply because Kamax didn't want to even think about trying that kind of tactic again. Somehow, we were going to have to make our way in and keep it quiet as long as possible. Macomb was large and well fortified, but it wasn’t invincible. The mission was going to be extremely difficult, but not impossible, even though it almost seemed that way every time I seriously considered what we were going to do here and what every Pokémon here said we would be up against. Meanwhile, I was to be the leader of this small squad, and Blitz was going to be my gunner, sitting on the back of Blazewing's back, just watching our rear just in case something happened. Apparently, they didn't feel his own Pidgeot was trained enough.

The second Storm Rider in my squad was a battle-scarred Croconaw by the name of Stevex. Despite his usual ill attitude, he was feeling somewhat optimistic about the mission. He had told me he had been a Storm Rider for three years, and this was going to be the toughest challenge he had ever faced. He was armed with a Torchclaw, since water wasn’t going to hurt a Skarmory very much.

The third in my squad went by the name of Rackal, an Electabuzz with a proficiency in explosives, computers, and booby traps. Calm and collective, he always believed more in being prepared than wishing for good luck. If we were going to get through this mission, we were going to need an engineer, and Rackal was just the one to fill that role.

Fourth in line was Lahanas, a Monferno with a bad attitude. The aggressive fire monkey hated the Crimson Stars more than scum, and he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way of destroying them. He wasn’t so sure about me being a squad leader, but he wasn’t going to ask questions and he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with the role itself if someone absolutely had to take it.

And last but not least was Vice, a Weavile with a will to kill. Vice was swift to strike and didn’t ask questions first. He reminded me of my own Weavile that I lost months ago, although there were some obvious differences. Even though most Storm Riders didn’t give their Pidgeot a name, Vice called his mount Storm Gale. I couldn’t help but say there was certainly something more vicious about his Pidgeot than the rest of them. Storm Gale was a true force of nature whose feathers were wild, rough, and the look in her eyes could pierce the souls of whoever they gazed upon. Her crest was also more jagged and helped contribute toward her intimidating appearance.

When we had all assembled, Kamax the High General Vigoroth had approached us, and all six of us had saluted him like we were instructed to do so in the presence of a high-ranking officer. He then looked over the six of us, and stared at all of us in the eye, me especially.

"I'll have you know this mission is going off the books," Kamax began, knowing very few were aware this was even going on. "All soldiers that were involved in the six previous assaults on Macomb were all killed in a variety of ways I'd rather not go into. I don't need to remind anyone that the whole lot of you could end up the same way. The only reason why this is happening in the first place is because one of you specifically requested it and the rest of you had expressed some interest in joining the next attack thinking you're better than everyone else. So here you have it, everyone should be happy now."

I could tell from his speech that he disliked this whole idea, but I didn't want to surrender Alex to the Crimson Stars, if he was even still alive. If I was really going to save the Silver Rebellion, I had to know it was actually possible. Otherwise, it was probably best they give up the whole Divine Prophecy now rather than later while they still had some hope and time.

I was hoping Alex was still there, along with many other Silver Rebellion members. And the longer we took to get there, the risk of losing more soldiers was also escalating. We couldn’t allow that to happen any longer. If that place really was the torture chamber they had said it was, it was going to be a gruesome sight to behold and I had to steel myself against whatever would ruin us from the things we would see.

“Good luck to all of you,” Kamax told us, keeping an upright posture and stern look in his eyes. “With no doubt you will need it.”

“Good luck is for the unprepared,” Rackal replied to Kamax with a firm voice.

"Better to die in combat than grow old, tired, and sick," Lahanas grinned, patting his Torchclaw rifle admirably. "Better get some medals ready for me, General. Ha, ha!"

If we made it through this, I'd buy the whole lot for him.

* * *

Recommended Listening: Con Air Soundtrack - The Takeover

When it was time to depart and embark toward Macomb, all of us were outfitted with an almost excessive amount of combat gear. Blazewing, Blitz, and I looked like we were ready for all hell to break loose. We were nearly covered with Silver Rebellion armor and equipment while clutching our Firefang submachine guns and Blazewing had more Flamelance ammo on her to take a whole town out.

"Wow, welcome to the jungle," Blazewing muttered, nearly laughing at the inanity as she looked at us all geared up and ready to go. "Look at us! Who wants to try taking down a tank with their teeth!?"

"If I get shot, will I actually know about it?" Blitz asked, patting the heavy armor he was wearing.

"That's a thought I don't care if we never get to find out," I replied to him, feeling a bit hot with all this armor.

