Chapter 29
Loss of Security

Unlike my previous assumptions, the prison hadn’t been very well guarded, or at least the night watches were very minimal. Still, there was more than enough to cause commotion. Already Vice had taken quite a big risk by shooting down one of the guards. Still, I could guess there weren’t that many guards running around, or at least most of them were outside. While these guys were armed, they probably didn’t expect us to get this far into the prison. In fact, they were probably thinking no one would make it this far into Macomb…

“So what’s your plan of action, Juno?” Vice asked me, looking at me curiously. “We don’t have a whole lot of time before someone finds out we’re here and locks down the whole prison…”

“We need to create a diversion that ultimately leads to a prison break,” I told Vice and Blitz.

Vice looked at me with shock. He shook his head in disbelief.

“You’re kidding, right?” Vice asked me with his eyes wide open. “These guys have been here for years. As soon as they hear this place has been taken over, they’re going to take advantage of this as soon as they can and run the hell outta here.”

“If they’ve been here for years…” I reminded him, “Then they probably have a very good idea of what its defenses are like and know they'll be shot down almost immediately unless they arm themselves.”

Blitz just looked at me curiously and Vice looked away in frustration.

“Look, once we get rid of the guards, we unlock all the cells and tell everyone to head to the upper floors,” I told them both, thinking it all out.

"Guess again, not all of these prisoners are Silver Rebellion troops," Vice told me again. "You think they're all going to listen to you!? Some of these guys really do deserve to be locked up, you know."

"They'll still fight if they want to survive and get out of Macomb with their heart still beating," I told him, knowing that much. "And knowing how they've been put into slave labor here, I doubt they'll pass up an opportunity to pay the Crimson Stars back for all those days of abuse."

Vice nodded, but he also shrugged as well, thinking it was a reckless plan, but it was at least something.

"Maybe I should go and send for help," Blitz told the both of us.

"Pft, yeah right," Vice nearly laughed. "Kamax told us we were on our own for this one, remember? Plus by the time you head over there, even if you manage to convince them to send reinforcements, by the time you all get organized and ferry your butts all the way down here, all of us will probably be long dead by then. Besides, you don't even have a Pidgeot! How do you expect to get down there, flapping your arms like a birdie to fly away!?"

"I was thinking I could... use Rackal's Pidgeot..." Blitz told him a bit sheepishly.

"Are you nuts!?" Vice exclaimed again. "She'd only obey her master, and there's not even enough left of him to bury his remains in a lunch box! My god, you two really didn't think this one out, did you!?"

I was getting tired and impatient. It was true, I didn't exactly have the seniority or veteran status of any other Silver Rebellion Pokémon here. I barely even felt like a Silver Rebellion soldier to begin with. Still, I didn’t want to spend a lifetime arguing this thing out, and we were running against time as is.

“Listen, pal,” I scolded him. “I'm still squad leader here, so at least try to cooperate. I hate this place as much as you do. So let's just take a stab at it. Blitz will try to find the switch that opens the cells. You and I will try to find the armory to get everyone a weapon. If we pull this off right, we should be able to get almost everyone out of here alive using the Crimson Stars's own vehicles."

"You've really lost it, haven't-"

"I know, I know," I told him quickly, making it clear I hadn't lost my mind. "I'm not an idiot. I don't plan on driving right into Syarmix using vehicles the Silver Rebellion is going to think are enemies. We would get out and simply head out on foot after parking them a mile outside of the city."

Vice just rolled his eyes, but decided to go along with it.

Then, I decided to get down to business. I wanted to finally get out of here. I was hating this place already.

“Blitz, you see if you can find the switch to open up the cells,” I told the electric squirrel, hoping he’d be able to handle it on his own. “Vice and I will take care of the guards and find the armory.”

"Well, we made it this far," Vice shrugged. "Let's roll the dice and see if we can cheat death again."

"I'm on it, Juno.” Blitz replied, nodding with a little smile.

“And once you’re done,” I told him, “we’ll meet on the roof.”

Blitz then picked up the fallen Simisear's Leadhammer rifle and wiped off the blood with the sleeve of his uniform. After that, he headed downstairs while Vice and I headed upward.

“Let’s go, we don’t have any time to waste,” I told Vice, knowing there was only a matter of time before reinforcements had arrived.

