Well, Chapter 7 is here. This is
where things REALLY start to get interesting. This is, I would think, the point
of no return.
After this, there was no turning
back for me. After this, I HAD to finish this fic,
even if it was just for myself.
+++++
Things were moving far too quickly. The
changes in the timeline that had initially been happening sporadically were now
coming faster and faster. Some of his number were
scrambling to correct the changes. He would soon have to report to the Council,
and get their support for more drastic measures, he was sure. He was no longer
sure that it was simply one person or faction that was making the changes.
There were at least two. He suspected that he knew who it was, besides the Dark
One.
The Dark One’s power was growing considerably as well. If a direct intervention
to interrupt the most major change in the timeline wasn’t attempted soon, then
all of his work in the Physical Realm would be for naught. He had spent
hundreds of years trying to stop the Dark One, and he would not allow for it to
be foiled when humans in the future mastered the art of time travel.
True, he had just under two weeks to fix everything if
things kept accelerating at their present rate, but he wasn’t sure if that
would be enough for him to return things to normal. He had been the first to
experiment with inter-dimensional travel into the Physical Realm. The rest of
The Council had spent far too much time as non-corporeal entities.
The figure smiled, wondering what it would be like to be corporeal again. He
had almost forgotten what food tasted like. Maybe, if worst came to worst and
he had to go to the Physical Realms himself, he’d try some of their new
culinary concoctions, such as “pizza” or perhaps what they called a
“cheeseburger.”
+++++
“I hate this,” Lorelei muttered, shifting in her seat, making her newly dyed
cerulean hair swirl around slightly, causing her unchanged hair to swish into Bugsy’s face. What had she been thinking, dying it like she
had? Her old hair was perfectly fine. Had been perfectly
fine.
Bugy sputtered as he pushed her hair out of his face,
“What is it now?” he groaned, “I’m almost afraid to ask. Look, the Nurse Joy in
Cherrygrove said that your Sneasel
will be waiting for you at the Verin Retreat. The
Pilot said that there was a zero percent probability of the plane spontaneously
combusting, you saw for yourself that the flight attendant’s tray carts aren’t
going to be sliding around all over the place, you’ve been told a dozen times
that flying is safer than taking a Pokémon journey, you checked with the Global
Police to make sure that Team Aero hasn’t been spotted sniffing around our
route, and you’ve chewed out I don’t know how many food venders, which led to
our food orders being canceled! Is there something that you need, your
highness? Or is something else bothering you, perhaps?” he sighed and leaned
against the back of his seat, “Maybe there are too many people on the plane, or
will we be flying too high.” He grumbled quietly, “Or, horrors, maybe you’ve suddenly
come down with a dislike of the ice and snow of cold old Nuschantz?!.”
Lorelei made a face at him. “Yes,” She said darkly, “Yes, yes, and I have
ALWAYS hated cold weather. That’s why I liked living in Alto, and, to a lesser
extent, Kanto. It’s ALWAYS warm there. Unless you’re way up
high.” She shook her head and glanced around, and began speaking louder,
so that one of the flight attendants, who was passing out beverages, could
hear, “On top of that, the seats are too small, the food is disgusting, the
wait to get onboard was way too long, I don’t have enough room to put my
baggage, and, oh, I’m not going anywhere near the bathrooms on this thing!
Plus, I think that somebody forgot to replace the bloody muffler in this bloody
plane’s bloody engines!”
“I see you picked up a few choice words from your old friend, Sabrina,” Bugsy muttered.
“How do you know her?” Lorelei demanded.
Bugsy shrugged. “I know her mother. Dad used to have
'em over all the time for tea or some such thing
before they sent her off to Alto for school.”
He sighed and looked around the cabin of the plane, knowing that everyone was
getting annoyed with Lorelei. She had been complaining non-stop ever since
they’d left
And if she complained this much in first class What
would she have done if they had gone in the business class. He shook his head.
As it was, the seats in the small cabin were rather spacious for airline seats.
Obviously Lorelei hadn’t flown very many times. He grinned and looked out the
window. The engines weren’t really that loud. Well, by airline standards. And
it was true that the food was disgusting, but pretty good by airline standards.
But, unfortunately, he didn’t have much of a choice but to listen Lorelei rail
on and on about various things that he generally couldn't care less about.
