The Dawn of a New Age: Act 1/Chapter 5

Act 1: Armageddon
Chapter 5: The Good Die Young While The Neutral Soldier On
As written by RememberMe (Joseph Michael Schultz)

“Time to run, right?!” I yelled in question. Oh, I already knew the answer.

Always the quick response, Ed thundered, “Sounds good to me! You two make your way to the train yard and find us something outbound to Goldenrod! I'll cover the rear and make sure we don't prematurely leave for the afterlife before we can even board the damn train!”

In a mad dash, Will and I rocketed down what looked to be the longest hallway in existence. Ever. Or maybe the situation had made me a little biased. Ed shadowed us, trailing a good five or six yards behind, protecting our flank as we fled. Up ahead sat a loading dock and several unmanned bullet trains, high speed rail transport that was certain to outrun our small army of pursuers. Sure, I had no prior experience in operating a subsonic train, but something in the pit of my stomach told me that I'd soon be very willing to learn, and learn very quickly on top of that.

A blast of Ed's shotgun caught my attention and I looked back in time to see a young Tyrogue holding a jagged dagger in his hand get ripped to pieces and hit the floor. A second blast echoed through the halls, but I stayed the course and simply kept faith in Ed's abilities, refusing to turn my head again. No matter how many times I looked back, it wouldn't change the result of whatever happened. My job was to hijack a train and I had to complete said job, else incur the wrath of the man I was worrying about. At a dead sprint, Will and I raced through a pair of double doors and out into the loading docks for the passenger trains. Behind us, huffing and puffing as he ran, came an exhausted Ed, still confronting the armed combatants that zealously pursued him. The three of us spotted several wooden outdoor benches, the kind usually used by passengers impatiently waiting for their 4o dollar ride to arrive. Together, we hefted two of them against the doors and another pair against the first two benches, effectively blocking the path. Made of solid oak and heavier than a an average sized man, they stood up well enough as multiple loud thumps and thuds sounded off from the other side. It worked, for now, but wouldn't hold the mob back for much longer. We had to act quickly.

“Over there!” shouted Will as we continued running.

An outbound train spanning five or six passenger cars rested right before our eyes. Unharmed and devoid of any psychotically murderous passengers, the bluntly named 'Goldenrod Express' would soon be delivering three battleworn warriors away from the chaos that surrounded them. As we ran further away from the terminal and closer towards the train, an thunderous explosion roared behind us. Without thought, I jammed my fists into the locomotive's tightly closed doors and with all of my might, pried them open. Looking back behind me, a crowd of bloodthirsty mind-slaves pooled like water around the remains of our former barricade. One of the pitiful creatures, a Machoke with burning red eyes, pointed in our direction and howled a distinctly evil battlecry. He lifted his other arm and aimed a small caliber handgun vaguely in our direction.

“No.” I muttered; slowly shifting to my sidearm as though I could hit him from this range.

Time and space seemed to freeze solid as I stared off against the muscular mystery man and his gun. Everything about him looked sinister and wrong; his maddened expression, the drool and froth falling from the corners of his mouth, the tattered and bloody t-shirt that fell to ribbons around his bruised flesh. He'd lost the fight against the foe inside his head. He'd lost it completely and nothing remained of him, absolutely nothing. All he wanted to do, no, all he COULD do, was lift and aim that pistol and fire it with no remorse. Once the gun sounded, time's unforgiving flow continued as it always did, and crimson blood erupted from Will's neck in a hideous geyser. Broken glass sprayed and peppered the nearest seats as Will hit the floor.

The son of a bitch hit the young officer from over two hundred years away, through a window, with a piece of shit Saturday Night Special. The odds against such a shot are astronomical, but it happened nonetheless.

“Rookie!” thundered Ed vengefully.

I raced over to Will's side and found him curled up into a ball on the floor. Clutching his neck, he made horrendous choking and gaging sounds; blood rushing from his mouth and from between the claws that covered his wound. His eyes, though gaping open with terror, were out of focus and beginning to roll back into his head. And unlike the heroes that died in action movies, the ones that always managed to spout some kind of epic speech before they died, somehow looking peacefully content whilst dying, Will left this world in the most horrifically sudden way I'd ever seen. He died mere seconds after I'd come to his aid and looked nothing like a heroic soldier worthy of praise or a monument to be built in his name. He didn't die a glorious death. He'd died an immediate, instantaneous, sudden one. I looked down at him for a moment, refusing to believe that it had even happened; that the man I'd been running for my life alongside was actually dead. Then, at the thought of his demise, a three hundred foot tall tsunami of pure, unfiltered rage filled every vessel and vein in my body, forcing my to grind my teeth feverishly. I leapt to my feet, ready to dash out into that crowd of brain dead Neanderthals with two active grenades in my hands, but found myself thrown through the air instead. Landing violently on a cushioned seat, I watched as Ed literally ripped and tore his way out of the train car, shouting a slew of profanities and hatred fueled curses.

