The Messanger of Time

Chapter 16: Infiltration

Christina pulls up to the parking lot of Silph Headquarters and looks around the area outside the car. It would appear that most of the parking spaces have been taken and there is a line of cars parked along the side of the street stretching about a block away.

After driving around for several minutes, she finds a spot halfway across the lot from the building, and parks, before everyone gets out.

"Well... I suppose it's better than nothing." Christina locks the car and then looks towards the tall building that is the Silph Headquarters. "It looks a lot taller up close than when we'd see it down the street, isn't it?"

Umbros jumps up onto the roof of the car to look at the building. "Yeah..." He then looks around the lot at all the other cars. "We... don't have to walk all that way, do we?"

Melissa rolls her eyes. "Would you rather walk down the street?"

"N-No! It's... too cold to do that."

Christina eyes him with a small smirk, then puts her black coat on. "Poor thing..."

Umbros looks back at her with a feigned whimper. "Let me have a coat..."

She furrows her brows at his act. "You have one! It's made of fur."

The Umbreon then blinks. "Oh! Right, I forgot."

Vincent makes a small chuckle and shakes his head at their bickering. "Are you two gonna keep arguing? Because I'm ready to go."

Christina blinks and looks towards him. "...Oh fine. Let's go then."

As they start off towards the building, they begin to hear the indistinct chattering of the crowd of people cluttering the back of the parking lot.

They start approaching the crowd, becoming awestruck at how many people are here. It isn't the entire city population, but the amount of people gathered in the single area is astounding.

Vincent stops to look around at everyone, and mutters at the sight. "How're we gonna get through this then? All these people here, and not one of them can do anything about Team Rocket."

Melissa steps ahead of him, staring at the crowd. "What are the police even doing? This has already been going on a few days."

Umbros then butts in with a sarcastic tone, "Probably at home, snacking in front of their TV or something."

She eyes down at him. "Do you really hate them that much...?"

"I have my own reasons to. Besides, I didn't see them at the city gate where they're supposed to be."

Vincent shakes his head, staring through the crowd. "No... It's more than that." He turns back to them. "Team Rocket was disbanded several years ago. For two years since, people thought they had peace. At least here, in Kanto. But they tried to make a comeback in Johto, and failed once again."

He then looks back at the crowd. "Now... There are remnants who seem intent on rebuilding again. And it's caused an uproar amongst everyone here. Members of Team Rocket have blocked off all routes in and out of the city. And the police here has their hands tied with trying to keep the citizens from getting involved. If anything, these people are making things worse because the authorities have been divided to handle them and Team Rocket."

They all look at him, and he shakes his head. "Something has to be done about them. Because this isn't enough."

Christina sighs in slight annoyance. "But what's there to do?"

"We have to try something. Let's see what's happening in the front."

Vincent walks ahead and begins to push his way through the crowd, followed by the others. They work their way through rows upon rows of irritated and confused civilians, before finally getting by them minutes later. There is seen to be caution tape surrounding the building several yards out, and behind it is a group of police officers working to keep everyone at bay.

As they approach the tape, one of the officers looks at them and motions for them to stop. "That's far enough, you guys. We can't have anyone coming in here now."

Vincent eyes him, then the building and back at the officer. "What's going on? Why hasn't this issue been dealt with by now?"

"There are officers deployed inside the building, but as of now, we don't have enough people or resources to bring them down. And ever since some kid exposed them to the public at the south gate, we've had people flocking from all over, getting involved. Officers from the surrounding cities are coming to assist us, but who knows how long it'll take for them to get here. For now, all we can do is wait and try to hold these people off."

He shakes his head and smacks his hand on one of the poles holding the tape. "What if that's not enough? I get the feeling this is going to be something more. It may be too late by the time they arrive!"

The officer stares at him, actually unfazed by his sudden shouting. "Sir, we're doing what we can, but you're just gonna have to stay-"

Before he can finish, they notice the flickering lights in and around the building, as a flash is seen from one of the upper floors, leading to a power outage on the top two stories. And Vincent narrows his eyes intently at him. "...Really? This is pathetic."

