Pokemon - Evil Reborn

Chapter 30 - Airship Blitz

Missiles, turrets, weapons everywhere. I was crazy, running head-on along the airship. Not that I cared. The control room seemed small off in the distance, and a clean run would take at least a few minutes to reach it. But of course, I wasn't going to be able to run all that way without being shot.

As my feet slammed down on the floor and the wind rushed past my face, I wondered how much further it would be until the weapons came to life. Were they motion-sensitive, or heat-seeking? Either way, I was in a whole lot of danger. I got my answer moments later, as a panel opened up on the left, a few feet ahead. A large black machine came into view, its head stretching out and turning round towards me. A machine gun turret.

The death machine roared into life, spitting bullets at an alarming rate. I kept my head down and ran as fast as I could, the sound of bullets crashing into the deck rumbling through my skull. The muzzle of the turret flashed at a rate too fast to comprehend, unloading what could have been tens or hundreds of bullets a second. One slashed through the fabric of my left shoulder, and a sharp red line was drawn in my flesh as it tore past. I cried out and was spun as I stumbled forward, crashing down onto the deck. I braced myself to be torn to pieces, but the firing had stopped. The turret had rotated its head as far as it could go. Luckily for me, it was unable to swivel the full three hundred and sixty degrees, let alone one hundred and eighty.

The airship was extremely strong - as expected, of something so massive in scale. Every single shot from the machine gun had crashed down onto the deck, but no more than faint dents had been left behind. You wouldn't even know it had received thousands of bullet strikes.

Now I was lying out in the open, clutching my shoulder. Nothing was firing, but the wind whistled of danger. That was the first obstacle of many, and I had only just made it past.

*

Down below, everything was still being streamed to the TV monitors hanging off the sides of buildings in Castelia City. Everyone was fixated on the images, a boy running across one of the giant airships in the sky. They all thought it was crazy - like it was a suicide. It was, really, trying to run through a field of weapons even the army couldn't compare to.

But the worst part was, there were still cameras focused inside the control room. The mad man that had brought this chaos - the one who had destroyed the entire region of Orre - was smiling at the fool on the deck. He looked like he was enjoying what he was seeing, as if he was close to laughter.

*

"Gah..." I winced, rolling over onto my knees. The bullet hadn't done too much. It had drawn blood, but only just. This was no time to whine over that, anyway. Bigger things were at stake.

"Ladies and gentlemen." Tobi's voice boomed out of nowhere. "You see this fool? Is he your hero? Let me ask, where was this hero when Orre was in danger?"

I frowned, getting back to my feet.

"When a whole populated region is under threat of extinction, he's nowhere to be seen! And yet, I hold one of his little friends captive, and suddenly, here he is! That's a bit selfish, wouldn't you agree?"

I knew that the people below would agree. If I was crazy enough to scale an airship to prevent the death of one person, why couldn't I have done the same to save thousands? It made me feel sick, but Tobi was right. Even if I had made it to Castelia City before Orre had been destroyed... I wouldn't have been able to do anything. I was willing to risk my life to rescue one person I cared about, and yet, I wouldn't be prepared to do it for thousands of people I didn't know...

I shook the thought out of my head. Enough. People had died. But I could still prevent Lydia from undergoing that same fate. I took off, running with all the strength I had in me. A few seconds later, though, I saw something that frightened every inch of my body. Missiles.