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[attr="class","textbox"]What was with the dream mist and making him fight Darkrai?[break][break]

As much as he'd like to argue that he was actually a pessimist, this was much more important. The longer Darkrai stayed active, the more dangerous it would become. Dreams were its main weapon, and right now it was lording over a personal playground full of them.[break][break]

"If we had a Dream Eater or a Musharna on us, we'd be able to chip away at its ammo," Isaac said. "If we don't, then we're gonna have to overwhelm it instead. Put up so much nonsense white noise that it'll have no shot at grabbing anything good out of our subconscious."[break][break]

Ferrus Manus hit the field. The Iron Hands, currently having the weirdest sense of deja vu, shot Isaac a puzzled look. "No, buddy, we're not back in the sim. But this isn't the real deal, either. Things're about to get a little weird." The Iron Hands nodded, settling into a fighting stance. It was all the same to him.[break][break]

"If it's not using dreams, it's sticking to the shadows. Far as legends go, it isn't the toughest fighter. But actually landing a hit on it's another story, and an ambush from those claws hurts like hell." Phantom pains screamed along Isaac's body as he remembered being impaled by it, Ferrus' Belly Drum turned against the two of them in an act of Foul Play.[break][break]

"In the sims, it took a sacrifice play for me to even land a hit. Once I got it in the eyes, the rest of the team had it handled. But in real life, I know that'd feel a lot less like a win. We gotta find a way to slow it down or throw it off its game before we're desperate enough to get to that point."[break][break]

It seemed even Isaac could learn sometimes.

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[attr="class","textbox"]"Oh."[break][break]

When some people asked how to approach a situation, they were asking how to get down to business and tackle it. In Kyle's case, surrounded by the enemy as they were, he quite literally meant how to approach it. A slight blush dusted across Isaac's cheeks as he realized his mistake.[break][break]

There were no easy answers here. Slow but careful, quick and risky, and mass destruction were the three options Kyle brought to the table. "Something tells me if we bulldoze through the city, we're gonna piss a lot of people off," he said. "Rocket's one thing. They signed up for this. But the people that still call this place home . . ."[break][break]

How long would Sootopolis stay under Rocket control? How long would it take for liberation to become some unwanted interference? How many had already given up on it? If they handled it wrong, would their efforts at fighting to reclaim the city only make things harder for its people?[break][break]

"We can't do that to them. If we do this, we need to do it right."[break][break]

Vwhat was right, then? A slow, careful approach with plenty of chances to go wrong? Or a blitz that would get them all killed before they could even approach Walsh? At both of these, Isaac shook his head. "In a perfect world I'd call for backup. But if there's no choice, and we gotta army of two it . . ."[break][break]

"I think we go silent but deadly." Dense masses of buildings. Sprawling salt cliffs. Alleys, tunnels, canals. The place was a maze, and Rocket couldn't have eyes everywhere at once. "Slip through the path of least resistance. Only fight when we need to, but make it quick and make it quiet. Our best chance of landing a shot's if they don't see us coming, and if we wear ourselves down too soon we'll be easy pickings."[break][break]

"And if we gotta get somewhere in a flash?" Isaac's answer of running seemed comical . . . at least, of course, until his body unfurled into a breeze that trailed several laps around Kyle. After returning to normal and sliding to a halt, he looked quite proud of himself. "I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."

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[attr="class","textbox"]"Then hold onto your guts, 'cause it's gonna get bumpy." A confident smirk and a clasp on the shoulder were Kyle's only warnings before the world around them got breezy.[break][break]

Isaac was no longer there. At least, he wasn't physically. However, the way the winds curled around his shoulder were almost identical to the hold Isaac had on him. His physical form had unraveled enitrely into wind, and now said wind was carrying Hoenn's champion along in its wake.[break][break]

Like this, they were well hidden. Were Isaac alone, he would be completely invisible. With a passenger, he needed to be a bit more careful. The winds sheltered Kyle best they could, protecting him from sight and harm as Isaac steered them from alleyway to alleyway. By the time any sentries peeked at these under-used side entrances, all that remained was the howling of the wind.[break][break]

Sometimes he traveled lower, skirting across the canals and lakes that most land dwellers could never hope to traverse unaided. At other times, he went higher, sailing over the heads of sentries left none the wiser. All the while, he kept to darker corners and off-beaten paths, refusing to let anyone catch so much as a glimpse of the champion in his undertow.[break][break]

Were this a one man show, how quickly could he have crossed Sootopolis?[break][break]

It was a building at the outskirts of the Rocket facility where Isaac finally drew to a halt. Every instinct wanted to get up and stretch his legs, but he forced himself to stay prone. He could handle the flips to his stomach later. "We're at an underhang, so there shouldn't be any eyes in the skies on us," Isaac whispered.[break][break]

If Darkrai hung idle in the skies instead of fighting, some plan had to be brewing. Isaac watched curiously for any sign of movement. "You wanna listen in, hear if they're planning something? Or do you just wanna kick things off?"

