Story Notes:
Uploading here and on ff.net. I think some people migth like the setting and don't browse the ff.As far as i guess, disclaimer goes there, rigth?So, i'll add it there.Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Following the Steps of Darwin
When you have to create something to a customer, you have to be like him, to think like him, almost to be in his skin.
Architects that have build the Eterna Galactic Building lived up to the team's expectations. Looking cool on the outside, and armed to the teeth inside. Almost a perfect fortress.
When the Team Galactic's power was weakened after the events at the Spear Pillar, Team Rocket tried to overtook what was remaining of the organization. In the end, the mutual agreement made them the subsidiary of the TR, while also giving Team Galactic a large scale of independence and the Rocket's technology to use.
TR rebuilt the Eterna and Weilstone HQ's, making them even more powerful and fortified than before.
However, these buildings weren't designed to withstand the nuclear war. When the bombs have fallen, Eterna's building was wiped out off the face of the planet, but were somebody to examine the place where it once stood , he would find an entrance to the stairwell which would lead him to the long, sloped corridor with heavy metal door on the end.
At the second side of the entrance there was the most technologically advanced nuclear shelter ever built.
Even with the capacity of 500 people that could live there up to one month the place was now overloaded, double the quota, as all the Team Galactic people and their families moved in when the missiles were launched. Also, their pokemon also occupied the space, making the place suitable to live for next two weeks, when the supplies are calculated to run out by that point due to overpopulation.
In the center of the vault, in the operations room, Saturn was relying his orders to the staff. Or rather, tried, as the place wasn't lit, power down, and therefore the intercom wasn't operational.
Since his boss attempts to gain the Sinnoh's gods powers ended fruitlessly, Saturn tried to grin and bear it. Being all nice, helping old ladies cross the street, financing charity, saying that extremism isn't the solution... This was all but play, a foul masquerade to bring the team to it's former glory. He was able to get Mars and Jupiter under his command. He was also able to track down Cyrus, who after unsuccessful suicide attempt by swallowing sleeping pills was lying in comatose state in Pastoria hospital. Using his influence he was able to transfer him to the Veilstone vault's infirmary, as Saturn knew that the enemy wasn't going to abide to the rule that said "do not target the civilians", and he'd need such a powerful man under his command. Pluto wasn't anywhere to be found, and frankly, he didn't cared about that old, useless piece of shit.
Suddenly, the power was restored, lights were turned on as the engineer's voice was heard on the intercom.
"So, ok boss, generator 1 on line, trying to put the axillary source into operation, but as for now there's enough energy for the basics."
The orders that were given before were rather pleas to calm everyone down and to settle some order in the panicked mass. Now, Saturn was able to do the real job. Seated in a comfy chair before the set of displays that now showed the system booting up, he told to the grunt that was responsible for the communications systems to do the diagnosis as soon as possible. When the GalaxyOS was finally up and running, the grunt typed the radio-diagnostics query into the command prompt.
The output wasn't good, but was fully expected.
"No radio transmitter found."
"No SatLink dish found."
Restoring the connection between the Galactic branch offices was the top priority. Telling the quartermaster to prepare the necessary equipment he hand-picked two grunts who were to go outside and set the makeshift FM transmitter and satellite dish. Also, they were to estimate the damage done to the city.
When everything was ready, he personally lead these two brave man to the shelter's doors. While doing that, he began to think about himself. He felt... tired, burned out. Something in his brain was telling him to fuck the world domination plans and get a real life, do something really good to help humanity rebuild.
Trying to maintain the aspect of superiority, he dismissed the thought while he saw the grunts donning the Anti-radiation all-body hazmat suits. When they finished, the cover made them look like big ghosts, as the blindingly white material and reflective face masks completely barriered them from the outside world's dirt.
Without a word, they stepped into the 'buffer' room, the single small antechamber which served as the barrier between the outside world and the shelter. As the doors closed, the feminine voice began to speak in their headsets.
"Alex speaking. Guys, I'll open the door for ya now, stand still. Bet you can't hold still due to that excitement, ya?"
Both grunts replied to her sweet tone with a sharp, definitive order.
"Shut the fuck up, bitch."
"You heard him. Do it now."
Then, another voice decided to cut in the discussion.
"Saturn on the mic. I'll be supervising what you doing from this point forth as her mannerisms somehow managed to tick me off. One sentence was definitely enough. She's dismissed, so calm down and do what you have to do. Opening the gate in ten seconds."
With a strange feeling down in the murky shades of his heart he added something he didn't expect to say anytime in his life.
"Good luck."
Why he said that? They were only to get outside, set the antenna and the dish and return back. They didn't took any weaponry or pokemon, as it was completely unnecessary. Just a simple mission outside, in the world that wasn't that much dangerous now, given that anything that could kill them wasn't there anymore. Was it that thought coming back to him that forced this strange expression of concern?
With a press of the button, the heavy doors began to open. When the party got outside to the sloped corridor, the door again closed, leaving them on their own. And so, they went to the staircase and began to ascend.
When they got to the surface, the sight they saw, of sun almost set down and the destroyed city of Eterna touched their hearts. Tranquility mixed with the destruction.
And to think that this morning this place was full of life, and now only a burned out empty shell...
One man turned on his Geiger counter. This one's scale wasn't showing only the microSivierts in numbers that would said nothing to the ordinary people, but also had a handy tri-colored scale. Green - it's okay, yellow means it's not so ok but still enough to live, and red means it's better to shoot yourself in the head than to suffer the radiation illness.
