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pmd-essenceofconflict · 2 years

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Chapter 7

The four of them lounge around in relative silence, waiting for things to go quiet again.

The group continues to lounge about in relative silence, not really knowing what to do with themselves. There is little in the way of leisurely activity within the confining walls of the cargo crate, with Wyatt and Cedrick’s Pokegears being the only source of entertainment. That, and Stella’s near-constant sketches. Using an already-worn down pencil and her natural paints, she sits in a small personal alcove made out of boxes in the far corner of the room, hanging up her creations so they can properly dry. “Try not to go through that paper too fast, Stella. We don’t know when we’ll be able to get more.”, Taral says as he lays down on the relatively cool metal floor. The crate has very little ventilation, so it gets pretty hot during the day. Both Wyatt and Cedrick try to connect to the ship’s internet, hoping they could at least surf the web. Unfortunately, the connection is password-protected, as most things are. They both sit there, inputting random letter and number combinations, mostly out of boredom, when a new connection pops up on the list, labeled ‘TryThisOne’ as its domain name. They both stare at it worriedly, scared that they alerted someone to their presence. Wyatt reluctantly connects to it, at which point his inbox immediately receives a notification from someone named ‘Wes’. He shakily opens it up, praying it isn’t the man they spoke with saying they’re about to be thrown overboard. [Here’s a private connection for you to use. You’ll give yourself away if you connect to the standard server. Expect to receive messages through here when the time comes. You can feel free to access the web at your leisure in the meantime, but don’t expect the connection to be very fast, or reliable. Hope you like watching videos in 144p.] “....huh. Well, I ain’t gonna complain.”, Cedrick says as he pulls up some videos to watch, untangling his wired earbuds as it loads up. “I just hope we don’t get caught.”, Wyatt says, struggling to so much as pull up a new window. “Well, so long as we use this one it shouldn’t be an issue. If it was, then I doubt this ‘Wes’ fellow would have made this little private connection for us..” Wyatt shrugs as he watches the buffering symbol loop in place. “Seems like it doesn’t work so well when we’re both using it at the same time.”, Wyatt says, pulling up the news. He is immediately bombarded with headlines describing the Ranseian Armada mobilizing towards Alola, preparing for an all-out assault on Aether Foundation’s headquarters. These headlines are juxtaposed with a few others talking about Aether Foundation’s new DIVINITY Network technology and how it will supposedly solve any current or future energy needs, making it a staunch competitor with Macro Cosmos’s Nuclear Energy program. One of the articles links to a video of Lusamine, the CEO of Aether Foundation, doing a big flashy presentation on a large stage, with a massive crowd watching with rapt attention. A massive slab of metal and green crystal can be seen behind her, with hexagonal cells made out of this green crystal fitted into its surface in various places. Wyatt is even more confused by this, not really understanding the device’s significance, as the article does little to explain how it actually works. It seems odd to him that she would be rolling out new technology like this when Ransei’s army is at her doorstep, but judging from the dates on both articles it looks like the presentation took place mere days before the invasion swung into full force, so maybe she wasn’t aware yet. He begins searching the web for more information on both the war and Aether Foundation’s new technology. As usual, the internet does not disappoint. He finds a massive laundry list of various products, from household appliances to personal quality-of-life gadgets for trainers to even military-grade tech designed to replace the use of pokemon in warfare. The sheer reach of their technological prowess across the industry as a whole is staggering, taking up approximately 34% of the industry, with Silph Co taking up 31% and Macro Cosmos taking up 23%, respectively. Over these next two days, he does a little digging, seeing why these three companies own such a massive majority of the market. Under normal circumstances, these things wouldn’t hold his interest, but since he’s in a metal box with nothing else to do, this particular rabbit hole seems particularly interesting to him. (This ‘Wes’ individual mentioned each of these companies, along with another…… what was its name? Poketch?), he thinks as he looks up their name. Turns out they’re a much smaller family-owned company that was once a lot bigger, but ended up selling massive portions of itself to Silph Co seemingly out of nowhere, a business decision that made very