A haze of purple strikes filled the gap between Drapion and the ice wall. Piles of slush grew bigger with every slash.

Shieldon slowly cracked an eye open and let himself finally breathe. Bouncing around the room had been disorienting, but aside from a dull ache and a slight concussion, he felt well enough to keep fighting. Slowly and quietly the ceratops got back to his feet, his opponent still completely absorbed in his task.

I doubt I'll be able to play dead a second time. I need to make this count. For Newton.

The ogre scorp didn't notice the hallway brighten behind him. A stab of cold and sudden numbness on his tail made him swivel back to find the source. By then the ice already encased his lower half.

The scorpion's roar shook the entire hallway. Shieldon kept up the pressure, lifting the beam up to the creature's head. A pair of pincers swung into its path, giving him a moment to inhale. Shieldon didn't give him the chance and darted forward, shortening the distance and intensifying the blast. The scorpion's screams disappeared as ice spread into his mouth and enveloped the rest of his head.

Shieldon's lungs ached, the need for air growing dire. He ended the attack to avoid passing out. The hallway spun as he teetered over to a wall and leaned against it. A solid minute passed before he managed to steady himself, glancing up to see the Drapion frozen in place. Several needles were caught in the ice in mid-launch, the creature's livid expression captured in time.

Shieldon sighed, letting his gaze stray past the scorpion's shoulder to the ice wall behind him. In the short time he'd played dead, the Drapion had slashed halfway through. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, Shieldon tapped into the ice frequency once more and let the aura build inside his mouth. He didn't notice drapion's eyes, how they suddenly shifted beneath his frozen cocoon. He didn't see the cracks snake across his prison until it was already too late.

Ice and slush violently slammed into the ceratops and shattered his focus. A pair of pincers punched through the frosty haze, hooking under Shieldon's jaw and catching him in the neck. The ground beneath his feet fell away. Any attempts to breathe, scream, or make noise died in his throat.

"For something so small…you're actually pretty heavy," the scorpion grunted and took a moment to study the creature who, in their short time together, had been the most annoying opponent to date.

None of my moves seem to hurt him, but everyone needs to breathe. I can kill him. The question is… should I? I remember his kind. J knew some people who would pay a lot for him. There might still be some buyers and J is sure to reward me if I bring this one to her alive. But that damn ice wall is in the way…

Shieldon's already panicked heart nearly skipped a beat when the scorpion's mouth morphed into a demented grin.

Without warning the scorpion reeled his arm back and swung the ceratops into the ice. Much to the drapion's delight the impact summoned a sizable crater, hundreds of little cracks snaking out from the sides. What started as a cackle evolved into maniacal laughter that grew with each swing. His exhaustion was quickly forgotten, every crunch and snap of the ice now music to his ears.

"How does it feel, runt?" the scorpion roared, launching the ceratops with enough force that his iron crest breached the other side of the wall.

"How does it feel to know that you're actually helping me. Once I'm past this wall I'm gonna find your little human friend and when I do, I'm going to pull him apart!"

A swing followed every other word, ice and slush spraying across the hallway.

"I'll do it one piece at a time! I'll start small, you know, just to savor it. I'll start with his fingernails, then his teeth. Then I'll move onto his fingers and toes-" Another swing, another section of wall collapsing beneath the impact of his body.

"-Then away go the hands," Drapion howled. The hole in the ice was now wide enough to accommodate his bulk.

"Then his feet!" Shieldon's body flew through the hole, glancing off the ceiling before slamming into the floor. The scorpion moved to pass the frozen threshold when he saw the ceratops' body twitch and shakily get back to his feet.

Drapion was more amused than irritated. J hardly ever let him play with his targets, but his master was nowhere in sight. He could finally take his time. A silver orb formed in Shieldon's mouth, swiftly bursting into an argent column. Drapion's claws flashed white, a barrage of white Pin Missiles meeting the Flash Cannon head on until it petered out.

"I'll pull out his guts through his ass."

Smoke filled the hall, then parted as a cyan beam shot through. Another salvo of spines intercepted the blast, adding a layer of smoke to the air over a floor littered with frozen spines.

"I'll fill him full of needles."

Shieldon's Ice Beam fell apart when a coughing fit took him. Drapion didn't wait for him to finish and unloaded a new round of pins. While none of them could breach Shieldon's hide, each blast knocked him around the hall. Drapion emerged from the smoke, his body scuffed and scratched from the Flash Cannon but otherwise unharmed.

"But you know what the best part will be?" Only a few meters stood between the two combatants. "I'll make sure you watch it all happen. Up front and center."

"You're not getting near him," Shieldon growled.

"Oh, really? And what exactly are you gonna do to stop me?" the scorpion beamed and stepped past the icy threshold.

