“But . . . but conditions are rainy, and Thunder always strikes-”
“Baku!” shouted Kenta, pointing at the Magneton. “Pay them back triple! Flamethrower!”
The scientist sneered at him. “Ha! Even with the type advantage, your damage is halved thanks to- waaaaargh!” The rest of his sentence was cut off as Bakuphoon’s fire breath found him, along with his Magneton. The Typhlosion didn’t cease flame until almost fifteen full seconds had passed, and Kenta had to run up and yank on Bakuphoon’s back to keep him from continuing. “Stop! Don’t, you’ll murder him!”
Bakuphoon let off, slumping down, then pointed with a paw to his throat. Kenta understood in a moment, what he was trying to say. “Oh . . . you got paralyzed, and you couldn’t stop. Alright, I think you’ve taken enough-”
But Bakuphoon was up and on his hind legs, snarling and bearing his blackened teeth in spite his injuries. The two remaining Silph scientists gasped in terror and ducked behind their door, slamming it. “M-monster!” Kenta could hear them crying loudly. “That’s not a pokémon, it’s a devil!”
Seeing that the front passage was clear, Kenta checked behind him. Officer Sosuke’s Growlithe was gone, and he was crouching near the doorway they’d escaped from, holding its pokeball tenderly in his hands. Officer Dei’s Weezing was locked in combat with another Magneton, whose owner had thankfully not been reckless enough to cast Thunder. Kenta waved urgently to them. “Retreat! You can’t beat him, Steel-types are immune to poison!”
Dei nodded and shouted “Smog attack!” before following his comrades and Saishi down the hallway towards the stairs. Behind them, a cloud of toxic green gas billowed out and blanketed the passage in impenetrable murk. The small force of escapees had reached the staircase, when Dei pressed the elevator button, and the doors immediately opened. “I’m setting up a decoy,” he said, rushing inside and pressing the “lobby” button. Ducking back out, he followed the group as Kenta led the way down the stairs.
The steps were somewhat slippery because of the water sprinklers, and everyone but Bakuphoon clung to the banister as they hurried down to the lower floor. Further up, Kenta could hear angry shouting issuing from jostled Silph Corporation workers on higher floors, getting closer each second. “Keep up the pace,” he commanded as they swept past the second floor. From behind, he heard Dei order his Weezing to use another Smog on the hallway, which in turn covered the Silph workers in a blinding fog before they could react quick enough.
“Any goons on the first floor we should know about?” Kenta asked Saishi as they neared the lobby. “No,” came her speedy reply, “there’s shouldn’t be anybody except-”
At that moment they reached the bottom of the stairs, where they were greeted by the sight of Shin being held at gunpoint by the woman behind the front desk.
“-that bitch of a secretary.”
“Don’t move!” she screamed, holding the pistol less than a foot away from Shin’s head while he kept his arms raised high in the air. “Any sudden movement, and he dies!”
At that moment, the elevator creaked open, which Dei had set up on the third floor. For a split second, the secretary’s eyes shifted to the splitting doors, and a moment later Kenta heard a loud bang from right behind him. The secretary dropped out of sight below the desk, and Shin leaned over the side automatically to see what had happened. Kenta knew before he did, as he glanced behind him to see Ms. Saishi holding her own smoking pistol. “Dead!” he heard Shin cry in surprise, looking back at the group at the bottom of the stairs. “Kenta, what’s going-”
Kenta heard an incoming clanking from behind him. He turned around just in time to see another Electrode bouncing down the stairs straight at the whole group, like a great lethal bowling ball. A flash of red shot out in front of the escape party, and in the next moment, an explosion expelled the small force backwards and sent them skidding across the waxed floor. Kenta scrambled to his feet, and looked to see what had just happened. Bakuphoon was lying on the floor beside a fainted Electrode, chest rising and falling rapidly. This was now the second Selfdestruct attack he’d braved in five minutes, and Kenta simply couldn’t imagine how he was able to take so much abuse.
“Explanations later!” barked Saishi, sprinting headlong for the door, and grabbing Kenta’s arm as she passed him. “We have to go!”
“Baku, return!” called Kenta, holding up the Typhlosion’s pokeball as he was pulled away. The red beam shot out and disintegrated his pokémon back into its safety zone, and Kenta exhaled in relief. He’d have time to thank his loyal pokémon partner when they were back home, but first, they had to get out alive. In the meantime, he sprinted after Saishi, Dei, Shin, and Sosuke as they dove for the door and burst through it. The chill of early November air struck his face, and its implication of freedom was one of the best feelings of his life.
