Becca leaned on the door and counted to ten slowly. Then she burst out laughing.

"That was amazing! That was so cruel!"

"And that stuff positively reeks," complained Ed, waving a hand in front of his face. "I could hardly keep a straight face after you opened the bottle!"

"Vee-ee!" Lux recalled herself now that her job of sniffing out scientists who were at least tangentially related to teams Magma and Aqua was done. Shadow wasn’t far behind.

The eevee and manectric had done their part by pretending to sniff out the ‘mysterious gas leaks’ whilst in reality getting the scent of as many gang members as possible. They’d then tracked said members’ movements throughout the base until they came to where enough gang members had been enough times that it had to have been somewhere important.

It could have all been in vain, it could have just been their secret clubhouse, the room where they passed off messages to one another. It could have been the canteen — though admittedly the five of them had ended up there more than once following the trail — but somehow they’d hit actual paydirt.

The room the three humans found themselves in was quite spacious, though it was clear that there wasn’t that much space to spare when running full tilt. There were a number of older but solid computers along two of the walls, some tables in the middle with a myriad collection of drawings and documents scattered across them, and a collection of shelves and filing cabinets full to the brim with blueprints, ring binders and the like. It was clear that somebody had been rifling through the materials located within, a good sign if somebody had been frantically searching for whatever was missing.

"So what now?" asked Ed, echoing the sentiment that they had all, up until that moment left unsaid.

Sly sighed, running his fingers through his red hair as he looked around the room in exasperation. "I don’t know. Honestly I don’t. Do you think there’s another copy of the whatever-it-was?"

"You’re asking me?" Becca snorted in derision. "How are we supposed to know what we’re looking for in the first place?"

"Well we know it’s some sort of generator, and apparently it needs a volcano to power it," Ed offered, looking up from where he was already rifling through some of the filing cabinets. "I don’t suppose you can tell which cabinet it came from? Fingerprints or something?"

Sly snorted, shaking his head. "No fingerprints to compare them to. Needle in a haystack of needles."

"So we’ve got nothing," said Becca wryly. "Even if there is another copy, how do we know which is the copy of the one that went missing?"

Ed sighed, shrugging, shoulders drooping in defeat. "I think we don’t. Maybe there’s some more we can glean from working out why Magma and Aqua would be working together? Do you know anything about them, Sly? All I remember is that business a few years ago with the legendaries."

Sly shrugged. "I don’t know I know more than you two." He started counting off on his fingers, thoughtfully. "They started off as a single ecological activist group, back when New Mauville was first being built, round about when Slateport started expanding with the new harbour. A lot of people still have sympathies for their ecological stances even if not their methods, hence the proliferation of those badges and pins and things, though down here, they obviously mean something more. They’ve scaled back and rebranded since Rayquaza was called down, but it’s clear neither Magma nor Aqua are as down for the count as they’d like people to think. It’s anybody’s money what they actually want, though."

"Not really a lot to go on," grumbled Becca. "It’s frustrating to get all the way here and leave empty handed, but I think we’d better get out of here before our luck changes. Take what we’ve learned and—"

The door behind the three flew open with a bang, revealing five angry looking people standing just outside of it.

"And what?" one of them asked, slapping a heavy metal pipe into his open palm.

"And report on a job well done," said Sly, grinning widely. "You had a muk in the tubes and—"

"Na, na, na, try again." The head ‘scientist’ cracked his knuckles. The trainers and Sly couldn’t help but notice the solid gold ring he had on one finger, a large red stone featuring prominently on it.

"Well, in that case, what about we just all agree that you’re all better off for the maintenance we’ve done and call it a day? My friends and I will just be leaving, we’ve got to clock out on time or the union gets mad."

"What a pity, they’re gonna get real mad with you lot then," said Ring. "Think we’d better be having a little chat, but first, we’re going to make sure—"

Two pops and flashes of white light came from behind Sly. He peered back to see Chompy and Lucky being released by Becca and Ed respectively.

