“Whispers in the Dark”
Chapter 4: Infiltration
By: Crichton55
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A/N: Don’t have much to say this time other than
this fic has proven to be much more demanding of my
time and concentration than I thought. Review
people, review! Oh, and one more thing,
please if you’re just starting to read this fic from
the start of “Whispers in the Dark”, then PLEASE read my “In the Arms of an
Angel” songfic first, if you haven’t done so already. It will tie up many loose ends, seeing as it
is the prologue. Anyways, on with the fic!
Disclaimer: I know, I know, I forgot to add a
disclaimer to my last few chapters…I don’t own Pokemon, blah, blah, blah. How many times must fans say that?
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Looming ominously on the tree covered
horizon stood the monumental Team Rocket fortress, adorned by a giant red “R”
perched upon the roof. Ash hacked away
at the tree branches that barred his advancement further into the forest
outside
Misty groaned loudly for the fourth time that half-hour. “Ash! How much further?! Shouldn’t we take a small break for once?” she whined, dropping her walking stick and sinking to her knees. Ash sighed and turned around to face Misty. “Either takes a break, Misty, or watch as the region that we’ve spent the last year in is overrun by Team Rocket. Your choice,” he said flatly, but instead of continuing on, his gaze landed on the band of twenty police officers that he chose to take with them. Not a single one of them was within a fifty feet radius of Ash and Misty, nor were any of them standing.
Ash frowned. Accepting defeat, he sat upon the cold, hard dirt beside Misty and proceeded to retrieve a box of Goldfish crackers from his bag to nourish his now growling stomach. He stuck his entire fist into the box and pulled out an abnormally large handful of crackers and offered them to Misty, who took the gift graciously. They both sat there on the abysmally filthy ground, steamrollering through the large box as if they were dogs that hadn’t seen the sight of a bag of dog food in days. Finally, when the two had exhausted the box’s supply of delicious goodness, Misty spoke up.
“Ash, remember when we were back on Route 34, and how I kissed you? (Ash blushed deep crimson) It was because of a nightmare that I had, one that I never want to have again,” she said softly, shuddering and grasping Ash’s dirty hand that lay on the ground and looking him in the eye. “I think it means something Ash. Look at the side of the base. See how it’s black and it looks like it’s made of stone? That looks like what I saw in my dream, only it was on the inside of the building.” Misty pointed to gargantuan Team Rocket’s base that seemed to take up a quarter of their view of the horizon. “Misty, what happened in your dream?” Ash inquired in the same soft voice that Misty had exhibited.
Misty sighed heavily and, realizing that she had no choice but to confess the happenings of her dream, proceeded to flood Ash with information about her mid-night reverie. “Well, I’ll put this as simply as I can. You were killed by Giovanni,” she explained bluntly, dropping her gaze to the forest floor. Ash squeezed Misty’s hand and brought her line of sight back up to his with his index finger. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. I’m going to survive this, okay? We both are, Misty,” he reassured her, despite being aware of his own uncertainty, an anxiety that he knew could be the onset of a very bad day. His hand began to quake in the soft grip of Misty’s tender hand, a testament to the fear that was rapidly bottling up inside his mind.
He could sense that something bad was about to occur in the next few hours, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going to happen to him. The fact that Misty had had a nightmare in which he had been slaughtered by Team Rocket’s leader created an even greater sense of uneasiness in his tired brain. He returned his gaze to the Team Rocket fortress and yawned, for he had put his strained body through a lot in the last six hours.
“Hey, Ash?” came the unusually gentle voice of Jessie from behind him that still never ceased to make him jump every time. Ash turned around to face Jessie, James, and Meowth, all three of whom retaining their ragged clothing that they continuously wore on a regular basis. He found it bizarre and awkward that he had chosen to bring them along with him despite their terrible deeds that they had committed over the course of his journey. “Yeah, what’s up, guys?” he asked, slapping a smile onto his face, an action that normally would never have been done otherwise.
