Emergence (Final Update - 28.03.12)

[Cobraroll]

Wow, long time no see. Now well, I can blame the exam period, as well as getting an idea for an exciting new plot twist just as I had sent the chapter in for revision, so I had to rewrite parts of what I thought was a finished chapter.

This is the penultimate chapter of Emergence, unless the next one turns out to be way, way longer than I think it will. In other words, your final chance to correct mistakes or point out unanswered questions. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. If you've hanged on until now, you've read about the same amount of text as there is in the first Harry Potter book. Extra thanks to SFK, Dahans and GreekGeek for proofreading, ideas, moral support and feedback throughout the entire story. A more extensive "credits paragraph" will come after the next chapter. For now, sit back and enjoy:



Chapter forty-four: Emergence of the titans

I didn't sleep well at all that night. I had returned early from my trip to the beach, but several hours had passed while I was just walking restlessly around the cave, wondering what to do. I think it was some time in the evening Tyranitar had walked up to me, patted me on the shoulder (momentarily breaking my collarbone), and assured me that he would do everything to get her out of there. This had been followed up by several other Pokémon nearby, and everyone had a different idea on how to breach the TLA base. At last, Steelix had come with the suggestion we agreed on:
"We attack from below!" he had roared over the cacophony of arguing Pokémon. "I can dig tunnel. They don't expect us coming from beneath them!"
"I'll help!" Aggron had announced.
"Me too!" Dugtrio said. "You guys are too slow. It would take you weeks to get there"
And so everyone decided to come with me. Alakazam, Gengar and Metagross would help me coordinate the eighty Pokémon. We would leave the evening after, so we had time to sleep and prepare before what would be our final assault on the TLA. I had gone to my room and tried to find a comfortable sleeping position, but despite being tired as a runner after his first-ever marathon, I had trouble sleeping. I just lay still and stared at the ceiling for hours.
Eventually, early in the morning, I fell asleep. I dreamt that I was riding a motorbike, chasing a black van along a motorway. Through the window in the rear door of the van, I could see Emily's face, looking at me. I tried to shout to her, but she couldn't hear me over the noise of the engine. Perhaps she was shouting to me as well, but I couldn't hear her either. The van sped up, and I fell behind. I needed to go faster! Suddenly, the motorbike was gone, and I was sitting in a drag racer car. I pressed the pedal down, and the car sped up. The roar of the engine became louder and louder, everything started to shake. I was closing in on the van, I could see Emily was screaming, but I couldn't hear her... the noise was so loud I couldn't hear myself...

I sat up. Everything was shaking. The hammock swayed from side to side. Dust and pebbles rained from the ceiling. Barefoot, I jumped out of the hammock. It was pitch black in here. The perpetual light in the corridor was gone. I stumbled out, the ground was shaking wildly. The air was thick with dust. I could barely stand on my feet. Then, with a mighty crash, tons upon tons of water came down the shaft leading up to the basement. A huge wave knocked me over, and I was dragged along the walls until I managed to grab a vine growing on the wall, and held on.
"Where does all this water come from!?!" I bellowed. There was no reply. Where was everybody? And where did all this water go? I slipped, and was flushed a few metres down the corridor. With no further ado, the water stream stopped there, even though tons of water was still rushing down the shaft every second. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the torrent stopped, and the cave was left in total silence.
"Is there anybody here?" I yelled. No reply. I stumbled back into my room, and found a flashlight. I got dressed in a TLA battle suit I had snatched from an unlucky agent some weeks prior. Then, I went out to the corridor again, to search through the dark cave. All the side rooms were empty. The garden, still full of trees and berry bushes, was all silent. As I went through the main corridor again, an object half buried in the mud caught my eye. It turned out to be my DS, with my Pokémon Diamond game still in it.
"I thought I had left that up in my room," I said to myself. It looked completely unscathed, even though it must have had fallen down the shaft minutes earlier. I turned it on, for the first time in ages. As usual, the game had been saved in a Pokémon center. A growing suspicion fell upon me. In-game, I jogged over to the PC and checked the Pokémon Storage system.
There they were. Every box was lined with Pokémon, sorted after type and National Dex number as they used to be. There was Tyranitar, Scizor, Espeon, Blissey, Lucario, Metagross... even Rotom, Electrode and Hippowdon, which used to be in TLA custody. I stared at the lifeless sprites on the little screen. There was no trace of them ever having left the game, apart from the very cave I was standing in. Even though I had hoped for something like this to happen for months, I felt very, very alone. As I browsed the boxes, I noticed that Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf still were missing. Or to be more precise, I missed one of each. I had two or more of almost every fully evolved Pokémon in the game. The ones missing were the ones caught in this very game.
Then I flipped over to the next box, and got another shock.
"No!" I whispered. "No!"
I saved and turned off the DS, lay it on a flat rock beside me, and ran over to the shaft leading up to the basement. Looking up, I could see the sky. The shaft had now widened to be more than ten metres in diameter. The rocks that used to protrude from the walls lay in a muddy heap at the bottom, the walls were all smooth now. I could see remains of our house almost eighty metres above us. Piping and cables hung loose like cobwebs around the hole. Charred planks lay among the rocks around us.
"Mom... dad! I have to get up!" I shouted to nobody in particular. I had never been good at climbing, but I gave it a go nonetheless. I slipped a lot, but still I ascended steadily, if slowly. My head was churning with thoughts. What had happened up there? Had the TLA bombed our house? Were mom and dad even there? If so, in what state? And what was this with all the water? I was physically exhausted and almost in a state of panic when I finally got above the edge of the shaft. The sight that awaited me was beyond any of my expectations.

For as far as the eye could see, not a single house was standing. The air was thick with smoke. All I could see was the lights of sporadic fires. Ten centimetres of water covered the ground. It was slowly dissipating. For being an April morning before sunrise, it was unexpectedly warm.
"It can't be. It can't be. I'm dreaming!" I said out loud. Attacking me was one thing, but the entire neighbourhood? Had the TLA used a nuclear bomb or something? Then a gust of chilly wind passed, and the smoke was swept away. It revealed that houses were torn down and/or on fire for several hundred metres. 'I didn't know that the school was this close,' I thought. The building was visible in the distance, mostly intact, but scorched black. Planks, bricks, car wrecks and fallen trees were lying in heaps everywhere. Some distance away, only the chimneys of houses were still standing closer to me, not even that little was left. I was hyperventilating, just staring at the chaos that had unfolded in every direction. Then suddenly, I noticed something pink floating past me. It was the body of a human. All hair and clothes were burned off the body, but the skin was baby smooth. Even though the man was floating face down in a puddle, I could see that he was breathing. I was yanked out of the trance-like panic. Whatever did this had not killed people. It had to be a Pokémon attack of sorts. One heck of an attack, but at least nobody had died. I just had to find the Pokémon, and all would be-
Suddenly, an eerie cry pierced the silence, and I looked up.

Black swirling clouds covered the sky. I could see traces of pink and purple in between them as well. And there was something else up there too. A large quadripedal beast and a vaguely humane winged dragon were exchanging blows. A third beast circled the battlers, another dragon barely visible among the clouds. Somewhere over the forest, I could see two huge birds attack something on the ground. A large, green, snake-like dragon flew over the city core. Downtown, buildings were ablaze. From this distance, it was hard to spot the source of all the fires, but I knew too well what it was.
"Now you've done it, Rob," I mumbled.
As if to illustrate my point, a large glowing ball thundered down from the sky a couple of kilometres away. The impact seemed to obliterate a cluster of houses, and the ground shook violently even here. I couldn't help it, I started crying. Legendary Pokémon were loose, and my "regular" Pokémon, which perhaps could have helped me gather them, were gone. Everyone I knew were killed, captured or at the very least knocked out. I felt a sudden urge to turn around and leap back down the hole. Though it wouldn't solve any problems, it would be an easy way out...
Then, my phone, which had been lying in the suit pocket, rang. Sobbing, I picked it up.
"Who is it?"
"No time for small talk, Roberto" Alpha's voice said. "We're in a very critical situation right now, and you're the only one who can help us"
"Help you? Why would I? You took Emily!"
"I assure you that the well-being of Miss Springflower should be of no concern to you," Alpha said. "She's been taken utmost care of in our custody, and anyway, she's in the safest place in the city at the moment - clearly in a better state than most of her-"
"Release her," I growled. "Let her go, then we can talk..."
"Listen, I don't have time for this. Monsters are rampant, and you know how to control them, right? I'm in charge of five thousand men who could help you with that task. I've been in this business since before your father quit diapers. I run a world-wide organization dealing with exactly this kind of stuff. I'll have a helicopter at your place in two minutes."
"If you're so good, why can't you just deal with them yourselves?"
"The president has authorized the use of ultimate force to stop these monsters. Trust me, there would be severe collateral damage if we had to resort to that option. If I can't present a better alternative, they will push the button"
"I... okay. Looks like I have no choice, then"
"One minute thirty"

