The Messanger of Time

Chapter 13: Unraveling Of A Scheme

"Do you see them?"

"No... It should be clear."

Christina pokes her head out from behind a tree and looks around the area, before walking out with Umbros behind her.

Melissa looks back at them and sighs. "That was kinda close, wasn't it?"

Umbros glances towards the city to the north for a moment, then looks up at Christina. "...Why'd you help me? You could've left me back there, but you risked your lives to get me out."

Christina looks down at the Umbreon and then shakes her head. "I don't need a reason to help others, do I? You were in trouble, so I came and got you out of it."

Melissa smiles a bit. "Christina isn't fond of the police either."

Christina looks back at her and rolls her eyes. "They don't listen to reason. Of course I don't like them."

"You just say that because you and Aerthos almost got arrested for scaring a clerk at an ice cream parlor."

Aerthos snorts and Christina shoots a glare at her. "I told you he got scared of Aerthos! We didn't do anything wrong. It's not my fault he's crazy and called on us just for him being there!"

Melissa giggles and Christina pushes her backwards in annoyance. Umbros watches them with a smile and then sits down, sighing.

"The police where I'm from are much too few to handle the crime that goes around. They don't use pokemon... but they have different weapons to take down criminals with."

The two look at him with curiosity, and Christina asks, "Where is it that you're from, Umbros?"

His ear twitches and he loks back at them. "...Black City."

Melissa blinks at hearing this. "Wait... Isn't that in the Unova region?"

Umbros nods. "Yeah, it's... wait, where is this?"

"This is the Kanto region... We just got out of Cerulean."

The Umbreon stares at her in surprise. "That's... like halfway around the world. How..."

Christina kneels down to him and strokes his head. "Do you remember how you got here?"

He shakes his head slowly and looks down. "I just remember I was being attacked... I don't know who it was, I couldn't see his face. He had a cloak on... But while I was trying to fight him off, I kind of blew up... And then, I blacked out, and woke up in a hole in the ground."

"You don't remember appearing from that light and crashing into the street..?"

Umbros shakes his head again.

Christina narrows her eyes and looks in thought. "Strange..."

"...I want to get home. I want to get back to my friends." Umbros whimpers and lays down. And Christina looks at him, feeling sympathetic at what he went through. She pets him softly and looks up at Melissa.

"You think we should help him, don't you?"

Christina nods.

"I thought so... We really should try and get him back home, somehow."

"Yeah..." Christina looks back at Umbros, who looks at her with a longing expression. And she picks him up, holding him in her arms. "Don't worry, Umbros. We'll help you get home."

Umbros whines quietly and buries his muzzle in her shoulder, saying nothing in response. But she can tell that he is grateful at her words. She stands up and turns back to Melissa, who nods back.

After a short time, they start hearing the sirens of the police approaching, and they look towards the city.

"We should go before they find us, Christina..."

Christina nods and they get back on the two dragons, before flying off to the southwest.

- - - - -

~January 8, 2007~

"Well... Here we are, Lasuno."

Hector walks up to a large, metal building on a barren island, and looks around. The area is surrounded by countless windmills, and is filled with vehicles of all different types. Ranging from private jets, to motorcycles, and even hovercrafts.

Lasuno peers around the area, then back at Hector. "...You said you were certain he could help us? But this looks like just a tech lab. Who is it, exactly, we're looking for?"

"It's someone I've known for a couple years, just trust me."

Lasuno stares at him for a moment. "Right..."

The two approach the door, and Hector knocks on it. Soon, a deep, male's voice chimes in over the speaker. "Please state your name."

He blinks at the sudden response, but then speaks up. "Hector. I'm here to-whaa!"

A laser shines on him, moving down his body to scan him, and then the door opens. "Welcome, Hector Alicera."

Hector stares at the door for a bit. "...That was intrusive. Uhh, okay..."

The two go in and look around, before the door shuts behind them. The inside of the building is open. The majority of the building seems to be one large room, with the exeption of a hallway that goes off to the side, leading to a few smaller rooms. The floor is made entirely of concrete, and the walls are almost completely metallic, echoing the loud sounds of various machines running throughout the room. There are tables and shelves spread around, containing equipment of all types.

After several minutes of looking around, they finally come to a shelf which appears to have been heavily impacted, having a mess of tools on the floor in front of it. And in the mess, Jack is seen laying in a puddle of blood, unconscious.

Hector, upon seeing him, immediately runs over and kneels down to him. "Hey, Jack! Jack, can you hear me?"

Lasuno flies over and looks at him, and he soon groans and opens his eyes. "Ugh..."

Hector moves over in front of him, and puts his hand on his shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"

Jack looks up at him for a moment, then scoffs quietly. "...Yeah. I'm... fine." He brings himself up, then grunts and falls back down, appearing to be in near-critical condition and his arms covered in cuts.

Hector catches him and pulls him up with Lasuno's help, the two getting him to his feet as he pants.

"What happened to you, Jack?"

He groans and starts walking towards his desk, being held up by the two. "...I fell, that's what. ATHER, clean this crap up."

The deep voice from before speaks on the loudspeakers in response, "As you wish."

Hector looks around, then notices a machine on three wheels roll towards the mess they left. He then looks at Jack.

"You... fell. In a pile of tools."

"Quite so."

They reach his desk and he slumps down in the chair, laying his head back in exhaustion. He then points to the bottom drawer. "Get... the red box out of there."

Hector opens the drawer and pulls out a first-aid kit. He then sets it on the desk and opens it, and Jack reaches in to get out several bandages. After treating the smaller cuts, he gets a roll of gauze and starts bandaging the more severe wounds.

"...What are you doing here, Hector?"