The readings were on the lower grade of yellow, near green.
"We've got the readings. Hey, I thought it would be much worse! In my opinion it wouldn't be so long till the fallout degrades enough to consider getting outside without that junk. But it will be a long, hard work to create the city anew. We'd have a shitload of work."
The radio waves carried Saturn's response.
"Ok, I'm relieved that it's relatively safe. Now, do your job and set the comm, would you?"
With a cracking background noise hearing his voice in their headphones calmed them enough. They witnessed the end times. But there was hope.
Finding the suitable spot, they began to unpack the equipment. Solar powered radio antenna wirelessly connected the vault to the outside world.
Setting the cassegrain satellite dish was more complicated, as it had to be set to the correct longitude and latitude. Motors moved the dish as the team had to manually input the numbers relied to them by the vault operators.
When both of them finished their work, all they heard was the confirmation that the WiFi detected the antenna and the satellite. They will turn them on later, as these things won't be operational tonight. The battery that powered them at night was charged during day. And now, with the sun setting down there wasn't enough of it to make it work.
It was thirty meters from the underground access to the place where they put the equipment. Thirty meters through soot-covered rubble. Both men were happy to think about the very cold beer that was waiting for them in the fridge. The work was totally easy, even a child could do this, but then they had the reason to get something better than water to drink tonight.
In the main, Saturn was listening to the talk between the grunts outside. With a small, smile-like grin on his face. When they were halfway to the entrance, the tone in their voice changed. As it was voice-only connection, nobody except them saw what was happening outside.
"So, i'm gonna... Hey, you see that?"
"See what?"
"Oh god, oh god, OH GOD!"
"What, are you crazy, what are you looking at... Holy fuck!"
"It's coming closer... oh god I don't wanna die..."
"Saturn, be ready to open the door and shoo... oh no no no!"
"AUUUGGGHHHHHH" The sound of shred material and broken bones was heard clearly, right before a gurgle that only a person spilling blood from his mouth could emit.
"Maybe it won't see me, maybe it won't see mee, stay still, fake death NO FUCK AAAUUURGGGG P-please don't kill me AAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Saturn was listening to these inhumane screams petrified. Soon, the connection to their headsets was lost. The last sound that was heard was the skull breaking, as if it was gnawed by some monstrosity. Then, only a hiss of static.
Everybody was shocked beyond words. Saturn the most. He led these people to certain death in a territory that couldn't be trusted.
And now, something killed them. And he was fully responsible. Now he realized that the feeling he felt was his superego trying to make him a better person. And he failed.
This wasn't his biggest concern, however. They died, but what exactly killed them?
No matter what, the shelter will stay closed for a long time till they'll send another group. This time, with pokemon and various weaponry.
*********************
The gas stove's flames burned brightly against the fall of night as Joshua and Kyle set to rest and sleep. The sun was already setting down, creating an eerie atmosphere in the place that the temporary camp was in. It could be called a meadow once, but with the everburning flames it was a charred wasteland now.
After eating one can of food and setting the sleeping bag, as they had no tent, Joshua turned the radio on and began to scan the frequencies... Same static, everywhere. But then, he heard a word when playing with the tuning knob. Quickly tuning up to the freq where he heard it, he found quite a discussion going on.
"...it now"
"Saturn on the mic..."
Where he heard that name...? Saturn. The head commander of Team Galactic. A criminal that was given the position of the team's boss after something happened at the Coronet mountain range.
Where was the nearest HQ? Eterna. The place where he was originally bound to go, but after the discovery of the Oreburgh ruins he decided to go to PBT foundations dig.
Seems that he will again change his mind and begin his trek to Eterna again. From that place it was exactly one day of walking to get to either of places, so it didn't matter.
Now, trying to catch as much of transmission as possible as the distance made the sound very distorted he began to plan the journey. What will he do then? How will he find that shelter and the place where they began to put the devices?
His ponderings were cut short when something began to scream in the headphones. Listening to the sounds, he felt terrified.
There was something out there. Something that was going to kill everything that moved.
Now, he knew that his cyndaquil wasn't rather powerful, as the only thing he battled was the madman in the Jubilife. Quickly reaching his gun and putting it out of it's holster he began to examine it.
First, he had to know how many rounds was the handgun capable of carrying and how much it had now.
He saw some gangster movies when he was visiting his friends or watching TV at nighttime. Trying to imitate the policemen who reloaded the magazines while being under heavy fire when fighting the crime, he pushed the magazine catch. The clip jumped out of it's place. It was then that he noticed that the gun itself was rather unusually large. The person who bought this either had the legitimate reason to feel paranoic or had to compensate the small penis he probably had. Or both.
From the numbers written on the side he was able do guess it was capable of carrying seventeen bullets. As he couldn't guess the weight, he began to unload the bullets. Sixteen of them. The clip wasn't full. Wonder what happened to the missing one. Was it only an overlook while preparing the clip, or he shot the gun before, and, if then, why? Reloading the magazine again and inserting it back into place, he tried to find a safeguard of sorts. As the intricate mechanism was too much for his understanding, he again mimicked the movies. Grabbing and pulling the lock as the cops or mobsters did he heard the sound as the device did something. Then, aiming at the sky, he pulled the trigger.
The shot reverberated in the surroundings.
The recoil was too much for him to withstand. As he was unsure how to hold it properly and being out of focus as he wasn't sure it'll work, his hand moved violently backwards. Basically, Joshua hit himself in the face.
Panicked as the sound might have summoned everything that wasn't friendly to him he sat down, legs trembling and the gunfire still sounding in his ears.