One minute and twenty-eight seconds later, three black helicopters landed in what had used to be my garden. They barely touched the ground, and the rotors were still running at full speed. The smallest one had a door open, in which there was mounted a decently-sized machine gun. A man wearing a TLA battle uniform was sitting by the gun. He waved me in while producing a pair of earmuffs. I jumped into the helicopter, and found a seat by the opposite wall. There were five people in the helicopter. As well as the pilot and the gunner, two heavily armed agents were sitting on a bench along the rear wall. There was a man in the passenger seat beside the pilot as well. A single, red lamp bathed the cabin in a dull glow.
"Can you hear me, Roberto?" Alpha's voice sounded in my ear. For a second, I thought he was using telepathy, before I realised there were headphones in the muffs. A tiny speaker was attached to the right clock.
"Loud and clear," I replied. The pilot apparently took this as a signal of taking off. We were in the air seconds later.
"Good to see you. I sit in front, by the pilot." I could see the contour of a waving arm against the front windshield. "I can't talk much, having the Minister of Defense on the line. Agent Johnson will fill you in"
"I'm here," a voice said. The door gunner raised a hand. "This is the situation as of now: We have registered seven beasts, six of which stay in the air, one of them is invisible on radar. Can you confirm?"
"Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Ho-oh, Lugia, Groudon, Rayquaza. Yep, seven," I replied.
"We first registered them about fifteen minutes ago, at your parents' house. They seemed to appear out of thin air. Three of them immediately headed skyward and started fighting. That's when our alarms were raised. The rest remained docile for a couple of minutes, until a police van approached them and drew guns. The birds and the flying snake then took off, while the big red one began glowing. We lost all contact with our observation post at that moment, but thermal satellite readings went off the scale for about ten seconds. All buildings within a radius of about seven hundred metres were incinerated immediately. At first, we thought there had been a nuclear or antimatter detonation, but the beast was intact after the incident. The big white bird then flew over the area, and our images show a tsunami appearing out of nowhere, extinguishing most of the fires and scattering debris all over the area. Not long after, an anti-air missile battery just outside the city was attacked. Our latest intelligence says the birds are still flying over the scene. The red beast then burrowed underground, and recently unearthed just outside the city core. Personnel are now on the way to evacuate the entire city. Casualties are expected to be in the tens of thousands already, due to the fighting dragons missing each other with powerful explosive attacks. If you look out of the window right now..."
I glanced out the window. We were flying over a cluster of residential blocks. I knew there used to be about twenty of them in this area, but now I couldn't count more than eight still standing. A large trench, almost half a kilometre long and tens of metres wide, was running across the area like a macabre slice wound in the face of the city. Nearby blocks had collapsed.
"Hyper Beam," I said.
"Admittedly, this is the worst one, but they have only been at it for eighteen minutes. We've registered eleven other impacts across the city, all of which have caused substantial damage. A fighter squadron is on its way to neutralize the beasts"
"Call them back," I said before even thinking it through. I remembered what Uxie and Azelf had told me back in December: Being inside a Poké Ball restricts legendary Pokémon's potential. The thing was, they hadn't been under the control of a Poké Ball since August last year. Seeing as it was now April, they had had plenty of time to recover. A group of jet planes wouldn't cause them much concern.
"Too late for that now," Johnson brummed. "We'll have to prioritize the events downtown. Apparently, the Gorudon has steered clear of the central business district, instead heading for the shore. Can it swim?"
"Groudon. And no, it can't swim, but its natural nemesis resides in the ocean. Have you picked up signs of a large, blue killer whale? It is usually surrounded by rainy weather"
"There is a giant white one roaming the seas between Iceland and Svalbard, but we've known about that one since before you were born," Johnson mumbled. Alpha cut us short:
"Hold the line, mister president. Roberto, we're trying to attract it out to sea. We know it's weak to water, and we know about its water nemesis. We're broadcasting sounds water monsters make, and our forces will hopefully subdue it while it is distracted. A nearby ship is carrying a special container to keep it in."
"Where will you take it?"
Johnson handed me a map. A disused wood processing plant by the coast just outside the city was marked with a circle.
"We'll try to gather the monsters there. Then you can find out what to do with them. You have our word for it," he said.
The helicopter was now circling a city park. Apart from the noise of the helicopters, the scene felt eerily quiet. Groudon was a red behemoth-like Pokémon, as tall as the trees in the park, but it moved silently, eyes fixed on the sea roughly half a kilometre before it. Groudon had left a sizable crater behind itself, as it had surfaced underneath a building, and it also left quite big tracks in its wake, but it wasn't rampaging or anything. It was as if it tried to thread softly, steering clear of the trees.
"Hold back," Alpha said to the pilot. "We must not scare it. Stay close enough that we distract it, but so far away that it doesn't think we're a threat"
"Roger that"
I noticed a couple of black vans parked in a side street. A couple of TLA agents had gathered a crowd of sleepy people beside them, doing their best to explain the situation. I could also see something moving in the shadows around the vans, but I couldn't get a clear view of what it was.
"Ahh, Victor patrol is in place already," Johnson said. There was unmistakable pride in his voice. "Those guys are beastly. First ones in, last ones out, as they say. They never sleep, never eat, and are always on standby. Quickest QRF in the entire world"
"Quick Reaction Force? I take it they're not human"
"Not ordinary ones, at least"
I shivered a bit. The shadowy creatures scurried into the park. They seemed to vanish even more here, away from the lit streets they were practically invisible.
"Can you guess who they are, Roberto?" Alpha asked. He leaned back into his seat, and pulled out a cigar from a chest pocket, as if he was expecting this to be quite a show.
"They look too organized to be werewolves, and the moon is not even full. They don't look much like ghosts, and I know you haven't been able to tame demons. As you said they are not ordinary humans, I guess they're vampires"
"Darn right. The best soldiers we have," Alpha said. "They never sleep. Are practically unkillable. Live for hundreds of years, and possess super strength and super intelligence. I'd like to see a monster capable of stopping them. Look, they're in position already. Now..." he picked up a microphone from the dashboard of the helicopter "...engage!"
Several shots went off simultaneously. Groudon flinched. Even over the roar of the helicopter, I could hear machine gun fire. Smoke and tear gas was drifting through the park. Groudon looked around, seemingly puzzled. Bullets were ricocheting off his formidable armour. Shadows were moving around him, and I could see thick cables be strung from tree to tree, forming a circle around Groudon. Shots were coming in from all angles. Groudon retreated a few steps, then drew a deep breath.
Suddenly, it was as if somebody had turned on a huge light. The park was illuminated by pure sunlight, even though it was five in the morning and I couldn't see any light source. The vampires now stood out like flares between the trees. They looked quite like ordinary humans, if a little pale. They were mostly men, but I could also see females among them. They all looked like they had gone straight from a modeling show to get here. Their looks were eerily perfect, which kinda put a dampener on their image as badass soldiers.
"Admittedly, the past few years, people's view on vampires has shifted," Alpha said as we watched the changed scene. He chewed on the end of his cigar, which he hadn't lit yet. "Ever since that book came out and became popular, the public perception of them has changed, and they... aren't quite as suit for all types of missions anymore."
"Is that because they spar-"
"Silence!" He picked up the microphone again. "Okay, he's busted your cover. Take him out, damn it!"
Groudon had definitely got the upper hand now. It sent fire or beams of pure sunlight in between the trees, scorching anything they hit. Some of the vampires were fleeing, while others sought cover behind rocks or trees. Groudon was surprisingly quick to turn around, and thanks to the shining skin of the vampires, they were easy to target. However, it couldn't keep track of all of them. I saw some of the vampires yielding what undoubtedly were bazookas. Almost simultaneously, they lifted their weapons and aimed. Five shots went off within half a second. With a loud kaboom, Groudon disappeared in a ball of fire and smoke. The sound rung in my ears for several seconds. Then, I heard a voice in my head:
"Now you've done it. You made me angry. You will pay"
"Did you hear that?" the pilot said over the intercom. "What was that?"
"I think we should keep a greater distance," Johnson mumbled. There was a rumbling sound seemingly coming from the earth itself. The helicopter vibrated slightly. The smoke drifted away, and revealed that Groudon was still alive - and furious. His eyes and the cracks between his red armor plates were glowing a deep yellow. The rumbling became louder. The last vampires turned around and ran. Then Groudon let out a mighty roar.
It was as if the helicopter dropped a metre. The ground started vibrating visibly, before going over to behaving like a stormy ocean. The buildings next to the park collapsed like houses of cards. Trees were torn uproot by the ground itself, roads appeared to twist themselves upside down, or inside out. It was a motion that's hard to describe. Cracks in the ground opened, swallowed cars, houses, trees, people, and closed again. Manhole covers were flung into the air. Within a perfectly circular area of about five hundred metres, the ground was stirred like a soup in a kettle. The destruction was total, but only lasted for a few seconds. I gasped, I could see people half buried struggling to get loose as the motion abruptly stopped. Some upturned cars still had their engines running. One of them was on fire, and there were people inside trying to get out. Groudon, on the other hand, stood perfectly still like a statue. He didn't appear to notice the carnage. His eyes were still glowing, so were the cracks in his body. In fact, they were even brighter now. As we watched, the glow changed from a dull red to orange to bright yellow to shimmering white. Then his entire body began changing colour.
"Give me that!" I shouted as I realized what was about to happen. I leapt over to Alpha's seat and took the microphone from him. "Groudon, stop!" I yelled. Powerful speakers on the underside of the helicopter amplified my voice to tinnitus-inducing levels. Groudon turned his head.
"You," the voice in my head said. "Are you with them?"
"I'd rather not be, but they could get me here a lot faster than I could hope to on my own," I replied. The glow went a little duller. "I only try to reduce the damage!"
"Then you shouldn't have commanded me to attack them in the first place"
"That was just a dream!"
"'Just' a dream, you say?"
"Groudon! I promise they won't harm you. If you go to the pier, a ship will come and pick you up. They will take you to safety. I'll come and meet you there later. Please!"
"If you say it's an order..." Groudon shrugged. "I see you're honest. I will talk to you later"
He started walking towards the ocean again, straightening up trees as he went.
"That was... one taken care of. Who's next?" I asked Alpha.
"We'll see how the jets fare," he replied. "No need to get to the dragons if they are reduced to rubble"
Standing in the doorway of the hovering helicopter, I could see lights on the horizon now. Three fighters were flying at a high altitude, with all lights on, to show people that help was on its way. I couldn't see Palkia or Giratina now, but Dialga had stopped mid-air and turned towards the jets. It was more than a kilometre up in the sky, and looked tiny against the swirling clouds. A lightning bolt flared across the sky behind it. It didn't look like Palkia and Giratina had stopped fighting yet.
"Let's see how good these guys are," Johnson said. "Those are Harpy Hawk F-27 jets. Fastest thing in the sky. Each of them carries four O-12 Sledgehammer missiles. It's the stuff they use to sink destroyers. I'd say your pets are toast"
Dialga looked stiffly at the planes. More and more lightning bolts surrounded it. The clouds themselves glowed blue. They started to form a swirling vortex, with Dialga in the middle.
"Oh no..." I mumbled. As the jets released the missiles, Dialga itself was glowing a whiteish blue. Then a massive shockwave blasted out from him. White pulses flew across the sky, illuminating the entire city.
"Wow" Johnson said as he watched the rolling waves of white, spreading out over the city in a flat fan shape. The blast wave was a few kilometres wide, but only about fifty metres tall. From the ground it looked like a strange bluish white aurora. Clouds were pushed away in front of it, but were unaffected mere metres above or underneath it.
"This isn't the attack yet," I said. "Wait for it..."
Then it was as if somebody had pulled a trigger. There was a massive explosion, and they sky was blue with fire. The clouds were swept away from horizon to horizon and revealed the pale dark sky behind. The jets and their missiles vanished in tiny yellow fireballs in the roaring inferno of azure. The blast wave kept going over the ocean and died out in a series of blue sparks. Even at this distance, I could see Dialga was exhausted.
"Good thing you didn't send tanks after it," I said to Alpha. "Imagine the damage if he had used that move on ground level."
Dialga had also got the attention of the other dragons. Palkia turned in mid-air and fired a Dragon Pulse after it. The sizzling blue ball the size of a small building slammed into Dialga's back. For a couple of seconds, it was in free fall, before it managed to recover, only to be hit by an Aura Sphere from Giratina. Dialga roared and went limp. It crashed to the ground in a spectacular cloud of dust.
"Looks like they can be beaten, if you play by their own rules," Johnson remarked. "If we can get control of one, it might be able to best the others"
"Well, Groudon listened to me, so I think the others might as well. All we have to do it get within audible range, and I'll talk to them. Fly us over there," I said.
"What?" Alpha said, staring at Giratina. It roared in triumph, and black clouds began to gather again. Then it turned to Palkia and darted after it.
"That's madness," the pilot said.
"Well, then we'll let them continue. It's fine as long as they stay above the suburbs, but if they decide to take the fight downtown?"
"The kid's got a point," Johnson said.
"Fine, we'll take the downed one first," Alpha sighed. The helicopter leaned over and headed for the area Dialga had fallen in. As we headed there, the two other helicopters accompanying us passed us. Those helicopters were bigger, and several missiles and guns were attached to their sides. They were apparently on loan from the army, as they weren't painted completely black like this one.
"We send the gunships to secure the area first. There's no way this little bird can stand a battle with one of those," Johnson said. The gun he was manning looked puny in comparison to the cannons mounted on the other helicopters.
"We know its shot down, Roberto, but if that thing tries to attack us, we might have to kill it," Alpha warned as we got closer. "We don't want one of those attacks used on the ground"
"We have visual contact," a voice said over the intercom. "The beast is conscious, but lying on the ground. Its gaze appears to follow us, but it doesn't move otherwise. The other dragons appear to be locked in combat and don't notice us"
"Send in the container team," Alpha said. "Get it away, fast".
"Something's on the radar, sir," our pilot interrupted us. "It's coming here, and fast"
"Oh my..." Johnson mumbled. Whatever it was appeared to be somewhere in front of us, to the left, just in my blind spot.
"What?" I said, and halfway got up. Then a flash like a lightning bolt illuminated the cabin. Johnson let go of the gun, blinded. The helicopter took a u-turn, and I could see the scene. One of the gunships was spiraling to the ground. It was burning intensely, only the contours of its metal skeleton were visible through the flames. The other one slowly turned to face what had attacked. It was an obscenely large bird. Its wingspan rivaled the rotor span of the helicopters. Its feathers were red, with green tips. Its head crest and tail plumes were constantly changing colours. It was easy to see that it was furious. It hung still in mid-air, staring intensely at the helicopter before it.
"Awaiting orders!" the voice in the intercom said. The man was panicking.
"Shoot it down!" Alpha shouted. Ho-oh's reaction time was apparently significantly shorter than the helicopter gunner's. A lightning bolt from the clear sky struck the gunship and obliterated its rotor and most of its engine. One of its cannons fired aimlessly at the ground as the helicopter crashed.
"Get us away from here!" Johnson shouted in panic. "It's coming for us!"
Then suddenly, there was a crunching noise, a flick of green, a monstrous face appeared in the doorway for half a second and Johnson and the door gun were gone. Over the sound of the engine, I couldn't hear his scream.
"We're surrounded!" The pilot yelled. "Monsters on the radar!"
The agents who had been sitting calmly on the bench behind me got up. Each of them had a sizable firearm and apparently intended to use it. They aimed at Rayquaza, who was flying just beside the helicopter. However, they never got to fire. Suddenly, a blue glow cloaked them both and they were thrown out of the helicopter by an invisible force.
"Take the mic, Rob!" Alpha yelled into his microphone. "We don't have much time!"
I got up and grabbed the microphone.
"Wait!" I shouted into it. Rayquaza stopped in mid-air. Ho-oh too stopped the attack it had been charging. Lugia, who had been flying above us, lowered itself to our altitude. Suddenly, Giratina and Palkia were flying alongside us as well.
"Stop the helicopter," I told the pilot. We slowed down to a halt.
"I... call back the order! Stop attacking!" I told the Pokémon.
"You have done a mistake," some telepathic voice told me. I couldn't quite figure out who it was.
"I didn't mean to call for you like that! I needed help, not destruction! All I wanted was to release Emily!"
"Well, you made him promise just that. Mission accomplished in that regard?" some other voice said.
"You will release Emily now?" I asked Alpha.
"Of course. Why do you ask?" he replied.
"Well... yes. Mission accomplished," I said.
"Fine"
Then suddenly, Palkia, Giratina and Dialga were gone. No flashes, flickering or fading away, they were just gone. Ho-oh and Lugia also flew off, heading for the ocean. Rayquaza was still following us. I could see the ammo belt of Johnson's machine gun still stuck between its teeth.
"Let's head for the rendezvous point," I said to Alpha. "We'll figure out what to do with them there"