He ducks under the tape and darts towards the building, making the officer shout and run to stop him. But no sooner do Aerthos and Sierra fly down and roar out, causing the entire crowd to fall silent, surprised and some starting to become afraid of the two dragons that now stand in front of the building.

Vincent turns back towards the officer as all the others guarding the building direct their attention towards him. Even their pokemon have become unnerved by the Dragonite and Flygon, as they can do nothing but shout in protest at the teenaged boy who is about to break into Silph Headquarters.

The one initially chasing him stares at the two, and then back at him. "You don't know what you're getting involved with! Do not enter the building!"

He stares at the officer and backs up towards the entrance. "Sorry, officer, but... watch me."

He then turns off and runs through the entrance, and the others run after him, causing all the officers to start off after them. But they are immediately stopped by the growls from Aerthos and Sierra, and they just stand there, baffled at the idea of having let a bunch of teenagers get past them.

Christina turns to the two and calls to them. "Keep the others out of here as long as you can! We'll be back as soon as possible. When backup comes, let them in. We'll need their help in this."

They both nod to her and stand in front of the entrance as she runs inside, keeping a close watch on the people who are now looking nervously at them... many of which have run off in fear.

In the lobby, Vincent and the others scan the area but seem to find no one around. He runs to the elevator and presses the button on it, but gets no response.

"Crap... Whatever happened up there must've shut it down."

Melissa looks around, then points to the stairs nearby. "We'll have to go by foot. If we hurry, we might be able to get up there before things get worse."

Vincent sighs and nods. "Let's hope..." He runs to the stairs and ascends to the next floor, followed by the others. As they get up to it, they look around to see the same appearance that was in the lobby.

"They must have them holed up in the upper floors... We shouldn't delay."

As they go up two more floors, they notice the lights flicker once more, before going out. They look around as it is nearly entrely dark now, the only light coming through the windows down the hall. Christina looks to the ceiling. "What is going on up there?"

Vincent looks at the stairway to the next floor. "Could be any number of things... But something's obviously going wrong. Team Rocket has to be taking action up there. Illuminare..." His hands then release a glow that lights up the area around them. It's a faint light... but just enough to see. And they continue on to the upper levels.

When they reach the seventh floor, Vincent comes out of the stairwell, only to run into a man in a black Rocket uniform wandering the area. And immediately on site, the person reaches to take his arm, shouting, "Hey, haven't you read the memo!? Get out of here before-"

Wasting no time, Vincent smacks his hand on the man's chest, sending a pulse through his body that makes him gasp and stagger weakly. He then pulls his other arm free and uses both hands to thrust at the man, flinging him into the wall with an energy burst and knocking him unconscious.

Raven stares at Vincent somewhat wide-eyed. "Dude... You're scary when you do that..."

Vincent stands up and eyes the downed Rocket grunt. "I don't have any patience for these people... Especially after what they did to Larisa and Lasuno."

Larisa looks at him, her ears flattening back. "Vincent..."

He looks back at her, then sighs and walks on to the stairs going to the next floor. "Come on..."

They continue up the next flight of stairs and look around, noticing a pair of grunts standing guard down the hall. Umbros eyes them, then looks up at Vincent. "Lemme at 'em. I can take 'em."

Vincent blinks and looks down at him. "This isn't a game..."

"So? I can still take 'em on."

He rolls his eyes and then looks back at the two. "...Be careful."

Umbros smiles and phases over behind the two grunts, then shouts out, "Incoming!"

They both turn around, as well as the several people behind the windows in the nearby room. And Umbros releases a Dark Pulse at them, blasting them away and knocking them out.

Vincent then runs out and looks at the two, then at Umbros. "Could you possibly be less destructive..? We're inside a building."