He's right. What am I going to do? How long has it been? Did I buy Newton enough time? I could run away? But then he'd go after Newton. What can I do? I can't stop him, I'm not strong enough!

Quagsire's patient and gentle smile flashed through his mind.

Sometimes, when pushed enough, we change our forms into something entirely different. Fighting is not the only thing to achieve your next form, it is merely the stage through which you find your limits and the desire to surpass them.

I haven't tried Tackle or Iron Defense, but if I get close to him again and he gets his claws on my neck…

Shieldon shook the thought away. J's Drapion slowly stalked towards him.

Flash Cannon isn't stopping him and Ice Beam takes too long to make. Even if it does connect it's not holding him for long. Newton didn't teach me anything else, I don't have anything else!

Shieldon cycled through the frequencies of his aura, searching for one he hadn't tapped into yet. He found the layered stiffness of steel aura easily enough; the misty stillness of ice aura was still fresh in his mind. Deeper still he could sense chromatic glow of normal aura, but there was something else, something hidden. No, not hidden. Buried? It was deep, deeper than he had ever pressed but it had always been there. The aura was sharp, angular and rough, but somehow just as familiar as his own tail. He reached for it, pulling it to the surface and tapping into it, hoping it could change something.

The Drapion paused as a silver sphere swelled into being and flew at him. A swipe from his arm was enough to deflect it into the adjacent wall with a flash of light. Smoke billowed from the point of impact. Aside from some bruising beneath his carapace, the Ogre Scorp was fine.

Drapion stepped forward and found the world beyond the haze was much brighter than he remembered. Beams of blue light burst from the Shield Pokémon's body.

"You've got to be shitting me," J's Drapion hissed, lunging out with his claws to try and stop the process. The scorpion wrapped his claws around the creature's neck and lifted it off the floor. His pincers pressed against Shieldon's throat, but unlike before, the skin did not give way. Worse, as the glowing blue body stretched and expanded, the added weight forced drapion's arms down.

The glow dimmed in seconds. A pair of yellow eyes blinked back at him. Drapion tried to reel his arms back, but the new creature lowered his tower shield-shaped head, pinning both claws beneath his chin to the ground. The world around Drapion brightened once again. A silver sphere, much larger than before, filled all of Bastiodon's maw. At point blank, the iron sand ripped through the scorpion's body, shredding everything in its path.

Newton tumbled past the elevator doors to the command center, the mechanical arms retracting before the battery completely died. He flopped onto the floor and stayed there, seeing Electivire standing just outside the shattered windshield while something beyond him roared and hissed. The lights above him flickered out; the thunderbeast disappeared.

Newton's arms shook as he tried to peel himself off the floor, groaning as his sweat-soaked shirt clung to the cold surface. While he was sure Infi wouldn't have told him to head here if J was still around, he couldn't help scanning the room to make sure. Generators from the floor below hummed; the ceiling and computer lights flickered back on to reveal that he was the only soul in the room. As the monitors slowly winked on, one in particular drew his focus.

The face, if he could still call it one, was so badly pixelated it was just a colorful, amorphous blob. Her voice started and stopped at random intervals, repeating a syllable that devolved into a high-pitched trill. Newton couldn't make sense of it, but he didn't have to. Beneath the pixelated mess on the screen were big, bright yellow subtitles with the words: "grab the drive".

Newton searched the room again with renewed fervor, his eyes eventually settling on the drive jutting out of Hunter J's personal computer. He dove for it, yanking it out of the slot and inserting it into the side of his visor. A red, blinking "3%" appeared on the corner of his visor when Infi's voice filtered in through the speakers.

"While I don't necessarily miss being back in your backpack, it is nice to see you again, Newton."

The researcher's eyes watered just from the sound. "Sorry I'm…late, Infi."

"Better late than never, but we need to work fast if we're going to beat her. I need you to head over to Paul's Weavile."

Newton nodded, ignoring his screaming muscles as he trudged over to the petrified ice weasel.

"I don't suppose you could move a little faster?" The A.I. gently said.

"Doing…the best…I can," Newton huffed. "Why didn't…she take…Weavile?"

"Her gauntlet and visor are only set to synch up with four of the hover platforms. Three of her Pokémon and Paul are with her."

"Where…is…she?" Newton wheezed.

"I lost track of her when the system started to lag. The logical course of action for her to take would be to make for the server room and reboot the system in an effort to purge me from it. As soon as I calculated that possibility, I transferred myself back to your drive and left a basic copy of myself to make sure I overloaded the system."

Newton nearly tripped over himself mid-walk. "You made… a copy of… yourself?!"