He looked at Kyle. Poor guy was wobbling violently, scared out of his mind. When Joshua pet him on the head he calmed down enough to stop trembling.
After a while they were both back to normal. After telling Kyle he'll do it again, he aimed the gun once again and shoot. Hell, if something was going there it would be a good idea to know how to hold the gun properly. One more shot wouldn't change anything.
This time, the recoil wasn't as strong as before. He tightened his muscles as much as he could and prepared mentally for it.
Kyle also prepared himself, so when the second shot came he wasn't knocked out of his senses.
Now, he had a gun that was ready to shoot. And he didn't know how to lock it again to make it safe. It was like sitting on a bomb with a Shroedinger's Meowth acting as a detonator.
"Kyle, you slept today longer and done less than me. So I'm going to act like a dick towards you and sleep now. You watch over. Anything happens, wake me up."
Cyndaquil understood it perfectly and had no objections. No visible ones, at least.
Althought the night was calm and quiet, Joshua wasn't able to sleep. Every sound, every small blow of wind was exaggerated in his mind, as if it was an evil monster approaching with the horde of enemies ready to kill at will.
Sometime around the middle watch he was able to slumber. The dream wasn't peaceful at all.
*********************
Dawn. Sun rose slowly, illuminating the scorched, lifeless face of the earth. The first dawn after the end of the world.
Sunrays waking him in rather harsh way, he stood up as quickly as possible. To his surprise he was still alive, not yet eaten by that thing he heard in the radio. But his wrists hurt like hell.
Kyle was also there, although fast asleep. And his gun, and his possesions also. Still good. It would take almost a day to arrive to the remains of Eterna. Trying to arrive as soon as possible with the sun still up, he packed up and began his journey after waking up his pokemon and placing him on his shoulder.
While traveling, he saw that not everything was dead. Some trees weren't burned, and sometimes a single live pokemon was visible on the horizon. Although the world looked empty. All the villages that were on the way were burned to the ground, not even a single person surviving the onslaught.
After seven hours of marching, at 15,00, he arrived at the outskirts of the once great city . Now, there was not a single building standing. Even the statues of Dialgia and Palkia were destroyed. Nothing was sacred anymore.
Joshua asked himself, "Where was the Eterna Galactic HQ located?". As far as he could tell it was somewhere in the northern part of the city. But where? Searching anything in a city that could kill him was rather suicidal. Radiation was the factor. But that predator, hiding somewhere was even bigger threat to his existence.
After a brief search of the northern rubble he found the equipment set up by the team Galactic grunts.
And he found them themselves. Or rather, what was left of them. Two bodies, each incomplete and in a large pool of the coagulated blood. The stench of gore made him vomit. Accidentally desecrating one of them by yawning on him in technicolor made Joshua apologize furiously. Apologies that nobody was to hear, except Kyle. So, now he had to find the murderer. He had to settle the matters now, when there still was sun in the sky.
All or nothing. Now or never.
Once again aiming at the sky, he shot again. It would either scare that thing off or draw it to him.
After a minute he saw a distant motion. Something was slowly approaching him. And then he saw in the all the glory what the thing was.
It could be called an eevee if it didn't look like an evolution into umbreon gone wrong. Large, heavy body, black fur with patches of naked red skin which looked like it was rotting away. The rest looked like an unholy abomination of an umbreon. With head resembling espeon, however.
The stench it made could be felt from far away, carried with the wind.
Trying to focus and to aim the gun in spite of his trembling hands, Joshua saw in the corner of the eye that that there were more of them. Not the same, as the other unholy creatures looked as if somebody thought it was a cool idea to play Frankenstein using eevee evolutionary line body parts on them before injecting some flesh-eating bacterias.
He was royally fucked.
When he though he got the aim right, pull of the trigger only made him aware that if he got out of it alive, he would have a lot to learn about shooting. He missed the target by quite a large factor. Another shot was a lucky one, as the head of the espeon lookalike exploded.
By the time he was able to kill another one he realized he got only two bullets left. Ideal for mutual suicide for him and Kyle, as it wasn't possible to kill another five approaching abominations. It wasn't possible to escape as he was surrounded.
He began to pray to Arceus, despite not being the one to pray at all, but his prayers were interrupted by the sound of heavy, running footsteps.
Then he heard a command. Somebody from behind shouted in a way that he knew that he was the person to whom the order was given.
"ON THE GROUND, TAKE COVER!"
Not waiting even another millisecond, he fell fall on the ground. Next thing he heard was the swish of bullets flying above him and Kyle. And he felt a wave of heat when a few fireballs moved above him.
After a few seconds everything calmed down, so He got from lying to crouched position. And turned his head around. What he saw was very unrealistic.
A figures in overall uniforms and submachine guns. And a few pokemon that were also in strange uniforms
"You ok?"
It took Joshua a few more seconds to calm himself down and to set his mind straight enough to answer. After all, a barrage of charges just passed above him, so his mind was rather confused.
"Y...yes, I am. I think..."
"It's not safe there. Come with us."
"Who are you?"
"Will explain later. You have to come with us."
And so, seeing as he had no other way that wouldn't kill him he got to standing position, shaked off the dust and seated his cyndaquil on his shoulder.
*********************
"So, there's the underground entrance, right?"
"Right. Now get in."
"Sure."
And they entered the corridor, one of the masked soldiers asked him something that Joshua expected.
"So, why you came here?"
"I was looking for something important."
"And that is?"
