{ === + === }

[3rd Person Camera]

Sabine could not help but shake her head at the sheer jubilance exuded by Axel at the helm of his flying ship. "Somebody wipe that grin off of his face already." She said, annoyed (with crossed arms, too).

Sabine has been sitting on the floor next to the small cabin that currently acted as the helm of the ship with Axel inside it. She briefly lamented the lack of chairs and the increasing soreness of her butt.

"He's only been grinning like a maniac for thirty minutes." Anna points out. "Let him have his fun."

For the past thirty minutes Anna has been running back and forth on the ship's deck, enjoying the air whipping her hair about.

Elenda stretches her arm upwards and feels the wind blow through her fingers. "Isn't this incredibly unsafe?" She can't help but ask.

"The ship's upper deck is shielded against wind effects." AZ explains. "Though the shield is not as effective now as before, it should provide ample protection for our small group."

"In other words, no jumping around." Sabine puts a hand on Anna's shoulder just before the younger girl was about to test the theory (with possibly fatal side effects). "Yo! Axel! How fast are we flying?"

"We are cruising towards Lumiose at the speed of 160 knots." Axel replies with his voice full of that annoying jubilation. "I have no idea how fast that is."

For the record, it's a little faster than 185 mph, or slightly slower than 300 kph, or slightly faster than your average aircraft's maximum takeoff speed.

"And he's piloting the thing." Sabine sighs.

"I feel like you should be more excited by this." Anna notes. "We're flying!"

Sabine raises an eyebrow. "You've never flown before?"

"Not on a ship, no." Anna rolls her eyes. "c'mon! Show a little life!"

"Sab doesn't show life, just disdain." Nicole quips idly (while examining her nails for maximum effect). "It's a calling card of hers."

"You be quiet." Sabine grumbles at her friend. "This is cool, don't get me wrong, but aren't you forgetting what we're trying to do?"

"Pretty sure none of us forgot, Sab." Axel replies from the helm. "But I've talked to the ship and with the current engine states as they are this is as fast as we can go."

"That's great, but I'm talking about why you won't stop grinning." Sabine replies dully.

"I have a fucking airship Sab." Axel replied quickly, his dumbass grin not giving an inch.

"I realize that." Sab replies as quickly, her deadpan expression also not giving an inch.

"There's no other reason for my happiness beyond how amazing this is Sab."

"I realize that. I still think you're a little bit crazy."

"Is this how relationships start?" Anna asks curiously (with full understanding of what she's implying).

Elenda has a slight smile. "It's how all of her relationships started: crashing and burning."

"Can we not use that phrase in our current position?" Axel asks politely. "We're flying an antique."

"Antique it may be, but our engineering will always be unsurpassed." AZ reminds him out of pride. "It will not crash simply because fate wills it."

"Fucking hell." Axel growls. "It's gonna crash now, just watch."

So everyone did.

And then the ship flew normally, so nobody cared.

…

[1st Person Camera]

…

This is the simultaneously the most awesome and the most harrowing fucking thing I think I've ever had the balls to do.

It's awesome because I'm flying a fucking ship (with computer support).

It's terrifying because somebody sometime in the past few millennia has seen fit to install this massive steel sheet on the front nose of the ship, which I GUESS protects the ship from incoming ballistic fire (with the resulting bullets bouncing into the observation post, among other things)…but the biggest offender to this steel monstrosity is the fact that it obscures my vision of the horizon and none of the instruments are working.

Correction: you know nothing about how those instruments are supposed to work.

...well…yeah…but still.

And Xirasol is doing all the flying and attitude adjustment, not you.

I'm helping.

In the same way that a forest ranger could use a packet of sand, yes.

…Maybe we should avoid making fire based analogies given we're about to go rush and help to put out a fire.

Speaking of, how is the fire?

Well, when we got free of the underground and appeared in the sky at 30,000 feet (which, by the way, is amazingly horrifying) the girls' phones reconnected, so we gleaned that Lumiose is in super dupe ultra big tro nah. It IS bad, but it's definitely not apocalypse bad.

By the sounds of it (local news), the start of the attack was around twenty fires in Lumiose and an approximate attack number of roughly 2500 Team Plasma members.

What?

Modern terrorist/political agitations can be massive, man…for reference, Lumiose's population is hovering at around 1.8 million or so.