James was the first to speak. “We just wanted to say ‘sorry’ for all the trouble we caused you and your friends the last few years,” he said gloomily, beginning to fiddle around with his hands as he plunged his stare to the ground. Ash smiled. “Hey, don’t sweat it, guys. I see now that you weren’t forced to do all that stuff to us. You were just avoiding the death penalty. That’s forgivable in my book,” he reasoned.
The trio grinned. Never before had they been pardoned for their crimes, especially by the victims themselves. They all breathed a mental sigh of relief, thankful that the long years of chasing the teens were finally over at last.
The trees behind them rustled, revealing one of the officers that had been left behind about sixty feet back. “Shall we continue on?” questioned Officer Jenny, eagerly glancing from Ash to Team Rocket’s base off in the distance and back again. Ash turned around to face Jenny and nodded, ready to proceed with their long and grueling hike toward the black stone building towering above the far-off trees.
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Ash crouched behind a tangled mess of bushes and trees, surveying his surroundings and contemplating how to enter the colossal mega complex. Scanning the entire face of the structure with his binoculars his mother had given him long ago, he occasionally frowned and shook his head, ruling out several plans that came to mind. Finally, he gave up investigating a secure means of entry into the base and reluctantly returned to where he had told Misty, Brock, and the others to hide. Ducking under a low tree branch, he squatted down and sighed, his eyes fixated on the small crowd of people he had Mewtwo Teleport there with him.
“Okay, going in through the front door is suicide. We’ll never get in that way. This place is swarming with Team Rocket soldiers, and that’s not going to help us in getting that key,” Ash informed them grimly, his tone of voice not reassuring to the rest of them. After hearing nothing save the chirping of birds meshing with the distant chatter of the soldiers, he spoke up again. “Alternatives anyone?”
No one said a thing for about half a minute, which forced Ash into a temporarily happy mood, for he could sense that everyone was in deep thought. Misty was the first to speak. “What I think we need is a diversion,” she surmised. “Cool, but how exactly are we going to distract about a hundred trained Team Rocket soldiers at once, let alone get the key we need?” Ash questioned, raising his eyebrow and crossing his arms. Misty said nothing save a stifled grunt of displease.
The awkward silence that ensued, permeated only by the faint chatter of birds in the trees above them, blanketed the group once more. Nervousness began to set in on the small huddle of people as Ash glanced around from Brock (who was attempting to flirt with a Jenny) to Misty (who was twiddling her thumbs), as if to ask if anyone else had any brilliant plans. Finally, Mewtwo’s telepathic voice broke the noisy silence.
“Ash, did you happen to see the guard with the key?” he asked kindly yet sternly. Ash’s arms dropped to the ground, his eyebrow returning to its normal position. “Yeah, I did. He’s standing on the left side of the front door with the key on his belt. The key didn’t look like it would stay on the belt for long, though,” Ash added. Mewtwo grinned maniacally. He stood up, turned around to face the super-complex, and raised his 3-fingered hands in the direction of the building. Eerily familiar purplish sparks began to form around a sphere that instantly grew to the size of a grapefruit, and Ash watched as the globelike object ejected from Mewtwo’s hands and rocketed towards the right corner of the structure.
Ash stood up, observing silently the large militia as they curiously ran to the large chunk of black rock that now sat ten feet away from the hole from which it originated. He put on a perplexed yet angry expression and faced Mewtwo. “How’s THAT going to help us?!” he demanded furiously, but the psychic Pokemon’s gaze did not deter from the damage that he had caused.
“Watch closely. Blink and you’ll miss it,” Mewtwo responded quietly, his eyes glowing blue with extrasensory energy. Ash’s gaze returned to the front door of the base. He pulled out his binoculars once more from his bag and pulled them up to his eyes. He could see the guard that possessed the key with crystal clarity, but the lookout no longer owned Ash’s prize, for it had gotten dislodged from his key-ring and was now zooming towards them a foot above the ground.