Sly backed off, drawing level with the two trainers. "You’re not going to make sure of anything, mate," he said evenly, tone totally different from the jovial air he’d put on before. "You’re going to back off, let us pass, and then forget you saw us."

"Oh that’s definitely not happening," said another of the ‘scientists’, this one with sparkling, deep blue cufflinks on his light shirt.

Multiple pops and flashes of light followed, as a variety of pokemon were released by the Team Aqua and Team Magma members. A mightyena, a golbat and a zangoose on one side, a pinsir, a combusken and a rhydon on the other.

"You sure you want to do this?" Sly asked. He turned to look at Ed and Becca, raising a questioning eyebrow. Each nodded grimly, then took a combative stance.

"Oh I very much want to do this," said cufflinks. "You think you two’re hot shit, with your little pokemon all ready to battle, huh? And where’s your pokemon, kid?" Cufflinks scoffed, showing his teeth in a feral grin.

"See, that’s your mistake," said Sly, his own bright grin gracing his lips, "thinking I need one."

In one smooth move, he untwisted the cap and underhand threw the bottle at the thugs. The mixture within splashed out as it impacted the wall, exploding into green fumes, but Sly was already running. He slammed into, and through, the first two humans, dancing past their pokemon, planting a fist solidly into the teeth of Cufflinks.

"Let’s get out of here!" he cried, punching out another of the thugs. Before shouldering past them and disappearing down the corridor. "I’ll make a path!" he called back over his shoulder.

Ed and Becca didn’t waste any time capitalising on the chance.

"Spray ‘em, Lucky!" the former ordered, his totodile using a powerful hydropump that blasted a path through the gaggle of humans and pokemon in front of them. Becca ordered Chompy to lay down a smokescreen, which the seviper did happily. Not wasting their opportunity, the two youngsters barged their way through the broken blockade.

"We’ve gotta get out of here! Did you see where Sly went?" called Becca, as Ed drew level next to her.

"Can’t see much of anything at the moment!" replied Ed, manically, peering through the smoke. The boy forged forwards, down the corridor further out of the dense cloud. "Let’s make a break for it, get some space, and then regroup! Lucky! Return!" he called, turning back and firing a return beam at his active pokemon.

Lucky had bared his claws, snarling. He was the king of the lake, he was the baddest ‘mon on the block. A bunch of pretenders like these weren’t going to threaten him or his humans. He spat a column of water at the nearest gang member, then leaped at the mightyena in a delaying action. Moments later they were a roiling ball of teeth and claws, spitting and growling at each other as they fought close quarters. As the Big Jaw Pokemon proved the source of his name by snapping with a vengeful finality on the mightyena’s tail, the beam hit him. With a savage grin, he ripped a tuft of fur from the creature’s tail which he spat out derisively as he dematerialised.

Chompy, meanwhile, had done what she did best, leaping bodily at the pinsir as it snapped its oversized jaws hungrily at Sly’s passing. She wrapped it up, sunk her fangs into it several times in lightning lunges and flung it away dismissively then body checked and wrapped around the rhydon as it threatened to flatten her trainer. Her bladed tail flicked out savagely as the armed ‘scientist’ raised the metal pipe he’d been carrying. There was a metallic THUNK and Chompy’s tail-blade embedded itself into the wall. The scientist stumbled as his weapon was suddenly much lighter. Most of it fell to the floor with a clatter as the seviper idly yanked her tail-blade free from the reinforced concrete, having cleaved the weapon into two parts. She stopped still as a statue, rounded on and then snarled at the man, her head snapping around in a blur, fixing him with a glare that would have given a legendary pause. He threw up both hands in a surrender, getting the message loud and clear.

"Chompy!" came Becca’s distant command, "flamethrower! Then return!"

With a vicious grin, Chompy reared up, then spat great roaring gouts of flame into the corridor, before being recalled in a flash of red light.

As the heat and light faded, the thugs took a look at each other, gritted their teeth, and headed to battle.

"Get ‘em! Harvey, fetch!" said the thug the trio had named ‘Rings’.

