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Chapter 11
Dark Reflection: Chapter 11: A Candle in the Darkness
Jade City -- once a peaceful metropolis, the city was now full of Team Rocket agents. The Dragon Resistance had gone into hiding, staging hit-and-run strikes on the invading Rockets. However, the Rockets had greater numbers, and attrition was starting to wear down the Dragons. Their numbers were falling, and with the city under siege, there was no way to get reinforcements. At least, there was no way to get reinforcements by conventional means. But for a Mew, getting into the city was no problem.
"Now all we need to do is find Greg." Destiny whispered in Sani's ear as they watched a Rocket guard through one of the small windows of the warehouse they had teleported into. The Rocket was patrolling the street to apprehend any resistance fighters or civilians that dared to use the streets without permission from the Jade City Rocket Command Base. Apparently, that permission was hard to come by, as they had only seen one other person that the guard had allowed to continue down the street.
Beside Destiny, Sani fidgeted. The Mew was starting to get impatient, but she knew the danger that they were in, so she was willing to wait as long as necessary. "We don't have any idea where he is, though. Our phone call didn't get through; for all we know, he might have been captured already."
"In that case, we'll just have to break him and the others out." Destiny pointed at the Rocket guard, "Those guys are everywhere, so this could be tough. And like you said, we still don't have any idea where Greg is. If he's captured, they might be holding him in the base they've set up or in some remote area, like one of these warehouses."
"Not this one, that's for sure."
Destiny shook her head, "Don't be so pessimistic, Sani. We have to think positive."
The Mew sighed, "And how should we start doing that?"
"Well for one thing, we should stop worrying about getting captured. None of the usual Rocket troops have strong enough pokémon. The trick is to avoid running into more than one or two at once, but if we can manage it, we should be fine. Mewtwo's the only one we really have to worry about, but we haven't seen any sign of him around here."
Sani shook her head unhappily, "You know that doesn't mean he's not here, but you have a point. Still, I don't know how we're going to find Greg or any of the other Dragons."
"We'll go to the base. It may be the most heavily guarded place around, but that also makes it the perfect place to hold prisoners."
"...assuming they're even being held in the city at this point."
Destiny glared at her friend. "What did I just say about being negative?"
Sani waved her hand dismissively, "All right, I'll look on the bright side if you want. Let's just go get this over with before the Rockets find us and take us to their boss for torture and death."
"Sani, your cheerfulness is underwhelming."
Once known as the Jigglypuff's Song, the hotel now known as the Jade City Rocket Command Base was swarming with the gang's agents. There were guards at all the doors, as well as on the roof of the five-story building. Much of the hotel was in use as a barracks, but there were still a few unoccupied rooms. It was into one of these rooms that Destiny and Sani teleported. In the hallway they could hear the voices of Rockets, laughing at some joke that one of them had told. "This is crazy!" Sani whispered to Destiny. "There's no way we'll be able to sneak past everyone out there!"
"I agree," Destiny whispered back. "There's too many of them out there. We'll just have to adjust our plans." Destiny paused for a moment, then put her ear to the floor and listened carefully.
The Mew watched her friend in confusion. "What in the world are you doing, Dest?"
"Shhh... Hold on a minute..." A moment later, Destiny grabbed Sani's hand and pulled her into the closet. "Teleport us down one floor. If I'm right, we should appear in the closet of the room down there."
Sani blinked, "So what? That won't help us any."
"Just do it, Sani." Knowing that further delay was useless, Sani did as Destiny asked. The two of them were plunged into darkness, as the other room's closet door was closed. Beside Sani, Destiny was moving around, but Sani had no idea what she was doing. "I need some light, but not too much." Still confused, the Mew lit up the inside of the closet with a faint glow.
Then, when she saw the interior of the closet she realized what Destiny was planning. "Of course! If you dress up in one of these Rocket uniforms, you'll be able to go anywhere you want!" A moment later, Sani realized something else. "But if there's uniforms here, that means that this room is occupied!"
