Sith Droideka
I! AM NOT! A MORON!
- Joined
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Greetings, denizens of the Internet. I, Sith Droideka, have returned somewhat-triumphant for my reboot of "Speargun", which I grew dissatisfied with after a certain reviewer pointed out that it was more what was going on than what was actually happening. As such, I have decided to rewrite the series, and hopefully keep it within 10 chapters! So, without further to do, welcome to Conspiracy in Canalave, my newest endeavor in the fanfictionary field.
A blue-haired man stared at the island of antimatter far in the distance. He knew that at this time, every hour, the serpentine ghost-like dragon called Giratina would come and annoy him. And every hour, he was correct.
The man watched with disdain as Giratina approached the man’s own island of antimatter- first Giratina was a tiny black dot, bobbing up and down rapidly, and then it was a fearsome, massive beast rapidly advancing on the man as if it were some sort of overgrown beast of prey. Then Giratina landed on the man’s island with a heavy thud, grabbed the man, and held him upside down.
“Miss me, Dr. Akagi?” Giratina hissed.
“Put me down, beast,” the man said emotionlessly.
“Why, Cyrus?” Giratina taunted, “I have no reason to.”
“Because you do this every day, and you never let me go,” Cyrus replied. “It’s really just an annoyance at this point.” Giratina chuckled and put Cyrus down.
“You’ve been in here for a year, Akagi. Why don’t you go back now?” Giratina said to Cyrus. “You’ve had your fun, but I want you gone before the first of my new residents arrive.”
“I still have not unlocked the secrets of this world,” said Cyrus coldly, “as I vowed to do. Leave me, Giratina!”
“Cyrus, Cyrus, Cyrus,” Giratina said, as if it were a used car salesman, as he slowly circled the former Team Galactic leader, “you seem to think that I have to listen to you. This may surprise you, but I’m not brain dead like all your idiot grunts. Nor am I a traitor to your cause like Charon or Cynthia- because I was never a part of your cause to begin with. So whenever you demand me to leave, I can just ignore you, can’t I?”
“I suppose so, yes,” Cyrus replied. Then he sighed and sat down. Truth be told, Cyrus did want to go back, but only to regain supplies, of course. Over the past year of his stay in the Torn World, he had managed to lose all his Pokémon to various causes (mostly Uxie), his equipment had fallen into the chasms of the Torn World or smashed by someone (mostly Uxie), and his computer had been dunked in water by Giratina as his birthday “gift” from the ghost dragon.
“But… I came here today with a proposition to make,” Giratina continued, having paused its speech for a moment. “I think you’ll like my idea. Here goes: I give you amnesty for your actions, and a laboratory in my new city of Terminus. In return, I want your story.”
Cyrus stared at Giratina. Giratina itself looked like it always did- some sort of a perpetual scowl; Cyrus had no idea what it was thinking. “Story?”
“Yes, Cyrus. Sto-ry,” Giratina replied, as if he were teaching a new word to Cyrus. “An account of your life.”
“Why do you want it?” Cyrus demanded. The dragon did not reply, and merely gazed at Cyrus with a stony glare. “Tell me!”
“There’s no reason for you to know,” Giratina snapped, and then the creature landed next to Cyrus with another thud and extended one of its ghost-like claws. “Now, shake, Cyrus. And tell me want I know.”
Cyrus paused. A laboratory, or expulsion? Giratina shook its claw slightly, as if to alert Cyrus to its presence. Cyrus continued to pause. Then he took the claw, which had strange warmth to it, and shook Giratina’s claw.
“Congratulations, Dr. Akagi. Once your story’s done, I will bring you to your accommodations,” Giratina said coolly, before shaking its claw once or twice as if some sort of dirt were on it. “Now. Tell me why you did what you did.” Then Giratina roared- and Cyrus was now lying down on a psychiatrists’ bench, with Giratina in a massive reclining chair with a computer lying in its claws. Giratina pressed a button. “Begin.”
“Well then,” Cyrus said gruffly, “It all began fourteen years ago, back during the Rocket Crisis…”
The electronic gates, mandated by the Ministry of Defense, slowly ground shut behind the convoy. Four jeeps and a tank headed out of Sunyshore City, an overly-bright beach resort and kelp factory farm hotspot with a significant military presence, towards a city somewhere else- somewhere on the opposite side of Mt. Coronet-Tengam. A lanky teenager, with dark hair and holding a muddy Pokéball, crouched next to the tank as it left the city. The boy’s name was Cyrus, and in the Pokéball was a female Sneasel.