"Radio. Anything that worked, really. Intercepted the transmission you had with these two outside... You know, these who were killed by these abominations... But it seems that you've got the thing done, right?"
"Don't know yet. It works but no response yet... Ok, we got there."
Now everybody were standing before the vault door. One of the soldiers pressed a button on the entrance's control panel. Soon, the heavy metal slid on the rail, opening the entrance. And again, when everybody were in the vault's antechamber. There they began to undress themselves from these suits. Then Joshua noticed that the attire they wore were of team Galactic's standard issue.
"I could have guess that", he thought.
When the room's door opened, he saw that the shelter was definitely overloaded. There were so many people and pokemon that it was difficult to move without nudging somebody accidentally.
One grunt then pointed his finger on the map that was hung on the wall and said to Joshua -
"This way to the main room. Go there now, boss wants to see you."
Not being able to go anywhere else and curious what could Saturn say, he used the directions. Navigating through the cramped endless corridors, he finally found the center. And there, seated in the admin's seat, was none other than the team Galactic's boss.
"Glad you got there safely! Thank god...", and with that he stood up and came closet to shake hands.
This was somewhat strange. Joshua imagined the former team's commander to be less nice, rather cold and harsh. The tone he spoke in mazed both Joshua and Kyle, as his cyndaquil have heard about team Galactic numerous times. Not knowing how to react, he shook his hand, albeit hesitantly. The silence that fell after was rather strange, so Joshua broke it.
"H-how did you know I was outside?"
"After what happened yesterday, we set up the monitoring system morning. This time, we sent the squad heavily armed."
"What for?"
"To see what was that thing."
"Now you saw it. But then, what was that? It, no, these mutants looked... like..."
"Eevees."
"Exactly. But how?"
"Well, I can see you're not the trainer, but it's a common knowledge how eevees evolve."
"Wait... Unstable and irregular DNA, and these stones... Pathogens of some sort in these rocks?" This was purely a guesswork, as to tell the truth he didn't care about these things. Although he realized that what he just said was totally nonsensical and retarded.
"No. Radiation. You see, these rocks emit a pattern of alpha, beta and gamma radiation that further damages the eevee's DNA, thus changing them enough to make them evolve into one of the eevolutions, as some people tend to say. The pattern the decay happens, however, is set. This time, you can guess how it looks like outside..."
Only thing what could came out of Joshua's throat was simple "Oh shit..."
"Yes, exactly. We're dead. All eevees that survived the blast have evolved into these abominations by now. Luckily, only them. Other pokemon will suffer, acute radiation posioning, cancer, and their offspring will be weaker."
The world filled with these creatures... World... World... Yes, world!
"Quick, have you made any contact with the world?"
"Huh?"
"There must be some places where bombs haven't fallen! There..."
"No."
Joshua's and Kyle's hearths sunk. This wasn't the answer they expected.
"We already tried to make contact with the other outposts. Although these attempts have failed miserably, we got some photographs made by our satellites. Sorry, kid, it was global. Not a thing left."
So, there was no need to hurry. The earth died this day... All that was left is to try and begin it all over again.
"So, it's over, it seems... Wait, did you said that the other outposts haven't responded yet?"
"No. We are broadcasting the signal, but still no answer. And that's strange, as we have a set drill what to do in such cases. They would have responded by now... We haven't send any reconnaissance party. And to tell the truth, weren't it for you today we wouldn't send anybody out there for a long time, thanks to the mutes."
"Wait... Got ammo?"
"Say again?"
"Let's make a deal, I'm feeling suicidal today. You give me ammo, these hazmats for me and my cyndaquil and Geiger counters and some sort of transportation. And I'll be your errand-boy. Is that a deal?"
"No, I can't let you go out. It's too dangerous!"
"Well, thanks for the info, I already noticed that...by myself."
Such a plea was repeated again, as Joshua needed these things, and the only way he could get them is by working for team Galactic. However, Saturn was quick to be defeated.
"Ok, I surrender, seems like you'd do anything you like even if I forbid you... QUARTERMASTER! Give that boy what he needs, now!"
*********************
Sweating from the heavy suit and overloaded backpack, with Kyle in his own, funny-looking suit at his shoulder he stepped out of the safe room, back to the surface access.
At least he got now the possibility to get closer to the epicenters, as the radiation was no longer a worry. Too bad he had to cross Coronet range on foot, as the Galactic's cache and garage was near Hearthome. His next destination was the place on the other end of Sinnoh, Veilstone city. His mission was to make contact and confirm that the Galactic's Veilstone vault is safe. Or not, but that was a thing he dare not to say.
However, getting to the wouldbe Pokemon Battle Tower foundations was postponed indefinitely. Too bad, but when he would acquire the car he would be able to travel freely all around Sinnoh. Then he could go there and find out what these ruins meant. Now, with ammo and a few additional magazines he felt much safer, although he still couldn't shoot for his life. And he didn't expect that these unholy eevee abominations were affected by the repel sprays. He'll find it out soon, for sure.
He'll find soon also if he could trust these criminals. However, there was something in Saturn that made him feel like they really were up to something more good than trying to steal and acquire the powers of the gods.
Sun was setting down again, another day has passed. The fire had mostly burned out, some small flames still lingering in the ruins of Eterna. He tried to get to the car as fast as possible, so saying thankyou for the Saturn's invitation to spend the night in the vault he began his travel.
Then, he imagined himself in the post apocalyptic setting riding a vehicle. Like the Mad Max from the movies. That character however was a trainer with his six trustworthy pokemon. And Joshua was only almost-a-doctor with weak physique and only one weak cyndaquil. And his gun. And TNT charges.