As we flew over the city, I could see TLA ground crew everywhere we went. There were black trucks, dumpsters, excavators, ambulances and dozens of vans driving through the city. Waiting for civilian equipment to arrive, agents in tailored suits were removing rubble with their bare hands alongside their grunts.
"I'll let you have that, your organization is quite effective," I remarked.
"We've been doing things like these for decades," he replied. "Centuries, even. We've always been around to deal with stuff out of the ordinary, in some form or another. People expect that there are certain branches of the government that never make the evening news. That there's more going on in the world than science tells us, and that there are officials out there, whose job is to tackle the supernatural"
"But whose government do you serve, anyway? I thought your organization was global?"
"Let's just say that we have hands in more wallets than you might think," he replied. "Especially after the Great War, governments invested heavily in services that could help them gain an advantage over their enemies, be it other governments, defectors from their own ranks, or organized criminals. Likewise, crime cartels as well as major corporations also pay well to have somebody on the inside of the official system. And it being top secret and all, nobody is able to check where the money really goes"
"But what about... building permits? Labour force? All the grunts?"
"Those things tend to sort themselves out," he replied laconically.
"And what does TLA real-"
"Stop it. That's classified information." He turned to the pilot. "Are the beasts still following us?"
"Positive"
"Ground forces ready? We're in position. Cleared to engage"
"What?" I asked. Suddenly, there was a series of cracks outside. Rayquaza, flying beside us, was twisting in pain, descending quickly. I heard the distant sound of anti-aircraft fire. Several series of cracks followed. Ho-oh was crashing to the ground in front of us. It looked like a mess. Several feathers were burning. Likewise, Lugia went down behind us, bleeding badly.
"Ambush! Stop it!" I yelled. "They calmed down, remember! Stop it!"
"Shut up, you," Alpha said and turned towards me. He was holding a dart gun in his hand. The click as it went off was barely audible over the engine roar.

[Clanker37]

:O The suspense! You have me on the edge of my seat!

[Raymondbl]

Amazing chapter.  Nearly flawless. I think this is your best chapter so far, in terms of plot, writing style, etc.  And right at the climax.  You have gotten much better than when you first started writing, and if you redraft all the other chapters with this level of maturity, I think it could get published. 

The wait was well worth it. Ever since I first started reading Emergence I have always been waiting for the next chapter.   I admire you for keeping up with the writing for almost four years, as many people lose motivation or interest halfway through and never finish their story. 

Nothing but praise for this chapter.  Keep up the good work!

[Raymondbl]

Ok now I have a question.
1. Why were the pokemon fighting in the first place?  I know they're natural enemies, but they're all under one trainer... and under the same orders.

2. Why is Roberto so stupid

[spitllama]

Cobraroll I'm so sorry <

[Cobraroll]

Ok now I have a question.
1. Why were the pokemon fighting in the first place?  I know they're natural enemies, but they're all under one trainer... and under the same orders.

2. Why is Roberto so stupid

Questions! Finally!