The Umbreon blinks and looks around, seeing the various boards and papers he blew off the walls with his attack, as well as marks streaked across the walls. "Uhh... Oops?"

Vincent shakes his head as the others come over and look around the hallway. Christina then eyes Umbros intently. "You're a trigger-happy maniac, you know that?"

He lowers his ears and whines defiantly. "I can't help it!"

The door to the nearby room opens up, and a few men come out, dressed in white uniforms bearing the Silph logo on them. They look at the party with confusion, and one of them, a man appearing in his mid forties, speaks up. "Who're you?"

Vincent looks at them, before the lights flicker back on. He looks around, realizing the power has come back on, and then turns back to face the employees. "We're here to help get those Rockets out. You should get back in the room, it's not safe to be out here yet."

"Umm... Thanks? But exactly what do a bunch of kids intend to do about this? There're several dozen of them upstairs. I really don't think you could take them all on."

Vincent is about to respond, when they hear loud commotion from the upper floors, and a few more employees run down the hall from the stairway.

As they watch the oncoming people, the man they were talking to calls to woman about his age, who appears to be in shock. She runs to him and then clings to him in a shaken whimper. He wraps his arms around her and asks, "What happened? Did they hurt you?"

She shakes her head. "N-No... Someone fell out of a window... A girl fell out of a window!"

They all gape their mouths at what they just heard, and after a moment, Vincent turns towards where the others ran from.

"...This has gone too far... I knew it would be too late..."

He runs off towards the stairs as Christina calls out to him, but he ignores her and moves to ascend to the next floor... only to come across a rather shocking sight.

There are Rocket grunts lying all over the place, battered and unconscious. He kneels down to check a few of them, feeling a faint pulse at best, though others haven't been so lucky.

Christina and the others come up the stairs and stop, and she gasps, gazing around the area in disbelief.

"What... happened here?"

Vincent shakes his head and stands up. "I don't know... But it looks like someone flipped out and did our work for us. Must be why everyone ran out as fast as they did..."

He examines the area, before coming to a room with the door left wide open. As he enters, he sees scraps of documents and a ness of chairs, desks and machines, as if there had been a struggle here. By the open window lies two grunts, one having been stabbed in the throat and the other, in the side and barely conscious.

Vincent runs over to the two, seeing that the one with the fatal wound had bled out and been gone for a time. It's a brutal sight to come across. He leans down by the other, who gazes up at him with a pitiful look of suffering, as he coughs up blood. And although he has hated the organization for a while ever since learning what happened to Larisa, he can't help but feel bad for what's left of a man who'd been violently attacked.

He goes into his bag to pull out a towel, then puts it over the stab wound. The man grunts painfully and he hushes him quietly.

"...What happened?"

The man coughs again and Vincent pulls back a bit, before he manages to utter in a gagged voice, "We didn't mean it... She got... too close and..." He gasps for air, before choking once more and Vincent looks away in slight disgust.

After a short moment, the grunt manages to speak again, this time in a less audible voice. "We couldn't stop her... He... just went crazy after... After..."

Vincent looks back at him as he begins to drift off. "Who? What was his name?"

But before he could get an answer, the man's eyes roll up and his head falls against the floor, lifeless. He stares at him for a moment, before standing back up and backing away slowly.

Christina looks at him, clearly worried now. "...Vincent?"

He shakes his head and looks at the two dead grunts, then at the window. "What's this world come to now? This didn't have to happen..."

"Vincent, there was no way we could've stopped this..."

Vincent clenches his fists and turns to walk out of the room, before leaning against the wall outside and taking a deep breath.

The others come out and look at him as he stares at the ground. Larisa moves over to give him a hug and he sighs in frustration.

Outside, the sounds of several sirens can be heard echoing through the parking lot and down the street. And Melissa looks around, before turning back to Vincent. "I think backup's come... We should leave this to them. I don't think they'd want us interfering any more than we might have already."

He looks at her for a moment, before nodding slowly. "Right... Let's go then."

