Chương 71: 71-Sortie

Maxie Hoss breathes slowly through his mouth to quell the uneasiness in his stomach, supporting himself against a nearby wall with one hand as he waits for the nausea and dizziness to finally abate. There is a reason he prefers teleconference with the mountainside bunker. But today… The man pulls himself upright and adjusts his glasses before fixing the collar of his jacket. …Today is the exception.

"Report." He orders without looking at the enforcer who's standing at the doorway leading to the rest of the bunker complex.

"What is the status of the machine?"

"It's being wheeled out as we speak sir." The man says, pausing for a moment before he continues.

"The lead scientist of the project was caught attempting to sabotage the device last night. He was not successful, and the lead engineer reports attenuation at 99. 9962% with the meteorite, which was installed two hours ago with no complications." Maxie nods, brushing down his coat once more, looking for any minor dust or stray hair that would otherwise stain this momentous occasion.

"Good. Then lead me to my grand machine." His enforcer says nothing, bowing his head as he opens the heavy reinforced door with one arm and allows the architect of the future to pass through with a respect befitting that title. Walking down the bare concrete and exposed rock walls, Maxie catches glimpses of the dozens of people in equally vibrant red hoods walking in the same direction as him through the complex toward the outside. Each and every one holding total loyalty to the cause to be placed on this project.

It's a shame they need to remain here, to ensure that the machine isn't interrupted before it has completed its purpose. Not everyone will stay behind of course, not the administrator he'd put in charge, or the most loyal and technically skilled, and all but an unlucky few of his enforcers. Those necessary for structure in the coming world must retreat to the secure island bunker, to ride out the coming chaos. The rest?

His enforcer opens another door, leading to the main workroom for the machine, a pair of large armored doors wide open, allowing sunlight inside and revealing their camouflage exterior as Maxie walks across the empty space and into the outside world. Stepping into the light, the man turns his collar to the wind as, at the sight of their leader and architect, everyone outside turns to him and bows their head until he waves them off. A moment later the admin he'd put in charge comes up alongside.

"We're ready sir. Post activation we estimate thirty five to forty minutes to eruption." He says quietly under the shadow of the volcano's smoke as the wind shifts, gesturing at the group of men wearing silvery heat suits as they walk back from where they'd left the machine.

"Controlls are synchronised to the console over there. I thought you would like the honors."

"You thought correctly." Maxie responds, stepping up to the free standing console and taking in the array of buttons and dials in front of him. He studies them for a moment before hovering his hand over the largest and most vibrant red one.

"... Are you and your designated ready to evacuate?"

"Yes sir."

"Then it is time." He says, hesitating to push his glasses back up his face.

"Let us create a better world." With that he pushes the button, and a low electronic hum fills the air before –with a hissing whine– a beam of crimson light erupts from the arrow-like emitter and into the lava, down into the volcano. Maxie drops his hand to his side, watching the readouts on the console in front of him jump and stutter, not understanding anything he's seeing but assuming if something goes wrong it will be obvious.

Numbers fluctuate, bars climb, and warning lights begin to blink that has his administrator flinching back. But Maxie Hoss is made of stronger stuff than to be dissuaded by such trivialities, and soon enough his conviction is rewarded by the readings slowing in its rapid shifts over the next few seconds. Looking up from the readouts to his machine, Maxie watches the beam disappear into the lava, and for the lava surrounding the beam to begin churning more violently than the surrounding liquid.

His luck continues to hold.

"... Be ready to leave in twenty minutes." He says softly.

"Remember, discretion. The unfortunate of this cell cannot know."

"Yes sir." The leader does not turn his head as his administrator bows his head and leaves, eyes never leaving the sight of the magma before him and the ever increasing violence of its boil. A few seconds later he feels the barest tremor under his feet. —-- –_– —-- The buzz of the dial tone as the professor abruptly hung up on them halfway though a word mirrors Tanya's mind as she stares into nothing, eyes vaguely drifting over the documents. How could she have not seen it?

She should have known, he waited for years at that nunnery, biding his time without a word for over a decade until after she graduated from the academy. How could she have not seen this coming? Her gaze settles on the pictures of the arrestees in their uniforms. They're even wearing robes. She snaps out of her blank focus by Amelia stabbing the disconnect button on the cradle before moving her hand over to punch in another number, but pausing.

"We need to warn people, do I call the police for this or–" She stops halfway through and punches in the number.

"They'll know who to call if it's not them." Considering how to respond, Tanya's distracted by the sound of her sister's frightened warble. Looking over, she sees the 'mon staring up at her with a horrified expression.

"They're trying to erupt the volcano?" She whispers, eyes wide and a dangerous waver in her voice.

"I– I don't understand–""They will not succeed." Tanya states with absolute certainty.

"A professional in his field is now aware, the relevant authorities will listen to him." They will stop this. She has to believe that. If they stop this without her it means he's not here. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Because for all his incompetencies and arrogance, that thing wearing the skin of a god was outstandingly good at manipulating the world such that she was forced to fight again and again, flipping the table like a spoiled child the moment she finally started to pull away. Thus, he is not here if the relevant authorities can stop this before these fanatics can destroy everything. Her sister continues looking up into her eyes for a few long seconds, before her face firms into an expression of fortitude.

"... Ok." She says with a shaky smile as Amelia hangs up the phone.

"Right. They said they'd 'take it under advisement' but it sounds like they were kinda busy or didn't believe me." The Joy states.

"But Professor Dacite definitely believed it, and he's certainly going to tell someone. So maybe we should call… I dunno the mayor's office? Tell them to talk to the Mauville police? But–" Her mouth closes with a click at the sound of the automatic doors opening as a young girl about Amelia's age halfway steps into the center before freezing.

