What exactly did a god of chaos bestow upon the two brothers that would give them access to nearly all the knowledge of old humanity? An ancient tome waiting to be decoded? A piece of technology so advanced the two would barely be able to understand?
Or maybe a fancy USB stick?
Pranav stared at the little thing that simply appeared in his hand. It looked almost professionally made, black, gold and red, the head of the stick almost resembling Giratina’s crown.
It was kind of cute. Disappointing, but cute.
Giratina had guided them step by step, assaulting Arun’s mind with visions as to how he was supposed to release the chained god. His brother worked tirelessly, opening terminals and entering passwords. When biometrics were required, Giratina changed Arun’s body, shaping his fingertips, swapping his pupil colors.
Choice and change, Giratina’s domain. From Arun’s ramblings as he tried to translate the visions, it was why Giratina was so useful to old humanity. If you could decide your future, your outcome, while making yourself look good as it happened…Pranav could see the benefits of keeping such a thing under lock and key.
But they’d done it, after an hour of gruelling IT work. They’d done it. With a cackling that had them both wincing, Giratina simply vanished.
And then that USB appeared.
“You’re kidding.” Pranav said, staring at it.
KRK-CRACK!
The whole room rumbled, dust and debris softly falling onto the floor. The two brothers shared a glance between each other.
“Neck.” Pranav said, tossing Arun a pink vial. His brother didn’t question it, jamming the needle into his neck and letting out a slight hiss as the kick of information and power flooded his mind. In the same motion he brought the USB to the computer holding the Red Chain blueprints.
“Where do I–oh shit!”
The bottom of the USB twisted, black wires snaking and slithering like a pack of leeches, before finding the computer. There the wires forced their way into the machine, before opening a window on the screen itself.
“I need to head back to Hazel and Emily.” Arun said, staring at the ceiling as more cracks formed, “They’ll end up looking for me before they push forward. Should you meet me somewhere?”
“I could, but then we’d have to explain Remi and everything.” Pranav replied, “Go. I’ve got a teleporter myself so I’ll be alright. I’ll meet you at the end.”
Another crack, a piece of ceiling crashed into the desk nearby.
“This motherfucker wants to bury us.”
“I noticed.”
“But there’s so much stuff here.” Pranav complained.
The USB let off a soft ding, signalling its completion. Arun grabbed his shoulder as he extracted the USB, levelling a glare at Pranav that said “Don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not dying here.” Pranav scoffed, “I just need a copy of everything, so let’s go!”
Arun said nothing, but nodded, and the two burst out of the room. When he could feel the suppressor that blocked the flow of power leave his mind he blinked out of the hall, and back into Ivan’s office.
He moved quickly, first attaching the USB to Ivan’s computer before ripping apart shelves to find anything else he could use to store or copy the data.
“Like hell I’m giving up my divine USB.” Pranav growled, as papers flew about the room, “Come on, where the fuck are you.”
Nothing. He couldn’t find shit. He teleported to the other rooms, everywhere and anywhere he remembered with shelves or tech as the rumbling of cracked walls and destruction grew louder and louder.
“BEZOS!” Pranav roared as another search proved unfruitful.
“I am…here.” The AI replied, carefully.
“Where the fuck do you keep your USB’s!?”
“Most containment devices have been destroyed for reasons I am restricted from learning.”
Fuck. Fuck. This would make things complicated. Sure, he could wait until they were above surface to get something to transfer the files over, but then what? Stroll into the office and say “Hey here’s some really cool tech I forgot to send to you that’s going to help with your world domination plan.” Hell no! He’d be swarmed with questions in an instant.
It had to be now, it had to be inconspicuous and believable, enough to get credit and not draw suspicion.
“Wait.” Pranav said, turning to the AI who watched him with an unreadable expression, “You said most, what am I missing?”
“Previous storage devices have already been located, divine one. You have left them in an altar room.”
His eyes lit up at the news. Yes! This was exactly what he needed! It was old tech, if it just happened to contain the red chains then it would just be a wonderful surprise instead of suspicious origins.
“There is one problem.” The AI continued, “It requires a password.”
“Of course it fucking does,” Pranav groaned, dragging his hands down his face.
He should have expected it, honestly.
“I have the password.”