He glanced over at Lorelei, and realized that she had stopped talking while his
mind had been wandering. Dimly, he knew that she had asked him a question, and
was staring at him expectantly. “Um,” Bugsy replied
hesitantly, “Yes?”
Lorelei’s eyes narrowed, “You think,” she hissed slowly, “That the free
enterprise system is perfect in that those that are rich can stay rich
indefinitely, thus promoting the illusion that dictators are the norm? You
think that the CEOs of Silph Company or Specter Corp
would make good world rulers?!”
Bugsy blinked. Had she really been talking about
that? He’d really been zoned out, then. “Um, can I change my answer?” he asked,
suddenly sorry that he’d let her have the aisle seat.
He raised his arm to protect himself from the flurry of fists that his
traveling partner intended to use to move his skull a good distance, and felt
his eardrums begin to ring as she started shouting at him. She probably knew, he mused to himself as his arm was pummeled, and he tried
to turn his back to her, that he hadn’t been listening to her. And that
probably explained why she was hitting him so hard, while yelling at him for
accidentally saying the wrong thing when he hadn’t been listening.
Suddenly, the rain of blows stopped, and he turned to see Lorelei attacking a
flight attendant who probably had tried to stop her from hitting him. He shook
his head and grabbed her arms, thus diverting her attention back to him. And
this time he didn’t have his arms up to protect himself. He saw the flight
attendant making a hurried withdrawal from her section of the plane, and turned
his body aside as Lorelei showed no signs of stopping her assault anytime soon.
++++++
The operative glanced over at the left side of the cabin, where a pair of
teenagers he had assumed to be a couple were
apparently having an argument. And the female was hitting the male. He didn’t
really care if they were fighting or not, but if he was correct, the male was Bugsy, the
Surely the Kantans and the Johtans
would force the Retreat to accede to their request with two such valuable
hostages aboard. And if they didn’t…well, he’d be forced to make an example of
the pair.
Should he begin it now? He glanced out the window, and ran his hand over his
shaved head. No. He wasn’t over Nuschantz yet. They
were still over the ocean. It would do no good to begin until they were in Nuschantian airspace.
He settled back into his chair and began reading, glancing over at the woman
sleeping beside him once. He smiled. In just a few hours, her life would change
in ways that she could not possibly expect. As would the
lives of everyone on this plane. They had no clue what was about to
happen to them. It would change the course of their lives forever. If any of
them survived, they would always remember what happened on this particular
flight.
+++++
“Well, Gertal,” the captor said to his prisoner, who
was sitting on a cot in his cell, “It looks like we got you this time. Your men
have been messing with the Jynx teleportation sites. Hijacking and stealing supplies from our trade convoys.” The
man paced in front of the cell, “We’ve finally got you.” He smirked, “And you’re
not going anywhere.”
The man in the cell, a tall, broad-shouldered man, ran a hand through his red
hair and looked up at the man taunting him, and smiled evenly, “Lefar,” he said quietly, “I promise you that I gave no such
orders. I know that we’ve had our differences of opinion politically, but I
don’t see why you have to jail me because of a political institution.”
The man who had been called Lefar stiffened, and
glared at his prisoner with penetrating emerald eyes, “A political entity?” he
spat, “Is that what Team Blizzard is? It’s nothing but another gang of thugs,
out to make a fast buck at the expense of innocents. That, Gertal,
is what your creation has become. It’s no better than Team Magma or Team Aqua.”
Gertal shot to his feet, his bedraggled clothing
swirling around him as if they were in a tempest, and he stalked to the door of
the cell, and grabbed the bars, “Don’t you dare,” he said slowly, “compare the
Team Blizzard to Team Aqua or Team Magma. Yes, we have evolved from a mere
political party, and yes, we do have the 'Team' prefix, but, at our core, that
is who we are. We do not seek military might, or conquest of one person, party,
or type over another, as Team Aqua and Magma do. We seek equality for those who
wander the vast reaches of Nuschantz with those that
live in posh resorts catering to fat tourists!” he spat out, shaking his head.
“Watch your tongue, Gertal,” Lefar
cautioned, “Remember that you are in one of those posh resorts, and that I made
it specifically to cater to,” he paused, then said sarcastically, “Fat
tourists. We have finally captured you, and you WILL stand trial for what your
men have done. While you stand here and say that your men are not martial in
nature, I’ve heard reports of three more raids into sequential Jynx Teleportation sites. That cuts off the North parts of
our country from our Southern. The Bush Pilots have also reported that at least
two hundred of your men are marching on the retreat even as we speak! Do you
call those the actions of a political party?”