"Heavy, flatten ‘em!" said another thug, sporting a rather neat stylized ‘team aqua’ patch on his shirt.

The mightyena howled and the rhydon roared, surging ahead, the latter body slamming his way through any actual scientists dumb enough to still be standing in the way, those who hadn’t fled at the aggressively pursuing mightyena.

"Which way’s out?" shouted Ed breathlessly, finding himself at a crossroads, left or right.

"You’re asking me?" Becca hissed. There came a blood-curdling howl from behind them, and the unmistakable thomp-thomp-thomp of something huge barrelling down on them, and she turned to Ed. "Strategy — we want to keep the thugs off us, and deal with their pokemon. Ideas?"

Ed thought for a moment, then nodded, not breaking stride. "Guy! Can you take out any trainers?"

There was a pop and a flash, and the gengar appeared in the corridor.

"Gengar-gar-gar!" he laughed, eyes glowing a deep blood red as he zipped off through the wall in front of the two, claws clenching in anticipation of all the fun he was about to have.

"Good boy! Becca, how about you field Sissy? We don’t need to put them down, just keep them away."

"Sissy! Come on out. Ed, I think we’ll need some more firepower."

"Gotcha! Ziggy, come on out! You’ve dealt with a mightyena before, right?"

----------------------------------------

Sissy popped into existence in the middle of the corridor behind the trainers, as they flipped a metaphorical coin and chased off to the left. She looked very small and helpless as Heavy, the large Team Aqua rhydon, barrelled towards her. He pulled up short, a viciously hungry looking smile on his slathering jaws. He pawed the ground a few times, moving more like a rhyhorn than the evolved form he was, then picked up speed again as he charged on all fours past the already advancing Ziggy, the zigzagoon moving to head off Harvey the mightyena with a determined look on his muzzle.

Sissy, seeing the size of the approaching behemoth, several times larger than her, hunkered down, quivering and shaking with fear as Heavy got closer and closer and… there was a sudden burst of pink lightning as a nimbus of power surrounded the deceiver pokemon, launching the over-extended rhydon into the air with a swift application of Fairy Wind. The heavier creature flipped, slamming down onto his back further down the corridor, having impact the ceiling, shattering the lights. Whirling with a vicious spin-jump, Sissy’s rear set of jaws opened wide, drool dripping hungrily from her serrated teeth as the steel and fairy type chomped into the exposed underbelly of Heavy, who roared in pain and kicked the mawile off.

Tossing his head, there was a glow around his horn as a huge chunk of masonry blasted from the walls, catching Sissy in the side. She yelped as she was slammed bodily into the opposite wall by a crushing load of concrete. Shaking her head, she staggered a few steps then sat down as Heavy circled warily. Backing away, whimpering, she called forth her fairy powers to bolster her mind and body, walking herself backwards on all her limbs as Heavy moved in for a finishing move. However, as the drill-horn pokemon loomed over her, she suddenly lifted a paw, and snapped her fingers.

"Playing for time?" asked Heavy, as he drew back to punish the mawile with a drill attack.

"N-no," said the shaking mawile, as she suddenly grinned with both sets of jaws. "Just distracting you. Ziggy! Your turn! I’ve got the mightyena!"

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"Wha—no!" Heavy turned, but he was too late as Sissy passed the baton to her team-mate, who slammed into him with the fury of a thousand suns. Ziggy didn’t really have a game-plan, but when he’d Sissy was in trouble, he’d blasted Harvey with a Pin Missile, then made an immediate about-turn to come to her rescue. It’s what a gentlemon should do, after all, even if he had to resort to Mud Sport to make something of it, like some sort of lechonk.

As he began to summon the waters for his next move, he scraped pieces of masonry, chipboard, anything his claws could get purchase on, from the walls, ceiling and floor, slapping the makeshift mud at Heavy and driving the large creature back before, with an exertion of will that burst the sprinklers, shattered the valves and rent the pipes in the walls in two, he sent a torrent of water that extended almost wall to wall and floor to ceiling into, over and through the drill-horn-shaped obstruction.