Vice and I had headed up the stairs, after we were convinced the third floor was empty. We had arrived on the forth and the halls were completely empty, which was highly unusual. Nonetheless, we made our way to the fifth floor and I had realized there was only one more floor above us, making six floors in total. Once we had opened the door to the fifth floor, the rusty, metal door hit the back wall and sent a harsh slamming sound throughout the halls. At first, we thought the floor was empty until a massive, hulking Tyrantrum turned around the corner and was holding two Sluggers in his massive hands. The dark red and white tyrannosaurus was massive, and fully equipped with Crimsons Stars combat armor. He looked at the two of us and just smiled.

“Well, well,” He growled with a low, amused voice, “I don’t remember the two of you shrimps ever being assigned guard duty.”

“That’s because we’re not guards!” Vice shouted with laughter. “Up yours and have a bullet breakfast!”

It was almost interesting to see that when presented with an opportunity for combat, Vice totally lost his mind, but when it came to discussing tactics and plans, he thought I was the one that was crazy...

I was honestly hoping I wouldn't have to work with him again...

The Tyrantrum readied his two Slugger machine guns and pointed them right at the two of us. With his strength, he could fire both and still have very little recoil in each hand. He then pulled both triggers, and then fire had rushed out from the end of the barrels, and he sprayed the hallway with ammunition and carnage. I took a deep breath and knew I absolutely had to focus or both of us were beyond dead.

I then focused and concentrated hard and then bullets slowed to a crawl. Vice had pulled out his Leadhammer rifle while I opened fire with my Scab submachine gun. I knew it would do nothing against the armor, so I had to concentrate and use all of my skills, training, and power for this one.

While I could now move significantly faster than the bullets from the Tyrantrum’s rifles, that didn’t mean our bullets were faster. The two of us had opened fire, and I felt the Scab submachine gun shake violently as ammunition had blasted out from the end of the barrel. The whole hallway was full of bullets, and it wasn’t very easy to dodge the ones that the Tyrantrum had fired upon us. Meanwhile, the large and relatively easy to hit Tyrantrum had been struck several times, digging holes in his armor. However, that didn't stop him from shooting.

I managed to take out his left eye before jumping up, leaping off of the rightmost wall, and then hurled myself in the air to attack his other side. All the while, I tried to glide between the bullets spiraling through the air. As soon as I reached his right side, I then aimed and blasted out his other eye, permanently rendering him blind.

He stopped firing, howled, and leaned over. He used the last of his ammunition to fire randomly before both machine guns simply clicked and ran out of ammo. I skipped off of the other wall, and quickly jumped on his back. He tried for a moment to swat me with his arms, but I took the Scab, pointed it down at his head, and just fired, breaking through his skull and taking out his brain in a furious hailstorm of bullets.

He soon collapsed into a ruined heap, blinded and almost fully lobotomized by bullets. Just before he hit the ground, I leapt off.

When I saw Vice, I had see he had been struck three times. Twice in his crest and another time in the shoulder. His shoulder was bleeding, but he simply gritted off the pain. But for a moment, it was like that wasn't what was really bothering him.

"Pft, you show off!" Vice complained, grasping his bleeding shoulder. "That big bastard was mine!"

"Are you okay!?" I shouted at him, looking at the crimson blood matting around his shoulder. "You're bleeding!"

"Oh shut up, you act like I haven't been hurt before," Vice spat. "It's nothing more than a flesh wound. Probably will scar nicely anyway. Would have been a better story if you hadn't stolen the kill!"

Stolen the kill. Seriously. That Trantrum nearly killed us and he was concerned about bragging rights.

“Come on,” Vice replied to me. “We have to keep moving. If you really want to arm all these guys, we've got to get to that armory.”

I could certainly agree with that…

We had moved our way through the cold, metal prison, shooting down two more guards. From the looks of it, this place's alarms were already going, but it seemed like with all the other havoc going on outside, obviously the guards couldn't be in two places at once.

We had already caused a commotion among the prisoners, wondering who we were really and if all this mayhem meant their days of freedom might soon be upon them. We kept silent until Blitz had found the switch to unlock all the prison doors. Only then did we tell them we were part of the Silver Rebellion, but we told them to remain in their cells while we called for backup. Regardless, Vice and I quickly ripped off our Crimson Stars uniforms so we weren't mistaken for one of them and were shot because of it. From the looks of it, most of these prisoners were stripped naked or were only wearing rugged and torn clothing.