But there was one more thing to do. Thinking quickly, Kenta broke away from the group and made a dash to the right and down the first ally. Behind him, the sounds of sirens were approaching, and he hastened to get his deed finished. Pulling a Luxury Ball from his pocket, he gave it a light toss out in front of him. In a burst of light energy, a creature with the appearance of a shell on four legs stood before him, teething on something in its mouth. Kenta reached back into his pocket and pulled out the Master Ball he’d been given ten minutes previously, and held it in front of the Shelgon on the ground.
“Bolt, spit that out. I have something else you need to hold now.”
The shell dragon coughed a grayish-blue stone with a dotted pattern into his hand; an Everstone. Kenta knelt down and held the Master Ball out for Bolt to take, when he heard rapid footsteps approaching from behind. Standing up and turning around, he found himself at gunpoint as Saishi glowered at him with trembling limbs. “You dirty pig,” she spat, “I knew you just wanted that ball for yourself! Give it back to me this instant, or I swear to the gods I will pull this trigger and blow your head wide open.”
Kenta looked at her, and at the pistol in her shaking hands, and took a deep breath to compose himself. “If you shoot me,” he warned, “my Shelgon will shatter your Master Ball between his teeth. He knows Crunch; he’s more than capable of doing it.”
“I see. Then I’ll have to shoot him first.”
“Bad idea.” Kenta stiffened, bending his knees in preparation to make any necessary sudden moves. “I’ve taught him Protect also, for exactly this kind of reason.” His eyes narrowed. “And if you do shoot him, I will break your neck with my bare hands, even if it’s in full sight of the whole police force. Nobody threatens my pokémon’s life.”
The two of them stood there in the alley staring one another down, while in the background patrol cars screeched to a halt and police could be heard shouting to one another as they charged the Silph building. Kenta glanced behind him at his Shelgon, who was still standing dutifully awaiting orders. “Bolt,” he muttered, “go hide in the bushes back there. Do not let this maniac hit you. She’s already killed one person.”
Bolt blinked to show he understood, and twisted around, ducking into the undergrowth. Kenta turned back to Saishi, smiling grimly. “I’d put that gun down if I were you,” he muttered, so that only she would hear. “If any of my force happens to see you holding an officer up, you’ll be off to prison just like the people you betrayed.”
Saishi smiled back, nastily. “That’s what you think.”
Turning, she waved her hand at one of the patrol cars, shoving the gun hastily under her shirt. “Captain Arcada! Over here, over here, quickly!”
Kenta’s stomach leaped at the name of his captain being mentioned. From around the corner of the Silph building, he could just make out Captain Wester Arcada approaching him with two deputies at his heels. “Go take the building!” Kenta heard him command the other two. “I’ll be fine. Report back in five minutes!”
“Captain,” blurted Kenta hastily as Arcada marched up behind Saishi. “Be careful, she’s got a gun!”
“He has the Master Ball,” said Saishi even more quickly, turning to Arcada and pointing at Kenta. “Thank goodness you’re here, tell him to hand it over!”
Kenta’s heart rammed even faster as Arcada took his eyes off Saishi and focused his full attention on him. “Kenta!” said the captain loudly and passionately, looking at him in surprise. “You have it? Good work, my boy, excellent . . . I’ll take over possession of it now. We have to get it out of here before things get any worse on this block!”
For a moment, Kenta considered calling Bolt out of the brush to deliver the precious ball over to his superior officer. After all, it was his civic duty, and it came as a natural impulse. But something was holding him back, and it wasn’t just his own wish to see the Master Ball gone, either. The air between Captain Arcada and Ms. Saishi lacked the usual hostility of absolute police authority over lawbreaking civilian. Rather, it was as if police captain and Silph conspirator were actually cooperating. He stared at them for a moment, hesitating, then made up his mind and sealed his fate.
“Captain,” he said in a reasoning, but insistent tone, “that woman was going to shoot me. She almost did, just now!”
“That’s not important at the moment,” answered Arcadia impatiently. “Right now, what’s important is-”
“Not important?” demanded Kenta incredulously. “How can you say that? Don’t you care if I live or die?!”
“Ms. Saishi’s knowledge, and the Master Ball’s power, can affect the world more than one cop’s actions ever could,” said Arcada sternly. “You did your duty, in seeing both safely out of Silph Corporation. Now it’s time to move on!”
