04-22-2015, 07:28 AM
Chapter 6: Ascension
There was no other explanation. Wartortle was God incarnate. Those that followed him would be granted the greatest riches, the most prestigious positions in his new world order. From this moment forth, his liberation force would be feared, and he would stand at its helm like a fearless demi-god. Anyone who defied Wartortle and his crew were as good as useless—they would be percents on the death toll.
Not wanting to let his new ally have all the fun, the nihilistic maniac ordered his troops forward, and a wave of Pokémon surged forward, eager to please their leader. Several of the awe-struck trainers flew to the holding cells of their Pokémon. Some gathered anything they could find, intent on defending themselves and establishing their dominance. It was hilarious that men who lived their lives having slaves battle for them died so effortlessly.
In mere moments the ‘battle’ was over, with the multitude of revolutionists claiming an easy victory. Their leader waddled over to the broken nurse, tore her head from her body (with a little help from a grenade) and handed the totem to Machamp. The Superpower Pokémon, who had once been a shambling mess, accepted the prize and smiled faintly at the Turtle who had woken his urge to live.
“Thank you, comrade,” Wartortle decreed, taking a few steps away from the titan before turning to face his followers. “Our victory here was simple compared to the hell we are going to face as we advance our mission to liberate this city and the world beyond its boundaries. The ally we have gained today is but one example of the diversity of our people, and how potentially infinite our movement is when it comes to what we can accomplish.”
“My liege,” Kadabra spoke, teleporting into the lobby of the Pokémon Center and hovering over toward the chieftain. “I picked up the disturbances and saw the figure enter the Center. How do you fare, Chieftain?” The Psi Pokémon, spoon clenched in his fingers as always, bore an expression of genuine concern on his visage.
“Nothing to worry about at all, comrade,” Wartortle spoke, his voice relaxed and at ease as he gazed at the motionless Machamp. “We have a new ally in the form of a Machamp who seeks retribution for a life of torment and abuse,” the amphibious insurrectionist grinned malevolently at the prospect of having one of the strongest breed of Pokémon fighting beneath his banner. The thought of such an immensely powerful ally made him giddy like a schoolboy. “Return to your post, Kadabra,” the reptile spoke, glancing over his shoulder at his resident telekinetic.
“I will inform you of any outsiders who encroach upon the scene of our operation, Chieftain,” the creature said, bowing out of respect before teleporting back to his rooftop vantage point. With Kadabra back at his post and the lobby of the structure definitively under his command, Wartortle turned his attention to the hallway.
“Rush the lower levels of this facility and purge them of the foul infestation of man,” the turtle ordered his subordinates. Each and every one of his soldiers seemed to be infused with an unyielding desire to spread carnage, so without so much as a nod of their heads, they poured into the hallway and down the nearby stairs. Walking over to the machines located behind the ransacked counter, Wartortle’s nimble fingers began to dance over the keyboard and array of switches and levers.
“Can you operate it, Chieftain?” Pikachu inquired, taking a position beside the tall turtle. The Electric Mouse Pokémon had stayed behind to safeguard his leader incase of a sneak attack, although Machamp was obviously capable of the task. Hearing the voice, Wartortle glanced down at the golden rodent and nodded his head. A moment later, the midsection of the machine split in twain. A white light spilled out from the confines of the machine—causing the three Pokémon to shield their eyes momentarily.
“Easy as cake,” Wartortle said with a malicious grin as the light faded to reveal around four dozen containment spheres. “Be free my comrades!” The turtle boomed, collecting up the Poké Balls and heaving them to the floor behind him. One by one, the Pokémon imprisoned in the apparatuses were freed, and as if they immediately knew what had transpired, they all displayed their glee.
“Chieftain!” The former slaves roared, pointing their fingers and raising their right arms at a forty-five degree. The display of adoration and versatility brought a smile to the visage of the amphibious militant.
“Welcome to the future, comrades,” Wartortle dictated, performing a short tally of the soldiers and estimating their numbers to be close to thirty—a figure that doubled the Turtle Pokémon’s standing forces. In a span of a few days, the cerulean insurrectionist had gone from two followers to well over sixty, and he had even enlisted the servitude of the goliath known as Machamp.
We got trouble, Chieftain. Kadabra said, his telepathic voice conveying the fear afflicting the usually stoic psychic. There are about ten or twenty squad cars converging on our location. They’re going to be upon you in a matter of seconds, and the snipers are only going to be able to delay them for so long before they bring in aerial support. I suggest that you rally our comrades for battle, because this will be anything but enjoyable…Surge is with them. Once he had finished his dissertation, Kadabra’s voice faded out as the Psi Pokémon began to prepare for his role in the battle.
“We have to be ready,” Wartortle said with the utmost urgency. Just as the turtle’s mammalian lieutenant was about to speak up, the group amassed in the lobby was greeted by an inflated number of Pokémon freed from their confines and storage in the Pokémon Center’s basement. “Prepare for the fight of your lives, comrades!” The cobalt anarchist yelled, trying to get the attention of all the creatures amassed in the lobby. “The police force of this city is converging on this location in an effort to snuff us out, but I say nay! I say we shall snuff them out as the first victims of our wrath. Show them that we shall no longer be shackled by their oppression!”
“Come out of that building with your hands up!” The bullhorn ordered from outside the Pokémon Center. Turning around, Wartortle noticed that a huge contingent of police officers had indeed converged around the building.
“No, fuckers!” The Pokémon Chieftain roared, and with that command, a hail of stones, bones, and elemental attacks rained down from the snipers’ nests on the adjacent structures. With the police momentarily taken aback by the surprise attack, Wartortle threw a hand forward and order his troops of descend upon the hapless law enforcers. Walking out through the shattered doorframe, the turtle noticed a blonde-haired man garbed in military fatigues standing behind a line of police cars. At the man’s side was his sole Pokémon companion—a Raichu.
“You won’t escape,” the former military leader said, his expression gruff, heartless, and mirrored by his Pokémon sidekick. “Raichu! Destroy!” The man bellowed, throwing a gloved hand forward and pointing at the leader of the Pokémon liberation movement.
“Don’t make me kill you,” Wartortle said as the Raichu began to advance toward him, its face wild and unresponsive as it blindly followed its master’s order. Hearing the sound of footsteps approaching, the reptilian revolutionary turned around and saw Machamp lumbering toward the aggressive rodent. “Capitulate,” Wartortle requested, raising his hand and effectively halting the beast. “Help the others and I will deal with this,” the command fell on receptive ears, and the gray-skinned titan quickly turned and lurched into the fray.
Turning his attention back to the advancing Pokémon, Wartortle received ten thousand volts of electricity for his decision to avert his attention away from the mouse. The blast sent the turtle back into the damaged interior of the Pokémon Center and stole the wind from his lungs in the process. As he gasped for air, the amphibious insurrectionist tried to quench his insatiable hatred for the man who had turned the Raichu advancing toward him into such a mindless puppet.
“I will free you,” Wartortle said softly, climbing back to his feet and drawing his trademark weapons from the holsters strapped to his back.
Wartortle frowned as he opened fire upon the advancing rodent. Lieutenant Surge’s brainwashed slave returned the frown as its unparalleled agility gave it the edge it needed to evade the twin streams of bullets. Switching the levers on both of his guns, the turtle fired off two grenade rounds. The forty-millimeter shells detonated near the center of the lobby—knocking Raichu off course as he zigzagged toward his amphibious foe.
The Mouse Pokémon careened through the air before landing flawlessly on the wall of the building. Flipping off the vertical surface, the dexterous mammal landed on the ground and smirked at Wartortle. Firing off two more rounds, the reptile watched as the rounds failed to hit their fast-moving target. A few seconds later, the high-powered shells came in contact with a parked police cruiser and triggered an explosion that blanketed the street in a dense layer of smoke.