The two were running away from home. Cyrus was 15, had dark bluish hair, was thin and lightweight, and possessed great determination; this one-day with the Sneasel was the longest he had ever had with a Pokémon. His mother, Valentina Akagi, was allergic to many Pokémon, and only took her allergy medication for her favorite son, Cyrus’ brother Archer. As a result, whenever Cyrus had a Pokémon, she quickly had it kicked out or released into the wild. Cyrus hated his mother for many other reasons, especially her emphasis on education that Cyrus had worked so long on to please her to no avail, and had no doubt that she wouldn’t care if he fled if it weren’t for her standing in society.
Cyrus hated his father, Mercury Akagi, for never standing up to hid mother, and he hated his brother, Archer, for reveling in Cyrus’ abuse. The only one of his living family that Cyrus did not hate was his grandfather, a former member of the Elite 4 who had vanished a month ago. But right now, that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to Cyrus except to escape from Sunyshore City.
Cyrus was wearing a winter coat with a backpack full of scrounged-up foodstuffs and stolen pastries. Underneath his winter coat Cyrus was wearing a sweater with jeans and socks, along with hiking boots a size too small. As he had run away in late October, he had also been sure to pack his brother’s camping equipment.
Just outside the gates of Sunyshore grew a massive forest, one that stretched from Sunyshore to Port Pastoria to Lake Valor Dam to Ft. Vielstone to Mt. Coronet-Tengam. Cyrus knew this- his school classes had often brought their students out here before the conflict had begun- and he had carefully mapped a route from Sunyshore to Lake Valor in his head. Cyrus knew of an old waterfront house on Lake Valor, and he decided to simply stay there and live and study or other such things for the rest of his life.
Cyrus peeled away from the convoy and began to make his way through the forest. The sun was starting to set, and light had become scarce by the time Cyrus had caught site of a distant lakeshore. For twenty minutes, as darkness fell, Cyrus walked towards the lake.
At one point, Cyrus ran into a faded metal sign that he could not read; at another point, he ran into a half-burnt home overrun with vines. “Something’s wrong about this place,” Cyrus muttered sleepily, but he continued towards his lakeshore haven. He stumbled into his new lakeside home, shut the door, and set up his tent and sleeping bag. Tomorrow he would reroute some power from the dam and clean up his hut, and maybe install an electrical fence. For the moment though, he felt safe.
Cyrus had been sound asleep when the din of a helicopter just outside awoke him. Cyrus’ eyes snapped open, and he crawled out of his tent and began to rapidly disassemble it. Then he dove underneath a rotting table, covered himself with the sleeping bag, and stared out from the hut to watch whatever was going on outside.
Cyrus could tell that the helicopter was a Yanmega-X119, from the Silph Company. It was painted black with a dark grey R painted on the side. He could also just make out dents from bullets in the armor of the helicopter. No registration number was painted on the side; no identifying marks besides the R were present. With a pneumatic hiss, the doors slid open, and a tall man wearing combat boots and a pristine black uniform with a grey R stepped out of the helicopter. Around his waist were six Pokéballs, and another makeshift belt with six Pokéballs ran from his waist to his shoulder. Two similarly dressed guards flanked the man, but between the two of them only seemed to have four Pokéballs. All three men were holding guns.
“Hey! Wake up down there!” the tall Rocket yelled at the water. After a moment, three figures emerged from the lake water. “Got the detonators set?”
“Sir!” one said back, “I’m afraid that we couldn’t affix them.”
“Why not?” the tall man demanded, aiming his gun at the man in the water who had spoken earlier.
“Too many guard Pokémon, sir!” another one of the men in the water replied, “They knew we were coming!”
“Did they?” the tall man said softly, although loud enough that Cyrus could hear him, “Well now, that won’t do at all.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” the third diver reported, “we took some Pokémon losses, but about half of the guards there are dead.”
The tall man nodded. “Team Rocket rewards success, not failures. But if the failure is thanks to something inside it… bring out the prisoner!”
One of the guards nodded and headed back to the helicopter. Cyrus watched with warped anticipation as the guard dragged out a bound and gagged man wearing a torn sweater and muddy slacks. “Guess what, Brenson? Your precious government refused to pay our ransom,” said the tall man in a cruel, mocking voice.