"Surf’s up, dude," said Ziggy, a few moments later, as the water spread down the corridor and seemingly evaporated into the ether. He patted the rhyhorn’s cheek as the big creature groaned, painfully. "The ‘yena’s all yours, Sissy, just don’t take too long."

"Oh I don’t intend to, Ziggy. Be a claydol and keep an eye on the lug here in case he gets any ideas?"

Harvey crouched down, tail between his legs, as the mawile approached. "L-listen, I-I can just head back to my master, forget any of this happened, you know?"

"Oh I know. I just wanted to say…" Sissy leaned down, then bapped the mightyena on the nose, "tag! You’re it!" Sissy turned tail and ran, cackling madly, leaping onto Ziggy’s back. "Cheese it, Zig!"

Confused, but compliant, Ziggy sped down the corridor and around the bend, tracking the scent of his trainer. "What — huff — is the — plan?"

"Any second now—"

"I’ll rip you limb from limb, you scrawny—!"

"A-a-a-and Fairy Wind!"

Ziggy spared a glance backwards as Harvey came speeding out of the corridor behind them, but thanks to Sissy’s Fairy Wind, had a date with the wall instead of making the turn. There was a crash, a yelp, and the mightyena slumped to the ground, out of the running in more ways than one. Sissy cackled deviously as she rubbed her paws together in congratulation.

Meanwhile, Guy was enjoying himself immensely. There were lots of humans here, but he held back from playing with the ones that were just milling about wondering what all the fuss was about. Mostly. A whispered scream, chills up the back of the neck, voices… why even be a gengar if you couldn’t cause a trouser emergency now and again? But the Team Magma and Aqua thugs, those he could spot a mile away, and those folks he was far freer with. Their minds shone with secrets and intent as he floated through the shadow realm. His power had grown since his first few early days, when he’d been called back to the world through a half-remembered moment of deja-vu, after Lux had ended his dreams of becoming a dragon. He’d been so angry, back then, confused, and more than a little lost, but Lux had… grown on him. He hadn’t thought she would, or Ed, but they both had. This new life hadn’t been what he’d expected — he hadn’t expected much in his previous one, to be honest, he’d been a magikarp. Being eaten was par for the course — but not only companionship but hands? And a purpose? And a trainer who thought he was the best thing ever, who even laughed when he was scared and congratulated him on a prank well-pulled? Oh yes, Guy would do anything to protect that little human.

Sid would do for starters. Guy slipped inside the man’s mind as he dozed off in a corner, a trick the gengar hadn’t realised he was capable of until he used it on Ed to go buy himself some extra treats after midnight one time. A moment of inattention was all it took, and the ghost had direct control. Sid was responsible for the cameras scattered throughout the complex, and controlled a number of doors and other functions besides. Wiping the tapes from today would be not only good for keeping his best buddy out of trouble, but it’d also be funny as heck. He hit the buttons. Lock the doors where a number of Aqua and Magma grunts were trying to get to Ed and Becca? Hilarious! Especially when mixed with a sprinkler test! Why did they even make that possible if they didn’t want to try it out? Today was shaping up to be the best day ever.

And when his trainer needed some more direct intervention? Well, he’d shut the whole place down and then step in himself.

----------------------------------------

"Sissy? Sissy! Well done girl! You got ‘em?"

"Maww!" Sissy called triumphantly as she rode up on Ziggy’s back. She leaped off, twirling gracefully in the air as she neared her trainer, to land in front with a little curtsey.

"Zig-zigzagoon!" added Ziggy, as Ed swept up the large zigzagoon into his embrace, falling over as he swung his pokemon around.

"Ziggy that was great! Return for now, I can see you’re tired, alright? Let some of your brothers and sisters have a go, okay?"

"Zigzig!" Ziggy jumped up, giving his trainer a slobbery kiss-lick on the face, before recalling himself into his ball.