We learned that by asking Anna who googled it for us. Also, Modern day Paris's population is 2.2 million, also after a quick googling.

So anyways the Plasmas started setting fires and making things blow up and shit (this is about fifteen minutes ago) and…ok, tangent time.

Cities with gyms? They tend to have large concentrations of trainers.

Cities with League Associated Gyms? They tend to have large concentrations of bloodthirsty trainers.

Tangent over. Short version: When things exploded there was about thirty seconds of panic before the league-bound trainers got their heads together and suddenly it was around 10000 Plasma units (Trainer + Pokemon) against approximately 150000 Trainer (elite/not) units.

…To be fair to the Plasmas, as they were more "Pokemon Adventures" type and less "Videogame" type, they had more at their disposal than…whatever the fuck Plasma grunts had in Black and White.

SO it was actually a disconcertingly one sided battle with the 150000 losing. Last I saw Plasma had brought out big guns (some Metagross, maybe a dozen Goodras, and a disturbingly high amount of Magmortar and Charizards).

Now, that was fifteen minutes ago so the situation is now more under control, especially after the Rangers showed up and skillfully cleaned the streets with aerial hyperbeam strafes…

Also, as an aside? The Pokemon world does in fact have conventional fighter jets, as we found out about ten minutes into our escapade into the air. Fortunately, we were able to convince the fighters "please don't kill us because we have an awesome flying ship". It worked (or I wouldn't be talking about it) but it was still surprising. They're still tailing us at a higher altitude though.

We're at around 5000 feet. The fighters are around 5500 and scissoring over our heads since they can't maneuver at our speed.

Also as an aside, those fighters are taken to the air only against material targets (other jet fighters, rough air liners, satellites) and never Pokemon. They do have doctrines for self-defense though, so it's not as if people can just randomly attack them or anything…also, the fighters scrambled against us resemble Rafales, which is nice. I like the Gripen more though.

So, back to the story. The Rangers showed up and cleaned the streets and attracted Plasma's attention. Plasma responded with Talonflames and turned the skies over Lumiose into a massive dogfight.

Sadly, by the time we reach there (which Xira estimates will take us another 45 minutes) the air battle will have ended, so I can't have my ace combat high…but eh, it's better than being shot out of the sky.

With the rangers occupying the plasma air, the trainers on the ground had fun mopping up, so they're now chasing Plasma through the streets, picking them off one by one as the Plasma members continue to increase the amount of city real estate being set on fire.

…kind of wish we got the jump on them instead, but play the hand you're dealt and all that…

# () = {60, 4}#

…?

60, 4…so sixty degrees clockwise, that's my right…and then four targets?

"Anna? Are there Rangers coming in from our right?" I call out.

"Huh?" Anna (still on call with her sister who's doing backline support). "Hey, sis?"

…

I can't hear the exact contents of that phone call but by judging by the increasingly soothing tone of Anna's voice I assume we're about to be in some deep shit.

();

# () = false#

Not that surprised.

"We got company!" I yell as the panels start beeping. I assume it's a threat receiver of some kind…xira's analysis? "Four bogeys to our right!"

Sabine scans the horizon with her not-nearsighted eyes. "I see them." She calls out after a fashion. "Two Flygons and two Swellows!"

…Damn those are some good eyes. I just see smudges.

I need combat advice. "What do we do, Az?"

"We fight." Az calls out his Magmortar. "Get ready."

I…I was looking for something a bit more substantial Az.

Hmm. Let's take a second and think this over.

Enemies closing, eta 2 minutes.

Currently we're pretty damn close to our top speed, and those fliers are coming in at faster than we are. I don't know what the top speed of a Flygon is and I'm not interested in burning out my remaining two engines to find out.

So. (70);

(); Keep us on the current path, buddy.

#done#

…

"Why are we slowing down?" Elenda demands of me when I leave the bridge.

"We're fighting." I reply evenly. "I don't want them targeting the engines."

Unleash the Eevees! And everybody else, kinda.

We address our army.

"Everyone, we got an air battle on our hands."

The Eevees bark in happiness.

"I don't want any of you jumping off of the ship-" HeroVee stops an Eevee from trying precisely that "-so as of this moment you are now all cleared to use your evolved forms as you please."

Instantly all of the Eevees besides HeroVee transform into Vaporeons.

HeroVee herself…uh…a Jolteon? That is the most un-Jolteon looking Jolteon I think I've ever seen.