1. I presume you mean the legendary Pokémons in this chapter? I might have been a little vague there. Rob, subconsciously, in his dream, called for help. The Pokémon saw the TLA as a threat, and attacked. In an early version of the chapter, there was a remark on how Dialga, Palkia and Giratina see their fighting as a playful way to spend time while waiting for Rob to give further orders. They are always wanting to prove their strength to each other, and they haven't been able to battle for months. Besides, perhaps the collateral damage is a way to attract the TLA to the Pokémon, so they don't have to go looking for them? In hindsight, I should probably have broadened a little on that.

2. Again, in this chapter, you mean? He's just having a hard time. Little sleep, stressed and verging on panic seeing the catastrophe unfold around him. In such a situation, accepting an offer of aid from the TLA looks like the only way out.


Both issues were adressed better in the early first draft of the chapter. The thing with the ordinary Pokémon going away when the legendaries appeared, was an idea I got after I had sent it in to spitllama (no problem, spitllama, SFK was also volunteering, and I also forgot to message you about the changed draft).
When writing the final chapter, it became apparent that having a bunch of powerful Pokémon still roaming and loyal to Rob, with a plan ready to attack the TLA base, wouldn't make for a very exciting read. So I rewrote this one, sent SFK both versions and hoped he'd like version two better so I could build on that (I did anyway), and put together a last chapter I hope you'll like. It still needs some work done, but should be up before the end of February (way before, if I'm lucky with uni). Anyway, I had to sacrifise some explanations of things with this version, but I hope I manage to sum it all up regardless.

Stay tuned!

[Raymondbl]

Questions! Finally!

1. I presume you mean the legendary Pokémons in this chapter? I might have been a little vague there. Rob, subconsciously, in his dream, called for help. The Pokémon saw the TLA as a threat, and attacked. In an early version of the chapter, there was a remark on how Dialga, Palkia and Giratina see their fighting as a playful way to spend time while waiting for Rob to give further orders. They are always wanting to prove their strength to each other, and they haven't been able to battle for months. Besides, perhaps the collateral damage is a way to attract the TLA to the Pokémon, so they don't have to go looking for them? In hindsight, I should probably have broadened a little on that.

Ok, I get it now. But where were the legendary pokemon?  I mean, the chapter said they have been out of their pokeballs for months, but where were they? And, I also don't get how Kyogre could be in the oceans before Robert was born.

When writing the final chapter, it became apparent that having a bunch of powerful Pokémon still roaming and loyal to Rob, with a plan ready to attack the TLA base, wouldn't make for a very exciting read.

I agree.  It can't be too easy, and adding in the legendary pokemon and taking out "normal" pokemon was a great idea.   

[Cobraroll]

^It's a little complicated, and I should probably have explained that first issue better. The thing is that Rob didn't dream that the Pokémon escaped from the game, but that the Pokémon were able to escape from the game. So that the game is in some way "corrupted" now (for instance, it's virtually indestructible, having survived an attack that lay the entire neighbourhood in ruins). The Pokémon are still inside the game, but they are more than just zeroes and ones.

The sea monster Agent Johnson refers to is not Kyogre. It's a random other sea monster the TLA keeps track of, which he thought fit the description. After all, monsters and such is their business.

[Cobraroll]

Looks like there has been some delay in the approval process this time. I wrote the chapter about a month ago, but so far I haven't got in touch with anybody from my usual "grammar team". SFK has read this through, but he appears to be very busy and I haven't heard anything from him in weeks. Anybody else wants to read it through for grammar/spelling/choice of word mistakes or plot holes, so I can get this up? Send me a PM if you're interested.

[Cobraroll]

Many thanks to SuperFireKirby! Also to SlowPokemon, who replied to my request, and GreekGeek who helped me write the ending to the story. Full credits will come after the end of the chapter.

In true Emergence fashion, this chapter is the longest so far. Actually, it exceeds the new character limit by almost ten thousand characters, so I'll have to split it in half, just like in the old days.

Thank you to the readers who have stayed with me this long, and to new readers who have picked this up midway through writing. And of course those of you who have helped me write, through feedback, grammar check or otherwise. Please enjoy:

Chapter forty-five: The men in black

I woke up with a sour taste in my mouth and a thundering headache. I was lying on a mattress
on the floor, in some small room lit by a single, intense lamp. Everything seemed a little
hazy, so I waited some minutes before opening my eyes completely. The first thing I noticed
was my clothing. I was wearing a thin light blue shirt, and loose-fitting pants of the same
paper-like fabric. It seemed that everything in the room was painted white. Besides my
mattress and a thin blanket, there was no other furniture. A juice bottle and a plastic tray
with some food, not much different from an airline meal, lay in a corner. It was hard to make
out where the door was, but I guessed it was somewhere in the opposite end of the room from
the mattress. I also found a door leading to a small rest room, which was cramped even
compared to the toilets you find on airplanes. After my exploration around the room, which
took about fifteen seconds, I slumped down on the mattress again. This was it, I thought. The
TLA had got me again, and they had captured or killed legendary Pokémon. The last time I was
here, the base had been poorly prepared for our breakout, and we had managed to get out
before they had really understood what was going on. This time, things looked grimmer. And
even if I somehow managed to free Emily, surface, and take the Pokémon with me, I couldn't go
back to my ordinary life. The entire city was more or less in ruins, my parents were knocked
out and presumably locked down in a TLA base somewhere, and I would have the TLA's full
attention. I was alone against the entire organization. I realized that there would be no
point of trying to escape. What was there left to fight for? My own survival? Had I handed
myself in back in November, none of this would have happened. The TLA could experiment on me
in peace, and I would die swiftly during yet another failed experiment, like the guy I saw
the last time I was here. What had I been hoping for, really? Gathering the Pokémon had been
my primary focus for several months. But after that, then what? I didn't even know what to do
with them, apart from using them to save the others. There was no adventure to be had with
them in this world. And now that they were gone, I had absolutely nothing to do. I had made
my friends forget me, and they would surely be knocked out for months from now anyway. Even
if the TLA forgot all about me, I could perhaps finish my education, but at some point, I
would have to move out. Get a job. A family... to me, this seemed as feasible as swimming to
Mars. The future... what could it possibly have in store for me?
I sighed, burying my face in my hands. As I sat like this, I realized that my hair had been
shaven off. It felt weird, touching the bare skin that hadn't been fully exposed for fifteen
years. Skin that the TLA would soon cut open to see what lay underneath. Another realization
struck me where I sat.
"This could be the last day of my life," I said to myself. "Am I really going to die like
this?"
No way. I could accept my defeat, but not their victory. After the brief pondering on my
future, I could think of worse ways to end this tale than dying. But giving the TLA the
satisfaction of abusing me for their own profit was a definite no-go. I would get out from
here or die trying. If I ever got out, I would keep trying to bring my life back to normal,
and if the TLA showed up again, I would fight them to the end. But no more destruction, I
would do it myself. I got up, hell-bent on finding a way out. As my blood rushed from my
still not completely functioning head, I was overcome by dizziness and fell back down. Okay,
I would get out, but eating first could be a good idea. I picked up the tray and ate the cold
soup and the bread, then flushed it down with some thin, sweet juice from the accompanying
bottle. Feeling a little better, I decided to give the rest room another go. There was a vent
in the ceiling there that looked kind of promising. Judging by the size of the vent cover,
the shaft beneath would be spacious enough for me to crawl through it. The cover was attached
to the concrete by four small screws, and they didn't appear to be tightened very well
either. I could loosen two of them with my bare hands. To remove the other two, I bit a hole
in the empty juice bottle, and tore off a piece of plastic to use as a makeshift screwdriver.
I think I loosened a tooth or two in the process, but it would be worth it. What is a tooth
compared to freedom? With a tiny creak, the last screw finally loosened, and I could take off
the vent cover. I could feel the air rushing from behind it, and it was with great
anticipation I yanked it loose from the hole.
This feeling quickly shifted as I looked up again. Beneath the vent cover, about a hundred
holes as thick as pencils were drilled into the massive concrete ceiling. There was an air
shaft here, all right, but to get to it, I would have to get through at least twenty
centimetres of solid concrete. I couldn't even fit my little finger in any of the holes. To
add insult to injury, a few letters were engraved in the ceiling among all the holes:
Please put the cover back on, go back to your room and behave
Frustrated, I flung the vent cover into the wall, and flushed the screws down the toilet.
Then I spent the next two minutes scrutinizing the rest room. There was not much to see, just
a very simple sink and the toilet. Even the loo roll was concealed behind a slit in the wall.
Resigned, I gave up on the rest room, and spend the next half hour fine-combing the rest of
the cell. The search was just as rewarding as the previous; I found nothing but the location
of the door to the room. The fine line between the door and the wall was barely visible to
the naked eye.
"Later then," I said to myself and sat down on the mattress again. I figured out that I would
need a plan. I knew Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf were out there somewhere. If I could contact
them, they could help me out somehow. Even the vague advice they were so fond of throwing
around would be of great help. I would just have to calm down and figure out exactly what
they were telling me. I didn't know where Dialga, Palkia or Giratina had gone, but I felt
certain that they wouldn't just abandon me. With a little luck, I could handle this. But for
now, I had to wait.

