Codename, Stealth






Chapter 1: Mission Talk

Stealth looked carefully around the dirty lot as she approached the old 
building. She was tall, but not too tall for a girl of seventeen. Her dirty-
blonde hair was tied back in a loose ponytail and a black headband with a dragon 
on the front was tied around her head. She wore a black tank-top with the dragon 
on the back covered by a brown jacket. Her dusty jeans were faded and her dark 
shoes looked well used. On her wrists were loose golden bands that fell slightly 
past her wrists. 

She moved quietly, making sure that her footsteps could not be heard. The 
chances of someone discovering that this rundown, seemingly deserted building 
was actually one of the few bases controlled by the Resistance was very 
unlikely. However, she was always cautious. If she was followed and the location 
of the base was discovered it would be a very nasty situation indeed. 

She heard a rustle to her left and whipped around, her sharp dark blue eyes 
flashing dangerously. She waited, holding her breath. The sound came again. 
Stealth now knew exactly where it had come from. A pile of crates were stacked 
haphazardly a few feet away from the building. She had definitely heard the 
sound over there. She bent down, apparently tying a loose shoe lace. When she 
stood up she was holding a lethal looking dagger. The bright steel shone in the 
dim light still radiating from the sky. She held it ready, hoping she had not 
been tricked by the fading light and led a member of the Government to the base. 
She wouldn't want anyone to discover their location but if someone did she would 
much prefer it to be a member of one of the gangs. They, at least, would not be 
trying to bring their organization down. More likely they'd be after a Pokemon 
or some valuable item.

Something moved behind on of the crates. Stealth's muscles tensed. She gripped 
the dagger tighter in her hand and moved forward. Suddenly a figure leapt from 
behind the crates and charged her. Stealth began to laugh as the creature jumped 
into the air and collided with her, knocking her off her feet.

"Aronato, you know better than to scare me like that. I was about to jump behind 
those crates and cut you to bits!" The large Houndoom laughed and began jumping 
around gleefully.

'Was worth the risk, Atra. You should have seen your face!'

Stealth pushed herself to her feet and placed the dagger back in its sheath then 
said, "I'm sure it was very amusing. Sadly, I'm afraid that's the last time I 
leave you on your own. You promised you'd be good while I was gone." The young 
trainer gave her Pokemon a stern look but couldn't entirely conceal her smile.

'I was very good. Ask anyone. But I was getting bored so I went for a walk 
outside. That's when you came along.' Aronato gave another laugh and had to 
brace his legs to stop himself from falling over. 'The look on your face, 
priceless! I will be sure to tell the others about it so they can see for 
themselves.'

"I'll twist your horns off," Stealth replied coolly. "But enough of this, let's 
go inside. It's getting dark."

'Sure thing, then after I've finished laughing you can tell me how the mission 
went.' Stealth simply shook her head and walked the rest of the way to the 
rundown building. She entered through a door that appeared to be boarded up and 
rusted. Once she had made sure the door was securely closed behind her, she 
moved on. The room she was in looked just as rundown and rusted as the outside. 
She wasn't bothered by this however. She pushed open a second boarded up door 
and descended a flight of stairs. When she pushed open the third door she was 
stopped by a guard dressed in black.

"Hey, Stealth. Things went all right I hope."

"Ay, they did," Stealth replied cheerfully. She lifted her right arm so that the 
gold band on her wrist would fall down her arm and held her hand under a bright 
white light. On her wrist, just above her hand, was a tattoo. The guard nodded, 
satisfied, and Stealth removed her hand out from under the light. The tattoo 
vanished.

"I take it Aronato was outside waiting for you, was he?"

"He was indeed, Check." She shook her head at her Houndoom's gloating smile and 
moved on.

She followed several hallways, stopping occasionally to exchange a few words 
with someone, until she reached the one she had been heading towards. There were 
many doors spaced a few feet apart. Beside each door was a small box mounted on 
the wall. Stealth walked to the seventh door on the right side and turned to 
face the box. She punched in a nine digit number and the door slid open.

The room was lightly decorated with a few posters, some furniture, and a few 
random items. The door slid shut again as Stealth and Aronato entered. She 
sighed as she dropped the small backpack she had been carrying and sank onto the 
bed. "I'm beat," she said sleepily.

'Aw, come on! At least tell me a little of what happened on your mission before 
you go to bed.'

"All right, keep your fur on. Here," she took three black balls from her belt 
and hit the dark grey button in the center of each, causing them to expand to a 
larger size. She opened each one, watching as each of her Pokemon appeared in a 
burst of black light. "There, now everyone can hear. And Alalia can help me tell 
it." Aronato nodded and lay down, waiting. Alalia, a Nidorina, Zephyr, a Fearow, 
and Rayten, a Manectric followed suit. Stealth shifted into a more comfortable 
position and began to tell them about her mission.

“It wasn’t all that exciting, really. I was sent to do some spying on a group of 
soldiers stationed a few miles from here. They mostly just talked about personal 
stuff but some discussed tactics and the locations of other camps. I knew I 
wasn’t going to get much from just listening to them babble. I had to get closer 
to the commanding officer which proved to be harder than I thought.”

