Pokémar Episode V, A Clone's Destiny

Liberation

Progress is slow. My gut erupts into searing pain with every limping step I take. The screaming of the klaxons are doing nothing for me either. But I set it aside and keep going. I need to get Thunder and get out of here as quickly as possible.

My directionless journey through red lit halls eventually bears fruit. I stumble across a door labeled "pokemon storage." Perfect. This is exactly what I'm looking for. I open to door to reveal numerous rows of metal shelves, each one filled with those red and white spheres, all resting on small stands to keep them from rolling off. Arceus, how many pokemon have they kidnapped?! There's got to be at least a hundred in this room alone!

I hobble down the rows of shelves, glancing at the spheres on display. Each one looks to have something written on the top of each in permanent marker, though it's in a shorthand style I don't recognize. I pick one up to have a closer look, trying to find some way of opening it. I press the central button, seeing as it's really the only thing I can do. The button responds by idly flashing a green light as if to indicate a ready status. I press it again. The light turns off. I push it again and it toggles back on. What am I supposed to do with this?

I set it back on the shelf, not wanting to risk harming the occupant, whoever it may be. The sound of an explosion catches my attention.

"Frick, that sounded close..." I mutter quietly to myself. Whatever it is that's destroying everything sounds like it's headed this way.

Another explosion rattles the room, the shockwave jostling loose several of the spheres. A cacophony of vaguely electronic pling sounds ring out as a number of them clatter to the floor and bounce slightly. The one I was messing with is among them. But once that one falls, something else happens. After hitting the floor it opens, spitting out a bolt of light. The light gathers on the floor and begins to mold itself into a shape of a creature. The light dies down, leaving behind a Growlithe in it's place.

"Thank Arceus you came." He says to me in pokespeak. "They kept me in that thing for weeks!"

"You're welcome, I guess." I reply, also in pokespeak. The Growlithe looks at me in surprise.

"You know pokespeak!?"

"I do. I'm Alex of Team New Hope. And I need your help."

"New Hope? Never heard of them. Anyways, what do you need?" He hasn't heard of New Hope? That's surprising. These days almost everyone I talk to knows who we are.

"I'm looking for a friend. A Pikachu named Thunder. I think he's in this room somewhere. I-" Another explosion cuts me off. It's getting dangerously close now. "...I need to find him before whatever is out there gets him first. The more people searching the better."

"Alright. I have a few friends I want freed too."

"Something tells me we're going to end up opening all of these anyways. Let's go." I grab another sphere, hitting the center button and dropping it on the floor. The sphere opens to reveal a Riolu. "You overheard us talking, right?" I ask, remembering how I was aware of the outside world when I was in one.

"Yeah." She replies.

"Alright. Well get started opening these things. Let's try and get everyone out of here if we can." She nods in response and grabs another sphere off the shelf.

As we continue to free the others, the room quickly fills. It doesn't take long before this storage room starts feeling like an out of control zoo. I keep a watchful eye out for Thunder, a task growing harder by the second.

"Thunder!" I yell, trying to be heard over the mounting commotion. "Thunder! Over here!" I get no response. Or his response is drowned out by the noise. Hopefully those klaxons are masking all of this. Last thing we need is a guard walking in on this. "Thunder!"

"Over here! Over here Alex!" I get a reply. I see a Pikachu with a familiar bandanna and badge hopping between the heads of the taller pokemon towards me. With a final leap, he plants himself on my right shoulder. "Thank goodness you're alive!"

"They kept me alive because they wanted information out of me. The lockdown provided a enough of a distraction for me to get free."

"What did they want to know?"

"About Pokemar. How I learned to be a pokemon, how I learned pokespeak, things like that. I think they want to send their people in and do who knows what."

"You didn't say anything, did you?"

"No, the lockdown happened before they could get anything from me. Speaking of which, how the frick are we getting out of here?"

"Don't ask me. I've been stuck in that blasted ball for six hours." His tone of voice makes it clear that he despises that thing. Can't say I blame him.

"Well we need to find an exit, first of all. Maybe then we can fig-" The sound of shearing metal cuts me off. The far wall has just been peeled open like a can lid, revealing a hallway behind it. The massive chunk of metal hovers in the air for a split second, radiating an energy that wafts off of it like pink fumes. And just as suddenly as it was ripped away, it was launched off down the hall with blinding speed, followed shortly by screams of pain and fear.

All the pokemon in the room scatter in a panic, trying to funnel out the door, but only succeeding in creating a bottleneck. Meanwhile gunfire continues to ring out from the hall. We're effectively trapped. I get behind one of the shelves, whatever good that'll do us.

Something steps into view from the right, a pokemon, I think. None that I've ever seen before. A bipedal being standing a little under 7 feet tall. It's skin is an off-white grey with a long, violet tail and what looks to be a tube running between the base of the head and the upper back.

The being walks forward slowly, as if to intimidate its attackers. It's arm is outstretched, using what I can only assume to be psychic powers to deflect all oncoming fire back at the users.
It doesn't take long before the hail of bullets comes to an end. The pokemon lowers its hand before turning our way. His eyes lock on me and I tense up.

"A-Alex? W-what do we do?" Thunder feebly asks me. As if I could give him an answer. The pokemon tilts its head slightly, apparently curious. For a moment we just stare. What does it want? Why hasn't it tried to kill me?

A fresh round of gunfire takes it's attention away. In an instant it speeds away towards the source, leaving us alone in the room.

"Well, that just happened..." I say.

"Yeah. I thought we were dead for sure."

"Guess luck is on our side. Regardless, we should find a way out. Keep an eye out and let me know if you see anything." With difficulty I stand back up, my wound still burning in pain.

"You going to be okay?"

"I hope so. With any luck there's a hospital somewhere nearby. One thing at a time, though. We escape first." I slowly limp my way out the door and back into the hall. With no idea where to go, we're just going to have to hope we stumble across something. Preferably something without guards.