“Wha-?” Kenta stared at him, shocked, and his brain clicked. “Wait . . . how did you know I was guarding her? I didn’t mention anything about that over the phone!”
Arcada looked taken aback, then resumed his stern face. This time, however, there was some pity in his voice, similar to how he’d sounded when he’d called Kenta at the stadium. “I’m sorry, Kenta,” he said sadly. “I couldn’t let you know anything. It might have affected Ms. Saishi’s safety.”
“What?”
“You can tell him later!” Saishi growled irately, her hand hovering over her shirt at the place where she’d stored her gun. “Just order him to give you the ball!”
“No!” shouted Kenta, unwilling to let Arcada’s explanation be cut off. “I need to hear this! Continue!”
Arcada swallowed, then picked up as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “We suspected for a while that Silph was planning to make illegal and unregistered Master Balls, to sell on the black market to bitter trainers affected by G.R.I.P.’s new policies on pokémon training. The timing would’ve been just right. But we couldn’t find any incriminating evidence against the corporation, even when Ms. Saishi tipped us off. Therefore, we had no warrant for storming and take the building. So she agreed to feed information to one of our inspection teams while they were still inside the building, so that we’d have grounds for making arrests. In return, however, we had to offer her protection, so that her fellows wouldn’t kill her before we could get her out of the building.
“That’s where you come in, Kenta. Your rank isn’t that great since you haven’t been with the force long, but the records reveal your prestige as a pokémon trainer. You and Lieutenant Shen were to be led blindly into Ms. Saishi’s presence, so that you could escort her back out of the building when she freed you again.” Arcada lowered his head in apology. “We couldn’t tell you, or you might not have acted your part right. I hope you will forgive me for being secretive. It was for a good cause.”
Kenta didn’t know how he took it all in. He felt he shouldn’t have been able to swallow Arcada’s words. Who could have accepted such an explanation so willingly?
Someone who’s been suspicious of his government all along, that’s who. This isn’t shocking news, it’s goddamn vindication!
“Captain,” he said slowly, angrily, through his teeth. “You’d make a horrendous pokémon trainer.” He glared at his commanding officer. “Do you have any idea how alone I felt back there?! A good team doesn’t keep secrets. They think, and act, as one!" He pointed insistently to himself. “I joined this force because Silhouette was the most honest professional organization I could think of. I thought we were an absolute good in Japan. But how can I think that now . . .” He turned his glare to Saishi. “When you’ve just casually brushed off the fact that this woman was going to murder me?”
Arcada sighed and closed his eyes, then shook his head wearily. Reaching behind him, he pulled out his pistol and clicked it into loaded position. “You’re too naïve,” he said softly, then pointed the gun at Kenta’s leg. “Now,” he bellowed, with much more force than before, “Enough with this insubordination! Stand down and deliver the Master Ball. This is an order, Sergeant Nyna!”
Kenta looked at him miserably, feeling betrayed, but not freshly betrayed. “I suppose you’re not going to admit you want the Master Ball for your own power either,” he murmured, turning away from his captain. “One way or another, you’ll have it for yourselves.” He tensed his body. “But I won’t be the one to give it to you!”
Barely understanding what he was doing, moving on pure instinct, Kenta tore off down the alley for the bushes at the end. Behind him, he heard a scream of fury from Saishi. “No! My Master Ball! I won’t let you get away!”
Then he heard a gunshot, and his mind registered excruciating pain in both his lower back and his stomach, on the right side of his body. Falling forward, but unable to do anything about it from shock, his upper torso crashed through the branches and leaves of the bushes, while his legs and feet remained visible on the outside. As his blood began to pool out from under the bush’s leaves, Arcada and Saishi looked at each other in horror.
“You shot him.”
“It had to be done.”
“What if he’s dead?”
“Then one of the Silph executives killed him.”
“ . . . . . . . . . hey, look at tha-!”
Bolt blasted out of the bushes at the two humans, a great blue blur, and smashed past both of them with his mighty Salamence wings extended. Arcada and Saishi were unconscious in a second’s time, and their bodies were thrown backwards out of the alley and onto the sidewalk outside of the Silph Corporation building. Wheeling around and rushing back with a clap of his wings, Bolt returned to his alley and snatched Kenta up in his teeth. Holding him by the back of his uniform, the Salamence hauled his wounded trainer onto his back, then took off once more. Hovering through the lower allies of Saffron City at eighty miles an hour, Bolt finally increased altitude at city limits and soared eastward, with the sun at his back.