After the four of my comrades had mounted upon their Pidgeots, Blitz and I strapped ourselves onto Blazewing's back so we didn’t have to worry about falling off. That was a good thing, since there was going to be a whole lot more we were going to have to worry about…

"Hold onto your butts," Blazewing told us as she took off.

It hadn’t been long before we took to the skies and soared far above the broken land below us leaving Symarix behind. Blitz had been right behind me, holding his Firefang very steadily, all while trying to ensure his massive Pachirisu tail wasn't too much in the way. Right now, a fluffy squirrel tail being a little pesky was the least of my concern. Meanwhile, besides me were the four other Storm Riders that were on my side. The sky above us slowly grew toward a pale red, indicating the cold night had come. At least now we would have the darkness to cloak our passage into Macomb.

"Heh, the one with the least kills treats everyone else out to dinner," Lahanas snickered. "Been waiting for this for ages!"

"I'm game," Stevex grinned. "Sure hope the loser has a fat wallet! Ha!"

"These guys are idiots," Blazewing whispered to Blitz and I. "I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and crap a better line than that."

Further and further we flew toward the great machine city of Macomb. No doubt this would be one of the most difficult tasks I would have to undertake. We had four possible targets: the assembly lines, the missile silos, the weapon stockpiles and the prisons. First, if we were to do anything here, we needed to disarm the missile silos before they were launched as a result of the attack, if they suspected there was any kind of threat. Next came the weapon stockpiles and then the prisons. Finally, the assembly lines had to be shut down, but for now they posed no immediate threat. It was a suicide mission's ultimate wishlist. If we managed to accomplish even just half of one of those, it was a good and lucky day.

Miles and miles of broken terrain had passed below us as we carried on and then the six of us had set eyes on the black machine city of Macomb in the distance, just waiting for us. I couldn’t believe my eyes at the sight of it…

The whole city itself was devoted to industry, with large factories and towering smokestacks spewing out clouds of dark smoke. Warehouses were also scattered everywhere, as well as large shipping juggernaut-sized trucks and other massive vehicles. However, I looked around but I saw no sign of anything that looked like a prison. All the buildings were a dark, coal black, and a metal wall that towered fifty feet surrounded the city.

“Macomb…” Rackal said softly, looking at the machine city, “If we disable their transports, they will be unable to ship their supplies.”

“Just the transports?" Lahanas snickered. "I want to see that whole lot up in flames! Ha!"

I'm sure we all wished for that, but there was that fine line between wishful thinking and reality.

But then, I had caught sight of something within the city. Tiny red lights were now flashing in various places. At first I thought it was fire, but then I realized the lights were pulsing systematically and suddenly flames just didn't make sense. I then felt an eerie chill. That was no fire…

“Damn it, they know we’re here,” I told them coldly. “Their alarms have gone off.”

“Impossible,” Lahanas cut me off. “There’s no way. This early? We haven’t even reached the perimeter yet! How could they see us from this location?”

But shortly after he spoke, I saw a small group of V shaped objects emerge from the red-tinted sky. They were coming closer, and at a very fast rate.

“Wind Strikers in the distance…” I told the four of them. “Come on, let's try to get out of sight!"

“Is this how the Gold Rider fights!?” Lahanas asked with a cynical laugh, looking at me with doubt. “I’m surprised at you, Juno! I thought you had a spirit to fight inside you!”

"Uh huh," Blazewing told him. "Listen, Dinky, we're fighters, not psychopaths. I don't know what your problem is, but I bet it's hard to pronounce."

This guy had to be kidding me. This was supposed to be a covert strike, and already the whole situation had been compromised, leaving me to think it might just be time to turn around and try another day. Did he really think he could take all these guys out by himself? I was no war expert, but it was common sense that being out in the open like this was a death wish under these kinds of conditions.

“I don’t have a spirit to commit suicide,” I reminded him, breaking away from his location. “We’re highly out-gunned and outnumbered! Let’s find some cover and get out of sight!”

“No one’s ever stopped Lahanas.” He told me as he referred to himself in third person, pulling out his Torchclaw assault rifle.

I couldn’t believe what this guy was doing. He obviously wasn't thinking straight and it was going to potentially get us all killed.

“Lahanas, stop!” I shouted to him. “If you fire your rifle, your muzzle flash will give away our location!”

But he refused to listen. Instead, he took aim at the incoming Wind Strikers, and suddenly, his Torchclaw roared to life as a pulsing blast of fire appeared at the end of his rifle as it blasted bullets toward the incoming Skarmories and their riders. I had no choice but to break away from him, ushering Blazewing to abandon the formation as I knew I certainly didn’t want to be near him when they returned fire, which I knew was going to be inevitable. There was nothing I could do to stop him, but the only solution I saw was to let him draw the attention to himself while the rest of us sped away to safety.