‘No kidding? I had to sneak through about fifty million people to get to the 
center tent!’

“I thought it looked more like twenty, maybe fifteen, but hey, I’m not the one 
who snuck through the camp, so what do I know?”

‘Absolutely nothing,’ Alalia replied cheerfully.

Stealth gave her a half annoyed, half amused stare, then continued with her 
story. “Anyway, after Alalia battled her way through the fifty million troops I 
snuck around to the part of the camp that had the fewest guards and slipped in. 
I only had to dodge about five people or so to get to the tent. Alalia was 
waiting for me, brave soul. I took my dagger and cut a very small whole in the 
side, just enough to be able to listen through. I tell ya, I had no idea those 
army guys could talk so much. He rambled on and on about how unstable the ground 
was around these parts. Not unstable as in you couldn’t walk on it. Unstable as 
in it was too soft when it rained.” She rolled her eyes then said, “Eventually 
he got around to what they were planning to do. They had no idea they were so 
close to a Resistance base and all they were really planning to do was raid a 
nearby town to look for Pokemon and Trainers. Sad really. Most Trainers belong 
to some kind of group and those that don’t are in hiding. They’re not stupid 
enough to reveal themselves to people. And the Pokemon left the towns a long 
time ago.”

‘Aw well, a guy who worries about mud isn’t the brightest apple in the barrel. 
Then again he was hired by the Government so what do you expect?’ 

“Nothing better, Rayten. Still, you’d think after five years of fighting they 
would have learned something. But perhaps some people just never learn. Moving 
on, they talked and talked and talked with nothing interesting being said. 
Finally they decided that some sleep would do them good so the officer and 
whoever he was talking to said goodnight and I heard him hang something up. I 
guess he had been talking on the phone the whole time. Now with as much as he 
talked it’s strange that people think girls talk too much.” She shrugged and 
shook her head then continued, “we waited a while then snuck back out of the 
camp.”

‘If it was that easy why did it take so long? Six days to listen to a guy talk 
about mud?’

“Well that wasn’t all we did. After I reported to Boss everything I had heard I 
moved on to the next part of my mission. He’d got word that there was a special 
stone somewhere in the mountains. After doing a lot of research he managed to 
pinpoint its location. With Zephyr flying it didn’t take very long to get there. 
The hardest part was getting down on my hands and knees and looking for a rock. 
Boss said it would be easy to recognize but he didn’t say it’d be so hard to 
find. I search for hours and didn’t find a thing. Eventually it got too dark to 
see anything so I gave up for the night. I stayed two more days and actually 
managed to find three stones,” here she paused and reached into a pocket for 
something. All four of them stared as she produced three medium sized 
transparent stones. They wouldn’t have been anything special if they hadn’t had 
a faint silver glow inside that seemed to be swirling around a gold dot in the 
center. 

‘Wow, they’re beautiful,’ said Aronato in awe. The other Pokemon seemed to agree 
as they stared transfixed at the stones. 

“You should see them when they catch the light of the sun or moon. And in 
darkness they seem to glow even brighter. That’s how I found the first one. 
After that the other two weren’t so hard.”

‘What does Boss want with them?’ asked Zephyr in a far away voice.

Stealth shrugged. “I dunno. I’m debating on whether to give them to him or not. 
They’re like nothing I’ve seen or even heard of. And when I hold them I get this 
weird feeling. I can’t explain it but I don’t think I should give them to him. 
Not all of them anyway. I’ll give him two and keep this one,” she held up an 
oval shaped stone with a small knick on the side. “It’s my favorite. No idea 
why.”

‘Good idea. I’ll bet he sends you out to look for more soon, though. Something 
like that, there’s no telling what it could be used for. And I bet it’s worth a 
fortune.’

“True, Ray, but I doubt he’d sell ‘em. He wouldn’t send me out to find them if 
he was just going to use them for money. A job like that is usually given to a 
lower ranking member. And the way he talked when he was telling me about the 
mission. I got the feeling he didn’t want me to tell anyone else about it and 
that he was only assigning it to me because he trusted me. Whatever these are, 
they’re not something that’s likely to be sold.” She stared at the stones for a 
few moments longer then put them back into her pocket. “Boss is gonna be mad 
when he finds out I got back and didn’t report to him.”

‘Just tell him you were so tired you forgot,’ suggested Alalia sleepily.

“It wouldn’t be far from the truth. I’m not too worried though. I’m just gonna 
tell him I was exhausted and I needed sleep. I’ll report to him first thing in 
the morning.” She stretched and flopped back onto her bed. “For right now I’m 
just going to get some sleep. Goodness knows I need it.” She kicked off her 
shoes and muttered something to Zephyr about the light. He lifted his large 
bird-like head and hit the light switch. Stealth gave a glance at her pocket and 
saw a faint glow coming from it. She yawned and rolled over, falling asleep 
shortly afterwards. If she had been more awake, she might have noticed that the 
stones were giving off a soft pulse.