"It's typing is Electric/Flying? What the heck?" Nicole had pulled out her dex to prep for the battle and had received a 'new Pokemon detected' notice.

Also: "What?"

"It's Electric Flying." Nicole repeats with some surprise. "It's a mega evolution?"

Right now, HeroVee looks fundamentally like a Jolteon…but she has comparatively stronger-looking legs, a more streamlined body, and streamer-like strands of fur that run from her shoulders to waay behind her rear.

Interesting.

DoubleVee, what's this about?

HeroVee looks rather confused at her new and hopefully temporary appearance.

Your Eevee's adaptability is quite superb, Axel. DoubleVee sounds…odd. Whatever he means he's definitely not praising us. She has gained a secondary type due to her fluid genetic makeup.

…So…

So, she gained a second typing. Pay attention.

Eta of attack 15 seconds.

In other words, HeroVee is now Normal/Normal?

If it makes it easier for you to understand.

Huh. So how did she turn into Flying?

Eta of attack: 10 seconds.

Is it because we're flying now?

Eta of attack: 0 seconds

Wait what

One of the Flygons breath Dragonfire at the ship and strike the plating.

Ok yeah they're shooting at us

"Eevee swarm! Ice beams!" I yell out and watch the Vaporeons jump to a better vantage point and oh my god this is bad for my heart and fire beam after beam at the Flygons.

Said Flygons practice evasive maneuvers against the quad effective beams and the Vaporeons land no hits.

"I don't like not being able to go toe to toe." Sabine grumbles with her two Mightyenas using a combo of Dark Pulse and Incinerate to kind of sort of maybe try and hit air targets.

"You think you have it bad." Anna…has no anti-air whatsoever and so she's stuck guiding my Vaporeons and also making sure none of them take the leap of faith.

Az doesn't complain and his Magmortar nails one of the Flygons in the wing, causing it to drastically lose speed and fall behind. The two Swellows (possibly in retaliation) swoop onto and cut through the airspace with their wings.

Elenda's Sandslash rolled itself into a ball and threw itself into the flight path of Swellow number one, causing the bird to veer wildly into Anna's Mienshao. Said Mienshao then immediately beat the bejesus out of the bird after pinning its wings to the deck of the ship.

The second Swellow was caught by Storm's blanket of Thunder Waves and lost quite a lot of its speed. In response, the bird pulled up and away from the ship…until Lightning!HeroVee shot after it like a thunderclap, snagged it with her mouth (I assume) and then slammed it back down onto the ship's deck.

…She might have broken its neck. Wow.

HeroVee pumps one jolt of electricity into the bird and tosses it away, where the change in speed between it and the ship meant the bird sailed below and away from our line of sight.

I do think she actually killed it.

The last Flygon makes one final pass at the ship's rear with its Dragonbreath and separate from the ship.

"What was that all about?" Elenda asks rhetorically while spraying a potion on the remaining Swellow.

While her Sandslash and Mienshao stare in the background.

The Swellow stood up, screeched at Elenda, saw the two bodyguards, shut up midscreech, and sulkily Roosted on the ground.

Elenda pets it in satisfaction and the bird briefly considers ripping her hand off (probably).

Ah!

We call out our Espurr.

"You look like you had some flash of brilliance." Sabine…the way she said makes me think she was being sarcastic.

I nod. "Yeah, I figured I'll pump the bird for a little info."

The Swellow glares at me as the Espurr putters into place in front of the bird. It then puts its little stubby paws on the bird and channels psychic powers through its ears.

It also gives the data feedback into our head, which is then shared with DoubleVee and (presumably) Az.

…Interesting.

Quite.

So the attacking group is…a Ranger affiliated autonomous group.

A-Laws?

Not…well, that's not exactly wrong, but they're closer to what the player of a Pokemon game would be…and that would make them very similar to us.

In other words…

They are a group that travels around Kalos doing jobs that Rangers either don't have the political capital or the manpower to do (i.e. jumping into a Team Plasma Warehouse: Rangers can't enter without a search warrant but some dude with a Dugtrio can just pop it and be like "oh hey guys what evil are you up to today).

That brings up some uncomfortable questions involving trespassing and legal liability, but I'm not a law student so it's not my problem. Also. "Can we contact the fighters guarding us?"

"Why?" Sabine asks (while letting Nana and Popo know).