"Quiet, Sani!" Destiny hissed, grabbing a black Rocket uniform. "I know someone's staying here. I heard her through the floor. Now get us out of here before she realizes that someone's in her closet!" Sani needed no further urging. In a split second, the two of them were back in the vacant room they had been in a moment before.
"Next time, warn me when we're doing something risky like that," Sani scolded. "You didn't know for certain that there were uniforms there, and If that closet door had been open, we'd have been in big trouble!"
"Okay, okay. Next time I'll tell you what I'm up to so you won't give us away by asking me questions when we need to be quiet. Anyway, we got our ticket past the guards."
Sani sighed, "I guess so... We just have to hope that you're a good enough actor to fool the Rockets into thinking you're one of them..."
Sani decided to hide in Destiny's backpack rather than stay behind, although the two of them had to dump out most of the contents of the pack before Sani could fit inside. Destiny made sure that they kept the two Orbs they had collected, but everything else was left in the unoccupied room. Destiny hoped that she would have a chance to come back for her clothes. The Rocket uniform she had found was fairly comfortable, except for a Rocket cap that she despised, but wore just to disguise herself further. Still, the uniform wasn't something she wanted to walk all over Obsidia in, especially given the feelings that most people had toward the Rockets.
It did have its uses, though, such as allowing her to walk the halls of the Rocket base unhindered. It also had a belt for holding pokéballs, which Destiny was glad to have. Even if she got rid of the uniform sometime in the future, she decided that she would at least keep that part of it.
At first Destiny was uneasy walking the halls of the base, hoping that no one would suddenly wonder who she was and why they had never seen her before. That fear was dispelled rather quickly, though. Many of the Rockets she saw appeared to not know the others. She suddenly realized that with all the new recruits the Rockets had, nobody could possibly know everyone. Gaining courage, she continued her explorations through the base at a faster pace than before...
...and was reduced to her former terrified self when one of the Rockets reached out and grabbed her arm. "I think you're headed in the wrong direction," he told her.
Destiny tried to calm down, but her heart just wouldn't stop racing. "I didn't think I was," she said quickly, almost stammering over the words. "I just got here, and I was having a look around..."
The Rocket nodded, "Yeah, yeah, I know. Seems like everyone around here is new. Just be careful not to stumble onto the fifth floor without permission like that bunch of new recruits did this morning. They were interrogating those idiots for an hour to make sure that they weren't a bunch of Dragon spies."
"I'm not that stupid." Destiny objected, once again feeling braver, now that she knew the Rocket wasn't on to her deception. "Thanks for the warning, though." Pulling away from his grip, Destiny once again started up the corridor.
As she walked away, the man called after her, "I doubt you really want to go up that way, either."
Destiny turned around, frowning impatiently. "Is it forbidden to go this way?"
The Rocket shook his head, "Well, no, not officially, but most people don't--"
"If it's not forbidden, then I'm going this way," Destiny cut him off, hoping that perhaps there was something up ahead that the Rockets wouldn't want her knowing about. In movies, the top secret places always seemed to be the best place to look when infiltrating an enemy base. Somehow, Destiny doubted that it would be any different in real life. Top secret usually meant important, after all.
As Destiny spun around and marched down the hall, she just barely heard the Rocket's reply. "Suit yourself, but don't say I didn't warn you..."
"Yeah, whatever," Destiny murmured, mostly to herself. She continued on, looking for something unusual, but finding nothing out of the ordinary. It just seemed to be a normal hotel hallway, although Destiny did feel that something was wrong. Then she figured it out and poked her backpack. "Hey, Sani, there's no Rockets around here. What do you think that's about?"
A moment later, Destiny heard Sani's voice in her mind. "I dunno. It does seem kinda strange, though. Think we should turn back?"
Destiny stopped and looked around, noticing that one room's door was open just a crack. A pale blue light shone out around the barely-open door. "Hold on just a minute, Sani. There's something over there I want to check out." Ignoring Sani's next question as to where "there" was, Destiny slowly opened the door and stepped inside. Inside the room, on a small coffee table, there was some sort of device displaying a map of Obsidia. Destiny needed only a quick inspection to recognize the device. "Hey, this is that holographic projector that Rich's dad was working on back in Garnet Town. It wasn't working last time I saw it though. I guess he must have fixed it, but what's it doing here?"