"A limited one, a fraction of my programming and with limited facets of my personality. I designed her solely for the purpose of repeatedly flooding the system with junk commands. Can we please talk about this later? I need you to remove the stasis field on Weavile."

Newton reached Weavile's glass casing and knelt down to twist the dial.

"Wait, he's… not petrified?"

A sighed filled his ears and while he couldn't see her, he could swear Infi's arms were on her hips in cyberspace.

"According to the databanks I collected from J's ship, her gauntlet allows her to place her targets into a stasis field. The brown coloration you see around them is just a byproduct of the field. With the dials on the pedestals she's able to dial back the range of effect. Although there are parts of you not covered by the field, your body still functions normally. Didn't you wonder how you could speak and breath if the rest of your body, like your lungs, were 'petrified'?"

Newton's brow furrowed, his breathing stabilized.

"Point made. How have I not heard of this kind of tech before? Zero and I were using top-of-the-line equipment when we were planning on capturing Giratina. Those gauntlets would've made things incredibly useful."

"Any records of who funds this ship and her equipment has been repeatedly wiped from the servers. The organization who designed this tech and funds hunter J does not want to be known. The gauntlet itself is an experimental prototype. The energy consumption is massive, which limits the number of shots she can fire. On top of that, the stasis field doesn't last forever. In an hour, the field dissipates. The hover pedestals help prolong the duration."

Newton reached Weavile's pedestal and twisted the dial slowly, freeing the ice weasel's eyes first. A pair of shocked, then angry eyes glared back at him at first. Newton let them dart about the room for a few seconds to get his bearings before he lowered the field further down the rest of his body. The researcher sympathized, remembering his own awakening when J had freed him.

Seeing no immediate danger, the weasel relaxed, arms crossed and tapping his foot impatiently as the glass-like dome over his pedestal started to disappear.

"Weavile, Hunter J still has Paul. She has him somewhere in this ship, but I need your help stopping her and getting him back."

The Sharp Claw Pokémon's eyes narrowed into slits. He tried to manifest a shard of ice between his claws but failed. His legs wobbled from the strain. While it had been several hours since his fight against the golbat, it had only been a few minutes to the Sharp Claw pokémon. His reserves were already tapped out.

"I need you to immobilize her, not kill her," Newton added. Infi's "What?!" and the weasel's growl came at the same time.

"I know she's done some awful things, but she still deserves a trial."

Slivers of rain were starting to trickle in through the command center's shattered window, heralding a coming storm. A massive column of lightning slammed into the clearing outside, surprising everyone. The world beyond the airship went white. The subsequent thunder made the shards of broken glass jitter along the tiled floor.

Infi calculated the time it would take for the ringing in Newton and Weavile's ears to subside before she continued.

"Newton, I understand your desire for justice to be served, but the odds of us successfully capturing this ship and her living are very small. Catching her alive only increases the risk on both you and Paul. What little remains of Weavile's moveset contains only moves that all risk being lethal," Infi replied.

"I've already considered that, but I do have a plan that he can help us with."

Newton fished out something from his backpack and handed it to Weavile. As soon as it passed hands all three heard an anguished roar from Electivire outside. Weavile's eyes widened, switching his gaze between Newton and the window.

*Minutes earlier*

"I better hear words coming out of your mouth in the next couple seconds or I'm flying straight towards your little hideout," the Salamence snapped.

Electivire's eyes were closed, tails poking and prodding beneath the ship's hull. He had hoped the dragon would've been a little more patient, but a couple seconds seemed to be all the time she would spare for him. Red eyes lifted to the skies and found only half the starry night dominated by clouds.

"I've made my decision," The thunderbeast announced, his tails prodding the object he'd been searching for.

"Spit it out then!"

"I'm staying," Electivire said, jamming the ends of his tail into the electrical conduit. His body shivered, drinking in as much power as he could from the ship. Arcs of lightning crackled between the antenna on his head and across his fur. In a gray blur his tails ripped through the hull and coiled into springs. By the time Salamence noticed the dark, unlit command center, Electivire was above her.

A crackling fist slammed into her face, the impact shooting her out of the sky. The earth below rippled from the collision. Salamence wasted no time and whipped her tail against the ground to launch herself away. Electivire shot past her from above, his landing deepening the crater she'd occupied only an instant before.

Salamence replied with a Hyper Beam. It slashed through the earth, carving out the clearing then sweeping into the forest behind it. The attack didn't travel far. Another fist laid into the side of her head and sent the beam wide. J's ace pokémon shot across the field, her scarlet wings gouging out patches of grass and dirt with every tumble.

Electivire allowed himself a wicked grin. The distant songs of kricketot and kricketune had gone silent. Salamence was halfway across the clearing when she managed to right herself and sweep her tail back.

