Chapter 5: The Invasion (Pt 1)

November 14

Laina sat uncomfortably next to her partner in the van, who steered across the road haphazardly amidst panicking pedestrians and missile fire. A faint, yet unidentifiable humming noise from the rear bothered her, but she hardly noticed it. She transfixed her stare on the chaos outside, and the blood that spilled from the slaughtered.

The humming intensified, and Laina realized that it came from that kid, tied up in the back. She yelled for him to quiet down, but something in the edge of the rearview mirror stopped her cold.

She saw the girl, the same one from the Pokemon Center with the other kid the day before, running after truck. A much larger man followed suit. His muscles bulged from his shirt, and vengeful determination emanated from his face. The girl didn't look older than fifteen, but a furious Mamoswine that trampled in front of her negated her youth. She raised a finger at the truck, and Laina widened her eyes in realization. She braced herself in a split-second for impact before heavy Ice Shards tore into the truck's side. She and her partner were tossed around as the truck flipped over and over without end. Laina saw her partner's face crushed between the dashboard and the wet concrete, and the rest of his body soon became mangled to bits.

By the time the van stopped, Laina felt disoriented beyond any possibility of movement. A pool of blood welled in her mouth. She spit it all out, taking a tooth out with it.

"Shit," she groaned, seeing that her partner wasn't even in the truck anymore. She heard the girl outside yell shout, "I'll help Ash, you deal with the drivers!" and fell short.

The thought of having to confront someone as intimidating as that bulky man sent a chilly fear down Laina's spine, and she climbed under the leather seat of the truck just before he yanked the driver's door open. After a quick, yet tense second, the door slammed shut.

The adrenaline, as well as her attackers' proximity, prevented Laina from sighing in relief. Their voices, though, boomed loud enough for her to hear:

"…loot whatever supplies we can and go into hiding," said the kid. She grinned at her sudden insight of his, or as she knew now, Ash's plans; they'd help when it came to tracking him down.

"But what about the egg?" This voice sounded slightly deeper, and must have belonged to the bigger man.

"OK, Brock, you go back to the Pokemon Center and get the egg," he said, "You know the layout of the Center best. Dawn and I are going to the Poké Mart to loot food and supplies. Once you're done, head for the woods and make sure no one's followed you. Hide in a tree until we come for you, understand?"

Laina struggled to contain her excitement. Not only did she know where the egg was, but she could place names to the other two assailants. Jasper would be pleased, she thought. They ran away from the truck, but Laina waited a few moments before limping out of the van pulling out her phone to call Jasper.

"I swear to Arceus," Jasper shot, "if you fucked up again I'm-"

"They got away," Laina interrupted, shouting over the gunfire. "The kid and his friends, I mean. They killed my partner and demolished my truck. They're on their way out of Hearthome, and they might have the egg with them.

He fell silent for a moment. "Listen to me," he said. Laina flinched at the prospect of another tedious mission. "The initial attack was successful, and hordes of ground forces are being sent in as we speak. I'm flying into Hearthome now, and I need you to meet me at the City Hall. That's where we make our grand introduction."

"Shouldn't we be focusing on the egg, first?" asked Laina.

"Once we have everything in place, every grunt in the region will be on a manhunt for them. Wanted fugitives under accordance of the Rocket Empire, with a fifty thousand dollar bounty on their heads, dead or alive."

"What good are they dead? Don't we want them alive to get the egg from them?"

"Don't you get it, Laina?" Jasper said, the frustration in his voice boiling over, "if we get them dead, it's that much easier to get the egg."

She sighed in exasperation, weighing her head in her hand. "Alright, fine. Anything else?"

"Oh, yeah," Jasper said. "You're the new Executive Head of Sinnoh, AKA the Northern Sector. I'm focusing my efforts on that egg, so you need to run things here for-"

"Hell no! I'm just a good a leader as a rock is a psychologist! Why the hell would you do something like that?"

"You're not questioning my authority now, are you?"

"No, sir," mumbled Laina. It was Jasper that made Laina Head of Secret Ops in the Western Sector last year. "I'll meet you at City Hall."

"Don't disappoint me."

Jasper clicked off the phone without another word. Laina crawled out of the truck and stood, clueless, with no idea of where City Hall even was. She peered around to find the streets deserted, desolated, demolished. Concrete and body parts stirred together, turning the paved streets into a wasteland. The smell of blood and smoke poisoned the air, drew tears from her eyes.

Armed with only her hunting knife, she ambled along the torn roads, gawking at the absence of any living souls. Not that she could do anything about them, or even had the energy to.

