Pokémon: Cipher's Rebirth

Prologue - "Revenge"

As the sun beat down on the desert and the wind threw up sand from all over, a man in a dark cloak hit his knees into the Orre Colosseum's floor. This colosseum was known for some of the most grueling battles. It was here that the man had come to, in hopes of sharpening his battling skills so that when he faced his nemesis in battle once again he would be able to utterly defeat them as payback for destroying what he cared about. 

And yet, as he looked over at the red-haired kid across from him that he had lost to, he gritted his teeth from having lost. However, the thought that he could gauge the kid's strength now gave him a small comfort as he stood up and dusted the sand off of his cloak. Narrowing his eyes at the kid and smiling an amused smile, he uttered a simple threat as the sand swirled around the Colosseum:

"You are dangerous indeed. I am naming you Cipher's Greatest Enemy, right here and now. Next time, Michael, I swear to you that Cipher will crush this region with an army of Shadow Pokémon that are unable to ever be snagged by that wretched Snag Machine!" The man proclaimed, before turning away and walking out of the Colosseum as he raised a radio to his mouth: "I need transportation. Ready the helicopter."

Hearing the distinct sound of the helicopter after about ten minutes, the man smiled. He would make Michael pay for having destroyed Cipher, for having his own father abandon the organization that they had worked so hard on, and for turning his own twin brother against him. But that would come in due time. Right now, he was concerned with doing damage control from the Citadark incident. He had to make sure that the research in both the Key Lair and the laboratory in the desert was secure, even if the production of Shadow Pokèmon was halted for now. He needed that research to renew Cipher's goals. 

After all he, Ardos Verich, was the new Grand Master in charge of Cipher. And he was not about to let what his father's researchers had done go to waste. Nor was he going to abandon the only way he knew to live. His twin and father may have been convinced to go back to 'the good side'...but he knew better.

They would both be imprisoned and hated by the populace of Orre, and possibly the other regions as well. After all, they had operations in other regions. Him, his brother, and his father had simply came back to Orre 2 years ago, after the mishap of the team they had left here seven years ago, to fix the mistakes that were due to an Ex-Team Snagem going rogue and dismantling everything.

And now it seemed he would have to pull resources from the other branches if he wanted to fix the mess here in Orre again. As he raised his radio to his mouth once more, he barked a simple command into it:

"All forces, assemble at our base at AlphaOmega. We have another mess to clean up."

And with that out of the way, he put the radio back in his belt clip as he gave a malicious smile. He knew what he had to do, had a plan to do it, and was even coming up with ways to stop those who would oppose them. Especially Michael. However, he'd need a covert operation done to gain intelligence on that accursed Snag Machine that had enabled Michael to unravel their whole operation.

Once he had that, and a way to counteract or disable that machine, he'd be able to sweep Orre and make it fall to its knees. It was obvious making Shadow Pokèmon that were unable to have their hearts reopened was impossible; that much was clear from the failure of XD001, or Shadow Lugia. And making a Snag Machine of their own that could also snag regular Pokèmon wouldn't work either. After all, rhey didn't need another 'Wes' situation happening.

No, he needed a way to disable snagging entirely. And he was going to figure out how, even if it killed him.