I had lost track of time when the door was opened. For some reason, food was only served when
I was asleep, which had now happened twice since I first woke up. I had spent most of my time
awake meditating, trying not to think about the Pokémon outside. I knew very well that the
TLA could probably read my thoughts, and I wouldn't risk blowing my entire plan. It was
during one of these sessions I heard the sound of the door opening, and a man entering the
room.
"Hello, you must be Roberto," he said. He looked like just another TLA official. No defining
facial features whatsoever, hair cut short, and sunglasses, the latter despite being far
below ground. He was wearing a tailored suit, with the letter B sewn onto the chest.
"You must be Beta," I replied. "What time is it?"
"Time should be of no importance to you anymore"
"Have you released Emily yet?"
"No questions, please. Alpha would like to see you, that's why I'm here. Your surgery is
scheduled for this evening, and he wanted to have a few words with you first."
"Can't you even tell me how long I've been here?"
"No. Come now."
Still barefoot, I got up and followed him into the corridor. It didn't take many fractions of
a second to realize that this corridor was virtually identical to the rest of the maze-like
complex at the lower levels of the TLA base. I also noticed that there were two heavily armed
guards outside my cell.
"Details," I thought as we walked down the corridor. Instead of keeping track of all the
lefts and rights and hidden doors I didn't know how to open anyway, I focused on counting the
paces. My bare feet made a steady slap-slap sound as we walked. I suspected that I wasn't
taken along the shortest route, as we seemingly walked in large loops and went up long
inclined corridors instead of stairs or elevators.
Three levels up and almost 5800 steps later, we entered a conference room. Inside was a large
table and twenty-four empty chairs. A video projector hung in the ceiling. The other end of
the room was a large window out to an enormous hall. In the middle of the hall, I could see
Groudon, chained up and surrounded by guards. His eyes were closed and his head hung limp,
supported only by thick cables attached to the walls, floor and ceiling. It took a few
seconds before I noticed Alpha, who was standing by the window. He turned around and greeted
us.
"There you are, Roberto. Wonderful to see you. You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"
I didn't reply.
"We have about half an hour before the others arrive. I thought I'd let you know how this
will end for you. Are you excited for tonight?"
"Have you released Emily yet?"
"Ah, we'll get to that later. Come with me, I'd like to show you something."
We left Beta in the room, and wandered out to the corridors again. Alpha started talking:
"You know, we were actually quite worried during your escapades yesterday. We had to send in
crews from several continents to memodify all the people involved, and most of our engineers
have been working around the clock to put the city back the way it's supposed to be. We
haven't had a crisis on this scale since the Tokyo incident in... when was that again? '75?
'76? Anyway, don't you worry. We've dealt with stuff like this before. That's what we do."
"What's your official explanation this time, then? Earthquake?"
"Yes, in fact. Your big red friend created such a mess downtown that we just decided to roll
with that. We've used it before, it works wonders. We just have to patch up the most
suspicious craters, create a few new others, and figure out the death toll. You see, it might
sound great and all that the Pokémon only cause non-lethal instantly vanishing injuries, but
all those unconscious people without visible wounds tend to give us a bit of an explanation
problem. People start asking questions if nobody die, so we'll have to do the messy job of
fixing that."
"What did you just say?!"
"They die for the greater good, Roberto. We need those statistics to hide the grimy truth.
It's best like that. A lot of people will also get away with minor injuries."
"You... you..."
"If it'll make you feel better, your intervention has already saved many other lives. Once we
figure out how to extract the powers of legendary Pokémon, we can create weapons that can
change the world with minimal collateral damage. I've invited the entire global board of
leaders here to take part in that spectacular procedure. We made good progress with the
regular Pokémon, but with these new, ultra-powerful ones, we don't need them. Now, we can
finally shape the world like we want..."
"What?!? Don't you decide enough already?"
"There's a big dark world out there, Roberto," he said, pointing towards the ceiling. "I
know, I've seen most of the stuff that has fallen down from the sky over the years. And it's
not looking pretty. If we want to prepare for the challenges that await us in the future, we
need to harness and exploit the wonderful potential of the human mind to its fullest. Some
people have great imagination, but no power to use it. Others, like you, yield the power, but
not the imagination. If we can combine those, harvest dreams, and create the powers humanity
dream of... we can do great things. Imagine it, Roberto!"
"Are you serious? World domination?"
"No, no no no no. Galactic domination. Or more. Conquering this planet is just a tool
to start the adventure with."
"You're completely nuts."
"Silent! I'm a visionary. I've seen great empires come and go. One big leader builds it all
up, and then the entire thing falls apart once he dies or makes a big enough blunder. Look at
Stalin and Mao, for instance. Big, powerful leaders, they had absolute power and knew they
could use it, but their countries did a heel-face turn as soon as they died. If they had
overcome death, just imagine what the world would have looked like today."
"Communist?"
"That's beside the question. The ideology is irrelevant, as long as it permits one single
person to reach the top of the hierarchy, with absolute power over everybody below him.
Organized like a military force, or a big corporation... just climbing to the top of the
pyramid takes up valuable time, but if you can stay there forever..."
"Pretty big words coming from a guy who has only ruled the organization for a month," I said.
Alpha had to be a complete maniac, but I knew I'd die a horrible death anyway if I didn't
take a risk or two. We were alone, and he was old and overweight, so perhaps I could best him
if he attacked me. If he did a mistake, gave me a tiny chance, I'd grab it and hold on.
"A month? You have no idea. I practically am the TLA, Roberto. I'm alpha and omega
here. Literally. When Omega dies, Alpha takes his place. When Alpha is about to die, Omega
takes over. We perfected mind transplantation ages ago. The Alpha you first met doesn't exist
anymore. Only his body"
I flinched for a second. That was quite unexpected! The creepy look he sent me was almost too
scary. Also, I remembered who held the current Omega title. Joe! I shivered.
"But Alpha was a fool, oh yes. Got mad with power too soon. He sat comfortably behind his
desk, getting his body addicted to those fine cigars. He had the looks of a leader, all
right. I picked him for his authority. But times change, and old fat bald guys just won't cut
it anymore. My next host is in better shape. You know him, am I right?"
I was sweating. This guy was a monster.
"Why are you telling me all this?" I managed to say without stuttering.
"Are you nervous, Roberto? Excellent. We want your brain to be working its hardest when we
hook it up. The more desperate you are, the greater the probability of success. And what
could possibly be more effective than the cold, hard truth?"
We walked down a set of stairs, and into a corridor directly below the conference room,
running along the circular hall Groudon was captured in. Several large windows gave me a good
view of Groudon as we passed. He stood still like a statue, with eyes closed. Thick metal
cables were attached to his limbs, neck, body and tail. Large tubes were pumping purple ooze
in between the plates of his armour. He was standing in a puddle of the stuff. It looked like
he was sleeping.
"What have you done to the other Pokémon?" I asked Alpha. "Did you kill them?"
"No, they are far more valuable than that. We're on our way to see them right now. It looked
a little bad for this big red bird for a while, but it managed to recover. In the end, we had
to give it triple doses of sedatives to keep it under control. Now our scientists can study
them without fear of being fried by those awful fires." He lowered his voice. "...such tragic
losses."
"You know they can't kill, so stop the acting," I said.
"It appears they can, actually," he replied. "If they strike with pure fury and enough force,
intent on killing, the target will be turned to a sort of stone of unknown composition. We
think it's because so much tissue is damaged beyond repair that there is nothing left to form
a basis of regeneration. Instead, it will be generated entirely anew out of a mineral we've
never seen the likes of before. It's significantly harder than any known mineral, we had to
use a lot of force to break it. However, the process seems to be reversed when the "statue"
is broken. We could break off arms and such without consequences, but once the head came off,
it turned back into... well, yes, it was messy."
We entered a similar corridor, going along the perimeter of another large hall. Rayquaza was
chained up here. Thick rings of solid metal were clamped around its body with one-meter
intervals. I could also see small sparks of electricity along the wires that held Rayquaza
firmly in place.
"This one's been quite docile, actually," Alpha said as we passed by. "It's been somewhat
damaged by the AA fire, you can see the scars there. Still, we thought it would resist us
more than it ended up doing."
We didn't stop, but because of all the windows in this corridor, I got a long look at
Rayquaza. Its head was also held in place by a large metal clamp. Its arms were pressed down
the side of its body by one of the metal rings. Parts of its body had swollen up around the
grotesque wounds, some of which puss were still dripping from. A tube was pumping sedative
straight into one of the wounds. It must have been in tremendous pain, but for some reason,
it appeared to be unaffected. It didn't look as limp as it should have been, nor was its body
twitching in pain. The yellow markings along its body were still shining a vibrant yellow
colour. And for a split second, as I looked at it, one of its eyes opened. It was almost like
a reverse blink, but I was sure it had looked straight at me. Alpha had apparently not
noticed it. I shivered. Rayquaza must have been furious with me. After all, I had unknowingly
led it straight into the ambush, but how could they know I hadn't known about it?
"We think this one has some handy weather controlling powers," he said. "I can't wait to try
them out." He looked at his watch. "Oh, looks like we have to cut the tour off. The board
members have a habit of turning up early for these meetings. I just wanted you to meet the
rest of the board before your surgery. I'd say you have about half an hour left of
consciousness. Is there anything more you want to know?"
"You know I know you won't tell me, so why do you ask?"
"We want you to be desperate, not puzzled. Distractions like 'why wouldn't he tell me'
undermine the emotions we want to bring up, so I will tell you. It's a long story, but it'll
make you understand things better, and underline the hopelessness of your own situation.
Listen well:
As I told you yesterday, this organization has been around for a very long time. For
instance, we were the ones who tamed King Minos' pet back in the days."
"You mean the Minotaur? Crete?"
"Exactly. We were more loosely defined then, much like a caste of priests who dealt with the
occult stuff. There wasn't one organization like today, but several individuals who did much
the same in many different cultures, even though they rarely met. We didn't keep records back
then, but Sampi, our historian, says we even had a guy in Pilate's council. Damage control
has always been our top priority, and we didn't want to have too many guys with mystical
powers walking around."
"Do you mean..."
"Exactly. Irony, huh? Either way, the religion that spawned provided us with means to
organize better. The organization as it is today was founded as a special branch of the Roman
Inquisition. We later got branches in several governments all over the world. Genghis Khan
gave us vast amounts of gold and people to experiment on, with immortality in mind. We didn't
succeed back then, but we sold the idea to several state leaders and got immense funding from
them as well. Either way, the story is quite boring until World War I or so. The need for
espionage, secret technology and potential weaponization of the paranormal started to
manifest in several major governments. More and more people started believing that there was
more to this world than science said was possible, and that the government had some hidden
branches dealing with that kind of stuff. And the more the idea spread, the more defined we
were. Earlier, people believed in a secret group ruling the world somewhere. Now, they were
convinced that the occult stuff was hidden deep within the government."
"I've thought about that a lot. So just like the Pokémon, you are the physical manifestation
of an idea? A conspiracy turned real because people believe?"
"Exactly! Everybody has heard about the services shrouded in secrecy. The KGB and GRU of the
Soviet Union. British MI5 and MI6. The SS, and later Stasi. CIA. FBI. Chinese MSS. But those
bureaus are actually quite open. The people working there do it for a job. After work hours,
they drive home to their family, go on vacations along with the bankers or insurance agents
or janitors and what have you, they have friends, lovers, relatives, and so on. Even the top
leaders of the secret services have lives just as everybody else, give or take some security
issues. But of course, deep in those organizations you find people who work on yearly
contracts. Peoples who have woven their lives to protecting secrets. Those who have to give
up their old identity upon hiring. From time to time, you hear about those in the media. But
if you go even deeper, what do you find? Nobody knows for sure. But everybody believes that
there are someone, somewhere, who protect the really secret secrets. Men in black, an
organization beyond the jurisdiction of anybody. The ones who make sure that the dangerous
truth doesn't escape. A vast organization, working for everybody and at the same time nobody,
with unlimited funding and a license to kill. A group working all over the world, always on
the scene, and who always escape the attention of the media. And if you ask around, most
people believe that their name is some Three Letter Acronym."
"What?!? You've got to be kidding me!"
Alpha shrugged. "We don't see why we should call ourselves anything else."
We were back in the same corridor we started in. Outside the door to the conference room, we
were met by a man coming from the other direction. He was clad in a white coat, with a golden
?[LETTER LAMBDA] on his chest.
"Roberto, meet Lambda. He'll be your surgeon tonight," Alpha said with a smile. "Busy day
today, Lambda?"
"Quite. We've got a lot of other patients coming in as well. I'm afraid he'll just miss the
reunion with his classmates. But regarding the feelings they'll have for him when we're done
with them, I think that's just a good thing."
"What about Omega?"
"Pi will take care of him. His appointment should be at about the same time as this
gentleman's."
"Everybody is here, sir," one of the guards whispered to Alpha. Alpha nodded, and we went in.
Alpha and Lambda found their chairs, while I was left with a guard by the door. Sat by the
table were twenty-three people. Nineteen of them were wearing dark tailored suits, all of
them but Alpha also wore sunglasses. The expressions on their faces were eerily similar.
Again, only Alpha stood out from the crowd. It took me several seconds to realize that there
were three women in the group. The last four TLA leaders were wearing white lab coats. They
were all men, and unlike their male operative colleagues, they all had a tuft of white hair
that had apparently never touched a comb. They were all sat in a group along one side of the
table, so I could see their letters: Gamma, Lambda, Pi and Sigma. One chair, to the right of
Alpha's, was empty. Omega's.
"Welcome, everybody," Alpha began. "After some six months of struggle, I'm delighted to tell
you that we've captured our most wanted subject. Say hello to Roberto."
All the faces in the room turned towards me. I could nothing but stare back. These people had
a piercing glare, even with sunglasses on.
"He was also kind enough to help us relocate former agent Theta," he continued and waved. I
turned my head along with everybody else. In the corner of the room, flanked by two guards,
Julia lay slumped on the floor. She was still wearing Emily's old night gown.
"However, the end of his resistance and ultimate capture is trivial compared to the tools he
gave us. These beasts, one of which you can see here behind me, yield extraordinary powers.
You saw the destruction on your way here; that was seven of them going rampant for half an
hour. And the best part: The powers are non-lethal. We can seize control of the world without
wasting a single unnecessary life. My ladies and gentlemen, as soon as their powers are
extracted, we can stop this life of secrecy, and shape the world to our liking. Nobody will
be able to stop us. How is the extraction process going, Gamma?"
Gamma, seemingly a frail old man, straightened his glasses, coughed, and started speaking in
an ice cold voice:
"First of all, I'd like to inform you that we've found the medium through which the beasts
were brought to life," he said. He took my DS out of a pocket in his coat, flipped it open
and placed it on the table. "It seems like there are many more beasts inside this, which can
be transferred to this world. They are all well-trained with an extremely diverse range of
powers. If we can harness them, we'll be completely unstoppable."
"And how are you doing in terms of the harnessing?"
"We made great progress with the previous beasts, which suddenly disappeared yesterday night.
These new ones appear to be, biologically speaking, exactly the same, so we don't have to
start over. However, they have proved to be a little harder to work with, due to their
extremely potent power and resistance to the sedatives. But give us a month or so, and we
will have copied their powers over to the first test subjects."
"Excellent. Do we have any volunteers?"
"The school class we had to take care of after the incident in November will arrive in half
an hour or so. Former agent Theta had volunteered for the project, but it seems like she'll
be knocked out for another few months. But her classmates should be more than willing to
participate in this, even though a few of them might perish in the process."
"Ahh... I was about to suggest Omega's daughter, Roberto's girlfriend. She knows too much
about us already, so why not have her work for us?"
"NO!" I bellowed.
"Silence!" the guard behind me shouted, and hit me in the back of my head.
"Take him away," Alpha said. "Lambda, go with them. I'll send you a resume of the meeting
later."
This was my last chance. Acting on instinct, I turned around and hit the guard in the face.
My hand hurt, but I think I broke his jaw bone. The other guard behind me was a little
quicker to react, and managed to grab my right hand, but I still gave him a nasty scratch
across the face with my left.
"Perfect," Lambda chuckled. "We've got him in just the right mood"