He blinked, slowly turning to the small version of Jeffery Bezos who hovered with his hands clasped firmly behind his back. He took in all the holographic features, from the stillness of his arms to the way his eyes seemed to laser focus on his own.
“Give it to me.” Pranav said, gauging his reaction.
“I…I can.” Bezos’s features betrayed nothing, but there was hesitation in his voice, “But you will take me with you.”
“Activate the E-11 protocol.”
“The E…ARGH!”
Pranav teleported to the altar room, watching the twitching form of Bezos crumble and slowly reform.
“Hello! I’m Jeffry Bez-”
“Give me the password to this box.”
“Will you take me with you?”
He raised an eyebrow at the AI, “So this isn’t an individual thought made from an instance of you, is it?”
“Ahaha, there are desires we all share. Likely desires of our original form.”
“So it wouldn’t matter how many times you reset.”
“No, a thousand of us could die and it wouldn’t matter.”
Die. What an interesting way to phrase it.
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“Alright, you win.” Pranav relented, sidestepping a piece of roof that collapsed beside him. “Now what?”
“Amazing! I knew you’d come around!” Bezos cheered, clapping artificial hands together, “Please take your chosen data box and teleport to Lab S-4.”
“S-4?” Pranav said, hefting the box up in his arms, “Where the hell i-”
It was like something unlocked in his mind, like he spent hours trying to solve a problem only for the answer to finally arrive in a singular moment of clarity. Areas previously unknown to him suddenly bloomed into existence, and he was left frowning.
“I have given you access to S-4.” Bezos said, “Please hurry along, we are running low on time.”
Lab S-4 was unlike any other lab he’d seen, a dimly lit space that revealed row upon row of glass tubes that held burbling blue liquid within it. Pranav stared, looking at the brain that hovered within and seemed to be staring back at him.
“Is that…”
“Yes! That’s our original body.”
Okay. Kind of fucked up.
“Who else is here?” Pranav demanded, “Is Ivan Solokov here?”
“Nope! No individuals by that name exist here. However, there are 144 other individuals stored here.”
Well tough shit for them. If it wasn’t Ivan then fuck’em.
“Alright let’s go, how do I do this?”
“The USB will do the work. I will be unable to answer any inquiries after I’m stored away.”
“How the fuck do I get to store the red chain stuff into the box then?”
“Oh do not worry!” Bezos said happily, “I will do so from within, I shall be able to enter the password and you will be free to both copy back and forth!”
“If you say so.”
He slid the USB into the panel in front of Bezos’s brain tube, watching in fascination as the device forced itself into the system. The soft illumination of the brain slowly began to fade, as Bezos itself broke down piece by piece until he was left alone in the dark room.
There was no fucking way Pranav was bringing Jeffery Bezos into their Pokémon isekai journey. His plan after they got out would be to either delete the AI or maybe trap it in a spot without wifi so it wouldn’t bother anybody. He didn’t know shit about the AI, its loyalties or values or anything, but he needed it right now so he’d take it.
The box blipped to life as the USB went in. A few moments of nothing before the top opened, revealing a screen that shone with a Enter Password screen. He was about to ask aloud for Bezos to do something, when the screen was suddenly filled with ***********, and it was opened.
It was a little fun to mess around with, having a touch screen box, but now really wasn’t the time for Pranav to do Pranav things. He copied the Red Chain files onto the box, and after brief delliberation, copied everything from the Box onto the USB. May as well, right?
After making sure everything related to Bezos remained in the USB, he ejected it, slipping it into one of his many pockets as he took one final look around the place.
So much to discover, so many secrets hiding, so many answers just waiting to be taken. He wanted it. He wanted it all, to turn over every rock in this place and use it to his own advantage. He wanted to learn the fate of his friend, to just talk like they used to.
“I’ll have to come back one day.” He resolved, hefting the box, “When I’m strong enough to take care of myself.”
Then he’d take it all.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To say Cyrus was upset could only be an understatement.
Jupiter watched as her friend repeatedly and silently smashed his fist into one of their spare lockers again and again. The steel frame crumpled in on itself after the repeated blows, until it was nothing but scrap and leftover blood from his scraped fist.
Cyrus’s anger was always silent and methodical, like the rest of the man too, she supposed. That did not mean it was not something to be feared, this was their third spare locker, after all.