“Commander Sputnik, do you believe Brenson contacted the dam?” the first diver asked. The tall man, Sputnik, nodded.
“Caught ‘im snooping around in Mir’s office. Had a camera on him with a list of possible targets for ransom,” Sputnik said casually, “He’s a traitor. And traitors…” Sputnik pressed his gun to the temple of Brenson. Cyrus looked away as he heard a gunshot, and morbid laughter by what sounded like three people.
“Alright, we’ll leave him here,” someone said. Cyrus could only hear them now, but he was sure that Sputnik had just spoken. “Come on, dive team. Let’s get out of here.” Cyrus waited, paralyzed with fear of the gun, as the helicopter turned on and took off.
Cyrus staggered up from the ground. It felt as if an eternity had passed, but all the same Cyrus felt… safer, calmer, and much happier than he had been the night before, when he had stared at a corpse out a crack in the wall until he had fallen asleep, unable to move for crippling fear.
But something had changed. For one thing, his Sneasel was out. For another thing, the dilapidated hut was suddenly a nice family cottage, with a child’s bed in one corner, a small computer mounted on the wall in another corner, and a bookshelf full of large cardboard books. A painting of a strange, white creature with a red ring leaping out of a bizarre mushroom-shaped cloud hung on the wall, just over the child’s bed. The bed itself was empty.
Cyrus stepped outside, and instantly everything seemed to change. Happy couples, dating teenagers, and cheerful children littered the beachfront on bright red towels, all with a mushroom cloud on the towel. In the distance, Cyrus could make out the mighty Lake Valor Dam, returned from its fallen state. All around him, the dying grass and the sickly green lake had transformed into crisp grass and a pristine, beautiful bright blue lake. Large, two-story houses with satellite dishes and side-garages and flagpoles dotted a lane leading up to the lake. Happy Pokémon dashed about the sand and the grass and the street, everything from mighty Rapidashes to enormous Gyarados to a Seviper with half its body replaced with machinery slithering down the sidewalk to-
Cyrus stopped, and turned to the Seviper, which was carefully regarding him. Then it slithered forward. “Are you trapped here too?” the mechanical snake hissed softly in human. A few people’s heads turned, but for the most part the happy, smiling people ignored the Seviper and the grimy human.
“Who are you?” demanded Cyrus. His Sneasel hissed at the Seviper as well.
“Calm down,” the snake ordered, “And be quiet! Those things may hear and attack you! That’s what happened to the last guy…”
“What are they?” Cyrus said. Sneasel hissed again.
“They are the denizens of this nightmare,” the Seviper said, “Haven’t you ever wondered why any one lives on the lake shore?”
“Not really,” said Cyrus, deadpan.
“I can’t really explain without being killed,” the Seviper explained, “but anyways, my name is Columbia. Remember it. And if you ever meet an arms manufacturing titan by the name of Dr. Sceptile, mention me to him, and he’ll help you out.”
“What makes you think-“ Cyrus demanded once more. The Seviper made a rather good impression of a grimace.
“I tell everyone, boy, in the hopes that someone can help me eventually. Regardless, welcome to St. Nathaniel, a suburb of South Valley City, Dr. Cyrus Akagi.”
“I’m not a doctor, but how do you know my name?” Cyrus hissed. Columbia twitched its tail in the direction of a house.
“That’s your home, where you live with your lovely, uh... wife, as you run nothing more than a mass delusion. This, Cyrus, is an experiment I have the misfortune to be in,” Columbia continued, “specifically, how nightmares may help prepare for nuclear war. And it’s been going on since this town existed.”
“What do you mean, nuclear war?” Cyrus growled. Sneasel growled too.
“Three.”
“Tell me, snake.”
“Two.”
“Tell me!”
“One.”
Cyrus glared at the mechanical Seviper, and Columbia glared back… and then it disappeared, and Cyrus heard a surreal explosion…
Something was holding Cyrus off of the ground. It was a giant, red creature with sunken eyes and a grim scowl, and it was holding Cyrus by the neck off of the ground. The creature, a Magmortar, growled and then pointed at something on the beach. The hut Cyrus had been hiding in was nowhere to be found.