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[attr="class","textbox"]"Oh. Right." This wasn't Declan Walsh, grand high poobah of Rocket, conveniently positioned for Isaac to finally get his just desserts against. This was a figment of Declan Walsh, born from him and Kyle's memories and desires, standing around like a raid boss who hadn't been engaged. "Guess I got a little swept up in my role there."[break][break]

He always had wanted to be an actor.[break][break]

Kyle's advice wasn't about the fictional spy games he and Isaac were playing here. They were about the real war currently hanging in the balance. It was true. Isaac did have some information worth sharing, though not as much as a genuine Rocket higher up. However, he also had a lot of identities pertaining to people he cared about, who didn't deserve the full extent of the League's boot on their neck.[break][break]

Could he find a way to speak up while still protecting them?[break][braek]

Too late. Kyle wouldn't let him think about it. Of course he wouldn't. Was it intentional? Or was it just more of Kyle's hastiness at work? For the life of him, Isaac couldn't tell. He released Reverb and Ferrus Manus from their Pokeballs once more, taking advantage of Kyle's explosive emergence to prepare from afar.[break][break]

Ferrus' hands rained down on his body, his Belly Drum overclocking his servos to their very limits. All the while, Reverb clambered onto his back, his Telepathy picking up on the thoughts of the Rockets below. The second the proper amount of panic registered in the empath's mind's eye, they disappeared without a trace.[break][break]

In the blink of an eye, Ferrus appeared over Darkrai, bringing his fists down in a heavy Drain Punch. This may have been Isaac's only chance to get a good strike in, so he could only hope Ferrus' pure power would make it count. Soon, in the confusion of the battlefield, Darkrai could get up to its usual trickery, leaving him and Kyle with a hell of a mess to clean up.[break][break]

Luckily, they wouldn't be the only ones dealing with the chaos today. Mist rolled in from all sides, safeguarding Isaac and Kyle's teams while leaving their Rocket foes hard-pressed to see. While Isaac may have fallen back on his old reliables for this plan, the familiar pressure next to him was unmistakable. "Followed us here, huh, buddy?" Isaac asked, Suicune answering with a nod.[break][break]

"Good. Couldn't let you miss the fun." A Surf wave stretched down from the rooftops before flashing freezing, forming a perfect ramp down into the mists. Standing side by side, Isaac and Suicune slid down the makeshift half-pipe before rushing into the fray in earnest.[break][break]

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[attr="class","textbox"]It'd never be this easy in reality, but Isaac didn't care. For the second time, Ferrus had Darkrai compressed like a car in a junkyard between his massive fingers. For the first time, Declan Walsh had been held at knifepoint just the way he deserved.[break][break]

Now Kyle asked him how the last chapter in this little fairy tale would go.[break][break]

For a moment, Isaac thought about the lives that Team Rocket had ended, whether through death, through enslavement, through horrors far worse. This was the man who let unspeakable things happen to Caleb Harcourt. This was the man who broke Ashley Shepard. This was the man who branded jayden cross, all while he thanked him for the privilege. This was the man who stopped Cillian Quinn from being free.[break][break]

Raged, born from those he stood beside and those he only wished he could carry forward, pounded through his veins. The dream mists swirled behind him, the blackened roots of the shadow of death piercing through their vivid pink hue. A thousand and one unspeakable, unthinkable fates awaited Walsh, every trauma he had put Hoenn through returned a thousandfold.[break][break]

High in the sky, a blue aurora sliced through the pall. Isaac stepped out from death's shadow, Suicune stepping behind him to further force it back. This wasn't them. It didn't have to be. They were stronger than this, better than this, any last shadowy tendrils withering and falling off in Suicune's calming light.[break][break]

"We bring him to justice, like anyone else." Sygna Suits blocked all other sources of Infinity Energy. Could those be repurposed into a shackle of sorts, to ensure he couldn't escape? The concept drifted around in the mists behind Isaac, but he paid it no conscious mind. "His crimes speak for themselves. The region, the world, deserves to hear them. If we kill him now, he just becomes a martyr."[break][break]

Maybe only to the most crazed and devoted Rockets, who were past the point of ever being reached. Only the lowest of the low and most willfully deluded were ignorant of what their own organization had done. However, for those on the fence, the ignorant, the hopeful, the outright desperate, the true extent of the harm Rocket caused needed to come to light.[break][break]

"In a perfect world, this would be where Rocket surrenders. But, Walsh wasn't their first boss, and he's sure as hell not going to be their last." Cil was more than enough of a diehard to take up the fight in his stead. What of Zev Harcourt? Arceus knows the power and control would be irresistible. "But many of them stay because they feel like there's no other option. If they see even their boss can't keep his foot on their neck anymore, if we can keep them safe from him and everyone else . . ."[break][break]

Maybe the lost and the damned would finally have a chance.

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[attr="class","textbox"]"No sweat. I'm used to it." Greyson Connors and Gunner Graves had sure as hell put him through his paces. On the other side, Aurelie Lefevre, Tempest Quinn, and especially bryan delarosa had been similarly unconvinced. Even those he held close knew he could be kinda crazy. He was pretty sure half of the region thought he was a crazy visionary, and the other half thought he was crazy and dangerous.[break][break]

At least Suicune believed in him enough for the two to join forces. They'd prove themselves to the world, just as they had today.[break][break]

Just one problem; while they'd won their imaginary mission in dreamland, they'd failed at the mission they actually set out to accomplish today. "Oops. Guess we got a little carried away, huh?" he said. The trio of Pokemon he had, including a paradox and a legend, seemed overkill for the Literal Fucking Nothing they fought along the way. "Ah well, totes worth it."[break][break]

Kyle, who wasn't about to march onto the battlefield looking like he wet himself, clearly disagreed. Even now, the Hoenn champ amazed and befuddled Isaac.[break][break]

"Me?" Isaac looked to Ferrus Manus, who was peering at the wisps of dream smoke peering through his fingers. He looked to Reverb, who tiredly teleported to flop back onto his shoulders. He looked to Suicune, who simply looked back at him with kind, patient eyes. Their answer was clear; what happened next was in Isaac's hands now.[break][break]

"I think I'm gonna hit the battlefield again. See if I can find anyone else in need of a helping hand." A great, blue horizon stretched out before him. Even past this war, there was so much left for him to explore. "Thanks for all this. You're giving me a lot to think about."[break][break]

He flashed Kyle a lighthearted wave and a cheeky grin. Then, in but a few footsteps, he and Suicune were gone with the wind.