Coughing slightly, Wartortle narrowed his eyes and tried to detect his adversary through the smog. Unfortunately for the partially blinded revolutionary, he was struck with a sphere of condensed electricity before he could detect Raichu through the mayhem. The discharge sent the turtle into the nearby wall—an action which elicited a blood-laced scream from the chieftain.
“Where are you?” Wartortle wheezed, his fingers dancing on the triggers of his warmakers. Catching what he believed was the blur of a golden-colored rodent blitzing through the room, the insurrectionist took aimed and fired. After a few seconds, the Turtle Pokémon was rewarded by the surprised yelp of Raichu and the subsequent explosion that sent the misguided soul back onto the street.
Capitalizing on the turn the fight had taken; Wartortle lowered his guns and dashed out onto the battlefield. As far as the indigo-skinned turtle could perceive, the fight was going in the favor of his troops. A few yards away, Machamp lifted a squad car off the street and tore it in half. The muscle-bound giant discarded the two car halves into the front of the nearest building and immediately rushed into a group of shield and shotgun totting officers.
Even though the rounds packed enough punch to down a full-grown man, to Machamp their bite was as potent as that of a fruit fly. Picking up one of the policemen with his lower set of arms, the titanic Pokémon used his upper limbs to mercilessly beat the man in blue to a most painful death. The menial period of time he had exhausted watching his soldiers proved to be a most costly error on the part of Wartortle. With a gallant roar, Raichu leaped forth and slammed the side of his thunderbolt-shaped tail into the turtle’s face.
The sudden offensive staggered the leader of the Pokémon rebels long enough for his misguided adversary to pump him full of electricity. The overdose caused the flesh across the reptile’s smooth flesh to rupture in several locations. With blood now spilling out from several minor lacerations across his epidermis, Wartortle stumbled backwards and dropped his pair of boomsticks. Unable to see straight as his mind and head reeled from the pain, the revolutionary fell on his ass.
“I am saddened that you are beyond hope,” Wartortle wheezed, rubbing his fingers over a patch of blackened flesh on his cheek. “I knew that some of my brethren would be beyond hope, but I never conceived that a fucker like you would attack me so vehemently. Even worse then attacking me, you have spilled my fucking blood, and for that, I will fucking kill you. I will fucking kill you…fucker!” Leaping off the ground, the Turtle Pokémon opened his mouth and unleashed a deluge of water in the visage of his mammalian foe.
Raichu let out a squeak as the attack struck him in the face and caused him to stumble backwards. The rodent began to rub and swab at his eyes in an effort to clear the water away from his eyes. As his rival took a moment to regain his bearings, Wartortle pressed the attack by leaping forward and spearing the oversized rodent to the concrete. After pinning Raichu to the asphalt, the indigo reptile began to repeatedly strike him in the face with his fists and elbows.
“Get the heck off me,” the disillusioned servant uttered between blows as he desperately tried to rake at his attackers face with his fingers. When it became increasingly apparent that his enemy was not going to capitulate, Raichu reacted by discharging an ungodly amount of electricity from the yellow pouches on its cheeks. The sparks converged into a single bolt of lightning that contained enough power to send Wartortle hurdling into the night sky.
Even as it began to lose its intensity as it became more distant from its point of origin, the bolt of electricity still managed to retain enough of its power to send the wounded Pokémon crashing through the fourth floor window of a nearby building. Exploding into the dark room amid a shower of shattered glass, Wartortle struck the floor and skidded across the wood until he came to rest against a dilapidated bookshelf.
“Fucker,” the injured revolutionary wheezed, struggling to liberate his carapace from the crater it had made in the shelf. Once he was freed from the crumbling wood, Wartortle stood off the ground and rubbed the side of his head. The pain he felt was excruciating, but the chieftain understood that defeat on this night would be the death of his crusade to usurp the tyranny of the Homo sapiens.
First and foremost, he knew that he had to save his own hide from the misguided Raichu seeking to terminate his life for the well-being of his dictatorial master. If Wartortle fell at the hands of one of his enslaved brethren, he knew that his comrades would become easy prey for the opportunistic vileness that man embodied. In their disillusioned state, they would be rounded up, enslaved, and then possibly submitted to the same torment that Machamp had gone through.
The sound of thunder garnered the turtle’s attention long enough to cause him to make a startling conclusion—a thunderstorm had fallen upon Vermillion. As the first claps of thunder subsided, Wartortle heard buckets of rain begin to pour from the heavens. Despite the ruckus that the storm was making, the insurrectionist could hear the sound of gunfire and war on the streets beneath his current location.
As he reclined against the shattered bookshelf, the cobalt reptile made a most bizarre deduction about the nature of the thunder. Listening more intently, Wartortle noticed that some of the claps of thunder seemed to be originating from below him. Just as the information was beginning to fall together, the ground split apart—the floorboards torn asunder amid a flash of searing white light.
Reeling back as the floor sought to devour him in its passing, Wartortle hopped backwards and steadied himself as wayward bolts of lightning began to dance and hop along the edges of the fresh crater. From the epicenter of the collapsed floor, an erratic mass of electricity rose—the white frame of a rodent barely visible amid its blinding luminosity. Snarling in aggravation, the cerulean reptile dove through a nearby doorway as a bolt of lightning zipped toward him.
Avoiding the explosion by a nearly microscopic margin, Wartortle landed in the next room and ducked below a table just as the wall behind him buckled. Light and heat seeped through the spreading fissures in the brick wall as the panicked turtle sought for some means to hide himself from the explosion. Unfortunately for the leader of the Pokémon rebellion, he had run into the most mundane, empty kitchens he had ever witnessed.
Spotting another escape route to his left, Wartortle gritted his teeth and made a dash for the decaying maple door. The turtle’s feet left the ground as the wall to his right exploded—a testament to the Raichu floating in the other room. Despite the intensity of the attack, its intended target had managed to dive straight through the aged door and to relative security.
“God damn it all to fucking hell,” Wartortle seethed, clenching his digits and glaring around at the dinning room. The chamber was a dead end, with the only plausible exit coming in the form of a plunge down four stories to the concentrate. Rushing over to the window, the amphibious chieftain placed one of his hands on the glass and smiled at the intense storm. Down on the road, it seemed as if the police force had been scattered, and his forces seemed to mowing down the bastards as they fled in fear.
“Anarchist!” The roar coincided with the complete and utter raping of the wall behind Wartortle. Glancing over his shoulder, the lizard frowned at floating mouse and felt his frustrations renewed on a whim. With a punch, he shattered the glass that stood between him and a nearly endless supply of the element designed to give life. Unfortunately for the Mouse Pokémon, the fluid was going to bring him nothing but death.
Death was the only thing that would be able to wrench Raichu from the grasp of his enslavers. Once the reaper embraced him, the mammal would be free from the chains of servitude and once again be able to live a life of freedom. Even if that life was in the radiant planes of Valhalla, it was better then an existence without freedom. As drops of water began to find their way into the room, Wartortle spun around to face the misguided Pokémon.
“I will free you!” The reptile boomed, lifting his hands above his head and leering at Lieutenant Surge’s slave. Raichu, fully aggravated by the turtle’s display, extended his fingers and prepared to unleash another lethal blast of electricity. Unfortunately for the rodent, a shadow befell him just as he was about to gleefully electrocute his target. The shadows danced around as the liquid behind their creation churned and swirled as it collected en masse outside the structure.
With a commanding motion from its reptilian creator, the massive wave of water ripped through the brick, wood, and insulation of the building and struck down the free-floating mouse. What followed was the subsequent electrocution of the traverse waterfall by the blanket of electrical energy that enveloped Raichu. There was a bit of smoke as the charged water began to singe the rodent, but before long, the entire attack came to a lackluster end, with Raichu being flushed down the hole he had created earlier.