Lake Valor had… changed. The water was gone. The sky was a blood-red hue, the surrounding trees bare. The dam, far off into the distance, was gone. A small cave, barely large enough for a man to enter, was exposed in the middle of the lake; skeletons of water Pokémon and humans littered the dry lakebed. Columbia the Seviper was gone, and so were the happy couples, the mighty Pokémon, the pristine grass and homes. The frame of one home, the one Columbia had pointed out, had a twisted lump of fused bone and steel stuck onto a reinforcement beam, with another figure, slightly smaller, on the floor. The Magmortar noticed what Cyrus was looking at, and with a massive Fire Blast the structure was vaporized by the malicious fire giant.
The Magmortar pointed again at the beach, and this time Cyrus saw what it saw- a skeleton, missing a head, resting on the sand. It was the only skeleton not fused with the sand. Then, there was a savage scream, like a high-pitched roar from a might beast, and the skeleton stood up. Sand and bone fragments swirled together to create a half-glass, half-bone skull that the skeleton grasped and placed on its head. Then it summoned a cutlass made of glass of some sort and began to advance on Cyrus.
It had barely walked one step before Magmortar, with a bored look on its face, vaporized the skeleton with one Hyper Beam.
“Magmortar put him down.” The Magmortar let go, no doubt in response to the mysterious voice, and Cyrus fell with a thud on the sand. Sand that felt like it was burning.
Out of the skeletal woods stepped a man with short, white hair, a pristine business suit, and a deep red tie. Something about the man was unsettling to Cyrus, especially his eyes that appeared to be too light a shade of blue to be human. The man smiled slightly at Cyrus, walked to the runaway, and held out his hand.
“Shake, Mr. Akagi,” the man ordered. Cyrus shook. “I see you’ve had the misfortune to be caught up in this experiment,” the man said coolly, looking around at the destroyed landscape. “Do you want out? This happens once every eight hours, you know.”
Cyrus nodded. With a bolt of panic, he realized that his Sneasel had disappeared, and even its Pokéball was gone- then the man barely smiled, in an arrogant sort of way, and held up a Pokéball. “And you want this back too, am I right?” the man asked. Cyrus nodded again.
“Well then,” the main said, turning his back to Cyrus, “you can have it back when you bring me what I want, in return for me freeing you from this experiment.”
“But isn’t freeing me enough?” Cyrus demanded, ignoring the worrying in his chest that he tried to ignore.
“Think of it as insurance that you’ll do the job. Now, listen carefully. In the north there is a small town with a dragon-type gym. A three-generation family lives there, and they are keepers of a key to something I want in Canalave City. You have one month, Cyrus. Bring me the key, or whoever has it, within that month, and you will get back your Sneasel. I’ll even have it trained, just the way you wanted it to be trained, I’m sure. I’ll even throw in a Pokémon replacement so that you can get to that town, and a firearm to defend against Team Rocket and insurgents. Do we have a deal?”
Cyrus glared at the man. The man smirked. “I see that we do,” he said, and then added, “When we meet, you will know me as the Minister of Defense. My name is not important. Santor, we’re pulling out. When you wake in the morning, Cyrus, follow your new Absol into the mountains, where a man of mine will be waiting to bring you there.”
Cyrus picked up a rock on the shore and hurled it at the Minister, who turned around and swatted the stone out of the air. “I’m not weak Cyrus, and you can’t betray me too well, either. And if you end up dead, well…” the Minister turned his back on Cyrus again, and then said, “I’ll have a free Sneasel, won’t I? Do you accept, then, Cyrus?"
Cyrus paused, and then said meekly, "yes."
"Good," sneered the Minister, "although it would serve you better to discard your foolish emotions for a creature you've barely bonded with. Bring us back, Santor.”
The Magmortar nodded, and with one hand it grabbed Cyrus and in the other hand the Minister, and then a fiery-red-pink light began to envelop all three beings.
Cyrus woke up, this time (hopefully) for real, with a large, well-groomed Absol watching him. The beast nudged him slightly, and then with a sudden movement scooped Cyrus up, hung his bag on its scythe-like horn, and ran through the hut door and off towards Mt. Coronet-Tengam.
“Interezting,” Giratina observed in an abysmal attempt at an Austrian accent. “It appearz az if your firzt interaktions with ze forzes of-“
“I don’t care,” Cyrus said emotionlessly. “And I’m not done.”
“Well, I’ve dezedided to wait and zee where you’re going with zis,” Giratina continued, “but I need to check up on ze Imperial Congrezz. Ich vill be back to record ze rest of your fascinating story.” And then Giratina flew off into the distance.