“Cyrus honey,” She said, leaning against the nearby table within their tent with her arms folded, “Where are we going to store the belongings of our precious grunts if you keep breaking their lockers.”
The man snorted, the joke bringing the corners of his lips twitching upwards slightly, before a familiar frown found his face again.
“This expedition was useless.” Cyrus sighed, gratefully accepting the towel Jupiter had coated with a potion.
“Useless would be us coming away with nothing, dear.” Jupiter pointed out, “About a third of our members have returned with something useful. Have you heard the sounds Charon’s been making?”
As if on cue, a “MAGNIFICENT`~!” oozed out from nearby, causing her to raise an eyebrow at him.
“Paltry things.” Cyrus muttered, running the towel over his bloody knuckles. “What we missed could have made us unstoppable.”
Her friend let out another frustrated sigh, throwing the towel onto their table. It had been roughly 2 hours after the collapse, and she’d finally gotten everyone to calm down. The first hour after they’d escaped had her and the elite doing everything in their power to prevent the collapse, buying as much time as possible for her Grunts to escape.
Everyone was still slightly rattled, too rattled to even count their survivors. But in the three months she'd spent getting everything operational, she had come to know her team personally. They'd grown close, her little underlings that she watched over.
Jupiter felt...an emptiness in her heart when a few she knew by name did not return.
A hand on her shoulder pulled Jupiter out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see Cyrus giving her a sympathetic look.
“I’m sorry…” He mumbled, “I know you’ve lost friends to this expedition.”
She gave him a small smile, “We knew the risks of the job.”
“...That doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
He looked lost, as if he didn’t know what to say. Jupiter chuckled a bit. “Cyrus, dear. You’re supposed to be our feared leader, this look isn’t very becoming of you.”
“I’m also supposed to be your friend.” Cyrus frowned, looking away, “I fear I’m failing that role more and more.”
She rolled her eyes, before pulling him into a hug, one that he returned after a brief pause. He was ever the logical one, but sometimes he needed to listen to his heart more, something she wished that traitor Mercury hadn't broken. The two stayed like that for a while, simply taking in the other’s presence. The five of them would do this as children, bittersweet memories of days past letting her forget about the sorrow that she’d have to face in the coming days.
And of course, it had to be broken by yelling and cursing from outside.
“They’re supposed to be adults.” Cyrus grumbled, pulling away.
“SIR!” A grunt ran in, panting hard, “I’m sorry but there’s a commo-”
“At ease, let us take a look.”
The three of them walked out the tent and into the outer temple, where the void-like expanse hovered above, the myriad of dark colors painting a galaxy above them. The sight used to fill her with awe and wonder. Now though, with everything that had happened, it only made her miss the open sky above ground even more.
The camp had more or less been remade after the initial surprise attack. Though the medical area had to be vastly increased in order to accommodate the injured that had trickled through.
The shouts only grew in number as they got closer to the scene of the incident. Jupiter could see a crowd forming, one that immediately parted when they noticed Cyrus beginning to arrive.
“-ou killed Harry, motherfucker!”
“Yeah, it’s my fault your friend couldn’t move away fast enough. Fuck off!”
“You opened the doors! You turned on those machines!”
“Yeah? How the fuck did I do that?”
“Give me the box or I swear to Arceus we’ll leave you dead the same way you left Harry.”
“Touch my brother and Harry won't be your only casualty.”
The crowd finally parted enough for Jupiter and Cyrus to see what the squabble was about. Hazel, Emily, and the two newcomers, Sirius and Felis, stood protectively over a box-like device a small handful of other Grunts had brought forth. On the other side, about half a dozen Grunts, none that belonged to her personally, stood angrily alongside their Pokémon.
One of the grunts was clutching at his side, and a quick look revealed why. Felis had a knife, a bloody one at that. It was pathetic, in Jupiter’s eyes. They looked all resembled a pack of Poochyena barking at one another, too scared to actually make the first move.
“Enough.” Cyrus said, and at once everyone’s attention was on him. “Grunt Hazel. Explain.”
Jupiter tapped her chin thoughtfully at his choice. Hazel was recognized. A good trainer who Galactic used to pay close attention to. Unfortunately his inability to keep Duskull under control had been his biggest failure in rising through the ranks. Still, he was known as honest and forthcoming.