Hector folds his arms. "Well I was gonna ask if you could help with something. But you don't really look in the shape to do that."

Jack soon finishes and sets the roll on the desk, before reaching for a water bottle and taking a drink. He then looks back at Hector.

"What do you need?"

"I don't want to push-"

"What do you need, Hector? I'll be fine."

Hector sighs and brings his arms down. "Look, I'm trying to help my brother with something. Vincent? Ever since the fire, I've been searching for a way to help with his task. But I haven't come to anything. So I figured, the one who would know most about what's going on, and might be willing to help-"

Jack eyes him almost sternly at the mention of Vincent, and being asked to assist him in his task, which makes Hector stop in his sentence and blink.

"...You won't?"

He takes another drink from his bottle. "It's not that I don't want to help. But since my brother left, I haven't really been thinking straight. I'm still really edgy about the whole idea. It's like this Spiritual Council gave me a family member... only to take him away after everything we've been through. James and I were very close, as you might've noticed. What will you do once Vincent finishes his task and leaves forever?"

Hector shakes his head. "Vincent promised he'd come back..."

"Did he now? Well, let's see if he holds up to that." Jack gets up and walks off, and Hector runs over to follow him.

"Hey! So you're just gonna leave us like this? I thought I could come to you for anything. You did say that before."

Jack stops and sighs, before turning back to him. "Look. I have nothing against you, Hector. You're a good person and a good friend. You're one of the most intelligent people I've met. But when it comes to these Messangers and all that crap, I want nothing to do with it. I'm sorry."

"...Will you at least do it for me? Please..."

Jack stares at him for several moments, then rolls his eyes and turns off. "ATHER, get him a computer. Give him access to Drive F and the internet. Answer anything he asks you."

ATHER responds, "Right away, sir."

He then walks off again. "I'm going to sleep for a while. Do whatever you need."

Hector watches him, and soon speaks up. "Thank you, Jack..."

Jack goes into the hallway and disappears around the corner, and Hector shakes his head. He looks back at Lasuno. "Sorry you had to see all that."

Lasuno eyes him. "Perhaps a better approach next time would help?"

"I didn't know he'd be all flustered over this..."

"And you never thought he might miss James?"

Hector pauses for a moment, then sighs and goes over to the desk, sitting down. "I guess..."

A few minutes later, the machine that earlier came to clean up returns with a tablet, and holds it out to Hector. He looks at it and blinks, then takes it and puts it on the desk. "Thank you."

He then opens up a window and starts going through files on it.

After an hour of searching and finding nothing, Hector groans and buries his face in his hands. "Why is it so hard?"

Lasuno eyes him quietly, and he sits back in the chair.

"ATHER, are you sure there aren't any reports at all?"

"I have no record of any Temporal anomalies, other than the events at Spear Pillar, last year."

"...And that was just Team Galactic being a bunch of morons. There's nothing else..?"

"No, sir."

Hector sighs, and Lasuno hovers idly around the desk. "Do you think, perhaps, that the Messangers' tasks are among events which lie outside any common human knowledge? I'm sure if something major were about to happen that people knew, it would have been brought up long before we ever got here."

He looks over at the Latios and folds his arms on the desk. "And what if it's just something that hasn't been heard about yet? There have to be some clues to what it could be. People can't just go off nothing."

"I hear Messangers have ways of learning what others could never know about their own world. That's how they can do their tasks in secret."

Hector shakes his head. "Then how are we supposed to help?"

"Maybe we're not supposed to help yet... Maybe we're supposed to be there with him when he does need our help."

Hector goes silent for a moment, before picking up the tablet and closing out of the folders he's in. He then pulls up the map. "ATHER, can you tell me where Vincent is?"

"Searching global satellites and tracking Vincent's cellular position..." After a moment, ATHER speaks again. "Vincent appears to be located near Diglett's Tunnel just east of Vermilion."

Hector zooms into the area where a pointer can be seen showing Vincent's location on the route. "Wonder when he got back to Kanto..."

"Vincent is documented to have entered Kanto's Western Forest, January 1, 2007."

"...You keep reports? That's kind of invasive..."

As he goes through the recent stories reported in the area, he pulls up one that catches his attention specifically. After reading it over, he appears to become somewhat tense. "Hey... Lasuno? Come look at this."

Lasuno looks at him, then hovers over to look at the tablet.

"Recent appearances of individuals wearing uniforms relating to that of Team Rocket have been reported in the area of Celadon and Saffron as of January 3, 2007. It is now known that they have overtaken Saffron's police force and newscasting service, so no stories have been published to the general media. This information has been recorded by an individual working for Silph Company, who has bypassed Team Rocket's security..."

Lasuno blinks, clearly confused. "Team Rocket? But I thought they disbanded several years ago, shortly after their takeover in Goldenrod..."

Hector nods slowly. "So did I... Seems some of them just don't know when to quit."

"And Vincent's right near there, too."

Hector continues looking over the stories around the local area, before coming to one that was reported in Cerulean, just a few days ago.

"...Didn't we hear about this one? About the Umbreon in Cerulean?"

Lasuno nods, and Hector reads through the articles pertaining to the event, until he comes to one that was posted just yesterday. As the two look it over, Hector's eyes become wide and he sets the tablet on the desk, getting up from the chair.

"We have to go. Now. ATHER, tell Jack something came up. We're leaving."

"Good luck, sir."

Lasuno looks at him, and the two immediately rush to the exit, leaving the facility. Hector then gets on Lasuno's back and the two fly off towards the east in a hurry.

The tablet appears to be closing all the windows on its own, the last one being open for just a second longer showing a report of the wanted individuals being sighted in the area of Celadon...