Cyrus simply stayed on his couch, imagining how soon he would be able to bend the legends to his will…
Questions, comments, concerns, reviews, etc. can be posted directly to the thread or simply sent to me. Until next time, ciao!
Chapter 1: Deals
A blue-haired man stared at the island of antimatter far in the distance. He knew that at this time, every hour, the serpentine ghost-like dragon called Giratina would come and annoy him. And every hour, he was correct.
The man watched with disdain as Giratina approached the man’s own island of antimatter- first Giratina was a tiny black dot, bobbing up and down rapidly, and then it was a fearsome, massive beast rapidly advancing on the man as if it were some sort of overgrown beast of prey. Then Giratina landed on the man’s island with a heavy thud, grabbed the man, and held him upside down.
“Miss me, Dr. Akagi?” Giratina hissed.
“Put me down, beast,” the man said emotionlessly.
“Why, Cyrus?” Giratina taunted, “I have no reason to.”
“Because you do this every day, and you never let me go,” Cyrus replied. “It’s really just an annoyance at this point.” Giratina chuckled and put Cyrus down.
“You’ve been in here for a year, Akagi. Why don’t you go back now?” Giratina said to Cyrus. “You’ve had your fun, but I want you gone before the first of my new residents arrive.”
“I still have not unlocked the secrets of this world,” said Cyrus coldly, “as I vowed to do. Leave me, Giratina!”
“Cyrus, Cyrus, Cyrus,” Giratina said, as if it were a used car salesman, as he slowly circled the former Team Galactic leader, “you seem to think that I have to listen to you. This may surprise you, but I’m not brain dead like all your idiot grunts. Nor am I a traitor to your cause like Charon or Cynthia- because I was never a part of your cause to begin with. So whenever you demand me to leave, I can just ignore you, can’t I?”
“I suppose so, yes,” Cyrus replied. Then he sighed and sat down. Truth be told, Cyrus did want to go back, but only to regain supplies, of course. Over the past year of his stay in the Torn World, he had managed to lose all his Pokémon to various causes (mostly Uxie), his equipment had fallen into the chasms of the Torn World or smashed by someone (mostly Uxie), and his computer had been dunked in water by Giratina as his birthday “gift” from the ghost dragon.
“But… I came here today with a proposition to make,” Giratina continued, having paused its speech for a moment. “I think you’ll like my idea. Here goes: I give you amnesty for your actions, and a laboratory in my new city of Terminus. In return, I want your story.”
Cyrus stared at Giratina. Giratina itself looked like it always did- some sort of a perpetual scowl; Cyrus had no idea what it was thinking. “Story?”
“Yes, Cyrus. Sto-ry,” Giratina replied, as if he were teaching a new word to Cyrus. “An account of your life.”
“Why do you want it?” Cyrus demanded. The dragon did not reply, and merely gazed at Cyrus with a stony glare. “Tell me!”
“There’s no reason for you to know,” Giratina snapped, and then the creature landed next to Cyrus with another thud and extended one of its ghost-like claws. “Now, shake, Cyrus. And tell me want I know.”
Cyrus paused. A laboratory, or expulsion? Giratina shook its claw slightly, as if to alert Cyrus to its presence. Cyrus continued to pause. Then he took the claw, which had strange warmth to it, and shook Giratina’s claw.
“Congratulations, Dr. Akagi. Once your story’s done, I will bring you to your accommodations,” Giratina said coolly, before shaking its claw once or twice as if some sort of dirt were on it. “Now. Tell me why you did what you did.” Then Giratina roared- and Cyrus was now lying down on a psychiatrists’ bench, with Giratina in a massive reclining chair with a computer lying in its claws. Giratina pressed a button. “Begin.”
“Well then,” Cyrus said gruffly, “It all began fourteen years ago, back during the Rocket Crisis…”
The electronic gates, mandated by the Ministry of Defense, slowly ground shut behind the convoy. Four jeeps and a tank headed out of Sunyshore City, an overly-bright beach resort and kelp factory farm hotspot with a significant military presence, towards a city somewhere else- somewhere on the opposite side of Mt. Coronet-Tengam. A lanky teenager, with dark hair and holding a muddy Pokéball, crouched next to the tank as it left the city. The boy’s name was Cyrus, and in the Pokéball was a female Sneasel.