little sense for them. It seems they even sold off a majority of their intellectual properties and the rights to manufacture them, among other things, which Silph Co profited off of massively, bolstering it into the second largest company on the planet, next to Aether Foundation. This leads him down a separate rabbit hole regarding Silph Co’s shady dealings and other suspicious rumors surrounding them, the most drastic of which accuses Giovanni, the CEO of Silph Co, of also being the leader of Team Rocket, who follows his commands from the shadows. These theory blogs use Poketch’s concerning act of essentially selling itself to Silph Co as evidence of this. Why else would they take such an obviously detrimental course of action? Wyatt decides to dig into the history of the other two major corps, Aether Foundation and Macro Cosmos, and finds just as many skeletons in their closet, from Aether Foundation supposedly utilizing forbidden magicks to produce their ‘Rotom’ intelligent operating systems to gritty images of a strange-looking green pokemon of unknown origin flying about in the center of Macro Cosmos’s new Gamma Reactor. It’s a lot for Wyatt to take in, so he eventually turns the device off to let it charge, making use of the integrated wind-up charging crank as a lack of electrical outlets or direct sunlight render its other charging methods unusable. He sits there in complete silence, ruminating on what he learned. (I had heard that the eastern regions were a lot more advanced, but this is absolutely mind-blowing. Why doesn’t Orre benefit from more of these advancements?), Wyatt wonders to himself. “Hey. How you holding up?”, Cedrick asks as he turns the built-in flashlight in his pokegear back on. Wyatt snaps out of his ongoing train of thought, blinking a few times as the light illuminates the empty cargo crate. “I’m alright. A little uncomfortable, but alright.” Cedrick chuckles a bit. “Yeah, I feel ya. I know this isn’t playing out quite like I said it would, but…..” He glalnces over to Taral, who is currently sitting next to his Smeargle, watching her paint. In the relative darkness of the room it’s hard to see what she’s painting, but even in complete darkness she continues her work. “......I think it’ll all work out just fine. So long as we cooperate with what’s-his-face.” —---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On day 5, the sounds of distorted thunder can be heard reverberating through the metal casing of the cargo crate, signifying that the moment Wes has been waiting for is coming up soon. Wyatt makes a pointed effort to keep his Pokegear on and well-charged, so he can spring into action at a moment’s notice. He keeps the map of the boat up, doing his best to memorize its layout. He gets a message from Wes, stating; [Get ready to go here in about 10 minutes. You’ll know it’s time when you hear a massive ‘pulse’ noise. Your Pokegears will be rendered nonfunctional immediately following this noise, so be ready for that. You’ll probably have to buy new ones after this, but that’s your problem, not mine-] A massive blast of energy shakes the very foundation of the boat, causing flakes of rust to rain down from the ceiling of the crate. Wyatt and Cedrick’s Pokegears glitch out for a moment, their displays showing a dazzling display of digitized static before shutting off entirely. “That’s our cue! We need to go!”, Wyatt says, throwing the door open. “Whaaa-?”, Cedrick groggily says as he pulls himself up from a nap. Taral, on the other hand, is ready at a moment’s notice, pulling Cedrick to his feet. “Just follow us, Cedrick!”, he says as he rushes out of the crate with Wyatt, Stella hastily grabbing her finished artworks in her arms as she struggles to keep up. None of them are prepared for the sight that greets them when they emerge on the top deck. Their surroundings are filled with thick purple fog that stretches on in every direction, with flashes of multi-colored streaking across it in random places, creating twisted reflections on the all-too-still water that stretches on seemingly forever. The strange fog makes it impossible to see very far out, however. Cedrick stops and looks around, taking in the otherworldly sight before him. “C’mon, Cedrick! We need to hurry!”, Wyatt says, practically dragging him to their destination. Stella quickly trails behind the three, doing her best to take in the sight for future reference. As they near a door to the lower decks on the other side of the boat near the bridge, Taral notices something. Well, two things, to be specific. He notices that the fog seems to be repelled by the boat. There is a very obvious barrier around the ship that the fog will not pass, but that barrier seems to be shrinking as it closes in on the boat from all sides. It’s encroaching slowly, but it’s gradually speeding up. Also, he notices some sort of satellite device on the top of the bridge that seems to be malfunctioning from the strange pulse of energy that disabled