Gertal shook his head, “No,” he said quietly, “Eltan wouldn’t allow it. He knows what we are trying to do.
How we’re trying to change Nuschantz.”
“Open your eyes, Gertal!” Lefar
exploded, “Your ‘team’ is good for nothing but to fill spaces in the Mendall Retreat’s prison cells! Your men are dangerous
thugs who will use whatever force is necessary to complete their mission. THAT
is why you are under arrest, and THAT is why you will not be sent anywhere but
the Mendall Retreat. Your men that are coming to
rescue you will be defeated, I assure you.”
Gertal shook his head, “They can’t be coming for me.
That would defeat everything that I have done. Eltan
wouldn’t allow them to do such a thing. I know him. He wouldn’t allow war to
erupt between the Resorters and the Nomads.”
+++++
Eltan glanced at his watch, and smiled. It was time
to get things started. He reached under the seat in front of him and pulled out
his suitcase. The woman beside him had woken up, and was reading, now. He
glanced out the window, and smiled. They were over Nuschantian
soil. He put the suitcase on his tray table and turned it so that no one else
would be able to see what was inside.
The other passengers on the plane would think that he were
odd, certainly, but he doubted they’d do anything else. He glanced inside, and
turned off the ECM counter-jammer. The small device
had made his suitcase appear to carry clothes when passed through an X-ray
device, thus hiding its true contents.
Smiling, he reached inside and felt around, and found the two things he wanted.
He smiled as his fingers closed around the comforting cold steel of the pistol
and the small, cylindrical signaling device. Carefully, he quickly stuffed the
gun underneath his shirt, and set the signaler on the tray table. He put the
suitcase under back under the seat in front of him, and leaned back. All he
needed to do now was wait for the flight attendant.
After that, he would have control of the plane within minutes. And he’d be able
to redirect it to the Blizzard base. And then, Lefar Verin would have no choice but to release Gertal Tenlin, the founder and
leader of Team Blizzard. And if he refused, he would have Gertal
anyway. Eltan smiled, and closed his eyes, knowing
that no one had seen the gun, and that his plan was fool-proof. Blizzard’s new
allies would make sure that he wouldn’t fail. Soon, the Nomads of Nuschantz would control it. And there would be nothing the Resorters would be able to do.
+++++
Lorelei glared at the flight attendant, who glanced around, probably wondering
if there was some place she could escape to. Lorelei, for her part, was
annoyed. Very annoyed. “What do you mean,” she hissed,
“that ya don’t have it. Let me tell you one more time
what I want, and it had better be on my tray table. I
want Grape Spritz. Not Hilly Mist, not any other kind
of soda. I want Grape Spritz!”
The flight attendant sighed, and glanced around the plane’s cabin once more,
“I’m sorry,” she said, and Bugsy could tell that she
was genuinely sorry. “We don’t have Grape Spritz. Can
I interest you in—“ she began before Lorelei cut her
off.
“No.” Lorelei adamantly declared. “I said I wanted Grape Spritz.
If I tell you what kind of soft drink I want, I EXPECT to get it!” Out of the
corner of her eye, Lorelei say Bugsy lean forward
like he was about to say something. A swift push from one of her arms fixed
that. Lorelei eyed the flight attendant and her cart as if she were hiding
Grape Spritz somewhere, and then Lorelei said slowly,
“I’ll take water.”
She glanced over at Bugsy, “Do you want anything?”
she asked the purple-haired gym leader. He smiled and opened his mouth. Lorelei
swung her head around and glared at the flight attendant as she set the water
down in front of her. “He’s fine,” she said quickly, “Go ahead and move along.”
Bugsy chuckled, “You owe me money,” he said, putting
a hand between the seats. Lorelei whirled to face him, her mouth open to make a
smart remark. “I told you she’d settle for water.” Lorelei glared at him.
“Yeah,” she heard somebody say from behind her, “But I told you that she
wouldn’t let you get anything. We’re even.”
Bugsy frowned, “Nope. That bet was ten. The one that
I won was eighty. Pay up.” Lorelei glared at him even harder. He smiled
apologetically at her.
“Who’s that,” she demanded, as Bugsy’s hand came back
through the seat filled with money.