The two were running away from home. Cyrus was 15, had dark bluish hair, was thin and lightweight, and possessed great determination; this one-day with the Sneasel was the longest he had ever had with a Pokémon. His mother, Valentina Akagi, was allergic to many Pokémon, and only took her allergy medication for her favorite son, Cyrus’ brother Archer. As a result, whenever Cyrus had a Pokémon, she quickly had it kicked out or released into the wild. Cyrus hated his mother for many other reasons, especially her emphasis on education that Cyrus had worked so long on to please her to no avail, and had no doubt that she wouldn’t care if he fled if it weren’t for her standing in society.
Cyrus hated his father, Mercury Akagi, for never standing up to hid mother, and he hated his brother, Archer, for reveling in Cyrus’ abuse. The only one of his living family that Cyrus did not hate was his grandfather, a former member of the Elite 4 who had vanished a month ago. But right now, that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to Cyrus except to escape from Sunyshore City.
Cyrus was wearing a winter coat with a backpack full of scrounged-up foodstuffs and stolen pastries. Underneath his winter coat Cyrus was wearing a sweater with jeans and socks, along with hiking boots a size too small. As he had run away in late October, he had also been sure to pack his brother’s camping equipment.
Just outside the gates of Sunyshore grew a massive forest, one that stretched from Sunyshore to Port Pastoria to Lake Valor Dam to Ft. Vielstone to Mt. Coronet-Tengam. Cyrus knew this- his school classes had often brought their students out here before the conflict had begun- and he had carefully mapped a route from Sunyshore to Lake Valor in his head. Cyrus knew of an old waterfront house on Lake Valor, and he decided to simply stay there and live and study or other such things for the rest of his life.
Cyrus peeled away from the convoy and began to make his way through the forest. The sun was starting to set, and light had become scarce by the time Cyrus had caught site of a distant lakeshore. For twenty minutes, as darkness fell, Cyrus walked towards the lake.
At one point, Cyrus ran into a faded metal sign that he could not read; at another point, he ran into a half-burnt home overrun with vines. “Something’s wrong about this place,” Cyrus muttered sleepily, but he continued towards his lakeshore haven. He stumbled into his new lakeside home, shut the door, and set up his tent and sleeping bag. Tomorrow he would reroute some power from the dam and clean up his hut, and maybe install an electrical fence. For the moment though, he felt safe.
Cyrus had been sound asleep when the din of a helicopter just outside awoke him. Cyrus’ eyes snapped open, and he crawled out of his tent and began to rapidly disassemble it. Then he dove underneath a rotting table, covered himself with the sleeping bag, and stared out from the hut to watch whatever was going on outside.
Cyrus could tell that the helicopter was a Yanmega-X119, from the Silph Company. It was painted black with a dark grey R painted on the side. He could also just make out dents from bullets in the armor of the helicopter. No registration number was painted on the side; no identifying marks besides the R were present. With a pneumatic hiss, the doors slid open, and a tall man wearing combat boots and a pristine black uniform with a grey R stepped out of the helicopter. Around his waist were six Pokéballs, and another makeshift belt with six Pokéballs ran from his waist to his shoulder. Two similarly dressed guards flanked the man, but between the two of them only seemed to have four Pokéballs. All three men were holding guns.
“Hey! Wake up down there!” the tall Rocket yelled at the water. After a moment, three figures emerged from the lake water. “Got the detonators set?”
“Sir!” one said back, “I’m afraid that we couldn’t affix them.”
“Why not?” the tall man demanded, aiming his gun at the man in the water who had spoken earlier.
“Too many guard Pokémon, sir!” another one of the men in the water replied, “They knew we were coming!”
“Did they?” the tall man said softly, although loud enough that Cyrus could hear him, “Well now, that won’t do at all.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” the third diver reported, “we took some Pokémon losses, but about half of the guards there are dead.”
The tall man nodded. “Team Rocket rewards success, not failures. But if the failure is thanks to something inside it… bring out the prisoner!”
One of the guards nodded and headed back to the helicopter. Cyrus watched with warped anticipation as the guard dragged out a bound and gagged man wearing a torn sweater and muddy slacks. “Guess what, Brenson? Your precious government refused to pay our ransom,” said the tall man in a cruel, mocking voice.
“Commander Sputnik, do you believe Brenson contacted the dam?” the first diver asked. The tall man, Sputnik, nodded.