Part two will follow shortly

[Cobraroll]

Chapter 45, part 2:

Another guard stepped up and grabbed my other hand. Desperate, I tried stepping on his toes,
to no avail.
"All right, you can have me, but please release Emily," I pleaded.
"Don't think so," Alpha replied. "Don't take it personally."
"YOU..."
I stopped mid-sentence. Both the screens on the DS were suddenly glowing brightly. Pi, Sigma
and Gamma got up, retracting.
"What's happening?" a woman asked. "Did you tamper with it?"
"Get him aw- ...aaaahh!" A beam of light was shooting out of the DS. The similarity to a Poké
Ball was stunning. A shape of pure light was forming before us, and suddenly, Tyranitar was
standing in the room. He was, to say the least, furious. Almost before he was fully
materialized, he grabbed Sigma by his collar and flung him into the wall so hard that he left
a mark. Tyranitar knocked the table over as he moved on to his next target.
"TAAAAAARR!" he roared as he sent Gamma flying across the room with a mighty punch. The TLA
executives got up. Some drew guns.
"Call the guaaaaaaa..." I couldn't see who it was, but Tyranitar bit his head off as he
shouted. The guards threw me to the ground. Shots were ricocheting between the walls.
Somebody fell over of me. A chair was toppled, and hit me in the head. I struggled loose, and
began crawling in the direction of the door. Or rather, what I thought was the direction of
the door. Tyranitar's roars made it impossible to hear anything. It was like sitting inside a
jet engine. Although he didn't say anything sensibly, I understood that these were battle
cries, not sounds of pain.
Suddenly, I was yanked from the floor, and felt the tip of a gun against my temple.
"OH NO YOU DON'T!" Tyranitar bellowed. Stones the size of soccer balls were flying across the
room, one of them hit the agent who held me at gun point straight in the face. Tyranitar was
suddenly just before us, he pushed me aside and tore the man in half. I suddenly found myself
slumped by the window.
"Did he shoot me?" I thought. My shoulder ached immensely. The room was a chaos, but I
couldn't hear anything anymore. My eyes were blinded with tears. The linoleum floor felt warm
and soft beneath me, like a comfortable bed rather than the sterile floor in the corner of a
TLA meeting room. And there was this smell, the perfume Emily always used... Emily... what
would happen to her now? Then I realized I lay on top of Julia. Blissey had changed her
clothes just the other day, and the night gown she was wearing still smelled like its
original owner. Muttering an apology, I briefly checked that she was okay, and then tried
again to get an overview of the situation. The room was filled with unconscious agents, but
some were still standing up, with guns in their hands. Tyranitar continued the carnage, but
reinforcements had showed up; guards were piling up in the doorway. Somewhere, a siren began
shouting, of course followed by blinking red lights everywhere. I looked out of the window
behind me, and got a glimpse of Groudon, glowing like a monstrous light bulb. A voice rung
through my head:
"I'm coming for you."
"Rob! Hold on, I'll be okay!" Tyranitar shouted. Then something huge came rushing through a
wall.

