EXTRANORMAL OPERATIONS

VOLUME II: MODUS OPERANDI

Author's Notes: I think I'm getting the hang of these summaries... In this story, a core group of not-so-heroic characters work in Extranormal Operations - a group which works under a company that trains Pokémon Trainers into killing machines and harnesses them to 'protect' the world and humanity from the threat of legendary Pokémon. In this story, the threat is Darkrai. What follows is a rather complex plot featuring conspiracies, madness, strange dialogue and coffee. Lots of it. What I really want to explore here are the characters: what are their psychological motives, what drives them to act in the manner they do? Find out! As implied, the story is the second part in the series, but you really don't need to read the first one to get the hang of this. If you want, I ain't stopping ya. This story will once again be 12 chapters long. The first chapter is a prologue, while the story begins properly from the second one.

THE CAST:
Kris (pessimistic, bitter and cynical); Lyra (bitchy, aggressive and by-the-book); Silver (distant, stoic and generally grumpy); Touko White (crazier than an Arbok's armpit); Cheren Black (a manipulative and unscrupulous businessman) and finally the OC Shane (an idiot who somehow managed to become an agent). That, and a whole bunch of supporting characters. Based on the games, not the anime, though it takes characters and influences from Pokémon Special.

Enjoy!

IN TOO DEEP

Eldritch's Journal, Canalave City, the thirteenth of February

I must apologize to you in advance, dear reader, but as I write this, my hands tremble from fear as I put down on paper the final thoughts that continue to ravage my mind. It all began several days ago. During that fateful morning, the sun rose just like on a day any other. Me and my wife Eleanor woke up that morning. Our son, Howard, did not. The sight of him trashing in the bed, pale as death, as if ravaged by some kind of disease, gave me fear such as I have never experienced before. I have experienced the powerful, all-consuming storms at sea, where I also stared a Gyarados in the eye, but the feeling of helplessness that overcame me during my son's distress horrified me. As he trashed in the bed, anguished words escaped from his lips:

"Dark… Dark… Is watching me…"

We have tried everything, but our son wouldn't wake up. I cannot even imagine what he must be seeing - and I truly don't wish to. Ever since that day, curing my son's ailment has been my only objective.

But ever since that morning, our hometown was not as it used to be. The most densest fog surrounded our city, and those who attempted to flee were never heard from again. The sky and everything around us was white. Standing anywhere would make you feel detached from your body, as if you never existed at all. I admit that my trip to Fullmoon Island, my attempt to stop my son's suffering, was also an excuse to get away from all that… whiteness. I gathered a crew and took a ship, deciding not to bother the harbormaster with such trivial things as borrowing his boats.

Alas, we did not get far. Navigation turned out to be impossible in the fog, and the mental stability of my crew took a turn for the worse. A few minutes ago, my first mate, Philip, snapped. There was something about his horrified expression, his foaming mouth and bulging eyes, that made me think that it was something out of this world that drove him on the edge. The way he knocked one of us in the anchor and threw him on the sea with it, and as the rest of us found out about this, he started to pick us off, one by one. We manage to incapacitate him and tie him up, but his madness turned to be as contagious as the common flu when the rest of my crew began to act irrationally. In the end, once the fights from supplies got to a particularly bad point, I decided that I had no choice. I disposed of all of my men, including my first mate. I did not make the decision lightly, though I perhaps should have considered other options when I cooked the flesh of the navigator. Not only did he taste bad, but our ship soon crashed into a rock. Hastily grabbing the radio, I screamed my throat hoarse in attempt to call for help, but I soon discovered the futility of my efforts.

As I rushed outside in futile effort to get to the lifeboats, I saw the abomination behind all this with my own eyes. A shadowy, shapeless blob of the deepest black, its singular, blue eye stared at me lifelessly. It was at that very moment when I received horrifying visions… during that brief period of when my mind linked with the dark creature, I realized just how insignificant the problems of Canalave City were on the global scale. The creature that emerged from the waters showed me this well, but at a terrible cost: now that I know everything, I cannot return to Canalave. Merely thinking about what I saw is enough to cause unspeakable pain, and the abomination will not leave me alone. I, as the ship's captain, will sink along with it, but I should anyone get this message, I implore you, do not attempt to-

Sledge Hammer and Extranormal Operations HQ, Johto, behind the Pokéthlon Dome

9:27 PM

Professor Kaminko, the commander of the Sledge Hammer Intelligence Team and the agency known as Extranormal Operations, stood in his glamorous, decorative office, staring out from the window, watching the beautiful, snow-covered ground in awe. It was times like these that caused him to remember just how beautiful unspoiled nature could be… and all the while he thought about how he could save lots of money by replacing those ugly trees with a proper road. He would save more than three minutes in his daily commute that way! The sixty-six year old professor was old enough to be a veteran of the Pokémon-Human war, but this did not make him any less able to keep on working. Indeed, while mostly bald and only having thin streaks of gray hair on the top of his head, the professor was nevertheless tall and physically fit despite his age.