“Caught ‘im snooping around in Mir’s office. Had a camera on him with a list of possible targets for ransom,” Sputnik said casually, “He’s a traitor. And traitors…” Sputnik pressed his gun to the temple of Brenson. Cyrus looked away as he heard a gunshot, and morbid laughter by what sounded like three people.
“Alright, we’ll leave him here,” someone said. Cyrus could only hear them now, but he was sure that Sputnik had just spoken. “Come on, dive team. Let’s get out of here.” Cyrus waited, paralyzed with fear of the gun, as the helicopter turned on and took off.
Cyrus staggered up from the ground. It felt as if an eternity had passed, but all the same Cyrus felt… safer, calmer, and much happier than he had been the night before, when he had stared at a corpse out a crack in the wall until he had fallen asleep, unable to move for crippling fear.
But something had changed. For one thing, his Sneasel was out. For another thing, the dilapidated hut was suddenly a nice family cottage, with a child’s bed in one corner, a small computer mounted on the wall in another corner, and a bookshelf full of large cardboard books. A painting of a strange, white creature with a red ring leaping out of a bizarre mushroom-shaped cloud hung on the wall, just over the child’s bed. The bed itself was empty.
Cyrus stepped outside, and instantly everything seemed to change. Happy couples, dating teenagers, and cheerful children littered the beachfront on bright red towels, all with a mushroom cloud on the towel. In the distance, Cyrus could make out the mighty Lake Valor Dam, returned from its fallen state. All around him, the dying grass and the sickly green lake had transformed into crisp grass and a pristine, beautiful bright blue lake. Large, two-story houses with satellite dishes and side-garages and flagpoles dotted a lane leading up to the lake. Happy Pokémon dashed about the sand and the grass and the street, everything from mighty Rapidashes to enormous Gyarados to a Seviper with half its body replaced with machinery slithering down the sidewalk to-
Cyrus stopped, and turned to the Seviper, which was carefully regarding him. Then it slithered forward. “Are you trapped here too?” the mechanical snake hissed softly in human. A few people’s heads turned, but for the most part the happy, smiling people ignored the Seviper and the grimy human.
“Who are you?” demanded Cyrus. His Sneasel hissed at the Seviper as well.
“Calm down,” the snake ordered, “And be quiet! Those things may hear and attack you! That’s what happened to the last guy…”
“What are they?” Cyrus said. Sneasel hissed again.
“They are the denizens of this nightmare,” the Seviper said, “Haven’t you ever wondered why any one lives on the lake shore?”
“Not really,” said Cyrus, deadpan.
“I can’t really explain without being killed,” the Seviper explained, “but anyways, my name is Columbia. Remember it. And if you ever meet an arms manufacturing titan by the name of Dr. Sceptile, mention me to him, and he’ll help you out.”
“What makes you think-“ Cyrus demanded once more. The Seviper made a rather good impression of a grimace.
“I tell everyone, boy, in the hopes that someone can help me eventually. Regardless, welcome to St. Nathaniel, a suburb of South Valley City, Dr. Cyrus Akagi.”
“I’m not a doctor, but how do you know my name?” Cyrus hissed. Columbia twitched its tail in the direction of a house.
“That’s your home, where you live with your lovely, uh... wife, as you run nothing more than a mass delusion. This, Cyrus, is an experiment I have the misfortune to be in,” Columbia continued, “specifically, how nightmares may help prepare for nuclear war. And it’s been going on since this town existed.”
“What do you mean, nuclear war?” Cyrus growled. Sneasel growled too.
“Three.”
“Tell me, snake.”
“Two.”
“Tell me!”
“One.”
Cyrus glared at the mechanical Seviper, and Columbia glared back… and then it disappeared, and Cyrus heard a surreal explosion…
Something was holding Cyrus off of the ground. It was a giant, red creature with sunken eyes and a grim scowl, and it was holding Cyrus by the neck off of the ground. The creature, a Magmortar, growled and then pointed at something on the beach. The hut Cyrus had been hiding in was nowhere to be found.
Lake Valor had… changed. The water was gone. The sky was a blood-red hue, the surrounding trees bare. The dam, far off into the distance, was gone. A small cave, barely large enough for a man to enter, was exposed in the middle of the lake; skeletons of water Pokémon and humans littered the dry lakebed. Columbia the Seviper was gone, and so were the happy couples, the mighty Pokémon, the pristine grass and homes. The frame of one home, the one Columbia had pointed out, had a twisted lump of fused bone and steel stuck onto a reinforcement beam, with another figure, slightly smaller, on the floor. The Magmortar noticed what Cyrus was looking at, and with a massive Fire Blast the structure was vaporized by the malicious fire giant.