"You dumbass!" Blazewing shouted at Lahanas as we quickly fled. "What are you trying to get us all killed for!?"

And then, I had watched in horror as I saw white flashes appear on the Skarmories as they returned fire. Without a doubt, they were shooting back at Lahanas. I could imagine with all those Wind Strikers attacking him, a rain of bullets must have been cutting through the air all around him. I had quickly turned to Lahanas, expecting the worst.

And then, to my shock, his Pidgeot had been struck twice in the chest, causing the massive bird to screech loudly in pain. Lahanas struggled with his mount to keep her alive, only soon after, she was struck viciously with five more bullets and didn’t even have the life left in her to scream. And to make it even worse, Lahanas had been struck twice himself, once in the chest and a second time in the face. Lahanas fell off his Pidgeot, and the both of them tumbled toward the ground, with his rifle not too far behind. Then, they disappeared into the darkness, and that was the last I saw of him…

“Oh, god…” Stevex gasped, watching Lahanas die right in front of him.

“Come on!” I shouted to the rest of my team, heading toward my left, “Let’s get the hell out of here! Head for those warehouses!”

The remaining four of us had swiftly flown toward the black warehouses, where we were hoping they didn’t see the rest of us in the dark. We flew faster and faster, and for a moment, I knew the Wind Strikers had caught sight of us. It wasn’t long before they opened fire again, breaking the tension with another hammering of gunfire.

"Watch it!"

Suddenly I saw Stevex the Croconaw and his Pidgeot fly toward the ground faster that we did. I then realized why. Both of them had been shot multiple times, and they totally lost control. Stevex and his Pidgeot hit the ground extremely hard, and the body of the water crocodile and his avian mount tumbled around on the hard dirt. I shook my head in dismay. There was no way they could have survived that fall.

The remaining three of us headed quickly past the metal wall and headed downward toward the ground. I couldn’t believe it. Already two of my squad members had been killed, the base was on full alert, and we haven’t even gotten started yet. And I could tell the Wind Strikers weren’t very far behind…

[Neo Emolga]

Chapter 26
A Whisper in the Dark

I had been the first to descend toward the ground and land softly on the rocky, slate gray-colored terrain. Soon after, Vice and Rackal and their Pidgeot mounts headed toward the ground. As the large, crested birds approached the dirt, they flapped their wings harder to ensure a safe landing for their riders. Vice and Rackal had dismounted and told their Pidgeots to hide in a safe place, using an empty shipping container to keep themselves safe and out of sight. Blitz remained right behind me, anxiously looking in all directions for anyone that might suddenly try to ambush us.

Everywhere around us, there were large, rectangular shipping containers in large piles with row after row of warehouses. For now, things seemed quiet here, but that could change quickly if they figured out where we were. Rackal and Vice got their Pidgeots to hide in one of the containers.

“That damn idiot!” Rackal exclaimed in bitterness. “What the hell was he thinking? Lahanas could have gotten us all killed!”

“Well, he's dead now,” Vice replied to Rackal as he gripped his Torchclaw caliber rifle tightly in his claws. “Forget about them. Hopefully these sons of biches think Lahanas and Stevex were the only ones attacking."

Around us, I could hear the faint sound of alarms. I couldn’t believe it. How were we supposed to do this with the entire base on full alert? And I didn’t even know where the missile silos were. If we waited any longer, we were going to be too late. Even retreating would be risky, and I knew Kamax would never forgive nor forget such an embarrassing failure.

“Well, Juno…” Vice said firmly, looking solidly into my eyes, “…it’s your call, squad leader. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

As if I needed even more pressure and stress right now. Still, I knew panicking or crying like a baby wasn’t going to do anything. I felt like I still knew barely anything about Kivistal, and here I was trying to take on one of the most impossible missions the Silver Rebellion has had to deal with.

"I'll keep a watch on these two birds," Blazewing volunteered. "If something were to happen to them, well, there's no way I could fit all four of you on my back. Unless I'd like my spine to look like a pretzel."

I nodded, figuring these two Pidgeots were almost defenseless without riders.

I then looked behind me, and saw the two metal doors of the warehouse. Hanging above was a chain with a lock around it.

“Do you think you can cut that lock open?” I asked Vice, looking upward at the lock.

“Oh, give me a break,” Vice replied, nearly laughing. “That? That’s nothing…”

He had leapt up, and with a furious swipe of his claw, the chain was sliced in half with a metal shrieking sound, and the two halves of the chain fell to the sides and lay limply handing by the door.

“Let’s see what’s inside.” I told them, grabbed the metal door and pushing it to the side. "In the meantime, maybe it'll get those alarms to die down."