“Baku!” shouted Kenta, pointing at the Magneton. “Pay them back triple! Flamethrower!”
The scientist sneered at him. “Ha! Even with the type advantage, your damage is halved thanks to- waaaaargh!” The rest of his sentence was cut off as Bakuphoon’s fire breath found him, along with his Magneton. The Typhlosion didn’t cease flame until almost fifteen full seconds had passed, and Kenta had to run up and yank on Bakuphoon’s back to keep him from continuing. “Stop! Don’t, you’ll murder him!”
Bakuphoon let off, slumping down, then pointed with a paw to his throat. Kenta understood in a moment, what he was trying to say. “Oh . . . you got paralyzed, and you couldn’t stop. Alright, I think you’ve taken enough-”
But Bakuphoon was up and on his hind legs, snarling and bearing his blackened teeth in spite his injuries. The two remaining Silph scientists gasped in terror and ducked behind their door, slamming it. “M-monster!” Kenta could hear them crying loudly. “That’s not a pokémon, it’s a devil!”
Seeing that the front passage was clear, Kenta checked behind him. Officer Sosuke’s Growlithe was gone, and he was crouching near the doorway they’d escaped from, holding its pokeball tenderly in his hands. Officer Dei’s Weezing was locked in combat with another Magneton, whose owner had thankfully not been reckless enough to cast Thunder. Kenta waved urgently to them. “Retreat! You can’t beat him, Steel-types are immune to poison!”
Dei nodded and shouted “Smog attack!” before following his comrades and Saishi down the hallway towards the stairs. Behind them, a cloud of toxic green gas billowed out and blanketed the passage in impenetrable murk. The small force of escapees had reached the staircase, when Dei pressed the elevator button, and the doors immediately opened. “I’m setting up a decoy,” he said, rushing inside and pressing the “lobby” button. Ducking back out, he followed the group as Kenta led the way down the stairs.
The steps were somewhat slippery because of the water sprinklers, and everyone but Bakuphoon clung to the banister as they hurried down to the lower floor. Further up, Kenta could hear angry shouting issuing from jostled Silph Corporation workers on higher floors, getting closer each second. “Keep up the pace,” he commanded as they swept past the second floor. From behind, he heard Dei order his Weezing to use another Smog on the hallway, which in turn covered the Silph workers in a blinding fog before they could react quick enough.
“Any goons on the first floor we should know about?” Kenta asked Saishi as they neared the lobby. “No,” came her speedy reply, “there’s shouldn’t be anybody except-”
At that moment they reached the bottom of the stairs, where they were greeted by the sight of Shin being held at gunpoint by the woman behind the front desk.
“-that bitch of a secretary.”
“Don’t move!” she screamed, holding the pistol less than a foot away from Shin’s head while he kept his arms raised high in the air. “Any sudden movement, and he dies!”
At that moment, the elevator creaked open, which Dei had set up on the third floor. For a split second, the secretary’s eyes shifted to the splitting doors, and a moment later Kenta heard a loud bang from right behind him. The secretary dropped out of sight below the desk, and Shin leaned over the side automatically to see what had happened. Kenta knew before he did, as he glanced behind him to see Ms. Saishi holding her own smoking pistol. “Dead!” he heard Shin cry in surprise, looking back at the group at the bottom of the stairs. “Kenta, what’s going-”
Kenta heard an incoming clanking from behind him. He turned around just in time to see another Electrode bouncing down the stairs straight at the whole group, like a great lethal bowling ball. A flash of red shot out in front of the escape party, and in the next moment, an explosion expelled the small force backwards and sent them skidding across the waxed floor. Kenta scrambled to his feet, and looked to see what had just happened. Bakuphoon was lying on the floor beside a fainted Electrode, chest rising and falling rapidly. This was now the second Selfdestruct attack he’d braved in five minutes, and Kenta simply couldn’t imagine how he was able to take so much abuse.
“Explanations later!” barked Saishi, sprinting headlong for the door, and grabbing Kenta’s arm as she passed him. “We have to go!”
“Baku, return!” called Kenta, holding up the Typhlosion’s pokeball as he was pulled away. The red beam shot out and disintegrated his pokémon back into its safety zone, and Kenta exhaled in relief. He’d have time to thank his loyal pokémon partner when they were back home, but first, they had to get out alive. In the meantime, he sprinted after Saishi, Dei, Shin, and Sosuke as they dove for the door and burst through it. The chill of early November air struck his face, and its implication of freedom was one of the best feelings of his life.