The Magmortar pointed again at the beach, and this time Cyrus saw what it saw- a skeleton, missing a head, resting on the sand. It was the only skeleton not fused with the sand. Then, there was a savage scream, like a high-pitched roar from a might beast, and the skeleton stood up. Sand and bone fragments swirled together to create a half-glass, half-bone skull that the skeleton grasped and placed on its head. Then it summoned a cutlass made of glass of some sort and began to advance on Cyrus.
It had barely walked one step before Magmortar, with a bored look on its face, vaporized the skeleton with one Hyper Beam.
“Magmortar put him down.” The Magmortar let go, no doubt in response to the mysterious voice, and Cyrus fell with a thud on the sand. Sand that felt like it was burning.
Out of the skeletal woods stepped a man with short, white hair, a pristine business suit, and a deep red tie. Something about the man was unsettling to Cyrus, especially his eyes that appeared to be too light a shade of blue to be human. The man smiled slightly at Cyrus, walked to the runaway, and held out his hand.
“Shake, Mr. Akagi,” the man ordered. Cyrus shook. “I see you’ve had the misfortune to be caught up in this experiment,” the man said coolly, looking around at the destroyed landscape. “Do you want out? This happens once every eight hours, you know.”
Cyrus nodded. With a bolt of panic, he realized that his Sneasel had disappeared, and even its Pokéball was gone- then the man barely smiled, in an arrogant sort of way, and held up a Pokéball. “And you want this back too, am I right?” the man asked. Cyrus nodded again.
“Well then,” the main said, turning his back to Cyrus, “you can have it back when you bring me what I want, in return for me freeing you from this experiment.”
“But isn’t freeing me enough?” Cyrus demanded, ignoring the worrying in his chest that he tried to ignore.
“Think of it as insurance that you’ll do the job. Now, listen carefully. In the north there is a small town with a dragon-type gym. A three-generation family lives there, and they are keepers of a key to something I want in Canalave City. You have one month, Cyrus. Bring me the key, or whoever has it, within that month, and you will get back your Sneasel. I’ll even have it trained, just the way you wanted it to be trained, I’m sure. I’ll even throw in a Pokémon replacement so that you can get to that town, and a firearm to defend against Team Rocket and insurgents. Do we have a deal?”
Cyrus glared at the man. The man smirked. “I see that we do,” he said, and then added, “When we meet, you will know me as the Minister of Defense. My name is not important. Santor, we’re pulling out. When you wake in the morning, Cyrus, follow your new Absol into the mountains, where a man of mine will be waiting to bring you there.”
Cyrus picked up a rock on the shore and hurled it at the Minister, who turned around and swatted the stone out of the air. “I’m not weak Cyrus, and you can’t betray me too well, either. And if you end up dead, well…” the Minister turned his back on Cyrus again, and then said, “I’ll have a free Sneasel, won’t I? Do you accept, then, Cyrus?"
Cyrus paused, and then said meekly, "yes."
"Good," sneered the Minister, "although it would serve you better to discard your foolish emotions for a creature you've barely bonded with. Bring us back, Santor.”
The Magmortar nodded, and with one hand it grabbed Cyrus and in the other hand the Minister, and then a fiery-red-pink light began to envelop all three beings.
Cyrus woke up, this time (hopefully) for real, with a large, well-groomed Absol watching him. The beast nudged him slightly, and then with a sudden movement scooped Cyrus up, hung his bag on its scythe-like horn, and ran through the hut door and off towards Mt. Coronet-Tengam.
“Interezting,” Giratina observed in an abysmal attempt at an Austrian accent. “It appearz az if your firzt interaktions with ze forzes of-“
“I don’t care,” Cyrus said emotionlessly. “And I’m not done.”
“Well, I’ve dezedided to wait and zee where you’re going with zis,” Giratina continued, “but I need to check up on ze Imperial Congrezz. Ich vill be back to record ze rest of your fascinating story.” And then Giratina flew off into the distance.
Cyrus simply stayed on his couch, imagining how soon he would be able to bend the legends to his will…
Questions, comments, concerns, reviews, etc. can be posted directly to the thread or simply sent to me. Until next time, ciao!