But it was too big for me to move on my own. Then, Rackal and Vice had helped me push the door open. Soon enough, the large metal doors loudly rattled along the metal tracks and crashed when they hit the end. It made much more noise than I thought.

“Guys... contact at 12 o' clock...!” Blitz exclaimed nervously.

And then I heard a shout in the distance. I could see in the distance a group of silhouettes heading right for us from between an alleyway of warehouses.

“Get your butt inside!” I shouted to them, making my way in.

"Just perfect," Vice grumbled as he rushed into the warehouse. "Don’t mind me asking, my valiant and prestigious squad leader, but why did we open this again?”

I didn’t have time to answer that as we quickly made our way into the warehouse, which was loaded with hundreds of wooden crates and metal boxes. I was hoping to stay hidden long enough to get the base's guard down, but obviously luck wasn't on my side today. We quickly made our way around a pile of crates and stood behind them, weapons drawn. Vice stood firmly crouched behind a small pile of boxes with his caliber rifle ready and pointed at the opening, just waiting to ambush anyone that came through there. Meanwhile, Rackal and Blitz stood side by side, both hiding with our weapons drawn and ready to fire.

“Well, if isn’t it a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” Vice commented sarcastically. “How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?”

“Simple,” I said to the three of them. “We kill everyone who knows we’re here.”

Recommended Listening: Dos Brains - Lone Survivor

I then heard chatter from behind the warehouse door, and soon enough, two Pokémon soon came into view. We soon saw the black and great wolf-like Mightyena, followed by a patrolling Gabite armed with what looked like a Leadhammer. The blue and red shark-like bipedal dragon was looking around, trying to see if he could find us. I held up my paw, giving the signal to hold fire. I didn't want anyone shooting unless we really had to, because if we did, it was going to make a whole lot of noise and make it obvious Lahanas and Stevex weren't working alone.

"Come on..." Vice whispered, thinking we might as well attack, "they already know we're in here."

I could tell the Mightyena was trying to sniff us out, and then, soon enough, they were joined by a muscular Conkeldurr armed with a large Slugger machine gun. We just kept watching the three of them, but if they entered the warehouse, I had no choice but to have everyone open fire.

"She smells somethin'," the Gabite told the Conkeldurr. "Rebel flesh, probably."

"Scouts reported seeing five or six potential targets," The Conkeldurr told him. "We were able to confirm a few kills, but we're not sure we got all of them."

As they were distracted by their conversation, the Mightyena moved into the warehouse. I knew she had detected us, and it was too late.

"I don't think we-"

Right then and there, I gave the signal. Almost immediately, the warehouse was filled with the violent, thrashing hammering of gunfire. With the four of us shooting first, the Gabite and the Conkeldurr didn't have much time to look up before they were suddenly pummeled by a storm of gunfire.

My Firefang submachine gun shook in my hands, but I was able to keep it braced against the crate I was firing from. The Mightyena didn't even get the chance to bark before she was violently gunned down.

The Gabite quickly tired to return fire, but his chest, face, and shoulder were hit repeatedly as he was out in the open with no cover. The Conkeldurr, however, was able to take bullet after bullet and still grin off the pain with a demonic sneer.

I quickly needed to reload, ripping out the first Firefang magazine, tossing it aside, and then loading in a fresh one. The Conkeldurr returned fire using the heavy Slugger machine gun, and immediately the four of us took cover as the heavy bullets nearly tore and pierced everything in the warehouse. Metallic shards, dust, and debris went flying everywhere as the heavy barrage of bullets tore through everything.

"Ha, ha!" the heavy, tan-skinned Conkeldurr laughed in between suppressing fire rounds. "Eat lead and die, you rebel bastards! Your puny weapons can't harm me!"

He opened fire again, and I knew all that damn noise was going to summon the entire base down here. A nearby metal crate was reduced to a misshapen lump of metal while half the warehouse wall was ripped apart.

As much as I wanted to zap him with a Thunderbolt, any kind of electric attack was going to create a spark and easily reveal our position with the flash of light. And with that kind of gun, he didn't even need to be a sharpshooter. He could spray the general area and it would be enough.

Vice opened fire, taking an opportunity to attack while the Conkeldurr was looking at the other side of the warehouse. Many of the bullets dug their way into the muscular Pokémon's shoulder, and then I took action.

"Drop him!" I shouted.

All four of us opened fire, stuffing his already bullet-lacerated body with even more ammunition. Even with both of his eyes shot out, he tried to lift the heavy machine gun and hope firing randomly would do the trick. And then, just as he lifted the gun to fire, his skull was broken open from too much damage. He let out an angry howl before he collapsed on top of his heavy machine gun.