After fifteen minutes of jogging, Laina approached the same wrecked truck from before. She scoffed under her breath. "Shit," she thought. "Jasper's gonna have my head on this one."

She stumbled around drunkenly for a few more moments before a blunt force knocked her to the ground. Blood rushed again from her mouth, and a throbbing in her head ensued. She looked up to see the girl, the one with the Mamoswine, running away from her, a large garbage bag slung over her shoulder. Laina's escapee sprinted alongside her.

Laina looked down at her weary, tired limbs and knew she couldn't give chase. They were too fast, even with all of their cargo. She shook her head and, after taking aim for the boy, flicked the knife at his back.

As if he heard her every move, the kid turned his head to see the knife twirling in the air towards him. He and the girl sharply turned into an alley, throwing off the knife's projection.

Laina swore in frustration, but calmed herself when the knife slid into the girl's forearm. She shrieked in pain as she and the boy disappeared into the alley.

By the time Brock reached the Pokemon Center, he felt like collapsing from exhaustion. In minutes he sprinted a mile and a half, all while dodging missile fire and debris from the damaged buildings. He panted in tiredness and fear; the fresh memory of the missile that nearly took off his head still lingered. "But you still have a job to do," he thought. "Find the egg, and get out of Hearthome."

He burst through the doors of the Pokemon Center and saw that the chaos inside was almost equal to the chaos outside. Sobs from the weak stabbed at Brock's insides, and the nurses' frantic faces only worried him more. Brock opened his mouth to volunteer his service, but he had to force it shut. For once, though, he had to put himself in front of others. He ran to the back of the building, flinging open the basement's door.

The sight of the long, twisty corridors that intertwined like a maze made Brock groan. It's dark, musky, pungent eminence didn't give off the cleanest impression. He slowly walked along the main corridor, the dim, flickering lights above him his only guide. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled; he habitually checked behind his back for someone that may have been lurking.

He stopped short when he realized that he didn't have a clue where this egg would be. The only option would be to check every room before-

Without a second thought, he started with the first corridor to his left. In that entire first hallway, room after room, he found nothing but linens and toiletries. The next hallway didn't offer better prospects except for some heavy duty first aid kits, which Brock grabbed two of impulsively.

At the first room of the third corridor, Brock met a large, metal door under a sign that read, "TESTING LABORATORY." He raced for the door and swung it open. The room's bright, radiating light sharply contrasted with the murkiness of the rest of the basement. Shiny, polished containment pods stood in rows and stretched as far as the eyes could see, much to Brock's chagrin.

"Shit," he mumbled, reeling at the thought of searching each machine for one egg. He sighed in exasperation and began scourging the machines, ripping their opaque casings open and shoving the foreign eggs aside.

After what seemed like three dozen broken machines, he found his egg, with its faint blue glow, in a machine in the far corner of the room. He grinned in satisfaction, tearing the hatch off of its hinges. Cradling the egg in his arms, Brock felt a heavy rock in his stomach wash away instantaneously.

"It's safe," he thought. "No one's taken it."

Brock started on his feet, but from the opposite end of the machine he spied a slip of paper sticking out. He grabbed it out loud and read out loud:

MACHINE IDENTIFICATIOR #0036

TEST #00082785

CODEC SCAN: 0000XXXX

OPERATIVE GENE: 0

TEST RESULTS: INCONCLUSIVE

POKEMON IDENTIFICATION: UNKNOWN

The page ended there. Brock read it over three times, digesting the information carefully. He couldn't decipher what a Codec Scan was, or what an Operative Gene meant. Cursing under his breath, he stuffed the slip in his pocket and ran out the door.

He didn't make it halfway to the door leading to the main level before he heard gunshots from above. Brock ducked habitually, then cautiously stood and pressed forward. But after twisting and turning around the maze of hallways, he felt hopelessly lost. He stood by the main stairwell, but he knew that going up there with the egg would mean suicide.

Jogging the opposite direction, Brock finally found the emergency exit across from the stairs. He gripped the door handle and prepared to run for his life, but gunshots from the outside made him stop. He didn't know who fired the guns, or how many of the gunmen were out there. More than likely, he'd die out there.

Brock turned around, but another round of gunshots from the main lobby changed his mind in a heartbeat. He burst through the emergency exit, the bright light from the morning sun blinding him. He fell to his knees, clutching his eyes, groaning in pain. The gunshots still enveloped him, and he could only pray in his pain that he could live to regain his eyesight.

He only waited for some of his sight to return before he took off. Amidst the grey and red around him, he saw the lush green forest, only a mile away. Ash's voice rang in Brock's head: "Head for the woods once you're done, but make sure you aren't being followed. Team Rocket wants that egg, and badly. Hide in a tree until we find you, understand?"