Bugsy grinned, “Nobody special. Just
one of my friends from
Lorelei shook her head and held out her hand. “Hand it over,” she said quietly,
in a reasonable tone. “You earned it off of me. That means that I should get
all of the proceeds.”
Bugsy grinned and shook his head, “Sorry, darling,
but that wasn’t part of the deal.”
Lorelei’s eyes narrowed, and as her left arm snaked out and struck him in the
throat, her right ripped the money from his hands. Bugsy
collapsed into his seat, coughing. A hand quickly appeared over the front of
her seat, holding a roll of bills that Lorelei surmised was for another bet Bugsy had made. Lorelei smiled as she plucked the bills out
of the hand, and said pleasantly, “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Bugsy was too busy trying to breathe to respond to
her.
+++++
Eltan looked over at the young couple, and chuckled
as the man was forced to give his girlfriend what probably amounted to
protection money. The flight attendant whose back he had his pistol shoved into
flinched, but continued towards the front of the plane. “You understand, don’t
you,” he said when she continued moving, and didn’t try to move away, “That
it’s nothing personal. And that I’ll shoot you if you do
anything I don’t want you to. And that includes talking. Let’s just go
up and have a nice little chat with the captain.”
The flight attendant nodded stiffly, and moved forward. To her credit, she was
holding up rather well. A quick glance across the center row of seats showed
that Letvarin was moving towards the galley, and the
elevator to the lower level. Where all the guns and heavy
equipment was. Right now, he just had his tiny Derringer, but soon, he’d
have one of the heaviest sub-machine guns that had been manufactured by man.
Another of the men, Tenlogh, had a weapon he had
designed and made himself. In theory, it would chill the air in the direction
so much that it would freeze the very molecules of ice in the air, much as an
Ice Beam would. The trick, Tenlogh had told him, was
not to hold down on the triggering switch too long, and freeze whoever you
wanted knocked out of the way. You just wanted a blast long enough to send the
target back, reeling and out of the battle. He was their sleeper in first
class. In less than a minute, one of the stewardesses would be up here, and
would assist Gentargh in holding that section of the
plane.
The Business Class section of the plane, meanwhile, would be covered by no
fewer than ten people, simply due to the fact that that was where most of the Pokemon trainers would be, considering the price of
tickets.
Eltan had achieved the cockpit. “Open the door,” he
whispered to the flight attendant, “And go through it.” The woman opened the
door and stepped through. Eltan followed her, closed
the door, and hit the back of her head with the butt of the pistol. “Don’t
move,” he said, leveling the gun at the pilot, and locking the cockpit door
with his other. “Or I will shoot you. Attempt to contact anyone outside of the
plane, and you will die.” His eyes narrowed, “Believe me, I know how to use
this. And I will not hesitate to do so, if it suits my purposes.”
++++++++
Bugsy sighed and shook his head, “No,” he said
quietly, “The training of Pokemon is not an inhumane
indoctrinating practice set out by the governments of the world to
surreptitiously raise an army for world domination. Trust me,” he said,
groaning, “I’d know.”
Lorelei’s eyes glittered as she reveled in the debate, “Ah,” she said
enthusiastically, “But what if that was part of their plan, and didn’t reveal
it to you?” she demanded. “What if you’re just another pawn in the game of
international conquest?”
Bugsy opened his mouth to reply, but then his eyes
caught sight of something beyond Lorelei. He paled, and his eyes widened.
Lorelei frowned and spun round, to see a man with some kind of heavy rifle
shouting at everyone to remain in their seats.
In one smooth motion, Lorelei unbuckled herself and leapt on top of the man.
She dropped off almost immediately and, ducking down, launched herself back up
into the man, knocking the rifle away from him. Lorelei frowned, wishing that
they weren’t in such close quarters so that she could roundhouse him. But they
weren’t, so she’d have to make do.
The man was facing her now, and was swinging. He was large, and he was
undoubtedly strong, but his punches were slow. Of course, if one ever
connected, she’d probably be down for the count. Lorelei ducked away from the
punches, barely aware of the turmoil the fight was creating, and brought her
hand back to slam the butt of her heel into the man’s nose.
Then, without any warning whatsoever, something hard, heavy, and cold slammed
into her back, driving her forward, and sending both of them sprawling. She
rolled to get away, but she was too near the man, and one of his fists
connected, sending her rolling off to her right. A roll that
was quickly stopped by one of the seats.