As she predicted, Electivire was already there behind her. He ducked beneath her hasty tail swipe, darting forward and throwing all his weight into his uppercut. It was for an instant, but Salamence caught the glossy sheen of something wrapped around his arms and knuckles.

Dragonscale met coiled bands of steel.

A shockwave ballooned from the blow, whipping up a gust of wind that swept around the pair. Salamence shot into the sky, body bent over and winded. The silver scales on her belly darkened into a sickly mix of red and purple. Electivire's metal tails unraveled from his arms and twisted back into coils at his sides.

He lowered himself to the ground, all six limbs primed, then pushed in unison. Salamence sucked some air to quiet the screaming of her lungs. Her wings, flattened down at her sides, flexed and spread out to slow her ascent. She suddenly wished she hadn't when the yellow speck below her suddenly filled her field of vision. She flapped her wings, twisting her body away to just narrowly dodge Electivire's charge.

At least, that's what she'd thought. Something coiled around her throat and yanked her along. Electivire twirled, reeling himself back towards the Salamence with his tail. He slammed into her from above, hands gripping the base of her wings as if to rip them from their sockets. Her wings strained against his hold. His second tail snaked over her body to join its twin around her throat. Wind rushed past them, the world below quickly closing in.

"You idiot, you'll kill us both!" she wheezed.

"Guess so," Electivire replied with such calm, such finality, that the dragon felt a spike of fear, the likes of which she had not felt in years. Electivire grit his teeth. The steel from his tails had already faded and it would be hours before he could utilize the technique again. The dragon felt the grip on her throat weaken and took her chance, unloading another Hyper Beam towards the ground.

Sparks danced over Electivire's fur just before he poured it into the dragon at point blank.

Like a meteor on reentry the pair hurtled towards the earth, the corona of lightning lifting the darkness from the night as they fell. When the pain became too much to bear, the beam of energy dissipated.

Electivire rode the dragon until the last meter, releasing her from his grapple and summoning his final Protect. The ground shuddered as Salamence slammed into the earth, a crescendo of stone and dirt rising to meet the thunderbeast's barrier. His Protect held, taking the brunt of the fall when he landed a few feet away from Salamence's crater before it faded away.

Electivire was sprawled out atop the grass, winded and staring blankly at the sky. No twinkle of starlight, not even the moon's glow, could penetrate the thick blanket of clouds above them.

"Too little too late," he groused. His tails were outstretched, lying limply along the grass. Slowly, they reared up and pushed against the soil and his body to lift him to his feet. He looked over to his opponent, her head fully submerged beneath the dirt, arms buried down to the shoulder. Her hindlegs, wings, and tail drooped limply down her sides. Something in her body gave way and teetered over and flopped onto her belly.

The impact should've broken her neck, he thought to himself and started turning away. Mid-turn, a teal sphere of a Dragon Pulse erupted from out of the soil and slammed into his side.

He couldn't breathe. A white flare of pain spread across his chest like he'd been shot with an anvil. Cold quickly replaced the red-hot agony. It came so swiftly some part of him grew deeply unsettled at the implications. At first, forming thoughts was a fruitless endeavor, most of it a jumble that was lost in the haze of pain. At some point he registered he was moving through the air. His vision, framed in a mix of red and darkness, came back to him.

He saw Salamence, soil and stone trickling past the scales on her smiling face. Questions of her survival flitted to the surface of his thoughts until he saw the hole between her feet, the one she'd made with her earlier Hyper Beam. Time seemed to speed up once more, and he felt the earth at his back once more.

"Nice try, fuzzball, but you're not going to get me that easily. All that struggle, all that effort and look where it got you. On your back, dying, and alone. None of your little friends are here to save you," she cackled.

"That's-," he rasped, blood dribbling past his lips, "-where you're wrong."

The dragon's eyes narrowed. She side-eyed the field discreetly, but no sight or smell told her there was company.

He's bluffing, she surmised. Then a water droplet landed on her snout. She glanced up. The clouds above were gray and thick with rain. The drastic change in weather didn't dawn on her until she saw the flash of light and the smell of ozone filled her senses. Jumping from droplet to droplet the first lightning bolt zigzagged down from the sky. The bolt itself was just the scout, a guide for the pillar of plasma, spanning several meters, that followed behind it.

Gary squinted through the gray curtain of rain from the porch of the house, barely making out the figure that danced beneath the deluge. Quagsire's moves were slow, deliberate, and awkward. And yet, no one in Pastoria would dare criticize the dance of someone who'd recently lost both of its arms. Blastoise waited off to the side; far enough to give the water fish the room for the Rain Dance, but close enough to jump in at a moment's notice.