Capitalizing on the upset in his favor, Wartortle sprinted across the waterlogged boards and dove down the hole. Landing in a knee-deep pool of water, the turtle quickly started to scan the room for his elusive adversary. Turning his attention to the furry, orange mass floating head down in the murky liquid, the anarchist crept toward the fallen Raichu.
“Not enough!” The Mouse Pokémon hissed, sparks of electricity surging off his body defensively. Wartortle reacted by summoning up a wall of water to absorb the energy, thus removing its potential to fucking aggravate him. Even though small bursts and pockets of lightning managed to seep out and zap the turtle, it was a radical drop from the concentrated bolts being thrown at him moments earlier. After dropping the barrier of water, the Turtle Pokémon learned a harsh revelation—his nemesis had eluded him.
Sloshing through the liquid toward the only available exit in sight, Wartortle emerged in a back alley behind the Pokémon Center. He could spot the wounded Raichu limping away from him out of the corner of his eye. Stalking the mouse around the corner of the building, the reptile was surprised to round the bend and notice there was no one there. Raising a hand in an effort to quell the heavy rain’s diminutive effect on his vision, Wartortle squinted as he tried to locate his elusive foe.
A swift force parted the flesh on the back of the cobalt reptile’s neck and sent him crashing through a nearby door. Raichu, relying on his immense agility, had pounced upon the insurrectionist and torn his neck open with his claws. Wartortle let out an enraged roar as he tried to swing at his enslaved comrade. The turtle’s efforts were useless, as the two were already destined to take a nasty dive down a flight of stairs and crash into a stack of emptied cages.
Springing from the mass of broken bars and sheets of metal, Wartortle stumbled into a shadowy corner of the room and collapsed. The rebel was quickly reaching the apex of his physical capabilities, and it seemed as if his opponent simply adapted to everything he devised. The true salt on the wound was the fact that the turtle could potentially be slain by one of his own people.
“Chieftain!” The trio of robotic voices brought a smile to Wartortle’s weary visage. The three Voltorbs he had dispatched prior to the conflict were waiting in position as they had been instructed, and the act of stumbling upon them could not have come at a better time for the weakening anarchist.
“On my command,” Wartortle said, grinning malevolently as he turned to face Lieutenant Surge’s Raichu. The orange rodent returned the smile as it advanced—oblivious to the seeds of its demise lying behind its adversary. The moment the mammal charged forward, Wartortle leaped into the air and bellowed the instructions to the red-white spheres resting behind him. “Self-destruct!” Withdrawing into his shell, the turtle was knocked to the far corner of the room by the kick that followed.
Unfortunately for Raichu, once the turtle was done impeding his vision, he noticed the three bombs. The rodent’s eyes widened as the Voltorbs were eclipsed by a white light, and then the entire room simply ceased to exist. The triumvirate of bombs disintegrated the building as the flames and heat of the three explosions resonated high into the tumultuous night sky.
The battle outside, which had become nothing more then a complete and total slaughter, took a moment’s hiatus as the Pokémon and few surviving policemen watched in awe as the bombs detonated. The entire display, albeit fleeting, was nevertheless a beautiful, accretive way for the rebels to assert their dominance over the diminutive war that was reaching its conclusion. It also served to show the severity of Wartortle’s message, but even though he had been victorious, the Turtle Pokémon was still seriously wounded.
Liberating himself from the mound of smoldering wood and brick that had collapsed upon him following the explosion, the indigo reptile began to scale what remained of the stairs leading up to the lobby. Breathing laboriously, Wartortle began to utter obscenities galore as he tried to ignore the pain and feign complacency. Once he had made it to the lobby, the turtle began limping toward what little remained of the front of the structure.
“Not over,” the labored rasp elicited an angry roar from the injured revolutionary. Noticing one of his guns lying on the ground a few feet away, Wartortle waltzed right over to the remarkable unharmed tool and plucked it off the ground. Turning to face his nemesis as he reached the top of the stairs, the turtle verified that the gun was set to fire grenades.
Pulling the trigger, the leader of the Pokémon liberation movement launched the forty-millimeter slug straight into Raichu’s gut. The shell tore clean through the rodent’s stomach and sternum—shattering the chains of enslavement that had weighed him down his entire life. Gasping in agony as death moved to claim him; the mammalian Pokémon stumbled backwards and pitched backwards off the landing.
“Applesauce, bitch,” Wartortle muttered, a frown on his dirty, bloody countenance. After locating his other machinegun from the scorched debris, the amphibious superstar joined his comrades outside the remains of the Pokémon Center: The battle was over.
Wartortle let out a heavy sigh as he holstered his pair of boomsticks and turned his attention his comrades. From the way it seemed, the battle had been a completely and total victory for the Pokémon liberation movement. Mutilated corpses of police officers were visible all around, some torn to pieces while others were charred beyond recognition. The bodies and amputated limbs were scattered to and fro as a testament to the destructive power of the rebellious forces.
“Chieftain!” One of the Pokémon shouted, citing the frailty and bloody appearance of his leader. Wartortle raised a weary hand as he attempted to muster the strength to compliment his victorious allies. Unfortunately for the turtle, the energy was completely lost to him following the nearly fatal tryst with Lieutenant Surge’s Raichu. As he limped toward the conglomeration of Pokémon, the injured reptile was intercepted by Kadabra, who offered up an ornate cane.
“I liberated this from a passerby who took too long to pass by,” the Psi Pokémon replied, smiling maliciously as he handed over the elegant tool. Accepting the cane, Wartortle limped over the group of his comrades that had assembled for the sake of basking in his presence. From the looks on their faces, one would be hard-pressed to not realize that they had reveled in their triumphs.
“Victory!” Wartortle screamed, thrusting the cane into the air and initiating a wave of war cries that sent a shiver down the spines of pedestrians who had watched the slaughter. Noticing the small crowed sheepishly gawking at his army, the turtle cackled and pointed a finger at them. “Flee now or void your lives!” The authoritative command sent the crowd of onlookers screaming as they turned tail and ran for their lives.
“Why give them a second chance, my liege?” Pikachu inquired, stepping out from the group of Pokémon and marching over to his leader. “They’ll just wind up as statistics in one of the next attacks, will they not?” the mammalian creature added, tilting his head slightly as he anticipated a response.
“To spread fear,” Wartortle said nonchalantly. Fear is what will ultimately give us the edge in this war against humanity. It is what will result in their own self-destruction as our hordes ravage the land,” the turtle smiled at the nods he received. Turning his attention to the wreckage of the Pokémon Center, he saw the Machamp peak over what remained of the staircase. The titan had recovered the three charred Voltorbs and the corpse of Lieutenant Surge’s Raichu from the rubble.
“Bury him,” Wartortle frowned. “He may have been beyond salvaging, but he is still a brother-in-arms,” with that command, the chieftain ordered the rest of his soldiers to retreat back to the warehouse. The Pokémon trailed behind to ensure that the entirety of his troops was safely evacuated. Taking a few steps backwards, the amphibious revolutionary paused for a few seconds as he waited for Machamp.
Once the Superpower Pokémon had finished the burial, he emerged from behind the razed center and nodded to his leader. The ten foot behemoth rushed over to Wartortle and scooped up the cobalt revolutionary. A few moments later, they were back at the front of the army and well on their way back to their base of operations.