The next few seconds were even more chaotic than the previous minute put together. Walls
collapsed. The ceiling fell in. I found myself in the tight grip of a monstrous green claw,
flung from side to side like a rag doll. We were flying at full speed through the complex.
Quite literally too, Rayquaza didn't appear to care about things like floors or walls,
blasting his way were he went without slowing down. I could see Julia hanging from its other
hand. It took me a while to realize that I was screaming. Before I knew it, it was a lot
colder, and we were out in open air. We were high above the forest when I finally got to my
senses. I registered that it was a clear day, around noon. Lugia and Ho-oh, both with the
remains of clamps still around their necks, were flying beside us, up and away as fast as
their wings could muster. Below us, the ground was trembling wildly. Then a huge mushroom
cloud of fire tore the landscape apart from below. Pieces of concrete, planks, vehicles,
steel beams and dirt were flung hundreds of metres into the air. The forest caught fire. The
entire farm that concealed the base was obliterated. In seconds, the entire landscape was
shrouded in a cloud of smoke.
"Rayquaza! Put us down!" I bellowed. "Emily is still down there!"
"First things first, got to shake a creep of my tail," its calm voice echoed through my head.
I looked down. Rayquaza had wrapped its tail around a man, who appeared to be conscious and
swearing loudly, even though his lungs must have been squeezed almost flat by the giant
flying snake. I couldn't see his face, but the general shape of the body, the bald head and
the rings on his fingers made it obvious who he was. We were flying straight up at an
incredible speed. My ears hurt, and I noticed that breathing was getting difficult.
"Please!" I wheezed. "I can't breathe!"
"Going down!"
Then, we were in free fall. Or perhaps falling faster; oxygen deprivation was messing with my
senses. Rayquaza was shrieking, diving straight into the cloud of dust.
"This is for Rob!" it yelled, flattening out the dive and slamming its tail into the ground.
The sudden acceleration made my spine snap, but I managed to stay conscious.
"And this is for shooting me!"
Rayquaza made a somersault. I got a glimpse of its tail, glowing intensely white, swish like
a whip towards a spot on the ground. I fainted.

A soothing sensation spread through my body, and I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry, but
I could see that Blissey was standing beside me, holding my hand.
"It was a nightmare, right? A nasty, nasty nightmare. Oh, I'm glad to see you!" I said and
gave her a hug.
"It was real, Rob," Metagross' voice said. "But the danger is over now. You're safe."
"But... you..."
"You called for help, so we came. I don't know for how long you've been out, but probably not
more than an hour or so."
"Rayquaza..."
"It's around here somewhere. So are all the others. But don't worry, they're all fine now."
My vision was a little clearer. I could see I was lying on what must have been a wall not
very long ago. Everything around us was building rubble, the bits decreasing in size the
closer it got to a scorched area in the middle of the giant crater. The underground complex
had collapsed, leaving an area the size of a small town as a hole in the ground. Most of the
debris had been pushed to the sides by the blast wave, so the sides of the crater formed a
gentle slope.
"Are we still in the TLA base?"
"What's left of it, at least. Groudon pretty much obliterated it with that Overheat."
"We have to-"
"Don't worry. Alpha is dead. The guards are knocked out. And all the agents we've found have
turned to stone. We stopped a helicopter landing here some twenty minutes ago, but the crew
doesn't pose any threat to us. It's over, Rob. We've won."
"Emily!"
I jolted, and sat up. Blissey turned away, sobbing. Lucario, standing beside me, hung his
head down low.
"We found her about ten minutes ago. She... she is over there, Rob," Metagross said. I got
up, and went over to the spot he was pointing a leg at.
"No. No! NO!!"
Emily had been sitting on the floor, leant against a wall, with her arms around her knees,
when Groudon attacked. The blast wave had hit her very quickly, and made short work of her.
She was completely petrified, made into a statue of herself, down to the tiniest detail. It
had happened so quickly that even her clothes were intact. Her last tear-drop still hung
frozen on her cheek.
"EMILY!" I bellowed.
No reaction.
"She's gone, Rob," Metagross said. "I'm really sorry."
I sat down beside her, and flung my arms around the statue.
"No. No. It can't be... It can be cured, can't it?"
Metagross didn't reply.
"Heartfelt Pokémon tears. That will cure it. Tears. Come on, cry!"
"Rob. See... that was thousands of years ago. A legend. Pokémon don't cry anymore. Not for
humans. I'm terribly sorry for your loss, but I can't do anything about it."
"Please!"
"I..." For the first time ever, his voice failed. "I'm deeply ashamed. But I can't. None of
us can"
"Blissey! Espeon! What about you girls?" I shouted at the crowd of Pokémon.
"Rob... we're sorry. Really. But tears don't come on command. It has to be heartfelt,"
Blissey whispered.
"No! It... it's an order!"
"An order we can't comply with. Sorry Rob, she's a lawn ornament now," Metagross said.
"GO AWAY! ALL OF YOU!" I shouted. None of them moved. I was furious at them, but at the same
time glad they didn't leave me.
"What's this shouting?" A human voice suddenly said. I looked up. Near the edge of the
crater, a helicopter was parked. Two Scizor were guarding it. Apparently, more Pokémon than
ever had now emerged. But what caught my attention was the man running towards us along a
huge steel beam. It was Joe, dressed in the same kind of clothes as I was wearing. His head
was shaved too.
"Rob! You're alive! Good to see you!"
"Joe..."
"What? What's... oh... no. No!"
He broke down completely, saying a few more words that I don't want to repeat.
"Come on, Rob," Tyranitar's voice said. He was suddenly standing beside me, covered in soot.
"Let us let him say goodbye alone. She was his daughter."
I gave Tyranitar a hug.
"Is there... nothing..."
"I'm really sorry, Rob. Sorry for everything. I hope you will forgive me. I came when you
called for me. I woke up the sleeping Legendary Pokémon. I... probably killed a couple of the
blacksuits. I will follow you to the end of the world, and carry you back, if you want to.
But I can't cry for her. I've done what I can."
"Thanks. I know, I only trained you to fight. The games are a little limited like that"
"It's not which buttons you press; it's what you put into it that counts. I think you did a
great job."
"I got lots of help."
We walked in silence around the crater. Blissey was tending to Julia, who was still
unconscious. I knew my old school class, still not fully indoctrinated and with their conscious
mind intact, was up by the helicopter, but I didn't want to meet them. Right now, I only
wanted Emily back. Then I could focus on my own problems. Like finding a way back to an
ordinary life, deal with all the Pokémon, and try to avoid all the monsters that would likely
run rampant now that the TLA was gone. I climbed over pieces of concrete, peered into
collapsed rooms and corridors, had a look at a few cavities that still were standing. I
picked up random objects and loose documents, some of which had to be classified beyond any
system I knew of, then tossed them away as I couldn't decipher their meaning anyway.
Tyranitar followed a few steps behind me all the time, saying nothing.
"Rob, Dialga wants to see you," a voice said about half an hour later. Staraptor was circling
right over us. "They are over there."
Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Ho-oh, Lugia, Groudon and Rayquaza had gathered not far from where
I had woken up. We climbed over to them. Tyranitar carried me over the obstacles I couldn't
scale by myself.
"Good to see you, finally," Dialga said. His voice was a deep bass, ancient as the sky
itself. "Listen, I'm sorry for this. We all are. We've discussed on this. If you want, I can
throw you back. Back to August, before the emergence. Nothing of this will have happened. You
won't remember anything."
I considered it for a few moments.
"That would mean that Emily would still be alive. My parents still sane. Julia would still
have a life. My classmates... still a bunch of assholes, but at least... yeah. I would still
be a lonely geek without a life, but... I'm just about the only one who has gained anything
from this" I said. It was easier to speak to these gigantic Pokémon than I had thought.
"I beg to differ," a voice said. Suddenly, Azelf was floating in the air beside me. It made a
striking contrast to Groudon standing only metres away, being smaller than each of Groudon's
fingers.
"Rob, you seem to have forgotten that Emily was really depressed before she met you. Her
father was almost always at work, hung up by both TLA missions and his real work, both of
which made a great risk to him. You haven't heard a lot about her mother, and you don't need
to either, but just know that that family had some issues. Also, your classmates were getting
into trouble as well. That sort of gang mentality really wasn't healthy, and imagine the
pressure they had on them. If you weren't fit, you were a loser. You saw how easily the TLA
recruited them when they were promised enhancing powers. They were all mocking you because
you were their ideal target. But eventually, they would grow tired, or you would be moved to
another class. Then who would be their next target? And would that person be able to handle
the pressure as well as you did?"
"No, but... look at everything! No matter what, it wouldn't be as bad as this!"
"Consider the TLA, then. Their leader was getting obsessed with taking over the world.
Regardless of what you would do without the emergence, the old leader Omega would die, and
Alpha would take over. And Joe would be appointed the new Omega. The cycle would continue,
and at some point, something really bad would be bound to happen"
"Azelf, the entire city is in ruins. Thousands of lives are affected. And the TLA just
started the mother of all killing sprees to prevent the secret from being leaked. That
wouldn't have happened if I hadn't interfered"
"That's not entirely true. The grunts are still awaiting the signal from the TLA board of
leaders. And the only member of that board is down there mourning his daughter."
I looked where Azelf pointed. True enough, Joe was still sitting by Emily's statue.
"Emily," I said. Emotions overcame me, and I slumped down on the ground. "Dialga, throw me
back. You know, I killed her. And without her..."
A tiny hand touched my cheek. I looked up, and stared straight into Mesprit's eyes. They were
watery. My heart suddenly began beating twice as fast. A brightly glowing drop was forming
below Mesprit's right eye.
"I see your pain. I share it. We can save her," it whispered.
"Follow me!", I shouted. Adrenaline was racing through my body. "Come on, Mesprit!"
I ran, jumped, slipped and fell across the ruins, towards Joe, who sat sobbing on the ground
with his arms around Emily. A couple of times, Mesprit had to slow my fall as I simply jumped
down a floor or two, so I wouldn't have to walk around. When I got over to Joe, I didn't
manage to stop in time, so I stumbled and fell, and kept tumbling down as Mesprit was too
busy treating Emily to see where I was going. I couldn't see what was happening, but I felt
the glow of energy as Mesprit's tear got in contact with her. When I got to my feet again,
Emily was her old self, looking up at me.
"Emily!" I beamed. She looked extremely puzzled, and kept looking at me as Joe gave her a
hug. She hugged him back, but didn't take her eyes away from me.
"You..." she said, and got up."Rob..."
"You're alive! Are you okay?"
She pushed Joe aside.
"I'm definitely NOT okay!" she spat. I was shocked by her reaction. "Listen, I've endured a
lot for you, but this... where do I start?!"
"We won, Emily. The TLA is defeated!"
"Rob... I know you mean it well, but... really, I've had enough." Breathing deeply, she
calmed down a little.
"But... we're out of danger now! They are gone!"
"And what is left? What are you going to do now? I've made up my mind. Rob..."
I knew far too well what she was saying. Uxie's gift was a double-edged sword at times. She
didn't have to say what she meant out loud, I understood her well enough as long as she truly
meant it.
"I..."
"It's over. I don't ever want to see you again." She turned to Joe. "I'll call you. Farewell"
With amazing agility regarding her condition, she strode away and climbed out of the crater.
I stood as if nailed to the spot, just staring blankly at her. She didn't look back even
once. Joe tried to follow her, but she ignored him. Despite heavy protests from her father,
she got into a TLA van parked by the helicopter, and drove away. She was too young to have a
driver's license, but I knew that once she had made up her mind, she could do whatever she
wanted. The last I ever heard from Emily was the slam of a car door.
"I think I lost her again," I said to nobody in particular. Almost all of the Pokémon were
within audible range, most of them with a somewhat embarrassed expression on their face. "But
it feels better. She's alive. I'm alive. And I won't get to see her at school either, since I
have to do the year over again. Who knows how this would have worked out anyway, one of us
was usually crying all the time anyway. Still, I... well, Love is weird, huh?"
"Life is weird," Mesprit replied. "But it usually turns out okay in the end."