I couldn't believe it. I was already running horribly low on ammunition and we had accomplished absolutely nothing during our time here. I only had what was left in my current magazine and one more mag in reserve, and that was it for the entire mission.

“I think we found them!”

The sudden appearance of a shouting Dewott and a Wartortle made me snap to attention.

“You most certainly did.” Vice laughed as he pulled the trigger on his rifle.

Vice and I opened fired upon the blue otter Dewott and Wartortle, blasting them with heavy and loud gunfire. The water turtle's shell was instantly cracked and broken in multiple places while jagged, grizzly holes were torn through the Dewott's flesh, forcing them to the ground as they helplessly dropped their weapons. I could already tell more were going to start rushing in here like crazy.

We waited patiently, hungrily grasping our firearms in a rush of carnage and just waiting for something to move in the doorway. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a black Grumpig had poked his head out from the right side of the doorway, whipped out another Leadhammer rifle, and began firing at us before we could even respond. I crouched down as fast as I could as bullets splintered the wooden crates around us. When the gunfire stopped, I peeked one more time, and I saw nothing.

"Get some god-forsaken reinforcements over here!" The purple and black pig shouted angrily.

Then, I saw him come out once more, firing furiously. I had aimed my rifle right at him, when suddenly a sharp blast of electricity blasted out and struck the Grumpig in the face, striking him with enough voltage to paralyze him. Once the blast of glowing blast of white and blue electricity had ceased, the Grumpig lay on the ground, twitching just before Vice followed through with a Dark Pulse attack, launching a dark, shadowy wave of night-black fury upon the fallen Grumpig. The attack was hideously agonizing to the squealing pig soldier before Vice finished him off with the few last shots of his Torchclaw.

"I'm out!" Vice shouted, throwing aside his empty firearm. "I sure hope the rest of you-"

And he was instantly cut off when we had to open fire on yet another Crimson Stars soldier, a Patrat that was within seconds of shooting Vice in the middle of talking. The small, chipmunk-like Pokémon took two shots to the stomach and then one right in the forehead before stumbling backward and collapsing on his back, instantly bleeding out.

Vice quickly backed off and took to cover again.

"I sure hope to god we don't have to kill half of Macomb before we can get the hell out of here!" Vice complained, hating where this was going.

I threw my empty Firefang submachine gun aside, now completely out of ammo. When I turned to Blitz and Rackal, I could see Blitz had run out a while ago and Rackal was already on his last mag.

"Let's grab their stuff and get out of here, before they bring in something even worse," I told the others, knowing this could become a deathtrap if we remained here with all these dead bodies. "Grab what you can, and let's run."

They nodded, and we were quick to head out of cover and grab whatever fallen soldier's weapon we could. Blitz managed to grab the Patrat's Scab submachine gun, Rackal picked up the Grumpig's Leadhammer, Vice got the Leadhammer from the Dewott, and I had to settle using the Leadhammer from the Gabite. To me, this thing was like a heavy machine gun for my size, but it was better than nothing. I took as many spare mags as I could.

I peeked outside, trying to see if the coast was clear. For now, things seemed to quiet down, but that didn't mean there wasn't a patrol heading down this way.

“Let’s get out of here,” I told the three of them. “We’ve got to find those missile silos before they decide to launch…”

“Okay, man,” Vice replied, getting set to leave. “Let’s blow this joint.”

The four of us moved past the door and beyond the pile of bodies back into the outside. I was the first to look out left and right to see if anyone was waiting for us. But something seemed strange. I could have sworn there were more Crimson Stars soldiers approaching us when we headed for the warehouse…

I then realized they were likely waiting at the end of the warehouse, ready to ambush us. I then decided to use one of my other weapons. Inferno grenades. I was just about to grab the one around my belt when…

“You sure about that, man?” Vice asked me, looking at me with a peculiar look in his eyes.

“Yeah, I know they light up the place like there’s no tomorrow,” I replied to Vice. “But chances are they’re waiting behind the warehouse to ambush us.”

“Well…whatever,” Vice replied. “But don’t be surprised if this whole district starts going up in flames.

"Good," I told him. "This whole place going up in flames would make a nice distraction."

He was quiet, and so I reached for the Inferno grenade, and pulled it off. Once I had pulled out the tiny latch that triggered the timer, I threw the grenade furiously ahead of me, and it landed right at the intersection. After I heard a few muffled screams, I heard a loud explosion, and everything was instantly bathed with a fiery orange and red glow. When I had turned to look ahead, I saw the intersection was covered with raging flames that relentlessly consumed everything in their path. Whatever had been waiting there was likely burnt to a crisp…

“I sure hope there's something nice and explosive in that warehouse you just set on fire," Vice grinned wickedly.