***
A few days had passed since the successful fall of the Pokémon Center
“This is our next target,” Wartortle cackled, hovering over the crude diorama he had erected. “The Senate,” he snarled, pointing to a mighty tower erected near the middle of the city. “This building represents the epicenter of Vermillion City’s government so destroying them will directly cripple this locale’s ability to fuel any type of organized attack against us while we make our next move. Furthermore, the chaos that will result will be legendary and breed enough disorder to do a large part of the job for us. Just imagine the riots and panic that shall ensue, comrades!”
“How will we level the tower?” Kadabra inquired, hovering over the line of Pokémon in order to make his identity known among the hundred or so creatures gathered in the dilapidated warehouse.
“Simple,” Wartortle replied, smiling widely as he shuffled under the table for a few more models. When the indigo turtle popped back up over the model of the city, he was holding a few crude figurines. “Bombs,” the revolutionary stated simply, breaking out into an insane fit of laughter a moment after the word exited his mouth. Once he had collected himself, he returned to the debriefing as if nothing had happened. “We’re going to set a number of Electrodes in the basement of the facility, and the explosion should be quite enough to level the building.”
“We only have three Voltorbs, so how the heck are we supposed to get enough Electrodes to cause such a massive explosion” one of the Pokémon shouted from the back of the crowd.
“Wrong,” Wartortle replied. “In my studies, I have realized that Voltorb are born when Poké Balls are struck with potent electrical pulses. Further exposure to this voltage can result in an exponential increase in the Pokémon’s internal reservoirs and spur evolution. In our first campaign, we liberated several of you from the tombs of your imprisonment, so I simply used those apparatuses as test in my experiment.”
“Did it work?” Someone inquired, their identity masked behind the sea of Pokémon that had crammed into the building.
“You tell me,” Wartortle roared, taking a few steps back and opening the door behind him. A moment later, the sound of rolling steel garnered the intrigue of the teeming masses—who tried their hardest to get a look at the scene playing out in front of them. Laughing manically, the chieftain raised his arms and smiled as the Electrodes began to spill into the meeting hall…all twenty four of them.
***
Over a week had passed since the initial planning stages of the Pokémon Liberation Front’s next operation. By the time Wartortle and his followers devised an adequate plan, the weather in Vermillion City had turned sour. A monsoon had been tormenting the city for over a week, with the threat of a hurricane formulating in the near future. Despite how much the Homo sapiens abhorred the immense rain, Wartortle found it a welcomed departure from the sun and heat.
Certain Pokémon found the change in weather crippling, and because of that, the ranks in the amphibious revolutionary’s army had been impacted by the loss of several hydrophobic soldiers. Wartortle was not deflated about the news, because he had plans incase the going got tough. The Pokémon smiled as the reality of his trump card being dealt in battle brought of lovely little image to his sadist mind.
A bolt of lightning tore through across the purple, dawn sky—the light illuminating the smiling visage of the cobalt reptile. Wartortle watched from a nearby office structure as a small group of his people vanished into a sewer conduit near the Capitol Building. From behind the turtle, there was a small burst of energy, and Kadabra stepped forth a split-second later.
“Chieftain,” the Psi Pokémon declared, falling to a knee in order to properly address his leader. “I have just received word that all four principal infiltration teams have successfully breached the structure, and that the two surplus crews have just entered the sewers. All of the salvos should be in place in less than five minutes,” the psychic added, his head bowed before the might of his leader.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Wartortle replied, waving his hand over his shoulder at the bipedal creature. “Dismissed,” the turtle ordered, glancing over his back until Kadabra followed his order and returned to ground zero. The reptile cackled as his red eyes returned the rain-drenched panorama that lay beyond the window. In a matter of minutes, the seeds of the city’s destruction would be in place.
In a few short minutes, Wartortle would be able to watch as an orgasm of light and fire claimed the lives of the city’s legislative body. With their deaths, the Turtle Pokémon would be able to command his troops onto a complete and total coup d’État of Vermillion. In his act of taking the city and claiming it as his own, he would be establishing his men and himself as a true and potent force in the world.
“Soon the world of man will burn,” Wartortle hissed beneath his breath. “And a new regime will rise from their ashes to lead a new world to a brighter future,” the Pokémon let out a cackle as he waited for the signal from Kadabra. Just as he was about to drift off into another silent, narcissistic tirade, the turtle was alerted to the presence of boots stampeding across the tile. The sound of men dropping to their knees and brandishing firearms brought a faint smile the reptile’s cobalt visage.
“Hello, gentlemen,” the Pokémon Chieftain spoke, his eyes still glued on the massive tower across the block from his current location. “I’m surprised that you managed to react to all the commotion I caused when I ransacked this structure. Hell…that was at least a good half-hour ago. I can’t believe you people are getting so sloppy lately.”
“Shut the hell up and put your hands above your head, asshole!” One of the officers yelled, punctuating his order soon thereafter by pumping his shotgun. A smile spread across Wartortle’s visage as he slowly turned around to face the group of policemen.
“A SWAT team?” The insurrectionist asked, eying up the large degree of body armor and equipment that the men adorned. “I’m actually a little impressed at the type of men this city will expend just for me to have a little target practice with, so how do you guys wish to die?” Wartortle asked, flexing his clawed digits and glaring at the men with an eager eye.
“On the ground,” the same man threatened, thrusting his gun toward the anarchist. Without so much as a warning, the Pokémon suddenly regurgitated a jet of foam from his mouth—shocking the men enough so that their target could vanish into a line of cubicles. A hail of gunfire tore through the window in front of which the turtle had been positioned but a moment prior.
Almost as soon as the foam fell apart, the SWAT members ceased their fire and stood off the ground. As they moved to pursue Wartortle, the aforementioned turtle fell through the ceiling above their head and opened fire upon the group of men with both of his machine guns. In a matter of seconds, the “skilled” officers were reduced to shattered, bullet-ridden corpses saturated in blood.
Everything is ready, Chieftain. Kadabra conveyed telepathically. Should I give the teams the go-ahead?
“Yes,” Wartortle commanded, walking over to the shattered window and glaring hatefully at the structure. The Turtle Pokémon reached his hand toward the structure and clenched his fist as the first of the explosive salvos in its basement detonated. Flames gushed up from the streets as the foundation of the building buckled beneath the searing heat.
Manhole covers exploded upward as geysers of fire erupted from the street and claimed the lives of pedestrians and cars located nearby. Wartortle’s eyes widened as a shockwave erupted up the tower—rupturing the building’s structural integrity and shattering the glass windows as it traveled upward. By this point, screams and the sound of car alarms had filled the streets, but before much action could be taken by the victims in the street, the building buckled one final time.
In a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss, Wartortle watched as the building collapsed into itself—smoke and steel exploded outward as the massive structure crumbled downward in a perfectly symmetrical fashion. The compression of air emitted a dense cloud of dry wall, glass, and pulverized fragments of steel and the numerous appliances within the massive office building. A barrier of water sprung up around the turtle as a means to shield him from the subsequent smog.
An almost orgasmic sensation of glee rippled across the revolutionary’s form as the building he was in became consumed by the enormous dust clouds that radiated forth as the one hundred and ten story structure collapsed. Even though the act itself was only about twelve seconds in duration, the demise of the Capitol Building would resonate throughout time and history. Wartortle would be surprised if the events of the day outlived him and his future dynasty.
“The time is coming,” the turtle spoke, his voice slightly distorted by the water that blanketed his body. Without lingering any more in the structurally unsound building, the Pokémon dashed out of the small structure and chuckled as it caved in following his departure. The cobalt reptile paused after his fingers wrenched away the nearest manhole. Wartortle glanced over his shoulders and squinted through the heavy, almost noxious cloud in an effort to get one final look at his handiwork.
“Wow that’s sexy,” the amphibious tyrant chuckled; his eyes remained glued on ground zero for a handful of seconds. Once he had his fill of the erotic scene of death and chaos, he vanished into the sewers.