"They need to talk to the douche on the Flygon and tell him we're not an enemy faction."

"I'm not sure if that's the best way to put it." Elenda remarks as Sabine does the contacting business.

Why her?

Sabine knows Pokemon Morse Code.

…

Sabine's first message goes through and one of the fighters comes down to our altitude.

Sabine then sends a second message, one which the fighter replies to via one of its lights going blinky blinky.

…

"Ok, they're in communications with the other group." Sabine summarizes after the fighter going blinky blinky pulls up.

You need a more professional description.

It works, doesn't it? Either way, I hope that means we're both a. not going to be attacked any more (at least not as an accident) and b. not going to pay for the likely death of that Swellow.

…

After another five minutes, a team of Pidgeots led by Anna's sister arrived on scene.

"This is so damn cool." Anna sister said about the kickass airship.

Also, note to self: install carrier catapult for bird Pokemon.

Given that their squadron (of four) arrived with nothing to do, they opted to stay onboard while we carried them to Lumiose.

Where did they come from?

Northwest, so…Shalur? Or however you spell it. As such, they're using this ship to resupply their birds (read: feed them berries) while we make that last leg.

As a side note: all of them are super stoked about having an air-based carrier to take off from.

…

So while we're waiting, let's take the moment to examine the now kind-of-normal HeroVee.

I beckon for HeroVee, sit on the ground, and take out my brush. HeroVee obediently comes over and ow that's static electricity.

Lessee…compared to a normal Eevee, HeroVee is now…what, bigger?

We grab one of the other Eevees that has swarmed around us to make a size check.

Yeah, she's about half a head higher and…a little bit longer. Her fur is also way more disorganized than before (though it may just be a result of the electricity) and there are long strands of fur that extends from her ears to her rear legs.

Side note: those streamers actively cause her to trip.

"In your professional opinion," I ask Anna's sister (who's observing curiously). "Is she about to evolve into a Sylveon?"

"Because of these?" She brushes HeroVee's streamer-like fur. "I don't think so? Pokemon that evolve through outside influences tend to avoid developing pre-evolution features."

…Um.

Elenda dumbs it down for us. "In other words, Pokemon like Eevees, Magnezones, [Nosepass's Evolution] and Kirlia won't grow into their evolution forms. They store energy and release it in one burst when they evolve."

Magnezone and [Nosepass's Evolution] I can understand, since they evolve through exposure to magnetism or some stuff…but "Kirlia? Really?"

"Uh-huh." Anna nods. "Kirlia's a psychic type, so it requires a link to a psychically active trainer along with a strong emotional burst to evolve."

Her bigger sister looks at her with the type of surprise that says 'wow, I can't believe you paid attention.'

"So unlike something like a Drowzee which…uh." Anna lost track.

"Drowzees will start to grow fur when they're about to evolve." Her sister adds.

Anna huffs. "I knew that. Kirlias don't do that though. They just go boom and evolve."

"And here I thought you actually learned something." Her sister sighs. "But the general explanation is correct."

Interesting, I guess…so Kirlia trainers will only get them to evolve if they're in mortal peril or something?

The things you do for a waifu?

…ew. "So what happens when a Kirlia wants to evolve into a Gallade?"

"They hold on to a Dawn Stone." Anna replies quickly. "The energy of the stone interferes with their evolution given the correct conditions."

Judging by the eyerolling of the older sister, she may not have been entirely accurate.

…

So how does this relate to our Eevee?

It explains that our Eevee has obtained an environmental adaptation that changed its typing.

…I guess. I wonder if that means she can turn into other types?

We'll have plenty of time to find out in the future. Now look alive.

"I see it!" Elenda sudden shouts. "Oh…geez."

We jump to our feet and wince in pain because HeroVee complained about our sudden elevation change via digging her claws into our clothing.

We remove the now larger Eevee and set her on our shoulder.

Let's see here…

Lumiose looks like it's been bombed to hell. Smoke is everywhere, there are fires raging all over the city…there are aerial combatants over the city landscape and around its outskirts…

…I feel like I need to put in the disclaimer here that we're talking about a Real Fuckin' City, the kind that takes you half an hour to drive from one end to the other at 60 miles an hour.

"Can't be less than a few thousand casualties down there." Anna's sister growls then reaches for her radio. "Command, this is 104 arriving on a civilian air support platform; we're going to ingress into the operation area at top speed, over."