We had turned around, since heading forward was going to be impossible. We kept as low as we could, using the massive fire as a distraction to divert attention away from us. Enemy soldiers were flocking toward it, trying to douse the flames and save their precious weapon stockpiles and ammo dumps as we passed warehouse by warehouse undetected. Meanwhile, I figured they probably thought we were close to where the carnage was and were focusing our attack entirely around there.

While trying to keep a low profile, sneaking around warehouses, we heard something explode, and after looking at the fiery chaos, it looked like some kind of ammo stockpile hold was causing the ammunition to get set off from the fire. Explosions that big... I figured they had to be either tank shells or small missiles going off.

Still, now I was in a predicament. I had never seen a missile silo in my life, so I wasn’t completely sure where to find it. But, I knew enough where they would be in the back of the complex, kept away from the front.

After we passed the district, we came across two large metal floors in the ground. They were tan-colored to match the color of the dirt so they would be nicely hidden, camouflaged to make it look like they were never there. There was absolutely no one around, which seemed pretty strange to me.

“I think…” Rackal said in disbelief, “…these are the missile silos. There should be a way to get underground somewhere around here.”

My instinct told me to look for something that wasn’t just another warehouse, and soon I had found what I had been looking for. It was a small metal building, with a thicker coat of metal around it.

“I think it’s over there,” I pointed to the building. “It's way too small to be supply storage.”

“Yeah, I think Juno is right,” Rackal replied, seeing the building I was pointing to. “That should be the elevator.”

We had made our way over to the small metal building, keeping low and under cover, even though it seemed unnecessary. Did the Crimson Stars think we were already dead? It seemed awfully weird for no one to be around. Still, I looked back for a moment to see how the fire was eating up the warehouses. Another one of them suddenly exploded several times over, spreading the fire even further. I figured the tank shells and other explosives that were kept in there were going off, making the situation even worse and even dangerous for even water Pokémon to try and douse the flames. From all the noise and explosions, they probably thought we were still there and that's where all the fighting was when really it was just their ammo dumps going off in the fires.

Once we had arrived at the single metal door that was the building’s entrance, we saw the door required a security access code to be entered into a keypad besides the door handle.

“Oh, great,” Blitz muttered with sarcasm. “What the hell do we do now?”

Rackal had taken his hand, slapped it right on the keypad, and directed a tremendous blast of electricity right into it. The keypad was instantly fried, and after Rackal put the hand down, he slammed the keypad with his fist, breaking it into pieces. Suddenly, the metal door slid open, and we just stared at Rackal with a look of shock on our faces.

“Geez, man,” Vice remarked in surprise, backing away a bit. “No need to lose your cool.”

“Come on!” Rackal exclaimed. “We don’t have all night to do this…”

And then, the four of us entered the dark, metal building. I could only hope we were going to get out of this dark chamber alive…

[The Nonexistent Tazz]

Neo, I've been following vigoriously and I've been enjoying it vigorously, but...

Even retreating would be risky, and I knew Kamax would never forget nor forget such an embarrassing failure.

...That's pretty egregious.

[Neo Emolga]

Neo, I've been following vigoriously and I've been enjoying it vigorously, but...

...That's pretty egregious.

Oof, yeah. I can't see why you wouldn't forgive nor forget that.

Also, someone on BMG did point out I missed an instance of swapping Randy for Blitz. Fixed that up also.

[Neo Emolga]

Chapter 27
Cold Underground

There was barely any light in that room. Everything was completely clad in metal, and the only other thing in the room was a metal elevator. It certainly wasn’t anything fancy. The door was comprised of three metal beams with caution tape and several black grates, all of which had taken abuse through the many years of service. I had made my way over to the control panel and pressed the button to call the elevator. I didn’t know why but something was certainly making me feel sick at that moment. It just seemed too quiet around here…

Soon enough, we saw the metal elevator rise through the grates, and when it had arrived at the top floor, the metal beams had slid into the ceiling and floor while the grates had been pulled to the sides. Inside was a very dark metal elevator, dimly lit by only a single, tiny light on the ceiling.

"Sure hope we know what we're doing here," Blitz muttered.

"It's a god-forsaken missile silo, what do you expect?" Rackal asked him, growing annoyed. "We're just here to disable the missiles so they don't decide to launch them rather than let them go to waste."

We had walked over to the elevator and stepped inside. Once we were all in, I pressed the black button on the side to head downward. Suddenly, the metal beams slid back down again, and the grates were pulled in front of us. Then, everything in front of us moved upward as the elevator moved downward, deeper into the ground below.