Quagsire never called out for help, righting himself every time it looked as though he were about to topple over. Pride was not the reason he rejected aid. He knew that time would return his limbs to him, but that could take days or even weeks. Until then, he would need to learn how to function without them. The world was no longer a place that would look kindly on someone with his temporary disability.

He would need to reacquaint himself with his body. He refused to sit back and allow the others to fight and bleed on his behalf. His mind was still intact, as were his legs and the connection to his element. It might've also helped that his time as a Wooper had already prepared him for a life without arms.

"Let me know if you get tired," Blastoise called out with forced nonchalance. Quagmire nodded and smiled.

"I shall," he replied, just as he had for the previous eight times the water starter had extended the offer. He could see the cannon turtle tense every time it looked as though he would fall and was grateful for the kind company he now kept. Quagsire's thoughts eventually led him to Shieldon, his steps through the muddy ground eventually coming to a stop.

Blastoise took that as his signal to continue the dance, and Quagsire let him as he glanced to the pouring skies.

I do hope the little one is okay. A solid line of lightning fractured the sky as if to answer him. Gary counted the seconds in his mind before the thunder came and closed his eyes. Much to his chagrin the bolt was just far enough to be where Newton said the airship had crashed.

The lightning was no natural occurrence. Newton's secret infiltration had failed. Gary moved to bridge his fingers together, only to wince when he realized it was yet another thing he could no longer do.

While Gary had approved most of Newton's plan, he still wanted a backup just in case. The researcher insisted that the sooner J was removed from her ship, the sooner they could move the sick and wounded into the ship's medical bay. By the time Gary had ordered his starter to start the dance, Newton had already driven off.

The air around Electivire shimmered and danced between the falling rain. A tower of smoke billowed from where his attack had branded the earth. As the wind howled, more and more of the smoke was swept away to reveal the barren ground underneath, every blade of grass vaporized from the strike.

A claw peeked out of the smoke, then an arm, and eventually the dragon's head. Her body made no move, no sound, save for the hiss of rain that curled into steam upon her scales. A jolt jumped between her blackened scales, her upturned head had dropped down to face him.

Then her eyes blinked.

"Neat trick," dragon growled. She tried to step forward only for the limb to seize and for more jolts to jump along her scales. Electivire wheezed. No matter how hard he tried none of his limbs had the strength to move. The dragon managed another step, then a second before the jolts of his element stopped her in her tracks again.

"I'm going to savor this. You know that, don't you?" Her laugh was a low rumble from deep within her chest. In a few more steps she would be on top of him.

Electivire's aura trickled together, pooling into what would be his next Thunder attack. At the rate it was collecting, he would need a solid minute to pull it off. Doubt began to erode the edges of his focus, making it waver. The last blast had used most of his aura. Would a second or even a third make a difference? Did he even have enough to produce a second one? In the time it took her to reach him, he could blast her with a Thunderbolt, but if she could shake off his most powerful attack, would it even matter?

The dragon was only a few feet from him now and the rain had long since died. Salamence lifted her arm, then slashed down, talons sinking deep into Electivire's stomach. The thunderbeast roared, his focus shattered. The aura he'd gathered quickly dispersed. Salamence had closed her eyes and drank in the sound, her head swaying back and forth as though the cadence of his screams were music.

She lifted her claw when the screams died down, admiring the crimson stains at the tips of her talons. The inspection was short-lived. Without warning the claw swept down again and sank into Electivire's gut. The thunderbeast howled anew, Salamence's claws twisting in the pooling wound.

"Tell you what, once I'm done with you, I'm going to take a little visit to the city hiding your friends. I'll keep an eye out for the boy with the missing arm. Gary was it?"

Electivire waited for the surge of strength at the mention of Gary's name, but it never came. The world just continued to get darker and colder as her smile widened. Keeping his eyes open became a herculean task. The warm allure of rest called out to him with promises to numb the pain. Blood splashed across his face, the warmth seeping into his fur. He wondered if it was his blood, at least until he noticed it was spurting out of the dragon's throat. Her smile was gone.

Weavile, teeth grit, silently came from above. The shard of ice in his claws, already red and glistening, pierced the dragon's scales with ease. Salamence's body shuddered once, then a second time as Weavile drove the dagger deeper into her skull and twisted it. He didn't let up, ripping his icy knife out through her eye. Her body teetered back but just before she fell the ice weasel leapt off and sheathed the shard into her chest.

Her body slumped to the ground and went still. Weavile spun around, eyes wide with panic. Electivire's body was numb, barely registering the weasel's claws patting his body.

"No. No. No! I'm not losing you too. I still owe you dammit!" The words faintly echoed through Electivire's mind before all he felt was cold.