A moment later the Pokemon trainer was in false ownership of the priceless means of entry into the castle-like structure. Ash stared at the key, marveling at its superior construction. He could see clearly that it was vastly important, for it was made of gold and had “Team Rocket” stamped on either side in white gold. The sound of Misty clearing her throat knocked him loose from his impressed reverie.
“Ladies first, I presume?” she giggled as she motioned towards the damaged building. Ash nodded and started to run in the direction of Misty’s suggested direction, but stopped and turned around suddenly to see that Brock’s attention remained in the Jenny’s possession. “Hey, loverboy! Care to join us?” he called, amused yet greatly annoyed at his friend’s habit of flirting.
Brock stood up reluctantly and walked over to them, clearly disappointed at the fact that the action that almost always got his ear tugged on was cut short. He didn’t bother to acknowledge the fact that his friend had said anything. Ash then turned to Mewtwo and the Jennys. “Mewtwo, stay here with the officers. If we need you we’ll…’think’ of you” He put an emphasis on the word “think”, a stress that the psychic Pokémon apparently understood, for he smiled and nodded in agreement. “Officers, do whatever you need to do to make sure no Rockets escape this place. Call in backup, I don’t care,” Ash ordered, grinning when a couple of the officers saluted.
“Okay, then. Let’s roll!”
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Ash was starting to seriously regret entering through the front door of Team Rocket’s base, for they were not alone in the long hallway that surrounded him and his friends. A very observant Rocket had unfortunately turned around as they ran in through the huge front entrance. About twenty armed soldiers were now in hot pursuit as they sprinted to a location undecided, another judgment error that he mentally punished himself for. Ash could not wrap his tormented mind around the fact that they were seen. Their plan was flawless! That tiny scrap of information thundered through his brain as he grasped Misty’s hand as he ran, not bothering to look her in the eye as the doors on either side of them whizzed by.
Ash’s ears were being tortured under the continuous bombardment of the alarm system that permeated the atmosphere around them. His eyes darted from door to uninteresting door, none of them seeming to yield some clue as to where the frequency machine was located. He forced his legs to carry him on further, knowing that one slip could be his last.
Doors everywhere suddenly burst open and ejected hundreds of Rockets, who proceeded to bar the trainers’ way further into the base, guns drawn. Ash, Misty, and Brock screeched to a sudden halt. They glanced around to find themselves totally surrounded by black-dressed terrorists, armed with assault rifles.
“Got any more bright ideas, Einstein?” Brock snarled to Ash sarcastically, not bothering to look his friend in the eye as the Rockets began to close in around them. The trio of trainers desperately looked around for a weak spot in the soldiers’ formation, but found none. Adrenaline was beginning to take effect.
A vise-like grip suddenly wrapped around Misty’s forearm, causing her to scream. The Rocket cackled maniacally as he attempted to wrestle her to the ground, handcuffs in hand. Ash saw this and, without missing a beat, proceeded to whirl around and roundhouse kick the attacker in the back of the head. The grip that entangled Misty’s arm loosened as the guy fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, unconscious.
Blood thundered to Ash’s brain suddenly as a wicked fury plagued his mind. No one touches Misty like that and gets away with it. “ANYONE ELSE?!” His roar permeated the long hallway, causing a few of the soldiers to stop advancing. Their state of intimidation didn’t last long, however. Without warning, as if to accept Ash’s challenge, several men ran towards Ash at once with crazed looks in their eyes.
Now it was Ash’s turn to be scared. “Oh, crap,” he muttered under his breath. There came a huge amount of pain all over his body, a blow to the head, and darkness.
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A/N:
There goes another chapter…kind of boring to write though. Please review, as I would like to see how I’m
doing with this whole writing gig. Also,
if you didn’t read it yet, please read “In the Arms of an Angel,” just to
clarify some weak points in the story. I
know I said it before. That was for the
people who don’t read the top note.
Thank you and have a nice day.