It felt like we had descended nearly a mile underground before we finally arrived at the bottom floor. Similar to the floor above, sliding metal beams made up the door. Once the beams and grates had been moved aside, we peered into another dark room, this time completely made of concrete. We had stepped out of the elevator, and looked around.

“Since there are two silo doors, there have to be two missiles,” Rackal had told us. “We need to place two explosive charges on the missiles themselves, as well as any fuel rooms we find. We don't know if they're going to launch them or not, but I know that if they knew there was a significant risk in losing them, they'd rather fire them off randomly and hope to hit something that belonged to the Silver Rebellion than to let them get destroyed. ”

Suddenly, we heard a noise in the distance. We quickly turned around and looked down a long concrete hallway, with a Nuzleaf and a Fraxure starting right at us with weapons drawn. They both glared at us.

“Silver Rebellion…” The Nuzleaf hissed at us. “I think the four of you fools just stepped a little too far into our hole.”

“Drop your weapons!” The Fraxure shouted angrily in a low voice as he pointed his large Vulcan rifle right at us, “Or you’ll find another way to kiss the floor!!”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Vice smiled with an insidious grin. “How about you get out of our way, and we might just spare your lives!”

The Fraxure growled at us, pointing the huge Vulcan rifle right at Vice. Meanwhile, the Nuzleaf was armed with what looked like a smaller machine pistol, almost like an Uzi. Both of them looked at Vice with contempt.

“I hope you’ve enjoyed your life here, you worthless, little Weavile,” The Nuzleaf hissed with amusement. “You enter the Abyss today!!”

And then, they opened fire on Vice. I felt for sure he was going to be killed unless I took action now. I had to concentrate, this time very hard. Suddenly, everything around me slowed to a crawl. The incoming bullets had very slowly approached Vice, and he moved back, just barely able to get out of the way in time.

I had stormed my way toward the Fraxure and the Nuzleaf, with my cheeks flaring with electricity. Vice just barely managed to get back up on his feet, having to drop his weapon in order to dodge the incoming carnage. He then leapt toward the Nuzleaf, and slashed viciously at his face. Meanwhile, I had jumped toward the Fraxure, latched on to his chest, and released all of my stored electricity all directed into Fraxure’s abdomen. His body began to twitch and convulse with throbbing pain as the thunderbolt surged into him, just before he slowly collapsed to the ground. While he fell, he almost looked like he had drowned underwater, and was sinking to the bottom of the sea, all in slow motion. When the Fraxure had completely collapsed to the ground, I had gotten off of him and turned to see Vice, cutting Nuzleaf into shreds. By now, Nuzleaf was long gone…

I had stopped my concentration, and everything returned to normal speed. Meanwhile, Vice had looked toward me, and then looked around him.

“Boy, that was fun,” Vice replied, crossing his arms with his soiled claws sticking out. “And you… you sure move fast for even a Pikachu. You almost make me jealous. Almost.”

“Yeah, I know,” Rackal replied, looking at me in particular. “I barely even had the chance to blink and Juno was tearing even that Fraxure apart.”

I didn’t say anything. I just looked into Vice’s eyes for a moment, and then looked away.

"Not surprised some think you really are the Gold Rider," Rackal told me, still amazed. "That didn't look like anything you were trained on."

“Come on,” I told them, not really in the mood to hear that whole prophecy story they had going on. “Let’s just do our job and get out of here, before anyone else sees us…”

They had agreed, and we had made our way down the dark, concrete tunnels. Once we had arrived at a metal, steel security door, we pressed a button on the side and the door opened. We had come to a small control room. There were computer consoles everywhere, as well as two glass windows on the left and right. When I looked through the windows, I could see both missiles, still docked in the silo. But I didn’t see any way Rackal could attach an explosive to the missile itself. There was no way for us to enter the chamber ourselves.

“Oh, damn…” Rackal sighed in anxiety as he looked around, “this isn’t the system that I thought it was…”

“What does that mean?” Blitz asked as the white, electric squirrel clutched his Scab anxiously, looking up at Rackal.

“It means we’re going to have to destroy these missiles some other way…”

I had looked at the consoles, and then at the rockets, and couldn’t think of what to do. Normally, we could set an explosive charge for ten minutes and get the heck out of there, but we couldn’t get anywhere near the rockets. We'd risk only destroying the control room.

“Well, what do we do?” Blitz asked, looking around, “The rocket is like two hundred feet away from the window. Even if we break it and tried tossing the bombs through there, they'd probably land in the wrong place…”

“There’s only one way we can get rid of them now,” Rackal told the three of us. “We need to launch them so they crash right into the silo door. Once they hit the door, chances are good they'll explode and everything here will be destroyed, along with the missiles themselves. Problem is, the longest amount of time that the launch can be set for is five minutes.”