"Admin level command: Terminate all new and foreign programs until further notice," J barked at the console. She didn't unclench her fists until a green light in her visor winked on. She released a steady breath through her nose, fingers drumming beside the keyboard as she thought of her next move.

"Admin level command: initiate lockdown for all quadrants and levels except for quadrants A through D on level 4." Another green light winked on in response.

That should give me control of the ship again and limit his mobility. To think he'd go this far, especially when I have a damned hostage with me. Either his reactions to the kid were fake and the kid means nothing to him or he's willing to bet I'm bluffing.

J pulled the footage from her visor when she released him, going over it a few times before shaking her head. No, it wasn't an act. He truly did care about the kid. So, what changed? Somewhere along the way the potential cost of losing the kid didn't outweigh the benefits of gaining her airship. J could understand that math at least.

He probably thought he was going to get the jump on me. Downed ship with no power, no Pokémon to defend me, emboldened by having one of their own on the inside. Even so… why come back with such a small group to kill me? Stealth would be my first guess, unless they weren't trying to kill me. If I recall currently, his first words to me were how he convinced the boy not to kill me. So they want me alive, but they also want the ship. Perhaps they believe they'll need me, just in case.

J's hand made a gesture, summoning the view of one of the airship's hallways to her visor. Seeing nothing, she pressed her thumb to her ring finger, cycling through the cameras. With the system rebooted she was confident she wasn't being fed fake visuals, at the cost of losing all recordings of anything prior to the wipe.

Camera QDL1 made the huntress cluck her tongue. An umbreon's body was lying on the web-covered ground, several needles jutting out of its ear. Her ariados lay beside her, or at least most of its body. The head was nowhere to be seen.

She switched cameras a few more times before she reached the hallway where her Drapion was supposed to be. The visuals there drew a sigh from her lips.

The unconscious bulk of a bastiodon took up most of the view of camera QCL2. There, on the carpet of slush, lied the pulpy remains of her scorpion.

Well that's annoying. But it's fine. You can always order another one from The Compa-

J tensed and caught herself before she let the thought continue. She'd grown accustomed to replacing her forces. A simple request order to her benefactors and by the day's end the asset would be there for pickup. J pinched the bridge of her nose and took steadying breaths.

It's fine. This is fine. It's workable. I can still make do with this, she assured herself, switching to the surveillance feeds outside the airship. Many of them were offline, which didn't surprise her when she glanced over to the gaping hole in the ceiling of the server room.

A few more finger taps brought her to one of the few surviving exterior cameras.

And to the sight of her Salamence. Her ace. Lying on her back in a pool of her own blood.

It didn't matter that the Electivire looked out of commission or that the Weavile near it was fleeing into the woods. Her ace Pokémon, her sword, had been shattered. J's frame trembled. Every atom of her being demanding that she strike something or scream. The huntress barely reined in her ire, stowed it away, and settled for white-knuckled fists.

"I'll feed him the kid piece by piece," she snarled, rapidly thumbing through different cameras. The control room, all hallways, even the bathrooms showed no sign of the man. Granted, a third of the cameras on the airship were either unresponsive or with visuals so distorted that she couldn't count on them.

With a gesture J banished the screens from her visor.

I'm not getting anywhere this way, there's a few places where he could be, but going over and verifying it myself is going to take time and energy, both of which I can't afford to waste. That man and the kid must have some value to the people in Pastoria. I need to know more about them before I can make my move.

The bounty huntress lifted her cold gaze to her frozen hostage.

Pulling that intel from the boy right now could be tedious work. Torture tends to be a wildcard when it comes to information. Go too hard on him and he'll tell me everything I want to hear, too soft and he might just feed me bullshit and waste my time. All the while the "hero" makes matters more complicated. So, what are my options?

When previous deals had gone south, J was quick to wash her hands of the situation and leave. Abandoning her ship to bide her time in the Sinnoh wilderness didn't seem conducive to a long and profitable career. Allowing herself to be captured also didn't bode well for the huntress, not with so many unknowns.

Whether or not she kept the ship or lost it, it was still one antigrav generator short and in no condition to fly. Newton's urgency to take it from her could easily have come from trying to get medical attention to their dying and wounded as soon as possible.

For all she knew the A.I. could've been lying to her from the get-go about the other generator. Another run through of the earlier footage showed Newton wasn't confused about the mention of the wreckage. It did exist, whether it had a working generator was another story. Was she willing to gamble on that? J didn't see a wide array of options. What were the odds of another airship with the parts that she needed landing anywhere in this godforsaken region?

Hunter J paced between server towers, cradling her chin.

I'm putting the cart before the ponyta. This is all moot point if I can't capture that man. But where the hell could he be if my cameras can't find him? No, I'm looking at this the wrong way. It doesn't matter where he is. What matters is making him go where I want him to be.