This was going to be funny, in quite a twisted way.
Architects that have build the Eterna Galactic Building lived up to the team's expectations. Looking cool on the outside, and armed to the teeth inside. Almost a perfect fortress.
When the Team Galactic's power was weakened after the events at the Spear Pillar, Team Rocket tried to overtook what was remaining of the organization. In the end, the mutual agreement made them the subsidiary of the TR, while also giving Team Galactic a large scale of independence and the Rocket's technology to use.
TR rebuilt the Eterna and Weilstone HQ's, making them even more powerful and fortified than before.
However, these buildings weren't designed to withstand the nuclear war. When the bombs have fallen, Eterna's building was wiped out off the face of the planet, but were somebody to examine the place where it once stood , he would find an entrance to the stairwell which would lead him to the long, sloped corridor with heavy metal door on the end.
At the second side of the entrance there was the most technologically advanced nuclear shelter ever built.
Even with the capacity of 500 people that could live there up to one month the place was now overloaded, double the quota, as all the Team Galactic people and their families moved in when the missiles were launched. Also, their pokemon also occupied the space, making the place suitable to live for next two weeks, when the supplies are calculated to run out by that point due to overpopulation.
In the center of the vault, in the operations room, Saturn was relying his orders to the staff. Or rather, tried, as the place wasn't lit, power down, and therefore the intercom wasn't operational.
Since his boss attempts to gain the Sinnoh's gods powers ended fruitlessly, Saturn tried to grin and bear it. Being all nice, helping old ladies cross the street, financing charity, saying that extremism isn't the solution... This was all but play, a foul masquerade to bring the team to it's former glory. He was able to get Mars and Jupiter under his command. He was also able to track down Cyrus, who after unsuccessful suicide attempt by swallowing sleeping pills was lying in comatose state in Pastoria hospital. Using his influence he was able to transfer him to the Veilstone vault's infirmary, as Saturn knew that the enemy wasn't going to abide to the rule that said "do not target the civilians", and he'd need such a powerful man under his command. Pluto wasn't anywhere to be found, and frankly, he didn't cared about that old, useless piece of shit.
Suddenly, the power was restored, lights were turned on as the engineer's voice was heard on the intercom.
"So, ok boss, generator 1 on line, trying to put the axillary source into operation, but as for now there's enough energy for the basics."
The orders that were given before were rather pleas to calm everyone down and to settle some order in the panicked mass. Now, Saturn was able to do the real job. Seated in a comfy chair before the set of displays that now showed the system booting up, he told to the grunt that was responsible for the communications systems to do the diagnosis as soon as possible. When the GalaxyOS was finally up and running, the grunt typed the radio-diagnostics query into the command prompt.
The output wasn't good, but was fully expected.
"No radio transmitter found."
"No SatLink dish found."
Restoring the connection between the Galactic branch offices was the top priority. Telling the quartermaster to prepare the necessary equipment he hand-picked two grunts who were to go outside and set the makeshift FM transmitter and satellite dish. Also, they were to estimate the damage done to the city.
When everything was ready, he personally lead these two brave man to the shelter's doors. While doing that, he began to think about himself. He felt... tired, burned out. Something in his brain was telling him to fuck the world domination plans and get a real life, do something really good to help humanity rebuild.
Trying to maintain the aspect of superiority, he dismissed the thought while he saw the grunts donning the Anti-radiation all-body hazmat suits. When they finished, the cover made them look like big ghosts, as the blindingly white material and reflective face masks completely barriered them from the outside world's dirt.
Without a word, they stepped into the 'buffer' room, the single small antechamber which served as the barrier between the outside world and the shelter. As the doors closed, the feminine voice began to speak in their headsets.
"Alex speaking. Guys, I'll open the door for ya now, stand still. Bet you can't hold still due to that excitement, ya?"
Both grunts replied to her sweet tone with a sharp, definitive order.
"Shut the fuck up, bitch."
"You heard him. Do it now."
Then, another voice decided to cut in the discussion.
"Saturn on the mic. I'll be supervising what you doing from this point forth as her mannerisms somehow managed to tick me off. One sentence was definitely enough. She's dismissed, so calm down and do what you have to do. Opening the gate in ten seconds."
With a strange feeling down in the murky shades of his heart he added something he didn't expect to say anytime in his life.
"Good luck."
Why he said that? They were only to get outside, set the antenna and the dish and return back. They didn't took any weaponry or pokemon, as it was completely unnecessary. Just a simple mission outside, in the world that wasn't that much dangerous now, given that anything that could kill them wasn't there anymore. Was it that thought coming back to him that forced this strange expression of concern?
With a press of the button, the heavy doors began to open. When the party got outside to the sloped corridor, the door again closed, leaving them on their own. And so, they went to the staircase and began to ascend.
When they got to the surface, the sight they saw, of sun almost set down and the destroyed city of Eterna touched their hearts. Tranquility mixed with the destruction.
And to think that this morning this place was full of life, and now only a burned out empty shell...
One man turned on his Geiger counter. This one's scale wasn't showing only the microSivierts in numbers that would said nothing to the ordinary people, but also had a handy tri-colored scale. Green - it's okay, yellow means it's not so ok but still enough to live, and red means it's better to shoot yourself in the head than to suffer the radiation illness.
The readings were on the lower grade of yellow, near green.