There was a click and what sounds like confused silence on the other end.

"Command to 104, we hear you, over." The guy on the other end said, still sounding supremely confused. "You're cleared to engage at will."

"104 Copies." Anna's sister replies as her flight gets ready to leave. "I'll be leaving a spare radio with the civilian cooperator, callsign—" she shoots a glance at me.

I get to decide? Sweet.

So we tell her.

She thinks on it for an instant and shrugs. "Callsign Sky Eye. Over."

"Roger that, 104, we acknowledge the civilian contractor." The guy on the other end replies. "Good luck and good hunting."

"104: thanks. Out." Anna's sister hops onto her Pidgeot. "Don't get my little sis hurt, you hear me?" She warns us.

…I would say 'no promises' but this seems like a supremely poor time for gallows humor. "You can count on me."

"I better." She grins evilly. "Ok…boys! We're taking off!"

Their Pidgeots propel themselves off of the ship's deck, invert and drop to gain speed, and zoom after the closest sighted enemy (I think it's a Talonflame).

Welp. "Sky Eye to Command, we're ready to assist however, just give us the word…over."

"Command copies." The other guy still sounds confused that we're a 'civilian air support platform.' "Assist with the firefighting effort as you are able. I'm patching you into the firefighter's network, over."

Huh. Neat.

FUCK

Our radio suddenly exploded with noise.

Much less neat.

"F99 here." Some gravelly dude (probably a dude) yells. "The fire jumped on us!"

"FC copies." A girl replies (Fire command?) "Sending the nearest logistics unit now."

"F99, roger! We're at the corner of 9th and VE! Don't keep us waiting!"

By now we turned the radio on at full blast so other people can hear it too.

"'Logistics' means they're a unit specialized in moving people from place to place." Anna explains. "While 'support' means we can be used as a base of operations."

Ah. "So a mobile support platform is pretty unusual, huh?"

She nods.

Elenda…is fiddling with a map on her phone. "9th and VE…that's not far from here." She says after nodding to herself. "We can get there before any logistics unit can." She adds.

Fuck yeah, we're doing it then. "Sky Eye to FC: we're en route to F99." I call into the radio. "El, guide me."

Elenda points to the general direction we need to head to.

"FC to Sky Eye, understood. Please hurry."

"F99 to FC, who the fuck is Sky Eye?!"

He doesn't sound too happy about all of this.

"We're the guys coming to save your ass." I reply…maybe way less diplomatically than intended.

"Yeah? you sure as hell don't sound like it." The guy on the other end growls.

"Keep your idiocy off the radio!" The girl handler snaps.

…so…

…should I radio in to say 'sorry' or not?

Probably not.

Yeah.

ANNNYWAYS

"So how are we going to get them up here?" Nicole asks when we arrive at the street corner in question and oh my god that's a shitton of fire.

First things first. "Guys? Vaporeon forms. Let's get some water down there."

Literally every building in this corner block (all of them medium offices of some kind) is burning. There're…two guys with bulky-looking yellow outfits and two Blastoise standing in the middle of the street, spraying water everywhJESUS

One of the cars parked next to a building just exploded.

I thought only gas cars did that. "Girls, tell my Eevees what to do." I order. "Sky Eye to F99, we're right above you."

"Right abov-holy shit."

You're daamn right.

Sabine says: "that stupid grin's back on his face again."

"FC, when did we get an aircraft carrier?" I hear F99 say in awe and I nod like 'yeah, this shit's mine.'

Even though we all know where it came from.

"Sky Eye to F99, this thing's pretty old, so you're going to have to jump."

Pause.

F99 gives us a very triumphant "Say no more." And we watch as the pair of Blastoise jet themselves up onto the top deck through use of their hydro pumps like water jets.

While we're doing this, the Vaporeons on deck have de-transformed to their normal Eevee forms and are entirely tuckered out. Before this they were spraying water everywhere, so we looked like a giant flying sprinkler.

ALSO

ALSO

OH MY GOD

OH MY GOD

OH. MY GOD.

So…explanation?

…no?

Alright then. As we all are aware firemen wear hats. In this case, the firemen are geared bulkily and have their firefighter helmets (the yellow ones that we tend to see on metropolis fire fighters). The firefighters also have shoulder Squirtles that also have said helmets…helmets that are just a little too big for the Squirtle's round heads and end up covering their eyes just a bit.