their pokegears. The device resting on top of the bridge looks like it folded out of the top of the bridge itself, like it was being concealed. It’s stuck mid-fold, as parts of the satellite dish struggle to fold back in properly, like an automatic door that keeps trying to shut despite something being stuck in the doorway. Taral makes note of this but does not mention it, instead keeping a lookout for any hostile pokemon. The strange storm closing in from all sides does worry him a bit, but since the water itself isn’t turbulent in any way, the ship should be fine. Right? The four of them make their way across the upper deck, to a door beneath the bridge that leads down to the lower decks of the ship. It is a heavy metal door, clearly designed to be as sturdy as possible. It makes a loud, metallic screech as it is pulled open. In response to this, a few creatures shoot up from the water, onto the side railing behind them. Two small purple creatures with large heads stand on the railing itself, looking around. Stella interposes herself between them and the humans, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. “Come on, Stella. We have more important things to worry about.”, Taral says as he grabs her by the paw and leads her down the stairs with him. She does not take her eyes off the creatures until after the door is shut. Cedrick takes one last peek at them before shutting it completely. “Don’t look like any pokemon I’ve seen before, but at least they didn’t maul us on sight.”, he says as he makes his way down the stairs behind Taral and Wyatt. The stairs lead down into the boiler and engine area of the ship, where the maintenance crew would go to make sure everything’s in working order. The metal grate floor clangs with every step, and pipes can be seen running along the walls and ceiling, occasionally letting out small jets of steam. The hallway in front of them leads forward to another heavy door on the other end and branches off into another path to the left about halfway between where they are and the door on the other end. “Okay, so we need to go down the second set of stairs that the pathway to the left leads to, then take another right, and then left……” Wyatt leads them down the correct path, occasionally second guessing himself but ultimately trusting his memory to keep them on track. He did spend multiple days memorizing the layout and the pathway they’d have to take to get to the personal storage room where the briefcase should be. The instruction text Wes sent also listed secondary rooms to check if the primary one didn’t have the briefcase, the locations of which he also committed to memory as best he could. Wes gave them plenty of time to reread the instructions, and unlike Cedrick, Wyatt actually put that time to use. “.....this should be the room.”, Wyatt says as the group approaches a heavy-duty 3-inch thick metal door with a wheel crank mechanism on the front, like the doors found in submarines. A bent piece of metal piping has been wedged around the door frame, preventing the door from being shut. Wyatt manages to push the door open just enough to slip in, making a loud grinding noise as he does so. He winces at the shrill screech of the door hinges, praying it does not alert anybody to their presence. The room itself seems to primarily be for the storage of spare parts, in case something breaks down in the middle of a journey. He looks around, only seeing various tools, gears, bundles of wiring, and rusty lengths of pipe. Initially, Wyatt is worried the briefcase has been stowed away in another room deeper in the ship, but is relieved when he sees the black metal briefcase resting next to the far wall, in the left corner. A spool of copper wire kept it mostly hidden from view. He picks it up, and is surprised at its heft. It feels like it’s a slab of solid metal with a handle. He struggles to lift it up onto an empty space on the metal shelf next to him, causing the whole thing to shake. Luckily, nothing falls off, aside from some accumulated rust that disperses through the surrounding air. Now that the briefcase is bathed in the light filtering in through the partially-open door, he can get a good look at it. The surface is a matte black with shiny silver latches on the front, four to be exact. The part where the two halves of the case seal with each other has a thin ‘lip’ of chromed, reflective metal, with a rubber seal where the two halves actually meet. He takes a moment to fiddle with the latches before carefully opening it up. Within he finds five standard-looking red pokeballs. They are almost identical to the ‘classic’ pokeballs you’d buy at a Mart, except the buttons on the front are black and faintly pulse with a dark violet energy. He grabs all five of them and shoves them in his pockets before quickly closing the briefcase and placing it back where he found it. He then looks around the room once again. (Wait, didn’t Wes say there should be another briefcase, with another set of