"We've got the readings. Hey, I thought it would be much worse! In my opinion it wouldn't be so long till the fallout degrades enough to consider getting outside without that junk. But it will be a long, hard work to create the city anew. We'd have a shitload of work."
The radio waves carried Saturn's response.
"Ok, I'm relieved that it's relatively safe. Now, do your job and set the comm, would you?"
With a cracking background noise hearing his voice in their headphones calmed them enough. They witnessed the end times. But there was hope.
Finding the suitable spot, they began to unpack the equipment. Solar powered radio antenna wirelessly connected the vault to the outside world.
Setting the cassegrain satellite dish was more complicated, as it had to be set to the correct longitude and latitude. Motors moved the dish as the team had to manually input the numbers relied to them by the vault operators.
When both of them finished their work, all they heard was the confirmation that the WiFi detected the antenna and the satellite. They will turn them on later, as these things won't be operational tonight. The battery that powered them at night was charged during day. And now, with the sun setting down there wasn't enough of it to make it work.
It was thirty meters from the underground access to the place where they put the equipment. Thirty meters through soot-covered rubble. Both men were happy to think about the very cold beer that was waiting for them in the fridge. The work was totally easy, even a child could do this, but then they had the reason to get something better than water to drink tonight.
In the main, Saturn was listening to the talk between the grunts outside. With a small, smile-like grin on his face. When they were halfway to the entrance, the tone in their voice changed. As it was voice-only connection, nobody except them saw what was happening outside.
"So, i'm gonna... Hey, you see that?"
"See what?"
"Oh god, oh god, OH GOD!"
"What, are you crazy, what are you looking at... Holy fuck!"
"It's coming closer... oh god I don't wanna die..."
"Saturn, be ready to open the door and shoo... oh no no no!"
"AUUUGGGHHHHHH" The sound of shred material and broken bones was heard clearly, right before a gurgle that only a person spilling blood from his mouth could emit.
"Maybe it won't see me, maybe it won't see mee, stay still, fake death NO FUCK AAAUUURGGGG P-please don't kill me AAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Saturn was listening to these inhumane screams petrified. Soon, the connection to their headsets was lost. The last sound that was heard was the skull breaking, as if it was gnawed by some monstrosity. Then, only a hiss of static.
Everybody was shocked beyond words. Saturn the most. He led these people to certain death in a territory that couldn't be trusted.
And now, something killed them. And he was fully responsible. Now he realized that the feeling he felt was his superego trying to make him a better person. And he failed.
This wasn't his biggest concern, however. They died, but what exactly killed them?
No matter what, the shelter will stay closed for a long time till they'll send another group. This time, with pokemon and various weaponry.
*********************
The gas stove's flames burned brightly against the fall of night as Joshua and Kyle set to rest and sleep. The sun was already setting down, creating an eerie atmosphere in the place that the temporary camp was in. It could be called a meadow once, but with the everburning flames it was a charred wasteland now.
After eating one can of food and setting the sleeping bag, as they had no tent, Joshua turned the radio on and began to scan the frequencies... Same static, everywhere. But then, he heard a word when playing with the tuning knob. Quickly tuning up to the freq where he heard it, he found quite a discussion going on.
"...it now"
"Saturn on the mic..."
Where he heard that name...? Saturn. The head commander of Team Galactic. A criminal that was given the position of the team's boss after something happened at the Coronet mountain range.
Where was the nearest HQ? Eterna. The place where he was originally bound to go, but after the discovery of the Oreburgh ruins he decided to go to PBT foundations dig.
Seems that he will again change his mind and begin his trek to Eterna again. From that place it was exactly one day of walking to get to either of places, so it didn't matter.
Now, trying to catch as much of transmission as possible as the distance made the sound very distorted he began to plan the journey. What will he do then? How will he find that shelter and the place where they began to put the devices?
His ponderings were cut short when something began to scream in the headphones. Listening to the sounds, he felt terrified.
There was something out there. Something that was going to kill everything that moved.
Now, he knew that his cyndaquil wasn't rather powerful, as the only thing he battled was the madman in the Jubilife. Quickly reaching his gun and putting it out of it's holster he began to examine it.
First, he had to know how many rounds was the handgun capable of carrying and how much it had now.
He saw some gangster movies when he was visiting his friends or watching TV at nighttime. Trying to imitate the policemen who reloaded the magazines while being under heavy fire when fighting the crime, he pushed the magazine catch. The clip jumped out of it's place. It was then that he noticed that the gun itself was rather unusually large. The person who bought this either had the legitimate reason to feel paranoic or had to compensate the small penis he probably had. Or both.
From the numbers written on the side he was able do guess it was capable of carrying seventeen bullets. As he couldn't guess the weight, he began to unload the bullets. Sixteen of them. The clip wasn't full. Wonder what happened to the missing one. Was it only an overlook while preparing the clip, or he shot the gun before, and, if then, why? Reloading the magazine again and inserting it back into place, he tried to find a safeguard of sorts. As the intricate mechanism was too much for his understanding, he again mimicked the movies. Grabbing and pulling the lock as the cops or mobsters did he heard the sound as the device did something. Then, aiming at the sky, he pulled the trigger.
The shot reverberated in the surroundings.
The recoil was too much for him to withstand. As he was unsure how to hold it properly and being out of focus as he wasn't sure it'll work, his hand moved violently backwards. Basically, Joshua hit himself in the face.
Panicked as the sound might have summoned everything that wasn't friendly to him he sat down, legs trembling and the gunfire still sounding in his ears.
He looked at Kyle. Poor guy was wobbling violently, scared out of his mind. When Joshua pet him on the head he calmed down enough to stop trembling.