BUT WAIT

THERE'S MORE

The Blastoise also have those hats, but because of the differences in size the Blastoise fireman hat is barely big enough to be a snug little cap sitting between their pointy ears.

HOLY SHIT IT'S THE CUTEST THING EVER

If you're done?

Uh.

Where were we?

Blastoise jetted on board.

Oh. Yeah. that.

That's also impressive, because we're like twenty feet higher than the nearby ceilings.

Not as impressive as Hat Blastoise, though.

Sigh.

Anyways.

After we're done squealing over the Blastoise (and after the manly firefighter man finished squealing over the airship) we pulled up and away from the fire.

We then turn around (ish) and circle around the burning area so the Blastoises can spray down the buildings without worrying about having their handlers burn to death.

This continues for three minutes.

"F99 to FC, we're deploying a marker over our position, send gliders immediately before this entire neighborhood burns down." The grizzled man of a firefighter grunts. "over."

"FC roger, we're sending in gliders. Sky Eye, can they land at your position?"

Land…because we're a support unit so we have a landing strip? "Sky Eye affirms." I reply quickly. "We have landing space."

Unless you actually send in a bombardier or something, in which case it'll have to go home afterwards.

If we had a landing strip it'll still have to go home.

True.

…

We continue spraying water ineffectually at the rising fire (with more ground firefighter teams and volunteer trainers arriving every minute to help contain said fire) until we hear the radio go "S10 to F99, we're in position. Starting our run."

We then hear quacking, and look up.

A quad of Swannas soars overhead (overlooked by one trainer on an Altaria) and…rain over the fire area. I don't know what moves they're using.

Rain Dance, Icy Wind, Brine, and Mirror Move on each other in a cascading kind of way. As in: A uses Rain Dance, B mirrors A's Rain Dance while A then uses Icy Wind, C mirrors B's Rain Dance while B mirror's A's Icy Wind while A uses Brine, and so on.

I assume it's because Mirror Move saves energy or something?

When A has finished using all of its moves it switches to the back of the line to use Mirror Moves, so B takes its position as the chain leader.

"They can only do that because they have Leppa Juice." Elenda explains when she sees my confusion. "It's easier to use all the backup energy for one move than for four."

Huh.

"Pokemon metabolism is a legit major, Axel; it's actually pretty challenging." Sabine adds since Elenda actually didn't decrease my confusion any.

"I'll take your word for it." I reply…because let's face it biochem is fucking hard and I'm glad I'm not doing any of it

We watch the air force blanket the fire with water power and douse the fire in short order.

"S10 to…Sky Eye? That's a legit flying aircraft carrier. Requesting permission to land."

The happiness in her voice makes me happy. It's nice to know we're dealing with nerds.

"Sky Eye to S10, permission to land granted."

The five bird team land neatly on the deck.

"This feels more like a Destroyer than a carrier, now that we're getting a closer look." The Altaria Rider Lady remarks. "What a letdown."

I know she's joking. "What do you guys need to land for?"

"Juice refill." The lady replies seriously. "We'll be ready to take off again in a few minutes."

Good, I guess. "In that case…Sky Eye to FC, we'll flow to the next area as needed. Call us if you need us. out."

…

We spent the next four hours circling above Lumiose, gathering more firefighters and turning into a bigger flying sprinkler, with the occasional Swanna squadron coming in to land and re-juice before taking off again.

There's actually no reason I can see for them landing specifically on the ship besides, y'know, the novelty of landing on a flying ship. They can just land on any piece of open land (say, a road) and then refuel there without issue.

Also, I expected there to be a bigger hullabaloo about a flying ship.

To that, Nicole responds: "We had a massive crystal for a world-ending weapon not that long ago. You think this ship surprises us?"

Which…is true, but then I'm more surprised we simply weren't shot on sight.

Sabine's communication skills aside, that might be more due to strings being pulled behind the scenes.

True.

Anyways. Notable things not related to our ship that happened during those four hours:

One: Plasma attempted to use a group of Drifblim to…do something. I'm not sure what they were planning to do because the balloon Pokemons came up in front of our ship we rammed them (by accident).

Two: Plasma knocked out some of the city's power grid through judicious uses of Dig. That made our jobs harder as that act knocked out some of the non-Pokemon based firefighting equipment connected to the grid.

