One Month Previous: A phone call startled me out of a restless sleep at one in the morning. The PRI needed me for an emergency mission, and a helicopter picked me up five minutes later. I was impressed. It was only about two weeks after the completion of ‘Operation Ryujin,’ and my wounds were healing slowly. I sat motionless in the black helicopter as it careened silently through the unusually dark night. A red glow permeated the cabin, and was the only light I could see. My right hand rested on my shoulder, which was still bandaged beneath my combat gear. I donned standard issue equipment during the long flight from Cinnabar Island. Black tactical vest, fatigues, a hunter’s knife in my belt and a Beretta pistol strapped to my hip. A tin of oil face paint was next to me. I smeared ebony streaks in bent triangles on the sides of my face. The points reached up across my eyes—the same style Heather was inadvertently wearing at the battle against Nagoya.

I set down the cool tin with a clink and looked around the chopper cabin. Two men sat across from me, their faces shrouded in darkness. The one on the left stretched forward to tie his boot. A young Asian man about my age, he wore a stern expression on his face. He leaned back and immersed himself in the shadows. A brief lighter flash starkly illuminated his features as he lit a cigarette. The glowing tip of the smoldering butt shone through the darkness like an unblinking eye.

The man to the right moved out of the obscurity and removed his black sunglasses. Why he was wearing sunglasses in the dark, I’ll never know. He traced his thumb down the line of his jaw and cleared his throat. “My handle is Black Fox. I take it you haven’t been briefed?”
“No…sir,” I answered. The agent rubbed his eyes, shaking his head.
“This is an especially sensitive case, Hawk. I can tell you nothing more than what you need to know.” I nodded in cooperation…that’s almost always the case. “We’re going to the Pokemon Tower Facility in Lavender Town. There was some highly experimental research being conducted outside the tower, and an accident has occurred. Our target is an entity that escaped the lab.” I stared ahead, waiting for him to continue. “A disturbingly powerful Pokemon has fled the compound and is suspected of residing in the tower. You realize that this is an extremely volatile, hazardous mission. I can’t emphasize this enough—you underestimate this creature, you die. Any questions?”

“Yes,” I answered. “First, what is the piece for?” I tapped one of the bullet clips on my waistband.
“Just in case.” Fox replied.
“Fine. Now this is serious—if I capture this Pokemon, what happens to it?” Fox replaced the sunglasses on his head. After a moment, he spoke.
“The PRI has no interest in maintaining such a creature. You want it, you can control it, it’s yours.”
“If you don’t need it, what was the research about?”
“NO further questions,” he told me with a cold glare that penetrated the glasses. That was enough. I slapped a clip into the gun and replaced it on my hip. We flew for a minute in silence. The soft thump of the stealth chopper’s blades echoed through the night. I turned to the agent that was my age and extended a gloved hand. “White Hawk,” I introduced myself. He hesitated, then shook it.
“Blue Wolf,” he said in a calm voice.

The drop-point was about two hundred yards from the Pokemon Memorial Tower. Wolf and I slid down the ropes to a landing thirty feet below the chopper. It was a moonless night. The sky was an abyss—nothing was visible except the faint outline of the immense stone tower and some nearby low-lying buildings. Flickering lights shone inside the structures, but nothing else moved. The long weeds underfoot were bent down from the chopper blades, and slowly resurrected themselves as our ride screamed into the distance. Quite eager to leave, I mused. Wolf and I swiftly crept across the terrain, closing the distance to the tower. The world was silent. We glided along the side of a low building and moved toward the entrance. Wolf unholstered his pistol and cocked it. I cast a sideways glance at him. He didn’t look back. I withdrew a Pokeball instead. My partner was in the lead, and confidently opened the heavy steel door of the facility. After slipping inside the entrance, Wolf swept the area with his gun. Silence. Nothing moved, but a short-circuited fluorescent light flashed at brief intervals. We were in an uninteresting reception lobby. The only sound was the tap of our combat boots on the marble tile. Everything was intact, but the lights were damaged. More silence.

Page Eleven
Page Eleven

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