After a while they were both back to normal. After telling Kyle he'll do it again, he aimed the gun once again and shoot. Hell, if something was going there it would be a good idea to know how to hold the gun properly. One more shot wouldn't change anything.
This time, the recoil wasn't as strong as before. He tightened his muscles as much as he could and prepared mentally for it.
Kyle also prepared himself, so when the second shot came he wasn't knocked out of his senses.
Now, he had a gun that was ready to shoot. And he didn't know how to lock it again to make it safe. It was like sitting on a bomb with a Shroedinger's Meowth acting as a detonator.
"Kyle, you slept today longer and done less than me. So I'm going to act like a dick towards you and sleep now. You watch over. Anything happens, wake me up."
Cyndaquil understood it perfectly and had no objections. No visible ones, at least.
Althought the night was calm and quiet, Joshua wasn't able to sleep. Every sound, every small blow of wind was exaggerated in his mind, as if it was an evil monster approaching with the horde of enemies ready to kill at will.
Sometime around the middle watch he was able to slumber. The dream wasn't peaceful at all.
*********************
Dawn. Sun rose slowly, illuminating the scorched, lifeless face of the earth. The first dawn after the end of the world.
Sunrays waking him in rather harsh way, he stood up as quickly as possible. To his surprise he was still alive, not yet eaten by that thing he heard in the radio. But his wrists hurt like hell.
Kyle was also there, although fast asleep. And his gun, and his possesions also. Still good. It would take almost a day to arrive to the remains of Eterna. Trying to arrive as soon as possible with the sun still up, he packed up and began his journey after waking up his pokemon and placing him on his shoulder.
While traveling, he saw that not everything was dead. Some trees weren't burned, and sometimes a single live pokemon was visible on the horizon. Although the world looked empty. All the villages that were on the way were burned to the ground, not even a single person surviving the onslaught.
After seven hours of marching, at 15,00, he arrived at the outskirts of the once great city . Now, there was not a single building standing. Even the statues of Dialgia and Palkia were destroyed. Nothing was sacred anymore.
Joshua asked himself, "Where was the Eterna Galactic HQ located?". As far as he could tell it was somewhere in the northern part of the city. But where? Searching anything in a city that could kill him was rather suicidal. Radiation was the factor. But that predator, hiding somewhere was even bigger threat to his existence.
After a brief search of the northern rubble he found the equipment set up by the team Galactic grunts.
And he found them themselves. Or rather, what was left of them. Two bodies, each incomplete and in a large pool of the coagulated blood. The stench of gore made him vomit. Accidentally desecrating one of them by yawning on him in technicolor made Joshua apologize furiously. Apologies that nobody was to hear, except Kyle. So, now he had to find the murderer. He had to settle the matters now, when there still was sun in the sky.
All or nothing. Now or never.
Once again aiming at the sky, he shot again. It would either scare that thing off or draw it to him.
After a minute he saw a distant motion. Something was slowly approaching him. And then he saw in the all the glory what the thing was.
It could be called an eevee if it didn't look like an evolution into umbreon gone wrong. Large, heavy body, black fur with patches of naked red skin which looked like it was rotting away. The rest looked like an unholy abomination of an umbreon. With head resembling espeon, however.
The stench it made could be felt from far away, carried with the wind.
Trying to focus and to aim the gun in spite of his trembling hands, Joshua saw in the corner of the eye that that there were more of them. Not the same, as the other unholy creatures looked as if somebody thought it was a cool idea to play Frankenstein using eevee evolutionary line body parts on them before injecting some flesh-eating bacterias.
He was royally fucked.
When he though he got the aim right, pull of the trigger only made him aware that if he got out of it alive, he would have a lot to learn about shooting. He missed the target by quite a large factor. Another shot was a lucky one, as the head of the espeon lookalike exploded.
By the time he was able to kill another one he realized he got only two bullets left. Ideal for mutual suicide for him and Kyle, as it wasn't possible to kill another five approaching abominations. It wasn't possible to escape as he was surrounded.
He began to pray to Arceus, despite not being the one to pray at all, but his prayers were interrupted by the sound of heavy, running footsteps.
Then he heard a command. Somebody from behind shouted in a way that he knew that he was the person to whom the order was given.
"ON THE GROUND, TAKE COVER!"
Not waiting even another millisecond, he fell fall on the ground. Next thing he heard was the swish of bullets flying above him and Kyle. And he felt a wave of heat when a few fireballs moved above him.
After a few seconds everything calmed down, so He got from lying to crouched position. And turned his head around. What he saw was very unrealistic.
A figures in overall uniforms and submachine guns. And a few pokemon that were also in strange uniforms
"You ok?"
It took Joshua a few more seconds to calm himself down and to set his mind straight enough to answer. After all, a barrage of charges just passed above him, so his mind was rather confused.
"Y...yes, I am. I think..."
"It's not safe there. Come with us."
"Who are you?"
"Will explain later. You have to come with us."
And so, seeing as he had no other way that wouldn't kill him he got to standing position, shaked off the dust and seated his cyndaquil on his shoulder.
*********************
"So, there's the underground entrance, right?"
"Right. Now get in."
"Sure."
And they entered the corridor, one of the masked soldiers asked him something that Joshua expected.
"So, why you came here?"
"I was looking for something important."
"And that is?"
"Radio. Anything that worked, really. Intercepted the transmission you had with these two outside... You know, these who were killed by these abominations... But it seems that you've got the thing done, right?"