Then there was nothing but an ever-increasing blackness that consumed her
vision.
++++++
The men were ready for the raid of the Verin Retreat.
There had been news that some high-level targets were coming in on a flight to
the Retreat, and that they were to be held as hostages until Gertal was released. But Eltan
had never really believed that Gertal would be given
up. Lefar Verin wasn’t that
kind of person. So he had personally handpicked two hundred of the finest
Blizzard Special Operations humans, and assigned them to the task of taking
back their honorable leader.
At whatever cost was necessary.
Eltan had left the tactics up to the commander of the
force, a man named Fretin,
to decide, and had focused all of his energies on the hijacking attempt. Fretin, meanwhile, formulated and plotted and planned. He
had at his disposal over two hundred Pokemon. Among
them were two Alakazams, three Machamps,
and five Houndooms; as well as eighteen highly
trained human specialists—ten snipers, five demolitionists, and three
electronic ops men. Fretin was very proud of his
elite force.
He had everything ready. All he needed was the signal.
+++++
Eltan smiled as he picked up a radio headset that he
knew was connected to the radio. The pilots had done a professional job, from
lowering altitude to below radar range, to changing course, to not even
flinching when they had first seen his pistol. He was very impressed with them.
Too bad they weren’t on his side.
Through the headset he had been given, he could speak with Lefar
Verin, and thus negotiate the surrender of Gertal to his forces. True, he wasn’t expecting a lot, but
he had to distract the Verin Retreat enough to throw
it into chaos because of the hijacking. Then, of course, he would signal his
men on the ground the opportunity to begin the attack, and Gertal
would be free.
“Lefar?” he asked, smiling as he looked down the
barrel of the pistol at the pilot’s head, “This is Team Blizzard. We know that
you have Gertal in your custody. We are in custody of
Flight 5671 from Saffron to the Verin Retreat. I am
aiming my gun at one of the pilots right now.”
He looked at the pilot, and from the reflection, saw the man grimace, before
saying, “It’s true, sir. I’m sorry.”
A rather annoyed, yet still pompous voice came over the other end. “So am I.
You know our policy, Blizzard. We don’t deal with terrorists. And for the last
six months that is just what you nomads have been. Terrorists.
Sorry, but no deal.”
Eltan smiled, things were going according to plan. “Lefar,” he said, knowing he sounded like things weren’t
going the way that he wanted, “I’m warning you—“
“And I’m warning you.” The resorter interrupted,
“That is an international flight. Don’t start a war that you can’t win.”
Eltan smiled, “Don't lose any sleep over that, Lefar. I never start things I can't finish. I assure you, I
can handle whatever you throw at us. This is your last chance, Lefar. In today’s shipment of mail, there was a package
from Blizzard Central. I know you have it. The tracking device in the package
indicates it’s in one of your labs. In the package is a diskette. The diskette
details how to release Gertal. Go get the
instructions, and follow them now.”
The only thing that greeted Eltan was stony laughter.
“You’re insane, you Blizzard cretin. There’s no way that we’ll release Gertal. The man founded a terrorist organization. There’s
no way that we can let him out.”
The most powerful man on the plane smiled, and replied, “I’m sorry too. Because
of this, one of the passengers will die. I’ll contact you in half an hour.”
He banged on the cockpit door three times. Four more knocks reassured him that everythign was well outside. He unlocked the door, and
moved forward. He had been assured by previous knocks on the door that the rest
of the plane was secure, so he had no worries about that.
The door opened, and the hulking Letvarin entered,
waving his sub-machine gun menacingly. “We have a prisoner to kill,” Eltan said, cradling the headset in his hand, and grinning,
“Do you have any suggestions?”
Letvarin nodded, wincing as his jaw popped. “Yes
sir,” he said, and a devilish gleam appeared in his eyes. Eltan
smiled with him, and tossed the headset containing the protesting Nuschantian onto a chair as he exited the room.
+++++
I’ve been told by several people
that their favorite part of this chapter was the part where Lorelei swiped Bugsy’s money. I enjoyed writing that, and I do think that
it’s one of the best parts of the chapter, if not the fic
itself. In terms of humor, anyway.
In the next chapter, I will
introduce you to Pokemon Mass Warfare, whose rules I
have made entirely by myself.