There was no other explanation. Wartortle was God incarnate. Those that followed him would be granted the greatest riches, the most prestigious positions in his new world order. From this moment forth, his liberation force would be feared, and he would stand at its helm like a fearless demi-god. Anyone who defied Wartortle and his crew were as good as useless—they would be percents on the death toll.
Not wanting to let his new ally have all the fun, the nihilistic maniac ordered his troops forward, and a wave of Pokémon surged forward, eager to please their leader. Several of the awe-struck trainers flew to the holding cells of their Pokémon. Some gathered anything they could find, intent on defending themselves and establishing their dominance. It was hilarious that men who lived their lives having slaves battle for them died so effortlessly.
In mere moments the ‘battle’ was over, with the multitude of revolutionists claiming an easy victory. Their leader waddled over to the broken nurse, tore her head from her body (with a little help from a grenade) and handed the totem to Machamp. The Superpower Pokémon, who had once been a shambling mess, accepted the prize and smiled faintly at the Turtle who had woken his urge to live.
“Thank you, comrade,” Wartortle decreed, taking a few steps away from the titan before turning to face his followers. “Our victory here was simple compared to the hell we are going to face as we advance our mission to liberate this city and the world beyond its boundaries. The ally we have gained today is but one example of the diversity of our people, and how potentially infinite our movement is when it comes to what we can accomplish.”
“My liege,” Kadabra spoke, teleporting into the lobby of the Pokémon Center and hovering over toward the chieftain. “I picked up the disturbances and saw the figure enter the Center. How do you fare, Chieftain?” The Psi Pokémon, spoon clenched in his fingers as always, bore an expression of genuine concern on his visage.
“Nothing to worry about at all, comrade,” Wartortle spoke, his voice relaxed and at ease as he gazed at the motionless Machamp. “We have a new ally in the form of a Machamp who seeks retribution for a life of torment and abuse,” the amphibious insurrectionist grinned malevolently at the prospect of having one of the strongest breed of Pokémon fighting beneath his banner. The thought of such an immensely powerful ally made him giddy like a schoolboy. “Return to your post, Kadabra,” the reptile spoke, glancing over his shoulder at his resident telekinetic.
“I will inform you of any outsiders who encroach upon the scene of our operation, Chieftain,” the creature said, bowing out of respect before teleporting back to his rooftop vantage point. With Kadabra back at his post and the lobby of the structure definitively under his command, Wartortle turned his attention to the hallway.
“Rush the lower levels of this facility and purge them of the foul infestation of man,” the turtle ordered his subordinates. Each and every one of his soldiers seemed to be infused with an unyielding desire to spread carnage, so without so much as a nod of their heads, they poured into the hallway and down the nearby stairs. Walking over to the machines located behind the ransacked counter, Wartortle’s nimble fingers began to dance over the keyboard and array of switches and levers.
“Can you operate it, Chieftain?” Pikachu inquired, taking a position beside the tall turtle. The Electric Mouse Pokémon had stayed behind to safeguard his leader incase of a sneak attack, although Machamp was obviously capable of the task. Hearing the voice, Wartortle glanced down at the golden rodent and nodded his head. A moment later, the midsection of the machine split in twain. A white light spilled out from the confines of the machine—causing the three Pokémon to shield their eyes momentarily.
“Easy as cake,” Wartortle said with a malicious grin as the light faded to reveal around four dozen containment spheres. “Be free my comrades!” The turtle boomed, collecting up the Poké Balls and heaving them to the floor behind him. One by one, the Pokémon imprisoned in the apparatuses were freed, and as if they immediately knew what had transpired, they all displayed their glee.
“Chieftain!” The former slaves roared, pointing their fingers and raising their right arms at a forty-five degree. The display of adoration and versatility brought a smile to the visage of the amphibious militant.
“Welcome to the future, comrades,” Wartortle dictated, performing a short tally of the soldiers and estimating their numbers to be close to thirty—a figure that doubled the Turtle Pokémon’s standing forces. In a span of a few days, the cerulean insurrectionist had gone from two followers to well over sixty, and he had even enlisted the servitude of the goliath known as Machamp.
We got trouble, Chieftain. Kadabra said, his telepathic voice conveying the fear afflicting the usually stoic psychic. There are about ten or twenty squad cars converging on our location. They’re going to be upon you in a matter of seconds, and the snipers are only going to be able to delay them for so long before they bring in aerial support. I suggest that you rally our comrades for battle, because this will be anything but enjoyable…Surge is with them. Once he had finished his dissertation, Kadabra’s voice faded out as the Psi Pokémon began to prepare for his role in the battle.
“We have to be ready,” Wartortle said with the utmost urgency. Just as the turtle’s mammalian lieutenant was about to speak up, the group amassed in the lobby was greeted by an inflated number of Pokémon freed from their confines and storage in the Pokémon Center’s basement. “Prepare for the fight of your lives, comrades!” The cobalt anarchist yelled, trying to get the attention of all the creatures amassed in the lobby. “The police force of this city is converging on this location in an effort to snuff us out, but I say nay! I say we shall snuff them out as the first victims of our wrath. Show them that we shall no longer be shackled by their oppression!”
“Come out of that building with your hands up!” The bullhorn ordered from outside the Pokémon Center. Turning around, Wartortle noticed that a huge contingent of police officers had indeed converged around the building.
“No, fuckers!” The Pokémon Chieftain roared, and with that command, a hail of stones, bones, and elemental attacks rained down from the snipers’ nests on the adjacent structures. With the police momentarily taken aback by the surprise attack, Wartortle threw a hand forward and order his troops of descend upon the hapless law enforcers. Walking out through the shattered doorframe, the turtle noticed a blonde-haired man garbed in military fatigues standing behind a line of police cars. At the man’s side was his sole Pokémon companion—a Raichu.
“You won’t escape,” the former military leader said, his expression gruff, heartless, and mirrored by his Pokémon sidekick. “Raichu! Destroy!” The man bellowed, throwing a gloved hand forward and pointing at the leader of the Pokémon liberation movement.
“Don’t make me kill you,” Wartortle said as the Raichu began to advance toward him, its face wild and unresponsive as it blindly followed its master’s order. Hearing the sound of footsteps approaching, the reptilian revolutionary turned around and saw Machamp lumbering toward the aggressive rodent. “Capitulate,” Wartortle requested, raising his hand and effectively halting the beast. “Help the others and I will deal with this,” the command fell on receptive ears, and the gray-skinned titan quickly turned and lurched into the fray.
Turning his attention back to the advancing Pokémon, Wartortle received ten thousand volts of electricity for his decision to avert his attention away from the mouse. The blast sent the turtle back into the damaged interior of the Pokémon Center and stole the wind from his lungs in the process. As he gasped for air, the amphibious insurrectionist tried to quench his insatiable hatred for the man who had turned the Raichu advancing toward him into such a mindless puppet.
“I will free you,” Wartortle said softly, climbing back to his feet and drawing his trademark weapons from the holsters strapped to his back.
Wartortle frowned as he opened fire upon the advancing rodent. Lieutenant Surge’s brainwashed slave returned the frown as its unparalleled agility gave it the edge it needed to evade the twin streams of bullets. Switching the levers on both of his guns, the turtle fired off two grenade rounds. The forty-millimeter shells detonated near the center of the lobby—knocking Raichu off course as he zigzagged toward his amphibious foe.
The Mouse Pokémon careened through the air before landing flawlessly on the wall of the building. Flipping off the vertical surface, the dexterous mammal landed on the ground and smirked at Wartortle. Firing off two more rounds, the reptile watched as the rounds failed to hit their fast-moving target. A few seconds later, the high-powered shells came in contact with a parked police cruiser and triggered an explosion that blanketed the street in a dense layer of smoke.
