An immense explosion rocked the hull, rattling vast beams overhead that threatened to collapse. The vessel continued to shudder, and I was thrown off my feet. I heard screams from deep in the bowels of the cutter, but didn’t know what had happened. I looked across the vibrating deck at Erika and the boy, who were sprawled out on the ground. As I watched, the metal plating beneath young man’s legs began to glow, then erupted in a burning geyser of pure, violent energy. A thick column of light instantly stretched into the black sky, issuing from the crater in the deck. His scream was abruptly cut short as the jagged, molten metal cascaded down in a malevolent shower. Erika, only inches from the deadly rain, fainted, hitting her head on the floor. The Vileplume cowered behind her fallen form.

A shrill siren cut through the wind and death, accompanied by the brilliant flare of floodlights cast on the smoldering deck. “Oh my God,” I mumbled to myself. “It’s here. It’s here.”

I felt my balance shift as the cutter slowly began listing. The beam of power must have penetrated the entire ship, slowly submerging it with freezing seawater. Metallic groaning noises echoed in unison, yet I maintained my focus on the railing. There was zero margin for error; one mistake and I could have easily been killed. This is for what I had trained. Do or die. Mere seconds after the demise of that unfortunate Pokemon trainer, another shock wave rattled the ship. This one was more direct and didn’t last as long as the beam of energy. It was a physical impact against the hull…

To my horror, a monstrous form burst vertically from the churning sea far below, its serpentine form thrashing about in the dark skies…a hideous demon rising from the depths of hell. A noxious, overwhelming stench, the odor of rotting flesh, accompanied a wave of water that crashed onto the deck. I stood my ground, feeling true panic for the first time in my journey. Lightning flashed, playing a brief burst of light over the sinewy, slick skin of our assailant. While a painfully loud clap of thunder resonated in my ears, floodlights slowly shifted onto the segmented leviathan, revealing its blue skin and creamy underside. Two whip-like barbels, long projections on the sides of its mouth, lashed about in the obscurity as the beast’s head was yet unlit.

The monster hovered momentarily in the air, then crushed its immense bulk onto the deck, mane-like fins billowing thickly behind it. Supports and railings of titanium buckled under the pressure, snapping like balsa wood. The entire deck began to collapse in on itself, drawing us slowly closer to the creature less than fifteen feet away. Its saurian head was the size of a small car, with a blunted snout. The powerful lights from the ship focused on its face, a hideous snarl of cold, aqueous flesh. The tri-pronged, jagged bone crest, taller than a grown man, shone bleached white in the dark while a chilling, reptilian eye leered at me from what seemed like mere inches away. Erika, who had regained consciousness when the leviathan decimated the deck, shrieked in unparalleled fear.

We were staring into the unforgiving soul of G-L2.

My memories of the battle are sketchy from that point. One moment I was scrambling backwards across the deck, trying to escape G-L2. The next, my Venusaur, Raze, stood valiantly before me, lashing out viciously with its Vine Whip attack. It challenged the Gyarados with a guttural roar, striking at its immense head. Erika gradually regained her composure on the other side of the deck.

Raze lumbered around the deck, circling its foe’s fearsome form. I remember its vines striking one of the Gyarados’ enormous eyes from fifteen feet away. The serpent wailed in agony and snapped its head back, throwing open its wicked jaws. Luminous particles coalesced into a tight form, hovering inside G-L2’s noxious maw, compiling itself exponentially. With a high pitched shriek, it erupted forth into a thick beam of white-hot energy, sweeping the deck above my head. It sheared into a radar tower overhead, causing thick shards of metal to crash down on me.

One of the shrapnel daggers slammed into my left shoulder, carving a curved wound. Simultaneously, a large, blunt chunk of metal struck me on the crown of my head, making my vision swim. I woke up three hours later in a rescue vessel, blood-soaked bandages wrapping my chest and shoulder. A new Ultra Ball was affixed to my belt… somehow I knew what it contained. I can’t remember what happened after I hit my head, but the battle had continued. Raze, with the help of Erika’s Vileplume, won. I captured G-L2, which I later renamed Leviathan, while I was only half-conscious and staggering about the deck. I don’t know if it really happened, but I can still see Hunter propping me up, shouting commands to Raze when I was too incapacitated to intelligently combat.

The PRI tried to recondition Leviathan at the GeMLab, but met with little success. It was now useless to them, so I was awarded it in appreciation of my efforts. I was all too happy to take it off their hands. Hunter and I didn’t meet again until it was time to draft a team for my final PRI mission, ‘Operation Arctic Chill.’

_____