"I found it during the destruction of Garnet Town." Destiny jumped at the voice, then panicked even more when she realized that she recognized it. "It's an intriguing trinket, but the machine that it was supposed to be for was much more impressive. Too bad you bumbling Rocket fools demolished it when you attacked Diamond City." Destiny turned around, looking for the speaker. Then she shouted in surprise as something fell on her shoulder. She grabbed the object, found it to be a hand, and briefly wondered how its owner had managed to grab her from behind when she had just been looking in that direction only a moment before.
She realized a second later that Mewtwo had easily pulled off that trick just by using his teleporting ability. She just hoped she would be able to get away from him before he realized who she was. Suddenly, Destiny was very glad that she had kept that Rocket hat...
"What are you doing here anyway?" Mewtwo demanded. "Whatever news you have had better be important, because I am in no mood to listen to another pathetic drone babbling on about which city needs taken over next." When Destiny didn't respond, Mewtwo continued. "You did come to tell me something, didn't you, or did you just come to pester me on a dare from your fellow incompetents?"
Destiny found herself stammering despite her best efforts at control. "N-n-neither, sir. I j-just made a wrong turn." She pulled away from his grip and dashed for the door. "Sorry to disturb you. I'll just be going now." However, before Destiny could reach the hallway outside, the door slammed in her face.
"Wait a minute, I believe I know you," the superclone said. Destiny tried desperately to open the door, but it wouldn't budge, held shut by Mewtwo's psychic powers. The clone grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. "Yes, I do! You're that girl Destiny, the one Giovanni wants so badly. Where's your Mew friend?"
"I'll never tell you!" Destiny growled. "And you'll never find her!" Yanking at Mewtwo's arm, she tried to free herself from his grasp, but he was too strong.
Then he released her, and she fall backwards into the door, landing on her backpack. Inside of it, Sani yelped. Mewtwo waved his hand and the zipper on the pack unzipped to reveal the Mew curled up inside. "I won't find her, will I?" Mewtwo asked mockingly. "You two are greater fools than I thought, coming back to the most heavily guarded Rocket installation in Obsidia. What could you possibly hope to accomplish?" Again Mewtwo paused, but neither of the two friends answered. "Well? Speak up, or have you both gone mute?"
"It doesn't matter what we're doing here." Destiny shot back. "We'll beat you if we have to!"
Sani stared at Destiny with a horrified expression on her face, "We will?"
Mewtwo shook his head. "Of course, I should have realized... You came back to save your Dragon friends. Well, you should have tried the fifth floor instead of barging into my quarters. Now I will have to take you both to Giovanni."
"You aren't taking us anywhere!" Destiny tried to lash out at Mewtwo, but she rebounded off of an invisible shield.
"I'm surprised that you even tried that," the clone told her, frowning. "A mere physical attack such as that could never hurt me. You would have to be a psychic with ten times the power of your friend to even have a chance at --" Something beeped, and Mewtwo suddenly stopped talking. He glanced over at his armor, which was piled up in one corner of the room. "That would be my master calling to tell me that he's quite displeased that I haven't found you yet. Perhaps hearing that you have been captured will improve his mood." Mewtwo beckoned, and his wrist-phone floated over to him.
"No!" Destiny just about shouted, "Don't do it Mewtwo!"
"I must," the superclone told her. "I have no choice in the matter."
"Everyone has a choice," Sani quickly said, as Mewtwo's finger hovered over the button to activate the phone.
Mewtwo shook his head, "So you say..." He pressed the button, and Giovanni's face appeared on the screen of the portable videophone.
"What took you so long?" Giovanni asked impatiently. As Mewtwo started to answer, the Team Rocket Boss moved on. "Never mind. I'm getting quite displeased with you for not bringing that girl and her Mew to me by now. Why haven't you found them yet?"