Coughing slightly, Wartortle narrowed his eyes and tried to detect his adversary through the smog. Unfortunately for the partially blinded revolutionary, he was struck with a sphere of condensed electricity before he could detect Raichu through the mayhem. The discharge sent the turtle into the nearby wall—an action which elicited a blood-laced scream from the chieftain.
“Where are you?” Wartortle wheezed, his fingers dancing on the triggers of his warmakers. Catching what he believed was the blur of a golden-colored rodent blitzing through the room, the insurrectionist took aimed and fired. After a few seconds, the Turtle Pokémon was rewarded by the surprised yelp of Raichu and the subsequent explosion that sent the misguided soul back onto the street.
Capitalizing on the turn the fight had taken; Wartortle lowered his guns and dashed out onto the battlefield. As far as the indigo-skinned turtle could perceive, the fight was going in the favor of his troops. A few yards away, Machamp lifted a squad car off the street and tore it in half. The muscle-bound giant discarded the two car halves into the front of the nearest building and immediately rushed into a group of shield and shotgun totting officers.
Even though the rounds packed enough punch to down a full-grown man, to Machamp their bite was as potent as that of a fruit fly. Picking up one of the policemen with his lower set of arms, the titanic Pokémon used his upper limbs to mercilessly beat the man in blue to a most painful death. The menial period of time he had exhausted watching his soldiers proved to be a most costly error on the part of Wartortle. With a gallant roar, Raichu leaped forth and slammed the side of his thunderbolt-shaped tail into the turtle’s face.
The sudden offensive staggered the leader of the Pokémon rebels long enough for his misguided adversary to pump him full of electricity. The overdose caused the flesh across the reptile’s smooth flesh to rupture in several locations. With blood now spilling out from several minor lacerations across his epidermis, Wartortle stumbled backwards and dropped his pair of boomsticks. Unable to see straight as his mind and head reeled from the pain, the revolutionary fell on his ass.
“I am saddened that you are beyond hope,” Wartortle wheezed, rubbing his fingers over a patch of blackened flesh on his cheek. “I knew that some of my brethren would be beyond hope, but I never conceived that a fucker like you would attack me so vehemently. Even worse then attacking me, you have spilled my fucking blood, and for that, I will fucking kill you. I will fucking kill you…fucker!” Leaping off the ground, the Turtle Pokémon opened his mouth and unleashed a deluge of water in the visage of his mammalian foe.
Raichu let out a squeak as the attack struck him in the face and caused him to stumble backwards. The rodent began to rub and swab at his eyes in an effort to clear the water away from his eyes. As his rival took a moment to regain his bearings, Wartortle pressed the attack by leaping forward and spearing the oversized rodent to the concrete. After pinning Raichu to the asphalt, the indigo reptile began to repeatedly strike him in the face with his fists and elbows.
“Get the heck off me,” the disillusioned servant uttered between blows as he desperately tried to rake at his attackers face with his fingers. When it became increasingly apparent that his enemy was not going to capitulate, Raichu reacted by discharging an ungodly amount of electricity from the yellow pouches on its cheeks. The sparks converged into a single bolt of lightning that contained enough power to send Wartortle hurdling into the night sky.
Even as it began to lose its intensity as it became more distant from its point of origin, the bolt of electricity still managed to retain enough of its power to send the wounded Pokémon crashing through the fourth floor window of a nearby building. Exploding into the dark room amid a shower of shattered glass, Wartortle struck the floor and skidded across the wood until he came to rest against a dilapidated bookshelf.
“Fucker,” the injured revolutionary wheezed, struggling to liberate his carapace from the crater it had made in the shelf. Once he was freed from the crumbling wood, Wartortle stood off the ground and rubbed the side of his head. The pain he felt was excruciating, but the chieftain understood that defeat on this night would be the death of his crusade to usurp the tyranny of the Homo sapiens.
First and foremost, he knew that he had to save his own hide from the misguided Raichu seeking to terminate his life for the well-being of his dictatorial master. If Wartortle fell at the hands of one of his enslaved brethren, he knew that his comrades would become easy prey for the opportunistic vileness that man embodied. In their disillusioned state, they would be rounded up, enslaved, and then possibly submitted to the same torment that Machamp had gone through.
The sound of thunder garnered the turtle’s attention long enough to cause him to make a startling conclusion—a thunderstorm had fallen upon Vermillion. As the first claps of thunder subsided, Wartortle heard buckets of rain begin to pour from the heavens. Despite the ruckus that the storm was making, the insurrectionist could hear the sound of gunfire and war on the streets beneath his current location.
As he reclined against the shattered bookshelf, the cobalt reptile made a most bizarre deduction about the nature of the thunder. Listening more intently, Wartortle noticed that some of the claps of thunder seemed to be originating from below him. Just as the information was beginning to fall together, the ground split apart—the floorboards torn asunder amid a flash of searing white light.
Reeling back as the floor sought to devour him in its passing, Wartortle hopped backwards and steadied himself as wayward bolts of lightning began to dance and hop along the edges of the fresh crater. From the epicenter of the collapsed floor, an erratic mass of electricity rose—the white frame of a rodent barely visible amid its blinding luminosity. Snarling in aggravation, the cerulean reptile dove through a nearby doorway as a bolt of lightning zipped toward him.
Avoiding the explosion by a nearly microscopic margin, Wartortle landed in the next room and ducked below a table just as the wall behind him buckled. Light and heat seeped through the spreading fissures in the brick wall as the panicked turtle sought for some means to hide himself from the explosion. Unfortunately for the leader of the Pokémon rebellion, he had run into the most mundane, empty kitchens he had ever witnessed.
Spotting another escape route to his left, Wartortle gritted his teeth and made a dash for the decaying maple door. The turtle’s feet left the ground as the wall to his right exploded—a testament to the Raichu floating in the other room. Despite the intensity of the attack, its intended target had managed to dive straight through the aged door and to relative security.
“God damn it all to fucking hell,” Wartortle seethed, clenching his digits and glaring around at the dinning room. The chamber was a dead end, with the only plausible exit coming in the form of a plunge down four stories to the concentrate. Rushing over to the window, the amphibious chieftain placed one of his hands on the glass and smiled at the intense storm. Down on the road, it seemed as if the police force had been scattered, and his forces seemed to mowing down the bastards as they fled in fear.
“Anarchist!” The roar coincided with the complete and utter raping of the wall behind Wartortle. Glancing over his shoulder, the lizard frowned at floating mouse and felt his frustrations renewed on a whim. With a punch, he shattered the glass that stood between him and a nearly endless supply of the element designed to give life. Unfortunately for the Mouse Pokémon, the fluid was going to bring him nothing but death.
Death was the only thing that would be able to wrench Raichu from the grasp of his enslavers. Once the reaper embraced him, the mammal would be free from the chains of servitude and once again be able to live a life of freedom. Even if that life was in the radiant planes of Valhalla, it was better then an existence without freedom. As drops of water began to find their way into the room, Wartortle spun around to face the misguided Pokémon.
“I will free you!” The reptile boomed, lifting his hands above his head and leering at Lieutenant Surge’s slave. Raichu, fully aggravated by the turtle’s display, extended his fingers and prepared to unleash another lethal blast of electricity. Unfortunately for the rodent, a shadow befell him just as he was about to gleefully electrocute his target. The shadows danced around as the liquid behind their creation churned and swirled as it collected en masse outside the structure.
With a commanding motion from its reptilian creator, the massive wave of water ripped through the brick, wood, and insulation of the building and struck down the free-floating mouse. What followed was the subsequent electrocution of the traverse waterfall by the blanket of electrical energy that enveloped Raichu. There was a bit of smoke as the charged water began to singe the rodent, but before long, the entire attack came to a lackluster end, with Raichu being flushed down the hole he had created earlier.
