Pokémon Mars

Chapter 54: The Takeover

16 hours after Zoroark's frenzy was quelled, Rudolph, Luke and Nessie remained in the bunker. Their other Admins were safe in New Mauville. Rudolph and Luke continued to blame the situation on each other. Megara cried. Nessie screamed at them all to shut up. It was a relief to everyone when they heard the nervous voice of the Ironville PD chief over Rudolph's radio.

'Mayor Rudolph. It's safe to come out now.'

'Finally...'

The elevator still worked, so they piled in. No-one wanted to climb thousands of steps up to the surface. The doors opened to the Town Hall's secret basement. The bunker was once a legitimate Ares facility, built to shield astronauts from an asteroid impact, but the keys had long disappeared from the hands of anyone with no links to Cipher. Nessie rammed the trapdoor with her shoulder. Rudolph pushed her aside to glance around, checking no enemies awaited them before they climbed out, but he only saw the extended hand of his police chief. He helped them out.

'Thank you, Commander. What's the situation outside?'

'The Interplanetary Police are all locked up. We haven't 20-11'd them yet. They can be used as hostages.'

'Excellent! And the Pokémon?'

'The Pokémon has calmed down. It's in the care of Jin Oak's team. And I believe Mrs. Pickett–'

'Gallego,' Nessie snapped, 'I so never wanted to marry some ugly football player.'

'I believe Ms. Gallego filmed those scientists sympathising with the rampaging Pokémon.'

'I so did. We can so use it to make them look so very bad!'

'Excellent, excellent!'

Rudolph nodded. 'I'll need a cleaner to deal with my office, but for now, a speech filmed in the wrecked office could be quite popular.'

'This is still your own damn fault,' Luke grumbled, 'You let Team Genesis open that rift...'

'We still have no definitive proof they're Team Genesis...'

Rudolph's voice trailed off as his office doors opened. He found himself staring directly into a pair of manic blue eyes. Green heeled boots would have dangled from his upturned desk if their wearer wasn't so tall. The Ironville flag was gone. A giant Team Genesis flag replaced it. Praise, Sonnet, Hera and Murad stood to attention around Wish, who grinned as he stood to greet horrified Rudolph.

'Good evening. We haven't properly introduced ourselves, have we? Forgive my use of a pseudonym. My name is Chamnong "Wish" Fukuzawa. I am the leader of Team Genesis, an–'

Rudolph span to ask his police chief what was going on, but the doors were shut. He shouted the chief's name. There was no response.

'N-Nessie!'

Nessie didn't need to be asked. She whipped out her knife and lunged. Sonnet caught her wrist. The knife fell. She scrambled to retrieve it with her free wrist, but it was already in Sonnet's hand. She didn't even see the rope he used to bind her wrists. She tried to kick. Sonnet caught her leg. The next thing she knew, her legs were bound.

'Your own medicine tastes bitter, doesn't it? As I was saying, I am the leader of Team Genesis, an organisation dedicated to the creation of a perfect new world, free of every foul trait humanity has brought along from Earth to contaminate even a planet millions of miles away... and in that world, there is no place for a man who has been exposed as what he is. You are a slimy, greedy, self-serving non-entity.'

'You – you – you can't do this! I helped you! We signed an agreement!'

'We did indeed. And that agreement granted us access to everywhere on Mars we could possibly wish to go.'