Vice had looked away for a moment. He seemed pretty tense about something.

“You know, five minutes isn’t a whole lot of time for us to rush out of here,” Vice complained. “Once that countdown starts, we’d better run like hell if we hope to get away from that explosion. Keep in mind those silo doors aren’t going to hold in that explosion very well. They’ll kill the rocket, but after that, those silos are going to blow up like a freaking volcano.”

“We will make it out it time,” Rackal told us, trying to assure we'd be okay. “Once we reach the surface, we run as far as we can from the two silo doors. That’s all. We have no idea how much carnage is going to spit out of those silo holes once the explosion happens, but our own guarantee of safety is to get away from them as far as possible.”

“Okay, but I hope you know what you’re doing…” Vice told him, rolling his eyes.

Rackal had made his way over to the console, and began pressing a series of buttons. I had never seen a system like this in my life, so I had no clue myself how to use it…

“Manual system override…” Rackal said to himself as he hacked away at the buttons, “Administrator launch protocol… reconfigure…”

And then, some red lights turned on all around us. Along with them came on a female electronic voice:

LANUCH IN T-MINUS 300 SECONDS

“Come on!” Rackal shouted, turning around. “It’s set to go! We have to get out of here!”

We immediately turned around and ran out of the control room with my heart racing incredibly fast. I was leading with Vice right beside me, with Blitz right behind us and Rackal in the back. We ran furiously down the hallway when suddenly we had heard an alarm go off, and more flashing red lights turned on around the concrete hallway.

UNAUTHORIZED LAUNCH SEQUENCE DETECTED. INITIATING SILO LOCKDOWN.

We had seen the two open steel doors in front of us, and quickly Vice and I had passed through them with Blitz directly behind us. The three of us had made it through, but then as we turned around and saw Rackal just feet away from the door, the two metal doors furiously slammed shut all of a sudden, trapping Rackal inside…

Recommended Listening: XCOM Enemy Unknown OST - Mission Failure

“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” Vice spat bitterly, immediately trying to pry the two doors open to free Rackal. "Come on, come on, open for crying out loud."

The doors were quite thick and heavy. Despite Vice's claws and aggression, it seemed like there wasn't much he could do on his own to pry the doors open.

“Damn it, those things aren’t going to open…!” Vice muttered, realizing the strength of the doors was well out of his league. "I can't even get them to budge."

I headed over to the black button that opened the door and pressed it furiously, but it wasn’t doing anything at all. Everything was totally locked down, and once again, the loud speaker came on…

LAUNCH IN T-MINUS 200 SECONDS

“How do we get this damn thing open!?” Blitz shouted furiously, pounding at the metal doors.

“That’s the problem…” Vice told us anxiously. “It was a backup security measure that activated when the system detected an unauthorized launch code. The Crimsons Stars love to pull this asinine bullcrap. There's nothing we can do. Rackal is a goner…”

No… there had to be some way to get him out of there. I tried focusing my mind but even that couldn’t help. Despite all of Juno's powers, any kind of telekinesis wasn't on the list. The doors were far too heavy and the control panel simply wasn’t working…

“No, this cannot be happening!” I shouted as I pounded the black button harder and harder. “There’s got to be something we can do to get him out of there!”

“Come on!” Vice shouted to the two of us, “If we stay here any longer we’re going to fry in here as well. We don’t have any more time!!”

We couldn’t help but leave Rackal behind, even though it made me so sick to leave him trapped in there to die. We turned around and followed Vice down the concrete hallways. Meanwhile, I couldn’t believe I had lost another member of my team. We had made it to the elevator, and pressed the call button, which thankfully still worked. Immediately, the doors opened, we dashed inside, and pressed the button. The doors shut tightly and the elevator began to climb upward, the last travel it would ever make…

LAUNCH IN T-MINUS 100 SECONDS

We had made it to the top floor, and we furiously headed for the metal door. Once we were outside, we ran as far away from that silo as we could, since the whole thing was about to explode. As we kept on running, I had seen that the Crimson Stars were unable to douse the fire that was quickly consuming the warehouses one by one. But meanwhile, we were running in an open field, completely without cover. But even at that moment, that wasn’t what was bothering me…

Suddenly, moments later, the ground shook like a massive earthquake had taken place. I had turned around for just a moment and saw the two silo doors blast off with a massive gush of fire and flames following it. One of the metal doors had fallen back toward the ground and slammed into an already burning warehouse, just to assist in the destruction. Despite the fact we were doing a massive amount of damage to Macomb, I still felt so sick at that moment…

I’m sorry, Rackal…