The chill of the cell seeped into Elias's bones. He was slumped against the wall, head bowed, white hair hanging like a curtain over his face.
The door hissed open. Ariana's sharp heels clicked on the floor.
"Still breathing?" She purred, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "The serum can be… intense for the weak-willed. I was beginning to worry you'd broken already."
She stopped in front of him. When he didn't move, she let out a soft, disdainful sigh. With the toe of her boot, she hooked it under his chin and forced his head up.
"Look at me when I'm talking to—"
Her words died in her throat.
Elias's face was pale, streaked with dried blood from where he'd struck the wall. But it was his left eye that stole the air from her lungs.
The sclera was not white. It was a fathomless black, as if someone had scooped out the space behind his eye and filled it with ink. And in the center of that darkness, his iris was gone, replaced by a smoldering ember of solid purple fire.
His right eye remained its normal, sharp grey, but it was fixed on her with a focus that was utterly, terrifyingly human.
He was conscious. He was looking right at her.
Ariana jerked her boot back as if scalded, taking an involuntary step away. Her composure shattered for a single second, replaced by fear.
She swallowed hard, forcing her sharp smile back onto her face, though it was now tight and nervous at the edges.
"Well... what are you? Are you even human anymore?"
Elias didn't answer. The purple fire in his left eye seemed to pulse once, in time with a faint, sub-audible hum that suddenly vibrated in the metal floor.
Recovering, Ariana's fear crystallized into urgency.
"No matter." She said, her voice regaining some of its steel. She gestured to the two grunts who had been waiting silently in the corridor. They stepped in, their own eyes widening at the sight of Elias's eye, but they were well-trained enough not to falter.
"Wire him. Tight. He doesn't need to walk."
The grunts moved. They hauled Elias to his feet. His body was limp, offering no resistance, but the strange, watchful energy coming from him made their hands shake. They bound his wrists behind his back with a thick, conductive wire that bit into his skin, then looped more around his chest and ankles. When they were done, he was trussed like cargo, held upright only by their grips on his arms.
Ariana led the way, her pace brisk. The two grunts dragged Elias behind her, his boots scraping a dull rhythm on the metal grating.
They were heading deeper into the mountain's heart, towards Giovanni.
***
The wind tore at Caesar's clothes as Noivern descended in a tight, silent spiral towards the peak of Mala's Spine. As they dropped below the cloud layer, the scale of the task ahead hit him.
"Arrogant fool..." He thought. He was the Champion of an entire region, and he'd charged after a criminal organization with one exhausted pokemon. His full team was back in the Pokemon League. He had been so consumed by the ghost of his brother in Elias's eyes that he'd forgotten the first rule of any engagement: overwhelming force.
Noivern landed with a soft crunch on a rocky outcrop overlooking what appeared to be the cliff face.
Staravia, perched on Noivern's head, let out a soft chirp and pointed with its beak into the shadows of a nearby crevice.
Caesar's gaze snapped to the movement. There, standing as still as the stone, was a Decidueye. Its feathery cloak blended perfectly with the pre-dawn gloom, but its eyes were fixed on the hidden door. It hadn't noticed their approach, its attention wholly focused on the enemy lair.
Caesar's eyes scanned the pokemon and caught a glint on its shoulder. A small, metallic disc, blinking with a steady, soft green light. A tracker. He signaled Noivern to stay and began to move.
He was within arm's reach, his hand outstretched towards the blinking device, when Decidueye's head swiveled a full 180 degrees. Its large, luminous eyes locked onto him.
Caesar froze.
"Easy..." He whispered, his voice low and calm.
Decidueye didn't relax. It took a single, silent step back, deeper into the crevice. Its wing tensed, feathers subtly shifting as if ready to draw a spectral arrow.
Caesar slowly lowered his hand, conceding. He gave a slow, respectful nod and retreated back to Noivern's side.
Defeated in his attempt, he sank onto a cold boulder, head in his hands. The first faint hints of pink and gold were bleeding into the eastern sky. He was so close, yet utterly paralyzed. One wrong move would alert the entire mountain.
***
High above, the world was a tapestry of fading stars and gathering dawn. Anne, clinging to Makarell's back, felt her eyes gritty with exhaustion.
As they descended through a final layer of mist, the dark bulk of the Mala's Spine rose before them. Makarell guided Charizard to a rocky plateau just below the summit.
And there, in the growing light, they saw him.
Sitting on a boulder, his head bowed, his Noivern behind him and Elias's Staravia on his head, was Caesar Monarch.
Anne slid off Charizard, Alpha Scraggy landing beside her with a heavy thud. She stared, shock and a flicker of anger on her face.
"What are you doing here?"
Caesar looked up. His eyes first registered Anne—the girl from the plaza, always at Elias's side. A flicker of surprise, then recognition. But then his gaze slid past her, to the man slumping wearily in the saddle of the Charizard.
To the white and green uniform.
Every muscle in Caesar's body tensed. He rose to his feet in one smooth, cautious motion. Noivern, sensing its trainer's sudden alertness, let out a low, subsonic growl that vibrated in the rock.
Caesar's eyes, now sharp and utterly focused, locked on Makarell.
"You..." Caesar said, his voice dropping into a tone of cold. He took a single step forward, his gaze never left Makarell's uniform. "That insignia... What is an operative of X Legion doing on this mountain?"
Makarell blinked slowly, as if processing the words through a thick fog of exhaustion. He tilted his head, his porcelain hair shifting.
"X... Legion?" He rasped, his voice dry as dust. He looked down at his own uniform sleeve, then back at Caesar, a faint, confused frown creasing his tired face. "No, man. That's... that's not right. Team Xycle. I'm with Team Xycle."