pokeballs for us to retrieve-) “Wyatt! Hurry up! Someone’s coming!”, Cedrick harshly whispers as he pokes his head through the doorway. (Damn! Maybe the other one is in a different room.), Wyatt thinks as he panics a bit before hurriedly leaving the room. He hears the sound of voices and boots clanging on the metal floor approaching from down the other end of the hall from where they initially entered. He panics a bit, not knowing where to hide as the grunts get closer and closer. He sees Cedrick and Taral round the corner down another adjacent hallway that this perpendicular hall connects to. He follows them, praying that a suitable hiding spot presents itself. It leads to a staircase that goes down to the deck below the one they’re on, but the door is sealed shut. Either through neglect or due to some locking mechanism, the turn crank will not budge in the slightest. They all freeze up as they hear the sound of footsteps getting closer, but luckily they take a detour into the room Wyatt found the briefcase in. The grunts’ voices echo throughout the deck. “.....okay, seriously! Who put the experiments *here*?!”, one of them asks, clearly frustrated. “At least they’re safe. We can worry about the Shadow Pokemon later; for now let’s just find that circuit board. Without it, the ship’s engine won’t start back up and we’ll be stranded here with those….. Poiple, I think Wes called them?” “Yeah. Don’t let them sting you. Their venom is deadly; and as of right now, we don’t have any Antidotes on hand.” “What?! We had, like, 8 of them when we set off!” “I dunno. I think someone forgot to actually bring them with us…..” “Probably Jason. He’s kind of an idiot.” “Yeah, sounds about right…..” The sound of their footsteps can be heard as they leave the way they came in. “...........................is it safe to go now, you think?”, Cedrick asks after a long stretch of silence broken only by their own breathing and the occasional creak of the ship. “Yeah. We still have another briefcase full of sick pokemon to find.”, Wyatt says, making his way up the staircase. He looks around, making sure the coast is clear. “Wait, there was only one briefcase in there? Shouldn’t there have been two?”, Taral asks, concerned with how the situation is playing out. “Yes, there should be one more. The message showed alternative places to check if they didn’t turn up in that first room.”, Wyatt says. “Hopefully the other one is somewhere else on this floor.”, Taral says as he tries to open a nearby door. He has trouble turning the rusty turn crank, but it does eventually give way, letting the door pivot open on its rusty hinges. An ear-piercing creak comes from them. “We need to make this quick.”, Taral says as he makes his way in, doing his best to be as thorough as possible without wasting precious time. “Well, the first one was in the far corner of the room, hidden behind some stuff, so don’t be surprised if-” “-found it!” Taral grunts as he picks the heavy briefcase up and sets it on a nearby metal crate, unhooking the chromed latches. He quickly swipes the pokeballs out of them before placing the closed briefcase back where he found it. “Let’s get out of here!”, Taral says as he slips out of the room, leaving the door cracked open just a bit. Shutting it would be too noisy, and slow. They were running out of time. As the four of them make their way up the metal staircase, a massive, powerful roar resonates through the entire ship, like an aftershock following a massive earthquake. They grip the safety railing next to them, doing their best to maintain their footing as Cedrick struggles to open the door. “I don’t know if our little hiding spot in that crate is going to be any safer than down here.”, Wyatt says, as he glances down the staircase, making sure no one is about to run into them. “And risk getting caught and thrown overboard? No thank you. That Wes guy said we should be fine as long as we don’t bother them, so we should be safe if we just keep our distance.”, Cedrick says confidently as he swings the metal door open. The sounds of battle can be heard from outside as the door opens, crashing over them like a deluge now that there’s no barrier between them and the upper deck. The sounds of people shouting various commands ring through the air, followed by the crackling of electricity and the flowing of water, among other things. It all sort of melds together into a chaotic cacophony that drowns out anything else. Stella grips Taral’s sleeve, refusing to let go. Taral pats her on the head with a shaky hand, not any more confident of their safety than she is. “On the count of three, we make a break for the shipping crates, squeezing past them and the ship’s railing. If we have to hide away in a different shipping crate, then so be it. So long as we’re out of sight.”, Cedrick says, looking at the other three behind him with a determined expression. “3” The sound of the roaring and fighting gets louder and more intense as the battle continues.