She looks around at the interior, formerly hovering pages scattered out around the floor, the extra chansey, and the clearly distressed looking Amelia paints a rather intense scene. There cannot be a panic. Tanya's eyes flare purple and the papers fly off the floor and into a proper stack once more, hidden behind the desk as Amelia adopts a professional smile.

"Hello, welcome to the pokemon center…" Tanya watches the newcomer hesitantly walk up to the counter. The rail and road systems are still out. What good would it even do? Tanya tunes the Joy out as she continues the spiel, feeling every second that ticks by like hammerblows until the girl hurries out the door again. Amelia gets back to talking about who they should call to warn, but Tanya is only half listening.

The time between the apparently manmade earthquakes was at least two days, the authorities have twenty four hours to handle the situation another quake can happen, and who knows how many tests before they're ready for the full eruption. She has no proof he's responsible for any of this. Perhaps the earthquakes are the goal, they know the danger of a full eruption and they're planning on doing something stupid like trying to ransom an entire country with the threat of either more earthquakes or a proper eruption.

It could be something other than fanatics, it could just be more criminals looking to make the largest amount of money possible. It could– Tanya blinks as the earth shudders, feeling not like a prelude for a larger quake, but a small rumble in the earth that continues to go on. In fact, now that she's realized it's there, the 'mon realizes that it was just a flare of a quake. She's been feeling it for the past few minutes, slowly growing stronger as time goes on.

She stares at the floor for a second, focused entirely on the subtle shaking only she seems to be noticing until she looks back up at the TV to see the news has switched to the earthquake report. Though muted the graphic on screen shows the epicenter to be right on the volcano, a seismograph appearing right next to the map with a steadily rising tremor. A linearly rising tremor. The rolling chaos of thoughts and emotions in Tanya's mind fall to silence, calm and still as ambiguity disappears into nothing.

This is it. With this certainty she realizes the rest of the room has gone quiet as well, broken by Amelia giving a slightly shaky exhale.

"... I'm going to call my Mom." She says softly. Tanya feels like every vein in her body is writhing within her, power burning ever brighter as a single fact pulses in her mind. He won't win. She won't allow it. Her sister says something and at the sound the 'mon turns and looks down at her.

"Transfer back to school. Then you and your sisters are to transfer off of Hoenn." She'll stop him. Chansey looks up at her with wide eyes.

"I–"" Now."

"But–""That is an order!" She roars, looming over the smaller 'mon for a moment before realizing she doesn't have enough time to ensure her commands are met. Turning on her heel she thunders toward the door, slamming through the half open automatic glass and sending the doors to the street with the sound of shattering glass as looks up to the open sky toward the volcano. The man on the phone said they have to be somewhere on the caldera. Thus she needs to be there.

Long unused flight equations she's simplified for the lack of orb and this new kind of magic are drawn from the soldiers memory, iterated and refined a few times as she wraps her power around herself and tries to drag herself into the sky taking advantage of her seemingly infinite battery of mana. For a moment it works, and for the first time in far too long she feels her feet lift off the ground under her own power.

But she barely gets half a metre off the ground before the draw on her mana is too great and the spell cuts out. She growls as she thuds to the ground, entire body rumbling as she struggles to force reality to obey, but it's like trying to pick herself off the ground by grabbing one arm with another and pushing upward. She can't fly, but she will get up there, that is a foregone conclusion, the only question is– Tanya's eyes flare purple again and Amelia makes a startled exclamation from inside the center.

An instant later a red and white sphere floats out in front of the soldier. She stares into the aperture, working her way through exactly how she wants to do this, before taking a few steps to the left so she's looking at the top of the mountain with the aperture of the ball still looking at her. She gathers her mana, priming a force vector equation to be as powerful as she can make it. Then she reaches out, and taps the aperture of the ball.

There's a crack of displaced air and darkness, then Tanya feels the sense she's being stretched, like she's being pulled by an unimaginably strong force from both ends to rip her apart. But she will stop him, so this will work. The pain fades and by the time she manages to recover and force herself out of the ball she's in the air, halfway up the volcano. Again. The stretching isn't as bad this time, and when she pops out again she's high overhead.

Her spotter's training has never left her, and now she puts it to use, eyes scanning through the atmospheric distortion, clouds, and volcanic smoke to look around the ring of the caldera for her enemy. Using tricks of the trade to sort through the random haze of the atmosphere and the noise of imperfect vision to find dots the relative size of a grain of sand.

People, probably in red, some kind of machine, transport craft or signs of a path up to the caldera– There, through the smoke, almost obscured by the rocky terrain, a few red specks moving about next to the shine of something reflective, still atop the mountain despite the fact they're all about to die. Fanatics. For a moment the air goes still as she reaches the peak of her ballistic arc. She sees at least twenty people down below, too far to make out anything other than a headcount.

With the soldier entering combat alone against twenty enemy combatants with unknown reserves and support on their hips, the cold estimation of her odds in a fight are very clear. As she hangs there the soldier finds herself reflexively priming her artillery equations, but those don't work here. So instead she calmly shoves mana into her egg and pulls it from its pouch.

For a moment she considers just bombarding them from up here, but bombardment from a distance is by definition inaccurate, from this far away it would be almost trivially easy to find cover, to make it into the boulder field surrounding the small clearing they inhabit and escape. There is only one way to remove the threat a fanatic represents. She needs to be sure she finds them all, to ensure she gets as many as she can.

With that in mind Tanya carefully aims and fires at the machine to disable it before grabbing herself and expending an incredible amount of energy to slightly adjust her trajectory. Then she amplifies gravity around herself and drops.