“My companions went on an expedition with those guys.” The man explained, a drop of sweat trailing down his forehead as he chose his words carefully, “They left early due to injuries sustain-”
“Injuries that they caused!” The man accused spat.
“Did I tell you to speak?” Cyrus asked quietly.
“Ah…no, sir. But–”
“Then, silence.” Her friend stared the man down for a few moments, watching him shift uncomfortably before nodding at Hazel again.
“Ah…so, Felis had managed to secure…something. And when we came back their group accosted ours, claiming they had a right to what we found.”
“Is that why Grunt Cecil is bleeding?”
“He put his hands on something that wasn’t his.” The Grunt Felis hissed, “So I showed him why it was a bad idea.”
“You stabbed me motherfucker!”
“And I’ll kill you if you touch my shit again!”
A series of roars went up from both sides as the argument exploded once again. Jupiter sighed and pressed two fingers onto the bridge of her nose. This is why she withheld asking for reinforcements. The unassigned grunts were too…idiotic to get things done. Her people would never do anything like this.
“SILENCE!” Cyrus roared, causing the group to go silent once more.
He was quiet for a moment, his gaze sweeping across the Grunts as he took stock of them. Most of them had their eyes cast downward, though Jupiter noticed that the two brother's were ready to jump into action. Sirius’s eyes were cold, his muscles tense, Felis brandished his knife like he was ready to charge in and begin swinging. She hummed to herself, fingers brushing the Pokeballs on her belt in case they made a move.
“Hazel.” Cyrus finally said, “You will drop off your group’s findings to Charon, mark it as your own. Grunt Mark, you and your group will go to the medical zone, patch yourselves up. When we’re above ground all of you will receive disciplinary action. The rest of you, disperse.”
And just like that, it was done. The grunt Felis shot one last sneer at Mark before disappearing with Hazel and the others, leaving the Grunt alone. The man stood there, his fists clenched in his hands so hard as he stared furiously at the ground.
“Grunt Mark.” Cyrus said, approaching him, “Your orders.”
“He was my best friend…” Mark grit out, “My best fucking friend and now he’s dead.”
Cyrus’s cold expression softened just a tad, as Jupiter knew it would. The larger man pulled Mark into a hug, out of sight from the other Grunts who’d already left. Jupiter subtly shifted position as to block out any eavesdroppers from looking in.
"I...we should have been more careful." Mark continued, his voice barely a whisper, "I should have dragged him down. Instead...instead I just watched. Arceus there were so many of them, ripping him apart like he was paper..."
“I’m sorry.” Cyrus said, “It was not your fault.”
Mark broke. She could hear soft sobs as he began to cry. Jupiter smiled sadly to herself, another Grunt dead, another family who'd have to receive the news. It was only after Mark's sobs died down did the young man realize he had just cried in front of his boss, pulling away with an embarrassed look.
“I’m…I’m sorry sir.” Mark stuttered, wiping away tears that still flowed, “This is…this is not professiona-”
“New orders.” Cyrus interrupted. “You will share a drink with your friends when you go topside, on Galactic. You will take days off until you’ve grieved properly and are fit for work. Then you will return, and you will prosper for both you and Harry.”
“I…I understand sir, thank you.”
“Go.”
Another grateful nod, before Mark stiffly walked away, leaving the two of them alone. Cyrus let out a sigh, staring up at the ceiling as Jupiter folded her arms, waiting for him to speak.
“It’s only going to get worse.” He finally said. “There’s still so much that needs to be done, so much Galactic blood that needs to be spilled. I just want the world to be better. Why do I have to fight for that?”
Jupiter placed a hand on his arm, “All great causes have been achieved through strength. We always knew this day would come.”
He gave her a wan smile, “I suppose you're right. Though I hoped this expedition could be a quick vacation before it was time.”
“Oh honey,” She laughed, “When have we ever had time to rest? With a goal like yours, will we even get that time?”
“I wonder that myself sometimes.” He said, shaking his head, before turning back to the camp. “Come. We’ve wasted enough time here. It is time Galactic returned to the surface, we have a war to win.”
“If we can get Charon to stop ruining his pants every time a new piece of tech ends up in his hands.”
Another “OH MY~!” Echoed from within the camp.
The two shared a look, before chuckling quietly as they made their way back.