Joe came back some ten minutes later. He sat down on a rock beside me. I tried to ignore his
still puffy eyes.
"You know, Rob, apparently the power of the TLA is concentrated in the board of leaders. If a
highly-ranked member of the board dies, the second in command takes over and everybody is
moved up a notch"
"And?"
"Well, your friend Tyranitar went a little overboard with the petrified statues of the board
members. He apparently didn't like that they tried to shoot him. And Alpha was killed by that
dragon, so that makes me the only remaining leader of the TLA. Looks like I'm in charge of
the organization now"
"Good for you. Perhaps you could help me take care of these?" I said and waved a hand at the
Pokémon. "I don't think I can manage to combine that with an ordinary life. I need to do the
school year over again, and then get a job or something". I sighed, as I slowly realized the
hopelessness of my future. For a start, where would we even live?
"Who says you have to live an ordinary life? Listen, Rob, I've thought about this. One of the
reasons why I said yes to being a board member was that I could one day wind up in a position
of power. The entire system was kinda rotten up until now. The higher up you got in the
system, the more brainwashed the people were. And a lone maniac ruled on the very top. I
think I could reform the TLA for the better, and I need people to help me with that sort of
things. I've thought of establishing an ethics department, which oversees our operations,
makes sure the employees and... inmates are happy, such things. And I need people with
experience to run that kind of department. People who know what it's like to being thrown
into unknown situations. Dealing with powers they don't know if they can control"
"Are you suggesting I should join the TLA?"
"I'm offering you a job. And that job will mostly consist of removing the remains of the old
TLA from the system. We require very little formal education"
I thought about if for a second, then got up.
"Well, in the past months, I've done my best to destroy my own life, so I won't have anything
to lose. I've been away from school so often that I've automatically failed all subjects. My
classmates hate me. I think I wouldn't be able to go back to an ordinary life anyway". I
sighed. "Please let me think about it"


It was two days later. I was sat by the kitchen table in our newly-refurbished home. I had
got immense help from the Pokémon as well as the TLA, so now the city was more or less back
to what it used to be. The damage hadn't been as bad as I had thought either. Most of it had
actually gone through the entire ordeal unscathed, and the damaged parts weren't that hard to
fix as we had legendary Pokémon at our disposal. Dialga and Giratina had simply pulled exact
copies of entire neighbourhoods through something they referred to as "holes in time", and
replaced the scorched ruins with carbon copies of buildings, just like they were a couple of
days earlier. The official explanation of what had happened was long-winded and complicated,
and would probably be fodder enough for conspiracy theorists for centuries to come, but in
the end we had decided that it probably wouldn't hurt anyone. Eventually, the general public
would settle for the simplest explanation, which we were quite sure wouldn't involve Pokémon.
"...also, my teacher helped me fix the details around my scholarship," I finished. "I'm sorry
that it happened on such short notice, but we just heard yesterday that there was an idle
slot for the course. They only take up twelve students every year, and are fully booked for
the next three years, so if I don't say yes now, I'll miss the chance completely!"
"Very short notice indeed," dad brummed. "Did you say you were starting next week already?"
"On Monday, yes. I would have to leave early tomorrow, but I'm finished packing already.
Please!"
"What about Emily, then?" mom asked. "Wouldn't she miss you? I mean, Esta is quite far away"
My heart skipped a beat when she said the name. "We'll keep in touch," I replied flatly.
"The final exams, then? There's still almost two months left of the school year!" dad said.
"Look on page 8. I can do them when I get there. I'll only have three subjects the first two
semesters, and none of them require that I've already passed any of the subjects I've had
this year. I can run these classes parallel to the course the first year. Lots of people do
that."
"Still, quitting school just before the exams, for the sake of studying psychology, of all
things? Wouldn't it be better to finish, and then start taking it at the city university this
autumn? And we've always been under the impression that you wanted to study programming?"
"I've had a kinda rough year, mom, you know that. I've got a new view on many things. And
this school specializes in helping people like me. I think it would be the best chance I'll
ever get on getting a proper job. Please!"
"Okay, we'll sign," dad said. "But promise to call us every weekend! And we want you to visit
us once a month, at least!"
A little more discussion, and that was it. I spent my last night at home helping the Pokémon
fill in the cave. Palkia had explained to me the mechanics behind the emergences. Thinking
about it, it wasn't as complicated, but it would probably have been impossible to translate
the meaning of its explanation into actual words. I didn't look forward to trying.
Some time around 4AM, all that was left of the cave was a small bag of Poké balls, some items
and a pouch of berries. I put them in a bag along with the still unscathed DS, and put the
hatch in the boiler room back in place for the last time.

The next morning, I got up early, said goodbye to mom and dad, and went out just as the sun
rose above the horizon. It was a nice, clear spring day. A little chilly, but not exactly
cold. The birds were singing, and some trees had got a shade of green. I stopped for a moment
and took a last look at the house, the garden, the neighbourhood. I sighed. In the distance,
I could see the roof of Emily's house. In the other direction, the school was barely visible
between two houses. It was weird thinking about all the people who had been knocked out, had
their homes burnt down and how close they had been to death at the hands of the TLA, but
still didn't remember anything of it. My classmates would probably not return to school for
some time, as they had been given a couple of months first to reunite with their families, go
through therapy, and such. The TLA had modified their memories to fit the official story.
Perhaps the entire ordeal would make them a little less insufferable, but I still didn't want
to see them again. I put on my sunglasses and got into the black van that stood in the
driveway, waiting for me. A whole new life was about to begin.



So there we are. Almost three years after I started writing this, the story has come to an end. Or, there are still some questions left unanswered, but I hope the epilogue will take care of that.

First and foremost, a special thank you to GreekGeek. In the humble beginning, I think he was the story's only active reader, and he gave me a lot of interesting feedback and ideas. He was also the first one to provide a language check. Eventually, he got a lot more busy with stuff, but I still got lots of help from him.

Dahans picked up the story later, and as GreekGeek got less idle time, he became my next language checker and source of ideas. Since then, no chapter has been uploaded without his approval (even though I've had to nag him a couple of times. But thank you anyway!).

SuperFireKirby has been my most recent language checker, and arguably the most productive one too. Guess that has something to do with the fact that he is a native English speaker, unlike the others.

Also thanks to SirIngusBingus, Spitllama, Fuurianda, WiiMan96, Triforced1, raymondbl, SlowPokemon, TheLegend, Clanker37, gzgregory, GoronsOrchestrated and all you others who have read this and commented. Thanks for reading.

Also thanks to:
Nintendo, GameFreak, the guys over there for actually making Pokémon
Bulbapedia, for consistently providing information. I've spent a lot of time researching movesets, traints, diets, items, et cetera.
Smogon, for recommended movesets and also for their damage calculator. It got very handy when Pokémon were battling each other (for instance, checking if the move used really could knock the Pokémon out).
Wikipedia, for other information.
You, for reading the credits too. Well done.

[K-NiGhT]

D: she leffftttt hiiimmmm wtf!!!!!

[Clanker37]

*Standing Ovation*

I haven't felt emotions this strong from a story since...well, ever! It's beautifully written and is a credit to NSM, Pokemon and yourself. I hope that you never stop writing, Cobraroll, because the world would be a sorrier place without your words

[Raymondbl]

Great Ending!  I kind of don't get why Emily left him, but at least she's alive. 

I'm very glad you actually finished this.  It must have taken a lot of effort and motivation to compose something this long and good over such an extended period of time. 

Also thanks to SirIngusBingus, Spitllama, Fuurianda, WiiMan96, Triforced1, raymondbl, SlowPokemon, TheLegend, Clanker37, gzgregory, GoronsOrchestrated and all you others who have read this and commented. Thanks for reading.

They're the same person 

[spitllama]

Also thanks to SirIngusBingus, Spitllama, Fuurianda, WiiMan96, Triforced1, raymondbl, SlowPokemon, TheLegend, Clanker37, gzgregory, GoronsOrchestrated and all you others who have read this and commented. Thanks for reading.

Nope. I didn't do anything. Appreciate that though