"They're the ones doing this," he thought. "Figures."

He pumped his legs even harder, stopping for nothing. Trails of smoke from deployed missiles lingered above him, settling in his eyes and clouting his sight. Large monitors on some of the buildings, which usually displayed weather or news broadcasts, either fuzzed in static or were cracked beyond operation.

Suddenly, he slipped on a puddle of blood, and landed hard on the side of his head. A shard of glass tore against his ear, and he felt a large gash open behind the lobe. Blood began to pour out of his ear, staining the concrete around him.

Brock stumbled to his feet, slowly recollecting his bags and egg. "At least this street seems empty," Brock thought. "I would've died right-"

A flashing on one of the monitors cut his thought short. The static was replaced by three large headshots, the word "WANTED" blinking under them. Brock squinted, then took off when he saw that the headshots belonged to Ash, Dawn, and himself.

He turned into an alley and dashed across the adjoining street. From the corner of his eye, he saw two men, both in dark grey jumpsuits, firing away from Brock. His adrenaline was pumping now; he heard nothing and felt nothing. All that stood between him and Death was the quarter-mile left until he reached the forest.

Ducking behind an abandoned car, he paused to collect his breath, to brace himself for the final stretch. He peeked out the windshield to see the same two gunmen, running toward his direction.

Panic outweighed reason, and Brock ran from his hiding spot and into an alley. The gunshots were directed at him now, and the possibility of dying, right here, right now, sent shots of terror through Brock.

When he was but a block away from the green bastion of safety, he panted heavily and nearly keeled over. The gunshots behind him kept him from stopping completely. He turned to see that more of the gunmen following him. He sidestepped into an alley just after he saw the red "R" on each of their suits. The next street over was empty, for now at least. Brock weaved through the streets among cars and debris to make it harder for anyone to land a shot.

"Come on Brock," he thought, "You're almost there. Just a little more…yes! You made-"

He collapsed and fell, nearly crushing the egg in the process. His first instinct was to get up and keep running, but he decided to play dead in a bush.

"He's dead!" shouted a gunman. "Let's move on!"

Brock scoffed under his breath. "They're still a bunch of idiots," he thought, grinning slyly. The gunfire around him ceased, but Brock didn't risk moving from his hiding spot yet. He sat unmoving for twenty minutes before bolting into the welcoming arms of the surrounding forest, leaving Hearthome City behind him.

He trekked on until the city disappeared from sight before picking a tree to hide in. Cupping his bloody, mangled ear, he tried to quell the pain from the cut, but to no avail. By the time he found a tree large enough to conceal him, a bloodstain the size of a fully enlarged Poké Ball formed on his shoulder.

The redwood towered at least fifty feet, its branches casting shadows that completely surrounded Brock. "How the hell are Ash and Dawn supposed to find me all the way up there?" he thought.

Suddenly, with a stroke of genius, he smeared a dark red "B" on the tree's stump with his blood-moistened shirt. He had to dab at blood from his ear, which renewed the pain excruciatingly. Brock grunted and almost had to stop, but he eventually finished with a dark, yet legible "B" on the tree. "They should be able to know what that means," he thought.

Gripping the lowest branch, Brock climbed the tree until its prickly branches concealed him completely. He laid himself on a wide branch and slung the strap of his bag around a branch above him. A drop of blood on his arm reminded him of the first aid kits that he stole, so he grabbed it from his pack. Creams and tools and utensils and all sorts of medicines lay inside. Brock gasped to see two boxes of painkillers and one of penicillin.

He dug through the kit for a few minutes before finding a roll of gauze bandages wedged in a corner. "Bingo," Brock thought, unrolling the bandages. He pulled out a pocket mirror from the kit and lightly touched the bandage against his wound.

The pain intensified twenty-fold, and Brock barely managed to contain his screams. It was almost like glass dug into that same spot over and over again. He forced himself to pause, wondering how could wrap the wound without passing out from the pain. Then, he remembered the painkillers in the first aid kits.

He fumbled with the box as he opened it, nearly crushing one of the pills when he punched it out of the foil packaging. Swallowing the pill, the bitter aftertaste left Brock cringing while he waited for the pain to alleviate.

"Alright, let's try this again," thought Brock, hesitating to wrap the bandage roll around his ear. But the feeling on his ear that ensued was sensational. Better yet, the lack of feeling was what made Brock sigh in relief. Once finished, he admired his handiwork in the mirror, grinning at his neatly wrapped ear.

"It's the best I can do without stitches, anyways," Brock said to himself. He shoved the first aid kit and painkillers in his bag, dug out some food and, with egg in hand, began the long wait.