Despite trying to keep things under control, a lot of the prisoners refused to stay in their cells, and some of them were already arming themselves with the few guns the prison guards had been carrying. I figured if there were any guards left in here, they were quickly getting overwhelmed.

We had met up with Blitz again on the first floor.

"Everyone's out of control!" The frantic electric squirrel exclaimed. "I mean, I know they're eager to leave, but-"

"Oh, let 'em go wild," Vice replied. "We need to head to the roof to I can call Storm Gale and Juno can call Blazewing. After that, we find a few of those VATS, load these prisoners up, and then get the hell out of here."

"Did you guys find the armory?" Blitz asked, seeing most of the prisoners weren't armed at all.

"No, we didn't," I shrugged, figuring with how huge this place was, we could be running around for days before we found anything. "Like Vice said, let's just find a few VATS that seem to be in at least some working condition. There's got to be at least a few around."

Never mind hoping I'd know how to drive the blasted thing. I figured if I could at least just get it to move, everything else was trivial.

We then headed upward, and we made our way up to the top floor. After that, we looked for the entrance to the roof, since the stairwell and the elevator didn’t reach all the way up. After looking everywhere for a second staircase, we found the only one, which was behind a rusty metal door with a tiny plaque labeled “Maintenance.” I grabbed the doorknob and it was locked. I wasn’t very surprised. Vice had looked it over and just shrugged.

“Oh, what the hell is the point?” Vice remarked, readying his sharp claws.

He slashed furiously at the metal door knob, sending a loud and hideous screeching sound into the air. I put my hands on my ears to neutralize the terrible sound as I winced from the pain of the noise while Blitz just cringed. When it was over, I put my hands down and looked to see a twisted metal lock on the floor, with deep cuts into it. I looked at the door and saw Vice had ripped out the lock, knob and all. Now it was just another normal metal door with a gaping hole in it.

“Locks only keep out honest people,” Vice said casually, grabbing the ruined door and throwing it open. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Man, glad I was on the receiving end of that,” Blitz replied, looking at the knob with disbelief. “I don’t think I would have much of a head left after that…”

We headed through the doorway and came across a spiral staircase with rickety metal stairs. We made our way upward and into another small room with a metal door. The tiny metal room was especially dirty, and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. Regardless, we quickly made our way for the door, and opened it. We then made our way onto the metal roof, and we could see the red and black sky with its occasional lightning flares above us.

I looked around, still noticing that the warehouses were in flames, but it was starting to die down a bit. However, the damage to Macomb had been brutal and with so much of their factory and warehouse lines destroyed, it was definitely going to have a notable impact on their war effort. I figured the Crimson Stars put all their eggs in one heavily and well-defended basket and thought it was all secure.

Vice had called for his Pidgeot, letting loose a loud whistle that despite the distance, could be heard thanks to the keen level of hearing most Pidgeots had. After a few moments, Vice’s Pidgeot had arrived, landing swiftly on the roof. Once her clawed talons had come into contact with the metallic roofing, the brown and beige Pidgeot with its long yellow and pink crest had looked toward Vice, her trainer.

I was about to call in Blazewing when suddenly we were interrupted. Above in the sky, we saw four Wind Strikers and what appeared to be their leader, a green and vicious looking Scyther riding on a Flygon. That was new. Usually these guys would always ride Skarmories, so what was this guy doing.

Vice had stepped back and shook his head.

“Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT…!” Vice panicked in fear. “It can’t be him… Not now… Why the hell did he have to show up!?”

“Who the hell is that?” I asked Vice, never before seeing him in so much fear.

He just shook his head, backing away. His reaction was definitely making me unnerved now.

“That’s Vorox and Tychal,” Vice told Blitz and I. “Vorox has killed nearly a thousand Silver Rebellion troops, lead missions that torched five of our cities, and has earned all seventeen ranks of the Crimson Stars…”

Blitz had looked up at the Scyther with a fearful look in his eyes. I couldn’t believe it either, but I could tell from the Scyther’s gaze that nothing could ever bring him fear. As he drew closer, my heart was racing faster.

“You mean he’s the…?” Blitz asked in fear.

“Yeah…” Vice replied, swallowing hard, “…the leader of the Wind Strikers…”