"Um… sir?"

Kaminko sighed. His brown-nosed assistant, doctor Krane, called for him. Though much younger, Krane had lost much more hair, and was short and overweight. Krane was Slegde Hammer's psychologist and second-in-command, and while Kaminko loathed the man on a personal level, he would not show it - Krane was fiercely loyal to him and the closest thing he had to a confidante.

"We just received a transmission from our intelligence department in Sinnoh," Krane said, "it appears that Darkrai has awakened. Canalave is, due to lack of a better word, screwed. Any ideas?"

Kaminko sighed. Why was it always him that had to make the decisions? He walked away from the window and watched the bronze statue on his desk, shaped in the image of the elusive legendary Pokémon Kyurem.

"Send one of our agents on the location," he told Krane, who wrote the orders down, as if he could not remember orders that were lengthier than three words. "Also, doctor, I need a summary of our progress in the last mission. Overall, how did it all go?"

Krane sighed and snapped his fingers. As if on cue, a projector was turned on, and an image was projected on the wall. Kaminko stared at the image as Krane narrated, as if he had prepared a PowerPoint presentation just in case Kaminko would ask him about the last mission. The current image was of Heatran, the legendary Pokémon that the Extranormal Operatives had successfully caught during the previous mission at Stark Mountain.

"The science team is currently researching Heatran," Krane explained. "The Pokémon is kept alive, but just the life support consumes a lot of power. I'm afraid keeping it alive will be expensive. How are we going to explain that to the Committee?"

"Don't worry about that, doctor," Kaminko said. "What about Touya?"

"The activation went successfully, and professor Elm is currently doing some… modifications."

Heatran's image disappeared from the wall, and was disappeared with live video footage of professor Elm and Blaine, Touya's creator, making adjustments to this part-human, part-machine and part-Pokémon of a creature. While Elm made sure Touya constantly showed signs of life, Blaine had cut off a piece of Touya's head and was cheerfully tweaking Touya's brain, which looked exactly similar as a human one. But Touya merely stared forward, his eyes dead and his face emotionless.

"What about the rest of the agents?" Kaminko asked.

The video soon disappeared from the wall, and was replaced with an image containing five faces: the Operatives. The images of White (agent 02), Kris (agent 05), Lyra (agent 06), Silver (agent 07) and Shane (09) seemed to make Krane uncomfortable - after all, it was his job to make sure that the mental health of the agents was sound, and he wasn't doing a very good job with it.

"As you know, Touya performed marvelously during the last mission," Krane said. "The others… not so much. The implants in their brains seem to be working properly, yet they still haven't mastered the use of Pokémon Powers, as we witnessed when agent five attempted and failed to use Ice Beam. Worse than that, they all seem a bit… off. Silver is distant, Lyra is outright aggressive and White still seems to be traumatized by that incident. Yet they're all very capable. Kris is a bit of a borderline case - she shows promise, but in order to function properly, she needs to get rid of her neuroses. Shane is completely useless so far, but his, um… connection to Cheren Black might be useful for us, so I'm keeping him around."

When Krane turned the projector off and put the lights back on, Kaminko started to stare out of the window again. As he started speaking, Krane got the goosebumps from Kaminko's deep, authoritarian voice.

"We needn't worry," he said. "As soon as the legendary Red is in our grasp, we have access to the data of the most powerful trainer that has ever lived. Project Genesect was a startling success, and if we apply the same 'modifications' to Red as we have done with the others, we can have an army of supercharged Pokémon trainers in our control."

"But if that does become reality, what do we do with those other five?" Krane wondered.

Kaminko took a moment to consider before responding, and when he finally answered, he did so in the coldest manner possible:

"When that happens, we will have no need for them anymore. After all, they are merely flesh."