He let out another of his long, world-weary sighs, the sound almost swallowed by the morning wind.
"Look, I'm really tired. Just flew all night. I'm gonna... go rest over there." Without waiting for a response from Caesar or Anne, he slid off Charizard with a groan. The fiery pokemon, seeming to share its trainer's single-minded desire for respite, immediately folded its wings, curled up on a relatively flat patch of stone, and closed its eyes with a huff of smoke.
Makarell simply lay down on the ground a few feet away, using his arm as a pillow, and appeared to fall asleep almost instantly.
Caesar stared, nonplussed. The confrontation he'd steeled himself for had dissolved. This wasn't the hostility he associated with the group known as X Legion. This was... lethargy.
His gaze shifted back to Anne, his guard still up but now tinged with confusion.
"He's with you? And he's... part of them?"
Anne crossed her arms, her own fatigue making her sharp.
"He's here to help get Elias back. That's all you need to know." She looked past Caesar, towards the hidden hangar door, her worry for Elias overriding everything else. "We don't have time for this. They have him in there. We need a plan, not a staring contest."
She was right. The imminent threat was the mountain, not the sleeping man. But Caesar's mind was reeling. The girl was clearly connected to Elias. Elias was connected to the ghost of his brother. And now, a member of a known extremist organization was here, claiming to be on a rescue mission for the same boy.
The pieces were a tangled web. But the central point was the same.
Caesar forced himself to focus. He nodded stiffly at Anne.
"Very well. For now." He turned his attention to the camouflaged door. "We have one point of entry. They will have sentries, internal security. A direct assault with our current... assets is suicide. We need to find another way in. You got a plan?"
"Hmm... yeah, I think I have a plan." Anne grabbed a stick from the ground. "Let's see... this one is supposed to be the door for their hangar. Then, base on the scale of the mountain, they must be crawling everywhere inside like ants."
She drew a line from on the dirt for the hangar door, then the whole mountain.
"If we were to come inside from this door, we're going to get caught instantly. That means no more rescue, no more Elias. We need to find a way in where they won't expect us."
Anne's eyes narrowed, scanning the rocky face of the Mala's Spine.
"If I was hiding a base inside a mountain, I'd need air. A lot of it. For engines, for people, for systems." She tilted her head back, her gaze climbing the cliffs towards the summit.
"The top." She said, certainty hardening her voice. "You'd put your primary ventilation shafts on the very top. The hardest place to reach, the least likely spot for anyone to look for an entrance. The air up there is thinner, but with powerful filtration and circulation systems, it wouldn't matter. It would be the last place they'd guard heavily."
She turned to Caesar, her earlier suspicion momentarily shelved for tactical necessity.
"We need to get up there. It's a way in they won't expect."
Caesar followed her gaze, his mind assessing the climb, the risks. It was a desperate plan. But desperate was all they had.
"It's a vertical assault under open sky." He said. "If they have any external sensors on the summit..."
"Then we need a distraction." Anne finished, a fierce glint in her eye. She looked over at the still-sleeping Makarell and his Charizard, then to Alpha Scraggy and Staravia.
"I don't think they would fit that role. Especially that guy." Caesar said, pointing to Makarell. "We need someone strong. Someone that can take many of them down. And I'm fitted for that role."
Caesar straightened. He looked from Anne to the imposing, silent mountain face.
"Your plan is great." He said, his voice regaining its decisive edge. "But the distraction cannot be a half-measure. It needs to be a destructive that pulls every Rocket in that mountain to one spot."
He gestured towards the hangar door, a cold, determined light in his violet eyes.
"I will crash that hangar door. Noivern and I will go in through the front. My presence alone is a declaration of war they cannot ignore. They will throw everything they have at me to contain the breach. It will draw their focus, their commanders, their heaviest defenses."
He turned to Anne, his expression grave.
"While they are focused on me, you take the summit. Find that ventilation shaft. Get inside. You have Decidueye for stealth, Alpha Scraggy for brute force if you need it, and Staravia can guide you to Elias."
He nodded at the small bird, which chirped firmly in agreement.
He glanced at the sleeping Makarell.
"He and his Charizard can be your extraction, or a secondary distraction if needed. But the primary assault, the one that gives you your window… that will be me."
Anne stared at him, the audacity of the plan—a one-man, one-pokemon assault on a Team Rocket stronghold—striking her silent for a moment. It wasn't just risky; it was borderline suicidal. But she also saw the ruthless logic in it. No other distraction would be as potent. No other target would command such immediate, overwhelming response.
"You'll be surrounded." She said quietly. "Outnumbered a hundred to one."
A ghost of his old, confident smile touched Caesar's lips, but it was sharp, devoid of humor.
"I am the Champion of the Adele Region. Being surrounded is the one thing I am trained for." He placed a hand on Noivern's neck. The great dragon rumbled, its exhaustion burning away in the heat of impending battle, eyes glowing with fierce loyalty. "We will hold the gate. For as long as it takes."
He met Anne's gaze, the weight of his personal history burning behind his eyes.
"Find him. Get him out. That is the plan now."
Anne took a deep breath, pushing down the swell of conflicting emotions.
She gave a single, firm nod. "We'll find him. Just… don't die."
Caesar mounted Noivern, Staravia fluttering to settle on his shoulder. He looked down at Anne one last time.
"Good luck."
Without another word, Noivern beat its massive wings, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel. It rose into the brightening sky with purpose. It banked once, turning to face the cliff where the hangar door was hidden.
From his perch, Caesar's voice rang out, clear and commanding:
"TEAM ROCKET!! GET OUT OF THERE AND FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONNNS!!!"
He raised a hand. Noivern drew in a deep, cavernous breath, the air around its maw distorting with gathering sonic energy.
BOOOOM!