He must have felt the very same way as I did, because what followed his mixed display of anger and remorse was something that I'll always remember. Ed wasn't kidding when he claimed to have experienced some strange things during his lifetime...

“A million times over, you'll all pay the fuckin' price!” roared the Blastoise as he crouched nearly to all four hands and feet, much like that of a football player on the verge of charging.

At that exact instant, as Ed's enraged words finished echoing through the train yard, a strange tingling sensation washed through my fur and sent a sharp chill down my spine. An unknown energy, faint but clearly present, rushed around in a soft whirlwind for a second, like a weak gust, then slowly began to gather at a single point. I looked back to my superior officer and watched as a pair of shining cannons extended from two darkened crevasses within his bulky shell. Twin points of energetic light gleamed forth from the massive barrels; a powerful energy that threatened to destroy any who dared to control it. Sweat streamed from Ed's brow as he focused on his task, continuing to draw in power from around him. The brigade of brain-drained assailants finally started flooding towards us, howling and shouting dementedly, but were no longer my main concern. I was more than certain that whatever attack Ed was about to unleash, regardless of its shape or form, had the power to obliterate whoever ended up on its receiving end.

Frightened and confused as I was, watching this, I didn't even bother to pose myself the question as to what was happening or why it was happening. Ed had a secret weapon; whatever it was. And I wanted, so badly, for every single one of those monsters to feel the full force of Ed's attack. I wanted them to fry and sizzle and writhe in pain beneath the heat of the energy that screamed to life inside of those guns. I wanted them to die. Pure and simple hate. I wanted them to die and go to Hell, then burn for all of eternity in a pit of nightmarish fire.

Balling his fists angrily, the wearied Blastoise trumpeted the words, “Flash Cannon!”

Two beams of white-hot energy rushed forth from the cannon barrels protruding from Ed's back, jetting into the mob of mind-zombies like a high pressure stream of water. Unlike water, this beam of raw force and unbridled power didn't merely knock the unlucky rioters on their collective asses; it evaporated them. It happened almost too fast to see. One moment, we were being rushed by a crowd of crazed men and women, the next moment, nearly half of them were simply GONE. Where they'd previously stood, black and gray burn marks scorched the ground and plumes of dark smoke billowed. Those that remained erupted into a panicked frenzy and began clawing at each other to escape. And that was all the time in the world that I needed. Ammunition be damned, I rocketed from the train car and started unloading entire clips into the spreading cloud of body burnt smog. Bullet after bullet, I screamed fitfully for them to give Will back to us, but found my ears deafened by my own trigger happy shooting. Ed, looking completely depleted of strength and energy, having finished his God-like assault, found the motivation to join me with his shotgun and together we slew every single one of the fuckers that we could spot. When the smoke finally cleared, a scene from a third world country massacre could be clearly seen, the bodies strewn about randomly. As I tried to steady myself, I watched my hands move on their own, unleashing even more supersonic metal mini-missiles from my weapon into the lifeless remains of any corpse that laid nearest. I shot and shot and shot and shot, until I could shoot no more.

Ed, on his knees gasping for a single breath of air, rasped jaggedly, “... Just stop..., Alan... We've... done enough.”

I didn't reply. I COULDN'T reply. I just holstered my gun, lurched unsteadily over to the train, and sat down inside. I stayed like that for several minutes. But realizing that things would likely get worse if we were to remain here for too long, I proceeded to slap myself in the face over and over and over again. When I finally began feeling the swelling of my cheek, I snapped to my senses and took action. I hobbled back over to Ed and helped him inside and into a seat, stealing several extra cushions from other unoccupied seats and offering them to him. Exhaustedly, he took them lazily and threw them behind his back as he laid down. He looked as though he'd just run a marathon, lifted a truck over his head, and swam the span of an ocean or two. He passed out before I'd even gotten three feet from him; the physical stress brought on by that little onslaught of his was slow to set in, seeing as how he'd enjoyed another round of executions via shotgun, but it hit harder than a blunt force impact.

“This isn't over, Will, not by a long shot.” I sneered as I limped down an aisle of seats, towards the engineer's cabin and control panel.

A small manual vaguely explained how to operate the huge vehicle, though only in the most basic of ways. I flipped a switch, which brought a few hundred flickering lights to life behind the buttons on the panel. I pressed the biggest red button I'd ever seen and then pushed a lever gradually forward. The Goldenrod Express dashed down the tracks and away from the city I had once called home. Ed slept through a majority of the journey; uneasy waves of salty seawater crashing against the seemingly million mile long suspended bridge that linked Saffron to Goldenrod, Kanto to Johto. It was the longest ride I'd ever taken, though I had no way in the world to enjoy it. I felt as though wouldn't enjoy anything for a long, long time.

One man down and two to go. I'd say the bad guys are on a roll, wouldn't you?