As they're about to leave, a small gust can be seen down the hall, and Vincent stops to turn towards it. After a few seconds, what is seen causes Vincent to tense up and every nerve in his body feels as though he'd just seen his worst nightmare... although it may not be far from the truth.

James stands there, staring at Vincent with a smirk, appearing intrigued by his rather low demeanor.

"I thought I'd see you eventually, James... What do you want?"

He makes a quiet chuckle and waves his arms out at his sides. "I came to merely check on an old friend. Nothing more."

The others look at James, Christina and Melissa seeming in surprise at the change in an individual they once thought was a good friend of Vincent's. Meanwhile, Larisa stares at him with an unnerving feeling, knowing exactly who he is and what happened to him. And Raven and Umbros, the ones who've never been around to know about him, watch on with a growing tension, remembering what they'd once heard about him.
Vincent takes a step forward, not taking his eyes off James, and almost seeming as if he were still unwilling to accept that his once best friend had, just one month ago, turned into one of his greatest threats. "Right... Checking up. Because this is just a casual meeting and nothing of it?"

"It could be. That's up to you. Of course I would think in your state of mind, it's not entirely possible, would it?"

Vincent glares at him with growing anger, and he grins in amusement at his response.

"How's it feel, Vincent? To see that you have, once again, failed to stop a tragic event, and are forced to bear witness to the atrocities that come of it? I would expect that, by now, you'd be used to it, am I right?"

"Shut up, James!" Vincent thrusts his hand out and releases a silver streak of energy, which is blocked when James throws his arm in front of him, and chuckles again.

"Still holding back, are you? You must really cherish your friend... It's a pity, really. I'd have thought you'd grown past this pathetic state by now..."

He growls, and fires off several more streaks, all of which are blocked or avoided, and the others jump in surprise at his display. Not only to his show of powers, but also to his outburst of anger, which is not like him to do.

Soon, James gives a nearly deranged laugh, before immediately throwing both of his hands out and creating a blast of dark energy at Vincent, who manages to respond by casting a sword in his hand and holding it in front of himself with his other palm on the blade just in time to block the attack, while being pushed back from the force.

He then swings the sword out and sends a sheet of energy at James, who jumps to the side to easily dodge it. It then strikes the wall down the hall and makes a large slit in it as though it'd been struck by the very sword that released the energy.

"Is that it? Shame... I expected something a little more."

James then phases in front of Vincent and swings his arms out to knock the sword from Vincent's hand. He then throws his palm to his chest to launch him backwards with a powerful burst that sends him through the nearby window and plummeting several stories to the ground.

The others yell out to him and run to the window as James snickers quietly, looking down at the sword which fades away in a silver light. He then cloaks in a dark energy and disappears soon after.

In the parking lot below, people scream at the sight of the person falling to his immenent death. It seems like a certain tragedy... until, from seemingly out of nowhere, a blue blur is seen racing across the sky and past the building, catching him just a few stories from the ground and then dropping out of flight across the parking lot. The figure is barely seen stablizing itself just enough to avoid a brutal crash into the ground, but still drops Vincent a few feet, making him land with a thud and a grunt.

After a short while, Vincent rolls over on the ground and looks up at his savior... the familiar sight of a Latios hovering over him, though appearing to be weak after having caught him. He almost can't believe who it was that saved him.

"...Lasuno?"

The Latios slowly nods, before staggering in his flight. And Vincent jumps up to grab him before he falls. "Hey... Are you okay?"

Lasuno makes a small shrill in response. "I'm... fine. You were a heavier than I thought."

Vincent sighs quietly and hugs him. "Thank you..."

After a moment, he then comes to realization. "Hey... Where's Hector? Is he-"

"Right here?"

He blinks and turns around, seeing the older male running towards them. He comes to a stop a few feet away and pants lightly.

"Hector? But how did..."

"A certain friend helped me find you. Though when I realized that Team Rocket was here, I came as fast as possible. I hope I'm not too late."