"Don't know yet. It works but no response yet... Ok, we got there."
Now everybody were standing before the vault door. One of the soldiers pressed a button on the entrance's control panel. Soon, the heavy metal slid on the rail, opening the entrance. And again, when everybody were in the vault's antechamber. There they began to undress themselves from these suits. Then Joshua noticed that the attire they wore were of team Galactic's standard issue.
"I could have guess that", he thought.
When the room's door opened, he saw that the shelter was definitely overloaded. There were so many people and pokemon that it was difficult to move without nudging somebody accidentally.
One grunt then pointed his finger on the map that was hung on the wall and said to Joshua -
"This way to the main room. Go there now, boss wants to see you."
Not being able to go anywhere else and curious what could Saturn say, he used the directions. Navigating through the cramped endless corridors, he finally found the center. And there, seated in the admin's seat, was none other than the team Galactic's boss.
"Glad you got there safely! Thank god...", and with that he stood up and came closet to shake hands.
This was somewhat strange. Joshua imagined the former team's commander to be less nice, rather cold and harsh. The tone he spoke in mazed both Joshua and Kyle, as his cyndaquil have heard about team Galactic numerous times. Not knowing how to react, he shook his hand, albeit hesitantly. The silence that fell after was rather strange, so Joshua broke it.
"H-how did you know I was outside?"
"After what happened yesterday, we set up the monitoring system morning. This time, we sent the squad heavily armed."
"What for?"
"To see what was that thing."
"Now you saw it. But then, what was that? It, no, these mutants looked... like..."
"Eevees."
"Exactly. But how?"
"Well, I can see you're not the trainer, but it's a common knowledge how eevees evolve."
"Wait... Unstable and irregular DNA, and these stones... Pathogens of some sort in these rocks?" This was purely a guesswork, as to tell the truth he didn't care about these things. Although he realized that what he just said was totally nonsensical and retarded.
"No. Radiation. You see, these rocks emit a pattern of alpha, beta and gamma radiation that further damages the eevee's DNA, thus changing them enough to make them evolve into one of the eevolutions, as some people tend to say. The pattern the decay happens, however, is set. This time, you can guess how it looks like outside..."
Only thing what could came out of Joshua's throat was simple "Oh shit..."
"Yes, exactly. We're dead. All eevees that survived the blast have evolved into these abominations by now. Luckily, only them. Other pokemon will suffer, acute radiation posioning, cancer, and their offspring will be weaker."
The world filled with these creatures... World... World... Yes, world!
"Quick, have you made any contact with the world?"
"Huh?"
"There must be some places where bombs haven't fallen! There..."
"No."
Joshua's and Kyle's hearths sunk. This wasn't the answer they expected.
"We already tried to make contact with the other outposts. Although these attempts have failed miserably, we got some photographs made by our satellites. Sorry, kid, it was global. Not a thing left."
So, there was no need to hurry. The earth died this day... All that was left is to try and begin it all over again.
"So, it's over, it seems... Wait, did you said that the other outposts haven't responded yet?"
"No. We are broadcasting the signal, but still no answer. And that's strange, as we have a set drill what to do in such cases. They would have responded by now... We haven't send any reconnaissance party. And to tell the truth, weren't it for you today we wouldn't send anybody out there for a long time, thanks to the mutes."
"Wait... Got ammo?"
"Say again?"
"Let's make a deal, I'm feeling suicidal today. You give me ammo, these hazmats for me and my cyndaquil and Geiger counters and some sort of transportation. And I'll be your errand-boy. Is that a deal?"
"No, I can't let you go out. It's too dangerous!"
"Well, thanks for the info, I already noticed that...by myself."
Such a plea was repeated again, as Joshua needed these things, and the only way he could get them is by working for team Galactic. However, Saturn was quick to be defeated.
"Ok, I surrender, seems like you'd do anything you like even if I forbid you... QUARTERMASTER! Give that boy what he needs, now!"
*********************
Sweating from the heavy suit and overloaded backpack, with Kyle in his own, funny-looking suit at his shoulder he stepped out of the safe room, back to the surface access.
At least he got now the possibility to get closer to the epicenters, as the radiation was no longer a worry. Too bad he had to cross Coronet range on foot, as the Galactic's cache and garage was near Hearthome. His next destination was the place on the other end of Sinnoh, Veilstone city. His mission was to make contact and confirm that the Galactic's Veilstone vault is safe. Or not, but that was a thing he dare not to say.
However, getting to the wouldbe Pokemon Battle Tower foundations was postponed indefinitely. Too bad, but when he would acquire the car he would be able to travel freely all around Sinnoh. Then he could go there and find out what these ruins meant. Now, with ammo and a few additional magazines he felt much safer, although he still couldn't shoot for his life. And he didn't expect that these unholy eevee abominations were affected by the repel sprays. He'll find it out soon, for sure.
He'll find soon also if he could trust these criminals. However, there was something in Saturn that made him feel like they really were up to something more good than trying to steal and acquire the powers of the gods.
Sun was setting down again, another day has passed. The fire had mostly burned out, some small flames still lingering in the ruins of Eterna. He tried to get to the car as fast as possible, so saying thankyou for the Saturn's invitation to spend the night in the vault he began his travel.
Then, he imagined himself in the post apocalyptic setting riding a vehicle. Like the Mad Max from the movies. That character however was a trainer with his six trustworthy pokemon. And Joshua was only almost-a-doctor with weak physique and only one weak cyndaquil. And his gun. And TNT charges.
This was going to be funny, in quite a twisted way.