"Lux, you want to come out here? Help show us the way out?" Ed called, wiping away most of the drool. Sure enough, his eevee popped out of her luxury ball to circle the intersection they were at. They’d made their hastened way through the cafeteria, shedding shocked scientists as they passed. They’d found a couple of false starts that switched back, but now seemed to be onto something.

Shadow emerged the same, both he and Lux sniffing and snoofing as they sought the best way to safety. Coming to some sort of agreement, the pair indicated the right direction as they posed at attention.

"Great! Let’s go!" cried Ed.

Shadow and Lux pelted ahead down corridor after corridor, barging past workers too fast to be stopped. Finally, some stairs came into view, their green exit sign lighting their escape.

"There! It’s six floors but… we can make it, right?"

"Ugh, it’ll do!"

"Have you seen Sly?" Ed asked, breathless, as he walked towards the double doors.

"No! He’s got to be around here though! Think he can take care—"

There was an explosion from the stairs that lead up, the doors blasted off their hinges, throwing the two trainers back, knocking the breath out of both.

"You think you’re gonna get out this way, brats? Fat chance! You’re not going anywhere!"

A thug — neither child had enough smarts to notice what affiliation — stepped out of the stairwell, smirking as he tossed and caught a pokeball with one hand. The new guy threw it lazily towards the pair of trainers. It ejected a pokemon that just looked like a pokeball.

"No!" shouted Becca. Ed kicked impulsively, sending the electrode careening off at a tangent. Said pokemon impacted with a large junction box on the wall, and predictably the electrode exploded with a blinding flash and a deafening bang.

The lights went out one after another, to be replaced by red emergency lights. These barely lit the complex, suffusing the corridors with an eerie glow. There may have been sirens, but neither Ed nor Becca could tell, seeing as all they could hear was fweeeeeee.

"Maah! Waah waah bwaaa baaa?" shouted Ed, pointing towards the prone thug.

"Moor bwoor? bwaah maah!" shouted Becca, stumbling towards the man and giving him a thorough kick. He was out for the count. Becca leaned against the wall, collecting her scattered thoughts. Ed joined her. They both gesticulated wildly, eventually agreeing through pidgey sign language to make a break for it anyway, just not through the ruined stairs. They gathered their forces and headed for their last hope, the elevator. They did not want to risk a gauntlet of falling electrodes or voltorbs from any of the other stairwells.

"Elevator! Lux, can you… can you find it?" Ed’s voice was still off, his hearing still half gone.

Lux blinked and turned about in the crimson twilight, sniffing experimentally, before yipping in the affirmative. Shadow barked too, and the pair of pokemon led their trainers on another path.

In the confusion that the power cut had caused, the run to the elevator was more or less uneventful — as far as a mad dash through an underground complex full of enemies could be — and a few minutes later, their goal was in sight.

"That’s it! Oh I hope it’s still working!" cried Becca.

"Don’t Jynx it!" hissed Ed.

Such a short distance, and they’d be free. Shadow and Lux ran ahead, past a junction.

"RRRaaarrgh!" A massive zangoose shoulder-checked Shadow into the ground, whilst a booted human foot connected with Lux’s ribs and sent her flying head-first into the wall.

"Pesky rotten little buggers," said Cufflinks, adjusting his suit as he moved up and stomped contemptuously on the eevee a second time. Lux gave out a piteous wail. "Anyone got a brick? Gotta have the right sort of stone to turn an eevee into a ghost-type, right?" He leered, his teeth a dirty brown in the emergency lighting.

"LUX!" screamed Ed, as he launched himself, kicking and screaming, at the thug. Ed may not have been a pokemon, he may not have had any moves as such, but he gave it his best. He head butted, kicked, bit, scratched and screamed as he threw himself at the man, and was thrown off in turn to impact the wall.

"Ed! Shadow! Arceus teeth!" Becca was horrified as the fracas unfolded. Ed spat blood from a split lip, a trickle of red dripping from one nostril, and struggled to rise, but fell back. There was a pop from his backpack, and a flash of white light as his totodile appeared. It spread its jaws wide, snarling, and advanced on Cufflinks.