"Obsidia is vast." Mewtwo sounded annoyed, as if he had already had this conversation more than a few times before. From his attitude to Giovanni and to her, when he had thought her to be a Rocket agent, Destiny could tell that he had no love for Team Rocket. What puzzled her was why he still obeyed their Boss's commands. "A Mew can travel great distances in a very short time. And if they wanted, they could always leave Obsidia for somewhere safer."
"Don't be stupid, Mewtwo. They're trying to fulfill that legend of theirs, so they'll have to stay in Obsidia. I want you to keep looking for them. Check the Granite Mountains, search Echo Caverns. I want them found soon!"
The clone nodded, "And when I find them?"
"Bring them to me, of course. I'll be arriving in Jade City in three hours. In the unlikely event that you manage to complete your mission by then, you'll just have to wait for me Giovanni out!" The screen went blank.
"You didn't tell him you'd captured us," Sani pointed out.
Mewtwo glared at her, then nodded once. "No, I didn't. He has no idea that you're here, and I don't give that fool any information he doesn't ask for. Also, I still have some questions that must be cleared up. I want to know more about this quest you're on. How close are you to completing it? Will you actually be able to defeat the Rockets if you manage to finish?"
"Hold on just a minute," Destiny said slowly, confused at Mewtwo's sudden change in attitude. "Why should we tell you anything?"
"Because I want to see the downfall of the Rockets as much as you do!" Mewtwo growled, flinging his wrist-phone back onto the pile of armor. "Giovanni has made me his slave. Despite my best efforts, I have no way to beat him. He will kill me if he thinks I am working against him! That is why I must know the details of your mission. Even if you are defeated, I may still be able to continue your quest in secret and overthrow Giovanni myself!"
Destiny blinked, amazed at this strange turn of events. "Well, you might not have to do that. We're over halfway done with our part of the mission."
"Your part? You mean that you aren't the only ones on this quest?" The barest hint of a smile appeared on Mewtwo's face. "That could be quite an advantage, as long as it remains a secret from Giovanni."
Destiny shrugged, "Actually, he wouldn't know where to start looking even if he did know another was out there. Still, our teammate may have his own problems to deal with and he doesn't know our status, so he probably won't be able to help us anytime soon."
Sani frowned, "We couldn't get in contact with Zeth anyway, so we can't count on him to be able to do anything more than find the rest of his Orbs."
Destiny rolled her eyes. "I was trying not to actually mention Zeth's name, Sani."
"It's ok, Dest. I think that as long as the Rocket's boss doesn't find out that we told Mewtwo anything, Mewtwo won't give away any secrets. You know the saying, the enemy of our enemy is our friend, and Giovanni is definitely our common enemy. Besides, we can use any help he can give us."
"I still don't like it, Sani, but I guess you're right. We'll just have to take a chance." Reaching into her backpack, Destiny pulled out the two Orbs they had collected. "There are eight of these in all," she explained to Mewtwo. "We have four to find, and our friend Zeth has four that he needs to find. Last we knew, Zeth had two Orbs. By now, he might even have a third. Hopefully, by the time we're done, he'll be finished too. Now, what Sani and I need to do is find the last two temples like that one on Stormy Peak. The only hints we have to go on is the name of the Orbs and the fact that all of the Orbs' guardians seem to be flying pokémon. We know that one Orb, the Orb of Dragon, is for Zeth to find, which leaves the Orb of the Forest, the Orb of Ice, and the Orb of the Sky."
"I see," Mewtwo said neutrally. "What exactly are these Orbs supposed to do, anyway?"
"We're not really sure," Sani admitted. "The legend says that if we bring all eight Orbs to the central temple, we'll be able to save the world from the Rockets."
"So you don't even know if you will accomplish anything, even if your mission does succeed?" Mewtwo seemed unsure now. "You're risking your lives for something so uncertain?"
Destiny nodded, "Yes, we are. It's the best chance we have, and I believe that it is true. We've gone through too much already for me to think that the legend could possibly be false."