Capitalizing on the upset in his favor, Wartortle sprinted across the waterlogged boards and dove down the hole. Landing in a knee-deep pool of water, the turtle quickly started to scan the room for his elusive adversary. Turning his attention to the furry, orange mass floating head down in the murky liquid, the anarchist crept toward the fallen Raichu.
“Not enough!” The Mouse Pokémon hissed, sparks of electricity surging off his body defensively. Wartortle reacted by summoning up a wall of water to absorb the energy, thus removing its potential to fucking aggravate him. Even though small bursts and pockets of lightning managed to seep out and zap the turtle, it was a radical drop from the concentrated bolts being thrown at him moments earlier. After dropping the barrier of water, the Turtle Pokémon learned a harsh revelation—his nemesis had eluded him.
Sloshing through the liquid toward the only available exit in sight, Wartortle emerged in a back alley behind the Pokémon Center. He could spot the wounded Raichu limping away from him out of the corner of his eye. Stalking the mouse around the corner of the building, the reptile was surprised to round the bend and notice there was no one there. Raising a hand in an effort to quell the heavy rain’s diminutive effect on his vision, Wartortle squinted as he tried to locate his elusive foe.
A swift force parted the flesh on the back of the cobalt reptile’s neck and sent him crashing through a nearby door. Raichu, relying on his immense agility, had pounced upon the insurrectionist and torn his neck open with his claws. Wartortle let out an enraged roar as he tried to swing at his enslaved comrade. The turtle’s efforts were useless, as the two were already destined to take a nasty dive down a flight of stairs and crash into a stack of emptied cages.
Springing from the mass of broken bars and sheets of metal, Wartortle stumbled into a shadowy corner of the room and collapsed. The rebel was quickly reaching the apex of his physical capabilities, and it seemed as if his opponent simply adapted to everything he devised. The true salt on the wound was the fact that the turtle could potentially be slain by one of his own people.
“Chieftain!” The trio of robotic voices brought a smile to Wartortle’s weary visage. The three Voltorbs he had dispatched prior to the conflict were waiting in position as they had been instructed, and the act of stumbling upon them could not have come at a better time for the weakening anarchist.
“On my command,” Wartortle said, grinning malevolently as he turned to face Lieutenant Surge’s Raichu. The orange rodent returned the smile as it advanced—oblivious to the seeds of its demise lying behind its adversary. The moment the mammal charged forward, Wartortle leaped into the air and bellowed the instructions to the red-white spheres resting behind him. “Self-destruct!” Withdrawing into his shell, the turtle was knocked to the far corner of the room by the kick that followed.
Unfortunately for Raichu, once the turtle was done impeding his vision, he noticed the three bombs. The rodent’s eyes widened as the Voltorbs were eclipsed by a white light, and then the entire room simply ceased to exist. The triumvirate of bombs disintegrated the building as the flames and heat of the three explosions resonated high into the tumultuous night sky.
The battle outside, which had become nothing more then a complete and total slaughter, took a moment’s hiatus as the Pokémon and few surviving policemen watched in awe as the bombs detonated. The entire display, albeit fleeting, was nevertheless a beautiful, accretive way for the rebels to assert their dominance over the diminutive war that was reaching its conclusion. It also served to show the severity of Wartortle’s message, but even though he had been victorious, the Turtle Pokémon was still seriously wounded.
Liberating himself from the mound of smoldering wood and brick that had collapsed upon him following the explosion, the indigo reptile began to scale what remained of the stairs leading up to the lobby. Breathing laboriously, Wartortle began to utter obscenities galore as he tried to ignore the pain and feign complacency. Once he had made it to the lobby, the turtle began limping toward what little remained of the front of the structure.
“Not over,” the labored rasp elicited an angry roar from the injured revolutionary. Noticing one of his guns lying on the ground a few feet away, Wartortle waltzed right over to the remarkable unharmed tool and plucked it off the ground. Turning to face his nemesis as he reached the top of the stairs, the turtle verified that the gun was set to fire grenades.
Pulling the trigger, the leader of the Pokémon liberation movement launched the forty-millimeter slug straight into Raichu’s gut. The shell tore clean through the rodent’s stomach and sternum—shattering the chains of enslavement that had weighed him down his entire life. Gasping in agony as death moved to claim him; the mammalian Pokémon stumbled backwards and pitched backwards off the landing.
“Applesauce, bitch,” Wartortle muttered, a frown on his dirty, bloody countenance. After locating his other machinegun from the scorched debris, the amphibious superstar joined his comrades outside the remains of the Pokémon Center: The battle was over.
Wartortle let out a heavy sigh as he holstered his pair of boomsticks and turned his attention his comrades. From the way it seemed, the battle had been a completely and total victory for the Pokémon liberation movement. Mutilated corpses of police officers were visible all around, some torn to pieces while others were charred beyond recognition. The bodies and amputated limbs were scattered to and fro as a testament to the destructive power of the rebellious forces.
“Chieftain!” One of the Pokémon shouted, citing the frailty and bloody appearance of his leader. Wartortle raised a weary hand as he attempted to muster the strength to compliment his victorious allies. Unfortunately for the turtle, the energy was completely lost to him following the nearly fatal tryst with Lieutenant Surge’s Raichu. As he limped toward the conglomeration of Pokémon, the injured reptile was intercepted by Kadabra, who offered up an ornate cane.
“I liberated this from a passerby who took too long to pass by,” the Psi Pokémon replied, smiling maliciously as he handed over the elegant tool. Accepting the cane, Wartortle limped over the group of his comrades that had assembled for the sake of basking in his presence. From the looks on their faces, one would be hard-pressed to not realize that they had reveled in their triumphs.
“Victory!” Wartortle screamed, thrusting the cane into the air and initiating a wave of war cries that sent a shiver down the spines of pedestrians who had watched the slaughter. Noticing the small crowed sheepishly gawking at his army, the turtle cackled and pointed a finger at them. “Flee now or void your lives!” The authoritative command sent the crowd of onlookers screaming as they turned tail and ran for their lives.
“Why give them a second chance, my liege?” Pikachu inquired, stepping out from the group of Pokémon and marching over to his leader. “They’ll just wind up as statistics in one of the next attacks, will they not?” the mammalian creature added, tilting his head slightly as he anticipated a response.
“To spread fear,” Wartortle said nonchalantly. Fear is what will ultimately give us the edge in this war against humanity. It is what will result in their own self-destruction as our hordes ravage the land,” the turtle smiled at the nods he received. Turning his attention to the wreckage of the Pokémon Center, he saw the Machamp peak over what remained of the staircase. The titan had recovered the three charred Voltorbs and the corpse of Lieutenant Surge’s Raichu from the rubble.
“Bury him,” Wartortle frowned. “He may have been beyond salvaging, but he is still a brother-in-arms,” with that command, the chieftain ordered the rest of his soldiers to retreat back to the warehouse. The Pokémon trailed behind to ensure that the entirety of his troops was safely evacuated. Taking a few steps backwards, the amphibious revolutionary paused for a few seconds as he waited for Machamp.
Once the Superpower Pokémon had finished the burial, he emerged from behind the razed center and nodded to his leader. The ten foot behemoth rushed over to Wartortle and scooped up the cobalt revolutionary. A few moments later, they were back at the front of the army and well on their way back to their base of operations.