"You ruddy kids, don’t know when to stay down, do you? Lyra, blast those damned pests!" ordered Cufflinks. He ducked backwards as a golbat swooped in after him.

"Manny, give that manectric some scars to remember you by," ordered a thug with sunglasses.

"Shadow," said Becca coldly, "It’s time to stop playing nice."

From that, several things happened at once. Shadow seemed to change — he didn’t evolve, he was still a manectric, but anyone watching would’ve noted the difference — as he took several deep breaths, snarling growls emanating from deep inside as he steeled himself for revenge. The zangoose — Manny — circled, intent on his target, flexing wide, large claws. Lyra — the golbat — took a deep breath to blast supersonic at the two kids and their pokemon, but with a bone-shattering crunch, Lucky — wreathed in the white of some sort of move — leaped into the air, snatched the hefty blue bat pokemon in his jaws, and shook her like a rag doll before chucking her at the wall. Then he turned his gaze on Cufflinks and advanced as his body was enveloped in a bright glow of red power.

Lucky expanded. He outright loomed. Spines grew in a ferocious crown upon his head, popping up in a river down his back and along his back. Spikes grew from the tip of his tail. HIs already large jaw grew even larger as he gained well over a foot in height and far more than tripled his body weight in moments. And all of the seething, boiling anger that he could bring to bear was directed at one man.

"I-I-I—" Cufflinks began, babbling as he stepped backwards. He tripped, falling onto his backside as the now fully evolved croconaw just kept advancing with the finality of the end of days.

"Lucky," called Ed weakly. "Lucky! No!"

Lucky turned to his trainer, fixed him with a searching gaze, then turned back to the thug and snarled.

And that’s when the lights went out and the mad, cackling laughter began as smoke swirled throughout the corridor, whispers just on the edge of hearing permeated the man’s thoughts.

"L-look I-I’m s-sorry! I-I-I d-didn’t… please! Help! Please! Pl—" He went white, eyes wide, gaze fixated on the huge, slathering jaws full of teeth inches from his face. Hot breath, full of the stink of carrion, wafted over his head as the pink tongue twitched in anticipation of the juicy meal it would soon be tasting when the jaws snapped and crunched their way through the bone into the fleshy insides of the face in front of them.

He stiffened, then Cufflinks’ eyes rolled back in his head as he slumped, a dark, damp patch appearing on his pants as liquid ran down his leg and pooled under his body. Lucky kicked the human out of the way contemptuously, then moved to pick up the whimpering eevee, which he held to his chest. "Naw! Croconaw!" he roared, angrily.

Shadow snarled as he got ready to attack Manny, though the zangoose wasn’t idle. He too circled, then as Shadow drew in a breath to attack, Manny stood up onto two legs and scraped his claws together lunging… and nothing happened.

"Zan… goose?" Manny looked down at his claws. There was supposed to have been a big fwoosh! And a zoom! And then ice should’ve erupted into being. That was odd.

Eyes appeared in the air next to him. Blood red eyes. Large ones. Then teeth, stretched in a wide, wide smile. A voice, sounding like the crypt itself, very clearly said, "boo!"

Manny turned, shocked.

And Shadow attacked.

"RRRRRRAAARGH!" A deluge of yellow lightning burst out of the manectric, sparking and crackling as it arced throughout the corridor, the solid wall of electromagnetic force blasting all of the approaching thugs backwards and blowing even the emergency lights.

In the silence that followed, Becca helped Ed to his feet and the two trainers and their pokemon limped towards the elevator in relative silence. Punching the call button, Becca swore.

"Power’s out. We’re trapped."

"Shit. And no sign of Sly."

"That’s right, brats, and now you’ve got nowhere to run," said Shades, one lens of his sunglasses cracked. Manny? You up? Get up, lazy bones."

"Gooose," Manny complained, but the zangoose rose on two unsteady hind paws. Shades spared a glance at the mangled heap that was his golbat.