"Admin Command: broadcast my audio to the rest of the ship," J said as she walked over to a hatch in the corner of the room. She kicked it open and pointed her finger down to the medical bay below. Paul's frozen form floated down at her command and was halfway through when J followed suit, closing the hatch with her as she descended.

A few minutes later another figured dropped down into the same room through the hole in the ceiling that Electivire had made with his tails.

"I know you're still here, Mr. Graceland," J's voice seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. Newton froze in mid-crouch and held his breath.

"We're in one of the blind spots of her surveillance system, Newton. She can't actually see us, she's guessing," Infi whispered from Newton's scanner.

"I must admit, Mr. Graceland. I didn't peg you for a man with the balls to pull this kind of stunt. I've had men killed for less." Newton could almost feel the woman's bemused smile as she spoke. Her chuckle was no less chilling through the speakers.

"Do not reply," Infi swiftly reminded him when the backpack's sensors detected the grinding of his teeth. "She's just trying to provoke you. We have to move forward with the plan."

"It's a shame," J continued, "that this child should have to pay for your mistake. If you're going to keep being silent, then you've forced my hand. Feel free to chime in at any time, Mr. Graceland."

Newton had been walking past several server towers when he heard someone breathing heavily over the speakers.

"Welcome to the land of the living. I believe your name is Paul, is that right?"

Newton paused mid-step. An angry snort was J's only reply.

"Well isn't that an ugly stare. I'll have to see if we can fix that."

His stomach was twisting into knots. Every few seconds of focus he managed to grab hold of fell through his hands like sand. Infi was whispering something to him repeatedly, but he wasn't hearing it. He ran over to the hatch in the corner of the room.

"We're going to play a little game, Paul. It's very simple. I'm going to ask you a question, and seeing as you can't use your mouth right now, you can respond with one blink for yes and two blinks for no. Do you understand?"

Infi watched as Newton flipped the hatch open and slid down the ladder into the ship's medical bay while Paul replied silently.

"Excellent. Now, first question. Besides you and Mr. Graceland, are other people in Pastoria?"

Newton did a cursory glance of the room, hoping Infi was recording everything he saw and formulating what they would need for the wounded. According to the schematics Infi had taken from the ship, the door behind him led to a feeding room for the Pokémon as well as a fully-stocked gym for her subordinates. The door on the other side fed into the elevator shaft. Both were closed.

"Dishonesty? Right from the start?" J feigned surprise. "A shame. You see that was a test and you failed, but your loyalty deserves to be commended. Paul, how familiar are you with scalpels?"

Nausea slithered into the researcher's stomach as Paul's breathing grew faster, then erratic over the speakers. For a few seconds it was the only sound he could hear. Then something changed. What started out as short grunts eventually turned into muffled screams. The walls of the medical bay were starting to spin, Newton's hand slammed onto his lips as he fought down the bile.

"Seee, that wasn't so bad. I may have even done you a favor. Some girls like a boy with a few scars. Oh, but you still have that nasty little glare. I did say I would fix that, didn't I? Two eyes is rather generous, isn't it?"

Paul's breathing was growing faster once again.

"ENOUGH!" Newton screamed. Infi shook her head in cyberspace but held her tongue. There was a sudden pause where no sound came through, then the speakers popped and crackled to life.

"Newton, how kind of you to join us. I'm a little preoccupied at the moment. You'll have to wait your turn."

"Please, just let the boy go. I can answer your questions. I'm the one you want!"

"That's where you're wrong. I want an antigravity generator. I thought I was clear that first time, but you went ahead and took a shit over any chance at negotiations. There are consequences for our actions, Mr. Graceland. You've done an outstanding job of ensuring you can't be trusted. You can pick up the boy's body at generator two. Hell, if you're quick, you might even be able to stop him from bleeding out. Time is ticking."

The comms suddenly went cold again, leaving Newton breathing heavily in the middle of the room. He teetered to the side, a mix of physical and emotional exhaustion washed over him with only one of the metal surgical tables keeping him on his feet.

You said you'd bring her in alive, give her a fair trial, he reminded himself. Newton would've screamed if not for the doors on the northern half of the room sliding open. He ducked beneath the table, but nothing came of it.

"You know it's a trick, right?" Infi whispered. Newton nodded slowly and looked around the room. Through the scanner Infi highlighted a section outside the room where the cameras wouldn't' be able to see them.

"I know that," he said beneath his breath. "But your plan still has a chance of working. We just need to know where she is. You predicted that she'll want to keep me alive, that she'll see me as more valuable as a bargaining chip to the Pastorians than if I'm dead. All we need to do is lure her to me."