Three: Lumiose Policemen got sent after us sixteen times by hysterical civilians believing that we were going to bomb them to bits, and every time the Rangers have to go "no, that's a Ranger-affiliated asset, its friendly".

Four: Some trainers can be exceptionally savage when it comes to non-tournament based fighting. We saw a few instances where trainers who had Scythers or Bisharps went after the Plasma folk themselves.

Four point five: Team Plasma also had no problems using their fire on trainers either.

Five: Some weird green dog thing jumped on our ship and refused to leave.

Fatalities due to direct combat action tallied at around five hundred, with two civilian trainers dead for every one Plasma trainer.

Fatalities due to the fire were eventually tallied (two weeks from now) at around twenty thousand people. Lumiose, despite how bright and shiny it is, has a high building density with some rather old buildings that had been upgraded…by contractors that had workers belonging to team Plasma. So, though the biggest fires were around the bright and shiny commercial sectors (and arguably where most of our efforts were focused on) the most casualties were being sustained by the residential sectors.

…to be fair for team Plasma, none of them had intentionally attacked residential sectors in the first place; all of the fires in those areas were due to collateral damage.

…

So what happens to us?

Well, one, we all get a letter of commendation from the head of the Rangers (along with the rest of the trainers who decided to help out) and the mayor of Lumiose, and from the little kid Gym Leader whose name I have entirely forgotten.

We in particular were folded into the Rangers as one of their 'top secret' developmental plans to help safeguard the airship against it being stolen.

Like the real world, the Rangers have tons of conspiracy theories circling around them, so they just picked one of them and went 'yup, that one's kind of true, look here's the proof' and bam we have a legal airship.

Since we're now officially under Ranger command (and since the Rangers don't actually want the legal stipulations that came with, as they put it, a mobile weapons platform) we're still the captain of the ship, and have an 'anytime' contract with the Rangers in the event they needed said mobile weapons platform.

Also since we're officially under Ranger command, the Pokemon League gave us a blank check to repair and retrofit the ship as we see fit, with the caveat that League-associated technicians are allowed to look at the ship. After talking with Az, I agreed (though to be fair I don't think I was in a position to refuse in the first place).

So we're going to upgrade this baby into a functional luxury liner.

A what?

A luxury liner. We're going to use it to made oodles of money. The Rangers want to have a mobile base and plausible deniability on their ownership of combat weapons, so having it work as a civilian asset until needed is the best midway point.

Also, the Rangers are actually a separate entity from the Kalosian military. Also, there is a Kalosian military.

The League also gave us permission to fit a military grade fighter catapult onto the deck of the ship, in case any fighter belonging to a country within the Pokemon League (Kalos, Kanto, Johto, etc.) needed a place to land and takeoff on an operation.

Unfortunately the ship has serious length issues, so that's not going to work without seriously overhauling the hull…which we are doing.

…

HeroVee reverted back to her normal form. We don't really know what triggered the change (or the change back) but she's being kept under close supervision and out of combat. She doesn't like that very much.

Everyone else is being kept onboard, as this ship will functionally be our (my) home for the foreseeable future.

…

Do I sound pumped?

Because I'm pumped. I'm gonna fit a fucking pool in this thing. We're going to fly while drowning underwater. It's gonna be great.

…

EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

…

So, since the active mind has entirely forgotten…

The party at this point had to disband, as we were now in the public eye and thus could not move around to assist with Az and Lysandre's efforts.

Elenda continued on her path of League Challenging with Sabine (who took over our role as route guardian).

Az vanished halfway into our firefighting efforts and we never noticed. It turned out that DoubleVee placed a Light Screen around him so he could descend below deck and then sneak off the ship in one of the fifty times we skimmed a little too close to the ground.

Nicole went back to her day job. Not much to be said there.

…

I haven't forgotten, I just…didn't get around to mentioning them.

Suure. Anyways, how long will this retrofitting take?

The techies are estimating at least a year for rewiring, and another year for actual construction.

Better get started then.

Yep.

.

.

.

{ === + === }

Author Notes:

We're done! And here I thought it'd take me two chapters.

How much did you cut to remove an entire chapter?

Uh…not really what I'd call a 'satisfying' ending by any stretch of the imagination, but all I wanted to do was to wrap up this fic, not this storyline, so fuck it~

…truly, we are the pinnacle of responsibility. How long did the firefight section take?

…less.