"Lyra? Shit, you’re out. I don’t care, we’ve got enough. Flamiel! Slasher! Front and centre!" A combusken and the pinsir from earlier took position in the corridor. More Aqua and Magma grunts followed. Becca and Ed backed themselves against the elevator door, steeling themselves for what was to come. They’d done pretty well for a couple of idiot young kids, getting mixed up in this sort of crazy, but their luck seemed to have run out.

"Whatever happens," whispered Becca, "I don’t regret it."

"Me either," replied Ed. "I just wanna know, where’s Sly?"

"Yeah. Wherever he is, I guess it doesn’t matter. Because we’re not giving up without a fight!" shouted Becca, breathing heavily and clenching her fists.

"Agreed." Ed wiped the blood from his face, and spat a clot of blood at the floor. "Best way out though? Through those guys. Right through their stupid faces." Ed snarled, snagging his pokeballs and preparing to release his team.

"We’ve got you now, brats! You’re in for a world of hurt! Flamiel, burn them!" shouted a guy with a Team Magma pin on his necktie.

"And Slasher, hurt ‘em good, they don’t need all their fingers and toes," said another, a Team Aqua pin on his lapel.

The combusken and pinsir advanced down the corridor, taking their time now that their quarry was trapped.

"Guys, I… I think we need you all," said Ed, worriedly, a look of determination cementing itself on his face as he released all his pokemon, wiggling a finger in one ear to see if he could get any more of his hearing back.

"If this goes badly," said Becca, worry plain on her face, "then I just want you all to know, you’re the best. We’ll get out of this. Somehow."

Flamiel and Slasher paused, as behind the two children and their angry pokemon, the impossible happened. It had started as a bass hum, a vibration that the kids felt in their bones. And then it deepened, grew, multiplied, until the entire complex seemed to be vibrating with barely restrained energy. The freight elevator — ugly, industrial beast that it was, even though bereft of power — groaning and protesting the whole way, descended to the basement level.

Sly, a triumphant grin on his face as he stood with a wide, cocky stance inside it, threw open the barrier gates. "Hey guys, missed me?"

"How the hell are you—?" Ed shouted, startled, as he almost fell back into the car.

"Had to go get a few friends of mine. Going up? Get on, quick!"

The combined Team Aqua and Magma members shared a glance with each other as their targets shuffled slowly back into the elevator, then started to charge.

"What the—! Don’t let them get away! Get them!"

"I wouldn’t do that if I were you," said Sly, with a contemptuous flick of his fringe. "But if you insist. Say hello to my little friends!"

Sly spread his arms wide as a veritable flood of magnemite, magneton and even a few magnezone burst down from the shaft above to emerge into the basement, pushing back the tide of thugs by numbers alone.

"Magnezone!" Sly called triumphantly, "Magnet rise! Let’s get out of here! And the rest of you guys, don’t get hurt, you hear? Just help us get out if you can, my friends!"

Sly didn’t bother closing the gate, he just crossed his arms and smirked as the magnezone exerted their powers and, with a now-familiar hum that grew in volume and presence, the massive freight elevator started to move upwards, squealing and protesting as the formidable safeties were overridden by even more formidable pokemon, picking up speed as it did so. Half way up, or so it seemed, a patch of the metal floor first grew warm, then red hot, and then burst open as more and more of the magnemite and magneton happily whirled their way around the elevator, buzzing to themselves, butting into each other in a friendly fashion and generally being happy nuisances. The elevator continued to rise, and eventually it got to the top, stopping with a crash that threatened to have several of the occupants fall, if they hadn’t been held up by more magnemites than any of them had ever seen in one place.

"Top floor, quick exits, shortcuts and sure freedom!" said Sly, as the top floor elevator gates crashed open. "Everybody out!"

Ed and Becca looked at each other, and decided they didn’t need to be told twice. All pretense abandoned, the lot of them made a break for it, with Sly boldly kicking open the final door that led outside and not even breaking his stride as they ran for it into the late afternoon sunshine.