J allowed herself to slump into her chair. She was in her private quarters, just across the elevators at the back of the control room, watching Newton shamble down the hallway that led to generator two. He'd armed himself with one of the metal legs of a chair he must've found in the med bay. J smiled.

Adorable, she thought as she bridged her fingers together. It had almost been too easy. The boy would be there waiting for Newton, back in his stasis field and with only a deep cut through his cheek.

It was amazing what the human mind could come up with when given the proper stimulus. The boy had done well to hold back any sounds, but eventually she'd gotten the noises she needed from digging the blade into his cheek. With a few choice words, acting the part of the demented torturer, and Paul's own soundtrack of suffering, she knew Newton's mind would concoct its own horrors of what she was doing to him.

No one can stand to see- or in this case, listen to someone suffer on their behalf.

As soon as he stepped into the generator hangar, she'd seal the door behind him. If the A.I. was still with him, there would be nothing for it to interface in that part of the ship. The generator hangar was entirely empty, nothing he could use to retaliate.

She'd leave him in there for a few days, sound the alarms at random intervals while he tried to sleep. Without enough food, water, and sleep it wouldn't be long before he gave her the information she needed, and all she'd need to do was threaten the boy's wellbeing again to make him fall in line.

After that, she'd do her own scouting, probing the city's weaknesses and pick off the leadership and defenses one by one. She'd offer the remaining survivors use of her facilities in return for their manpower, all the while dangling the lives of their leadership to enforce their obedience.

As she savored the thought, Newton stepped through the doors to Generator two. The door closed immediately behind him and with it, J thought to herself her victory had been assured. A smile spread across her face until something pulled it back. Something was off. Her victory had been too easy. Something was wrong.

Newton's walk towards the generator had been swift, purposeful. He didn't look back or even flinch when the door had shut behind him. There had been no hesitation, no caution as he passed the threshold into the generator hangar.

He can't be that thick, he must know this is a trap?

The surprises were not over as she continued to watch the feed. She watched him enter the main room, where Paul's frozen body lay in the dead center.

Newton walked past.

He didn't so much as even pause to give him a glance as he made his way over to the doors that led the generator room. A pair of large mechanical arms sluggishly snaked out of his backpack and prodded the seam of the doors. The anti-gravity generator hangars were designed to be detachable for emergencies. As such, she hadn't bothered to retrofit them with the same upgrades that she'd given the rest of her ship.

Newton, using the last of his backpack's battery, pried open the unreinforced doors with little difficulty and stepped inside the room. Both heavy arms slumped to his sides once the task was done and he shrugged off the straps and let the equipment fall to the floor. He raced across the room, hefting the metal chair leg and swung at the casing that housed the Zarrel Ion battery responsible for feeding the Orrean generator.

"What're you doing?" she barked.

"Hunter J, how kind of you to join me. I'm a little preoccupied at the moment. You didn't leave me with much choice. This ship is valuable, but not so valuable that I'd want the people of Pastoria to become your slaves. If I overload this generator, while the blast won't be enough to take you out, it should be enough to take out the last working generator you still have. Your ship won't be anywhere anytime soon."

Newton took another vicious swing at the metal with enough force to leave a dent.

"Suicide, that's your plan?! What about the boy or any of your sick and wounded?!"

Newton stopped his swings to catch his breath. He glanced at the camera, wiped his sweat-soaked brow, and smiled.

"Being captives to be killed and used at your whim or dying on my own terms while taking part of you with me, I think we both know which one I'd choose. Goodbye, J. I hope you rot in what's left of this ship for the rest of your days."

J leapt off her seat and ran for the elevator door. It would take Newton a while to deal enough damage to make the battery overload, but if she didn't stop him now it would spell major problems for her later. She shouted a stream of commands to which the ship complied. Rows of doors opened, giving her a clear path straight to the second generator.

The doors opened with the wave of her hand, Paul's containment pedestal still in the center of the room and untouched. If Newton heard her come in, he didn't show it as he kept swinging away at the generator. He didn't bother to dodge or take cover as she took aim at him with her gauntlet. Her thumb had barely moved to the trigger when she felt the needle sink into her neck. J swung her arm back, feeling the numbness spread through her neck and down her legs.

Weavile leapt off J's shoulder and landed a few feet from her. J teetered to the side and hit the ground but couldn't feel the impact. The world was growing dark and cold and for a moment the huntress thought she had reached the end of the line. Before the darkness consumed her, she saw the weavile approach her, an empty syringe held in its claws.

Poisoned Pawn: In Chess, when an apparently undefended piece's capture results in a loss or disadvantage.

Also, if you guys have a moment please give Poke Wars: The Remembrance a look as Agent of Chaos 112 has also recently uploaded a chapter.