But there was one more thing to do. Thinking quickly, Kenta broke away from the group and made a dash to the right and down the first ally. Behind him, the sounds of sirens were approaching, and he hastened to get his deed finished. Pulling a Luxury Ball from his pocket, he gave it a light toss out in front of him. In a burst of light energy, a creature with the appearance of a shell on four legs stood before him, teething on something in its mouth. Kenta reached back into his pocket and pulled out the Master Ball he’d been given ten minutes previously, and held it in front of the Shelgon on the ground.
“Bolt, spit that out. I have something else you need to hold now.”
The shell dragon coughed a grayish-blue stone with a dotted pattern into his hand; an Everstone. Kenta knelt down and held the Master Ball out for Bolt to take, when he heard rapid footsteps approaching from behind. Standing up and turning around, he found himself at gunpoint as Saishi glowered at him with trembling limbs. “You dirty pig,” she spat, “I knew you just wanted that ball for yourself! Give it back to me this instant, or I swear to the gods I will pull this trigger and blow your head wide open.”
Kenta looked at her, and at the pistol in her shaking hands, and took a deep breath to compose himself. “If you shoot me,” he warned, “my Shelgon will shatter your Master Ball between his teeth. He knows Crunch; he’s more than capable of doing it.”
“I see. Then I’ll have to shoot him first.”
“Bad idea.” Kenta stiffened, bending his knees in preparation to make any necessary sudden moves. “I’ve taught him Protect also, for exactly this kind of reason.” His eyes narrowed. “And if you do shoot him, I will break your neck with my bare hands, even if it’s in full sight of the whole police force. Nobody threatens my pokémon’s life.”
The two of them stood there in the alley staring one another down, while in the background patrol cars screeched to a halt and police could be heard shouting to one another as they charged the Silph building. Kenta glanced behind him at his Shelgon, who was still standing dutifully awaiting orders. “Bolt,” he muttered, “go hide in the bushes back there. Do not let this maniac hit you. She’s already killed one person.”
Bolt blinked to show he understood, and twisted around, ducking into the undergrowth. Kenta turned back to Saishi, smiling grimly. “I’d put that gun down if I were you,” he muttered, so that only she would hear. “If any of my force happens to see you holding an officer up, you’ll be off to prison just like the people you betrayed.”
Saishi smiled back, nastily. “That’s what you think.”
Turning, she waved her hand at one of the patrol cars, shoving the gun hastily under her shirt. “Captain Arcada! Over here, over here, quickly!”
Kenta’s stomach leaped at the name of his captain being mentioned. From around the corner of the Silph building, he could just make out Captain Wester Arcada approaching him with two deputies at his heels. “Go take the building!” Kenta heard him command the other two. “I’ll be fine. Report back in five minutes!”
“Captain,” blurted Kenta hastily as Arcada marched up behind Saishi. “Be careful, she’s got a gun!”
“He has the Master Ball,” said Saishi even more quickly, turning to Arcada and pointing at Kenta. “Thank goodness you’re here, tell him to hand it over!”
Kenta’s heart rammed even faster as Arcada took his eyes off Saishi and focused his full attention on him. “Kenta!” said the captain loudly and passionately, looking at him in surprise. “You have it? Good work, my boy, excellent . . . I’ll take over possession of it now. We have to get it out of here before things get any worse on this block!”
For a moment, Kenta considered calling Bolt out of the brush to deliver the precious ball over to his superior officer. After all, it was his civic duty, and it came as a natural impulse. But something was holding him back, and it wasn’t just his own wish to see the Master Ball gone, either. The air between Captain Arcada and Ms. Saishi lacked the usual hostility of absolute police authority over lawbreaking civilian. Rather, it was as if police captain and Silph conspirator were actually cooperating. He stared at them for a moment, hesitating, then made up his mind and sealed his fate.
“Captain,” he said in a reasoning, but insistent tone, “that woman was going to shoot me. She almost did, just now!”
“That’s not important at the moment,” answered Arcadia impatiently. “Right now, what’s important is-”
“Not important?” demanded Kenta incredulously. “How can you say that? Don’t you care if I live or die?!”
“Ms. Saishi’s knowledge, and the Master Ball’s power, can affect the world more than one cop’s actions ever could,” said Arcada sternly. “You did your duty, in seeing both safely out of Silph Corporation. Now it’s time to move on!”