***
A few days had passed since the successful fall of the Pokémon Center
“This is our next target,” Wartortle cackled, hovering over the crude diorama he had erected. “The Senate,” he snarled, pointing to a mighty tower erected near the middle of the city. “This building represents the epicenter of Vermillion City’s government so destroying them will directly cripple this locale’s ability to fuel any type of organized attack against us while we make our next move. Furthermore, the chaos that will result will be legendary and breed enough disorder to do a large part of the job for us. Just imagine the riots and panic that shall ensue, comrades!”
“How will we level the tower?” Kadabra inquired, hovering over the line of Pokémon in order to make his identity known among the hundred or so creatures gathered in the dilapidated warehouse.
“Simple,” Wartortle replied, smiling widely as he shuffled under the table for a few more models. When the indigo turtle popped back up over the model of the city, he was holding a few crude figurines. “Bombs,” the revolutionary stated simply, breaking out into an insane fit of laughter a moment after the word exited his mouth. Once he had collected himself, he returned to the debriefing as if nothing had happened. “We’re going to set a number of Electrodes in the basement of the facility, and the explosion should be quite enough to level the building.”
“We only have three Voltorbs, so how the heck are we supposed to get enough Electrodes to cause such a massive explosion” one of the Pokémon shouted from the back of the crowd.
“Wrong,” Wartortle replied. “In my studies, I have realized that Voltorb are born when Poké Balls are struck with potent electrical pulses. Further exposure to this voltage can result in an exponential increase in the Pokémon’s internal reservoirs and spur evolution. In our first campaign, we liberated several of you from the tombs of your imprisonment, so I simply used those apparatuses as test in my experiment.”
“Did it work?” Someone inquired, their identity masked behind the sea of Pokémon that had crammed into the building.
“You tell me,” Wartortle roared, taking a few steps back and opening the door behind him. A moment later, the sound of rolling steel garnered the intrigue of the teeming masses—who tried their hardest to get a look at the scene playing out in front of them. Laughing manically, the chieftain raised his arms and smiled as the Electrodes began to spill into the meeting hall…all twenty four of them.
***
Over a week had passed since the initial planning stages of the Pokémon Liberation Front’s next operation. By the time Wartortle and his followers devised an adequate plan, the weather in Vermillion City had turned sour. A monsoon had been tormenting the city for over a week, with the threat of a hurricane formulating in the near future. Despite how much the Homo sapiens abhorred the immense rain, Wartortle found it a welcomed departure from the sun and heat.
Certain Pokémon found the change in weather crippling, and because of that, the ranks in the amphibious revolutionary’s army had been impacted by the loss of several hydrophobic soldiers. Wartortle was not deflated about the news, because he had plans incase the going got tough. The Pokémon smiled as the reality of his trump card being dealt in battle brought of lovely little image to his sadist mind.
A bolt of lightning tore through across the purple, dawn sky—the light illuminating the smiling visage of the cobalt reptile. Wartortle watched from a nearby office structure as a small group of his people vanished into a sewer conduit near the Capitol Building. From behind the turtle, there was a small burst of energy, and Kadabra stepped forth a split-second later.
“Chieftain,” the Psi Pokémon declared, falling to a knee in order to properly address his leader. “I have just received word that all four principal infiltration teams have successfully breached the structure, and that the two surplus crews have just entered the sewers. All of the salvos should be in place in less than five minutes,” the psychic added, his head bowed before the might of his leader.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Wartortle replied, waving his hand over his shoulder at the bipedal creature. “Dismissed,” the turtle ordered, glancing over his back until Kadabra followed his order and returned to ground zero. The reptile cackled as his red eyes returned the rain-drenched panorama that lay beyond the window. In a matter of minutes, the seeds of the city’s destruction would be in place.
In a few short minutes, Wartortle would be able to watch as an orgasm of light and fire claimed the lives of the city’s legislative body. With their deaths, the Turtle Pokémon would be able to command his troops onto a complete and total coup d’État of Vermillion. In his act of taking the city and claiming it as his own, he would be establishing his men and himself as a true and potent force in the world.
“Soon the world of man will burn,” Wartortle hissed beneath his breath. “And a new regime will rise from their ashes to lead a new world to a brighter future,” the Pokémon let out a cackle as he waited for the signal from Kadabra. Just as he was about to drift off into another silent, narcissistic tirade, the turtle was alerted to the presence of boots stampeding across the tile. The sound of men dropping to their knees and brandishing firearms brought a faint smile the reptile’s cobalt visage.
“Hello, gentlemen,” the Pokémon Chieftain spoke, his eyes still glued on the massive tower across the block from his current location. “I’m surprised that you managed to react to all the commotion I caused when I ransacked this structure. Hell…that was at least a good half-hour ago. I can’t believe you people are getting so sloppy lately.”
“Shut the hell up and put your hands above your head, asshole!” One of the officers yelled, punctuating his order soon thereafter by pumping his shotgun. A smile spread across Wartortle’s visage as he slowly turned around to face the group of policemen.
“A SWAT team?” The insurrectionist asked, eying up the large degree of body armor and equipment that the men adorned. “I’m actually a little impressed at the type of men this city will expend just for me to have a little target practice with, so how do you guys wish to die?” Wartortle asked, flexing his clawed digits and glaring at the men with an eager eye.
“On the ground,” the same man threatened, thrusting his gun toward the anarchist. Without so much as a warning, the Pokémon suddenly regurgitated a jet of foam from his mouth—shocking the men enough so that their target could vanish into a line of cubicles. A hail of gunfire tore through the window in front of which the turtle had been positioned but a moment prior.
Almost as soon as the foam fell apart, the SWAT members ceased their fire and stood off the ground. As they moved to pursue Wartortle, the aforementioned turtle fell through the ceiling above their head and opened fire upon the group of men with both of his machine guns. In a matter of seconds, the “skilled” officers were reduced to shattered, bullet-ridden corpses saturated in blood.
Everything is ready, Chieftain. Kadabra conveyed telepathically. Should I give the teams the go-ahead?
“Yes,” Wartortle commanded, walking over to the shattered window and glaring hatefully at the structure. The Turtle Pokémon reached his hand toward the structure and clenched his fist as the first of the explosive salvos in its basement detonated. Flames gushed up from the streets as the foundation of the building buckled beneath the searing heat.
Manhole covers exploded upward as geysers of fire erupted from the street and claimed the lives of pedestrians and cars located nearby. Wartortle’s eyes widened as a shockwave erupted up the tower—rupturing the building’s structural integrity and shattering the glass windows as it traveled upward. By this point, screams and the sound of car alarms had filled the streets, but before much action could be taken by the victims in the street, the building buckled one final time.
In a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss, Wartortle watched as the building collapsed into itself—smoke and steel exploded outward as the massive structure crumbled downward in a perfectly symmetrical fashion. The compression of air emitted a dense cloud of dry wall, glass, and pulverized fragments of steel and the numerous appliances within the massive office building. A barrier of water sprung up around the turtle as a means to shield him from the subsequent smog.
An almost orgasmic sensation of glee rippled across the revolutionary’s form as the building he was in became consumed by the enormous dust clouds that radiated forth as the one hundred and ten story structure collapsed. Even though the act itself was only about twelve seconds in duration, the demise of the Capitol Building would resonate throughout time and history. Wartortle would be surprised if the events of the day outlived him and his future dynasty.
“The time is coming,” the turtle spoke, his voice slightly distorted by the water that blanketed his body. Without lingering any more in the structurally unsound building, the Pokémon dashed out of the small structure and chuckled as it caved in following his departure. The cobalt reptile paused after his fingers wrenched away the nearest manhole. Wartortle glanced over his shoulders and squinted through the heavy, almost noxious cloud in an effort to get one final look at his handiwork.
“Wow that’s sexy,” the amphibious tyrant chuckled; his eyes remained glued on ground zero for a handful of seconds. Once he had his fill of the erotic scene of death and chaos, he vanished into the sewers.