“2” The boat rattles and groans horribly like something massive struck it. “....1” The four of them bolt off down the side of the ship, directly towards the shipping crates. They are met with a grisly sight, as a huge, hollow creature with black skin and a yellow mouth can be seen on the top deck. Its massive maw extends all the way through it, like a tunnel. The inside surface is a neon blue, and it has two long mandible-like arms on its front for grasping at prey. It flails them wildly at the various crew members, each of which has deployed a pokemon to fight it. Wyatt and Taral are unable to take their eyes off of the creature, watching it bat away at one of the grunts as they tumble overboard. Cedrick, on the other hand, is determined to get to safety, laser focused on the small foot-wide gap between the row of shipping crates and the railing on the ship’s edge. “C’’mon, guys! We need to get to safety!”, he says, trying to keep them on task. They all shimmy their way between the guard rail and the crates one-by-one, trying to get to one that’s unlocked. All the while, the sounds of battle can be heard, as the remaining grunts bark orders to their exhausted pokemon. “WHY ISN’T THAT ACOUSTIC DETERRENT WORKING?! WE DON’T HAVE THE FIREPOWER TO FIGHT THIS THING!!!”, one of them yells into a radio. “Unfortunately, this particular Aether Storm is rather unstable at the moment, and rendered it inoperable along with the engine’s computer. If we can get that fixed and finish the last leg of our journey, it should leave, in due time.”, a calm voice responds from the other end. “‘IN DUE TIME’?! WE NEED IT GONE NOW! Who knows how long it’ll take to fix the engine! We need you down here, Wes! This Guzzlord’s wiping the floor with us!” There is a short delay before he replies. “....fine. Just hang in there for a few more moments.” —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cedrick, Taral, Wyatt and Stella manage to slip into one of the far shipping crates without being detected, deliberately choosing one that’s as far away from the ensuing chaos as possible. “We can hole up in here until the dust settles, then go back for our stuff. It should all be tucked away out of sight, in case someone goes in there.”, Cedrick says as he shuts the door, placing a heavy wooden crate in front of the door, just to be safe. “Until then, I guess we’ll just have to wait.”, Wyatt says as he sits with his back against the wall of the crate, breathing a sigh of relief. Taral, on the other hand, is already pulling out the five pokeballs he snagged from the briefcase, picking one at random. He presses the button on the front, eager to see what pokemon it contains. “Taral, maybe we should wait before-!”, Wyatt tries to voice his concerns, but it is too late. A Shroomish emerges in a burst of dark-purple light. Its body has an overall darker coloration, and its eyes glow red faintly. It scans the room with an empty gaze, sizing up the four figures in the room with it. Its eyes rest on Stella, who immediately adopts a defensive posture, ready to fight if necessary. “Wes said that the door to their heart is locked shut, and that they need to be reminded what it’s like to feel trust and kindness-” Taral immediately flinches back as the Shroomish fires off a volley of high-velocity seeds that make a loud plink sound as they hit the metal wall of the crate behind him. Each one is mere millimeters away from hitting him instead. “On second thought, maybe we should wait until we’re off the boat before letting them out.”, Taral says sheepishly as he quickly calls the Shroomish back into its ball with shaky hands. “We’ll have plenty of time for that once we’re off of this junker, dude. Just be patient.”, Cedrick says, already flipping open his Pokegear to see if it can be fixed. The word ‘Rebooting’ fills most of the screen with a small progress bar at the bottom that is 37% full. “Of course. Guess it’s time for a nap, then.”, Cedrick says as he flops down on the hard, cold metal, closing his eyes. “Let me know if something tries to kill us.”, he says, half-jokingly. Wyatt scoffs, unable to get the sounds of the battle outside out of his mind. “I’m sure you’ll know if the time comes.” “But for now, let’s hope that it doesn’t.”, Taral replies, laying down as well. Stella begins rifling through the boxes, looking for anything that could be suitable as art canvas.

#Pokemon #Fanfic #Fanfiction #Pokemon Fanfic #Pokemon Fanfiction #Smeargle #Guzzlord #Shroomish #Delta Chronicles

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