Vincent looks to the ground for a bit, then back at Hector with a sigh. "Many of the Rockets here are dead, Hector..."

Hector blinks. "Wait, what?" He looks at Vincent, dumbfounded. "I know they were supposed to be arrested, but... What happened? Does it have something to do with that... girl?"

He shakes his head. "I don't really know... After she fell, apparently someone lost it and attacked everyone around. The one I spoke to... He was clearly remorseful of what happened. But he didn't make it... The police should be in the building now. If any of them did make it out, they won't get far. But I'm concerned about what happened..."

Hector folds his arms and looks down in thought. "It scared a lot of people when they saw her falling. But no one could get there in time to stop her. It was... gut-wrenching to see something like that..."

Soon, Aerthos, Sierra and Larisa are seen flying down to them, with the sisters, Raven and Umbros on their backs. Christina and Melissa jump down and run over to Vincent, calling out to him. And he looks at them with a blink as he almost immediately has Melissa impacting him with her arms around him tightly.

"Don't scare me like that! I thought you..."

She doesn't go any further, unable to muster the will to say what could've happened. But Vincent makes a faint smile and hugs her. "I'm okay, Melissa... Really."

Christina comes over and then smacks his arm. "She's not kidding, Vincent! You almost gave us heart attacks."

He blinks and looks at her, then sighs. "I'm sorry... It was foolish of me to try and do something like that. I'm..."

He lets go of Melissa, who backs up and looks at him as he stares down at the ground.

"Vincent..."

He doesn't say anything for a bit, but then clenches his fists. "I still can't bring myself to believe that he's become this way... I know, it's been well over a month, but..." He looks up at them. "What would you do if one of your best friends, whom you've known for many years suddenly becomes corrupted and turns into a cruel, murderous person?"

They fall silent for several minutes, unsure of how to respond to such a thing or how they can comfort Vincent. But their attention is abruptly averted to Larisa's cry as she is seen tackling Lasuno in a tight hug.

"Lasuno! I can't believe you're here! You've no idea how much I've missed you!"

The Latios, overwhelmed by her shrills of shock and excitement, grunts weakly. All he can do is wrap his arms around her and embrace her in a warm hug. "Hey... Shh, shh... I'm here now, dear. I won't leave you again..."

The Latias whines and nuzzles into his shoulder, and the others can't help but feel happy for the two, almost admiring how close they are."

Though they are soon brought to realization of their surroundings, once they notice the crowd of people running towards them. And Hector blinks and stares at them.

"Uhh... We probably shouldn't stay here..."

Vincent nods a bit and backs up. "Ehh, yeah... Let's get out of here before we become roadkill from all those people."

They all run off towards the car, and Christina quickly unlocks it, then gets in and starts it up. The others get in, except for Hector, who was the last to reach it.

"There's not enough room in there... I'll have to fly."

Christina nods. "Okay... Just follow us as closely as you can. Can you all do that?"

The two dragons, Larisa and Lasuno all nod. And Hector goes over to Aerthos to get on his back. Raven calls out, "Let's go already! They're not waiting up!"

Christina immediately shifts the car in reverse and backs out, then turns and speeds off through the parking lot, while the pokemon follow take to the air. They manage to make it out of the lot with the herd of animals in their dust.

Vincent looks back through the rear window to see that they've made it in the clear.

"We should get out of the city as soon as possible... Let's try and head to Vermilion."

Christina nods and drives off to the south, making her way towards the gate. They leave behind the incident with Team Rocket to get to safety. Though whatever lies ahead, no one can be certain...

- - - - -

"You've certainly resisted a lot more than I expected... It's no surprise, seeing as how you're the deity of time. But I do wonder... Just how long can you hold out, before the darkness overwhelms your will?"

Dialga growls lowly, glaring at the cloaked individual with glowing red eyes. And he just chuckles quietly.

"I suppose we'll just have to see how this plays out. But I certainly hope you don't take too long to come to my side. I may need you shortly..."