"You do have a point there. It would not make sense for these guardians you have run into to be guarding worthless glass balls. There must be some truth to this quest." Mewtwo pondered this for a moment, then waved his hand, and the door behind Destiny and Sani opened. "Very well, you are free to go. I suggest you head for the Peridot Forest. When I searched for you there, I found what is very likely one of those temples you seek. In the meantime, I will search the Granite Mountains for you as Giovanni has ordered." The superclone smiled at the idea, "It will be his own fault that I am nowhere near you, of course, since he told me to go there."
"Of course it will be," Destiny agreed. "We do have one little thing to take care of first, though. We have to rescue the prisoners."
"Yes, I had almost forgotten." Mewtwo shook his head, "They are locked in separate rooms up on the fifth floor. Guards patrol the halls constantly, but if you just teleport into the rooms, you should easily be able to get all the prisoners to safety before the Rockets notice. Just hurry, Giovanni will be coming here soon, and you don't want him to catch you."
Destiny nodded solemnly, "I understand. Come on, Sani, we've got work to do."
"Wait, there's one thing I wanted to ask Mewtwo before we go," Sani said. "For a while, we weren't using my psychic powers because we thought you might be able to sense them somehow. Can you actually do that?"
Mewtwo shook his head, "No, and even if I could, how would I be able to tell you apart from any Abra or Hypno that comes along?"
"It figures," Sani complained to Destiny. "We would have to go through all that for nothing." The Mew sighed, "Ok, Dest, lets go rescue the Dragons." With a theatrical wave of her hand, Sani teleported herself and Destiny out of the room, leaving Mewtwo alone.
"I hope that I have not just doomed myself with these actions," Mewtwo said to himself. "Still, even if this path leads to my own demise, it somehow feels like it was worth it to oppose the Rockets."
As Destiny and Sani appeared in one of the rooms on the fifth floor, they accidentally startled the occupant, a tall, dark-haired woman, wearing a battered Dragon uniform. The woman shouted in fright, before Destiny clapped a hand over her mouth. Outside the room, a guard pounded on the door and yelled at her to shut up. "Be quiet!" Destiny hissed in the lady's ear. "We're here to you out of here." Destiny released the woman, giving orders to Sani. "Take her back to the warehouse, then get back here. We don't have much time, so hurry!" Sani nodded once, then disappeared, along with the woman. A moment later she reappeared. "Great, now we just have to do this a bunch more times. Let's get to work!"
The two of them repeated the procedure twelve more times before they found someone they recognized. "Captain... I mean... Major Marlow!" Destiny exclaimed.
The leader of the Jade City Resistance dropped the book he was reading in surprise. "Destiny! What are you doing back here?" Marlow looked her over once, and frowned. "And why are you wearing the enemy's uniform?"
Destiny looked down at her clothes, having almost forgotten that she was even wearing a Team Rocket uniform instead of her usual attire. "It's my disguise, sir. I've come to rescue you, and every other Dragon the Rockets are holding here. We have to hurry, though, because Giovanni will be arriving in two and a half hours!"
The Marine nodded, "Understood. Have you found Lieutenant Austin yet?"
Sani shook her head, "Who?"
"Your friend, Greg. Last I heard, he was the Rocket's latest capture."
"We'll find him, Major," Destiny assured him. "But first we need to get you to a safer location. Sani, you know the drill."
Sani nodded, "Absolutely. Be back in a flash!" And of course she was, literally. For the next twenty minutes, Destiny and Sani searched every room on the fifth floor of the hotel, finding a total of 37 prisoners. Only one time did they have a close call, when they teleported into an empty room that had its door standing wide open. Fortunately, the Rocket guards weren't near that particular room when the incident happened. As Destiny had hoped, she found Greg, as well as Nurse Joy, Officer Jenny, and even the disagreeable Connolly. Finally, the rescue was finished, and just in time. As Destiny and Sani teleported out with the last of the Dragons, they heard one of the Rockets open a prisoner's door and yell in surprise and outrage at not finding anyone in the room.