“Wha-?” Kenta stared at him, shocked, and his brain clicked. “Wait . . . how did you know I was guarding her? I didn’t mention anything about that over the phone!”
Arcada looked taken aback, then resumed his stern face. This time, however, there was some pity in his voice, similar to how he’d sounded when he’d called Kenta at the stadium. “I’m sorry, Kenta,” he said sadly. “I couldn’t let you know anything. It might have affected Ms. Saishi’s safety.”
“What?”
“You can tell him later!” Saishi growled irately, her hand hovering over her shirt at the place where she’d stored her gun. “Just order him to give you the ball!”
“No!” shouted Kenta, unwilling to let Arcada’s explanation be cut off. “I need to hear this! Continue!”
Arcada swallowed, then picked up as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “We suspected for a while that Silph was planning to make illegal and unregistered Master Balls, to sell on the black market to bitter trainers affected by G.R.I.P.’s new policies on pokémon training. The timing would’ve been just right. But we couldn’t find any incriminating evidence against the corporation, even when Ms. Saishi tipped us off. Therefore, we had no warrant for storming and take the building. So she agreed to feed information to one of our inspection teams while they were still inside the building, so that we’d have grounds for making arrests. In return, however, we had to offer her protection, so that her fellows wouldn’t kill her before we could get her out of the building.
“That’s where you come in, Kenta. Your rank isn’t that great since you haven’t been with the force long, but the records reveal your prestige as a pokémon trainer. You and Lieutenant Shen were to be led blindly into Ms. Saishi’s presence, so that you could escort her back out of the building when she freed you again.” Arcada lowered his head in apology. “We couldn’t tell you, or you might not have acted your part right. I hope you will forgive me for being secretive. It was for a good cause.”
Kenta didn’t know how he took it all in. He felt he shouldn’t have been able to swallow Arcada’s words. Who could have accepted such an explanation so willingly?
Someone who’s been suspicious of his government all along, that’s who. This isn’t shocking news, it’s goddamn vindication!
“Captain,” he said slowly, angrily, through his teeth. “You’d make a horrendous pokémon trainer.” He glared at his commanding officer. “Do you have any idea how alone I felt back there?! A good team doesn’t keep secrets. They think, and act, as one!" He pointed insistently to himself. “I joined this force because Silhouette was the most honest professional organization I could think of. I thought we were an absolute good in Japan. But how can I think that now . . .” He turned his glare to Saishi. “When you’ve just casually brushed off the fact that this woman was going to murder me?”
Arcada sighed and closed his eyes, then shook his head wearily. Reaching behind him, he pulled out his pistol and clicked it into loaded position. “You’re too naïve,” he said softly, then pointed the gun at Kenta’s leg. “Now,” he bellowed, with much more force than before, “Enough with this insubordination! Stand down and deliver the Master Ball. This is an order, Sergeant Nyna!”
Kenta looked at him miserably, feeling betrayed, but not freshly betrayed. “I suppose you’re not going to admit you want the Master Ball for your own power either,” he murmured, turning away from his captain. “One way or another, you’ll have it for yourselves.” He tensed his body. “But I won’t be the one to give it to you!”
Barely understanding what he was doing, moving on pure instinct, Kenta tore off down the alley for the bushes at the end. Behind him, he heard a scream of fury from Saishi. “No! My Master Ball! I won’t let you get away!”
Then he heard a gunshot, and his mind registered excruciating pain in both his lower back and his stomach, on the right side of his body. Falling forward, but unable to do anything about it from shock, his upper torso crashed through the branches and leaves of the bushes, while his legs and feet remained visible on the outside. As his blood began to pool out from under the bush’s leaves, Arcada and Saishi looked at each other in horror.
“You shot him.”
“It had to be done.”
“What if he’s dead?”
“Then one of the Silph executives killed him.”
“ . . . . . . . . . hey, look at tha-!”
Bolt blasted out of the bushes at the two humans, a great blue blur, and smashed past both of them with his mighty Salamence wings extended. Arcada and Saishi were unconscious in a second’s time, and their bodies were thrown backwards out of the alley and onto the sidewalk outside of the Silph Corporation building. Wheeling around and rushing back with a clap of his wings, Bolt returned to his alley and snatched Kenta up in his teeth. Holding him by the back of his uniform, the Salamence hauled his wounded trainer onto his back, then took off once more. Hovering through the lower allies of Saffron City at eighty miles an hour, Bolt finally increased altitude at city limits and soared eastward, with the sun at his back.