Once back in the warehouse, Destiny, Greg, Major Marlow, Officer Jenny, and Nurse Joy discussed the situation. In a flash of light, Sani joined them, holding the pile of belongings that Destiny had left back in the Rocket Headquarters. "Here, Dest, I knew you wouldn't want to forget these." Sani said, probably only to Destiny, as no one else seemed to notice. Destiny smiled, and gave the Mew a quick nod of appreciation.
"You should never have come back here Destiny," Greg was saying, for about the fifth time. "It was far too risky, and if Mewtwo found--"
"Mewtwo did find us, Greg," Destiny interrupted. "He let us go, and even told us where the next Orb probably is. He's hoping that our mission will succeed so we can free him from Giovanni's control."
Major Marlow shook his head in disbelief, "You're kidding. I can't believe that Mewtwo would actually help us."
"Believe it, Major," Sani told him. "The Mewtwo from our world hates Team Rocket just as much, but he managed to escape from them a couple months ago. Somehow, the one here never managed to do that, and as a result, has been forced to remain a slave to the Rockets."
"I don't like it," Officer Jenny stated, "but it doesn't look like we have a choice. We'll just have to hope that you're right. In the meantime, we have more important things to worry about. It won't be long before the Rockets start scouring the city for us. Our pokémon have all been captured, so we have no defenses. We need to find somewhere to hide while we build up our strength again."
"How about Garnet Town?" Nurse Joy suggested. It was destroyed right before I was captured. The Rockets might not look for us in a ruined city."
"Garnet," Destiny closed her eyes, remembering what the friendly little town had looked like, "my home town. I'd love to go back to it, even if the one here isn't my real home."
Greg nodded, "Then Garnet Town it is. We'll leave immediately and try to build ourselves a makeshift base there. The Rockets may have won a few battles, but if we stick together, we'll win this war!"
With Sani's help, the escapees were quickly relocated to the wreckage of Garnet Town. Although Destiny was shocked to see the destroyed town that she still thought of as her home, she realized that her own Garnet Town might just end up like the other, if she and Sani could not complete their quest. With this in mind, Destiny and Sani headed for Peridot Forest with a new sense of urgency. Little did they know that the Rockets would quickly be on their trail again...
The Rocket spy, Peter Connolly, made sure that no one saw him before he activated his video phone. No one knew he had even had one, just as no one had known that he was not actually a prisoner. If Destiny had tried a different rescue approach, such as knocking out the guards, she might have noticed that the door of his room was unlocked, unlike that of the other prisoners. Connolly figured that what the Dragons never found out would help him as much as it hurt them. Quickly, the traitor punched a sequence of numbers into his phone. When the figure of Giovanni appeared on the screen, Connolly smiled evilly. "So, have you heard the news yet?"
Giovanni glared at him, "Where are they, Connolly?! I want those Dragons recaptured immediately!"
"Calm down, sir, I have more important news for you. Guess who showed up to rescue all of us poor prisoners?"
The Boss Rocket stared at him for a moment, then a smile spread across his face. "Of course, that explains how they managed to get everyone out under my guards' noses. Tell me, where are the two of them now?"
"En route to Peridot Forest. They said something about there being another one of those Orbs they're collecting there. I didn't hear how they found out about it, but that's probably not important anyway. All I know is that they have no idea where in the forest it is, so you should easily be able to catch them before they get any farther!"
"Good work, Connolly, you will be rewarded for your excellent service." Giovanni reached for the controls to the phone. "I will personally lead the mission to find the girl and her Mew. They will not slip by me!"
"And I will stay here and continue to pretend that I'm a member of the Dragons. They're building a base in the ruins of Garnet Town; I'll just make sure that there's a good way to blow it up when we're ready."
"Good idea, just don't arouse any suspicion. It wouldn't do to lose such a valuable operative. Giovanni out!" The screen on the phone went blank. Shoving the device back into his pocket, Connolly ambled off to find yet another way to ruin the plans of the Dragon Resistance...
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