Deadly alliance (Pokemon fan fiction) [Pokewatty Award 1st runner-up 2013]

Chapter 24 - Falkner in action

Chapter 24 – Falkner in action

<Olivine City; Olivine Docks>

“Who are you?” Isaac asked menacingly, hands poised at his pokeballs.

The man was standing on an elevated platform, his hood pulled low to hide his face. As luck would have it, the sun was shining directly behind the man, making him look darker by comparison and hiding his features. Isaac squinted when he looked at the man but could not make out any distinguishable characteristics. He seemed to be looking towards the horizon before Isaac called out to him.

“Ah!” He turned and quickly bolted in the opposite direction.

“Stop!” Isaac yelled. Yeah like that’ll ever work. Okay, maybe calling out to the man was not the best of his ideas.

Around the docks, there were many storage containers piled up high and arranged such that there was minimal walking space between them. The man ran into the maze of containers, never even bothering to look back to see if Isaac was still pursuing him.

Isaac immediately gave chase, but before he could reach the containers, he had to climb a long flight of stairs. Isaac zipped up the stairs like they were nothing but despite that, when he reached the higher level, the man had already disappeared from sight. He wasted no time hesitating – he knew every second counted. He randomly ran into one of the aisles to search for the man.

The containers were colour-coded, with red, blue and green colours. Most of them seemed like they had been there ever since the dock was built, and were covered with varying degrees of rust. Some were even completely covered in brown, the original colour long washed off.  The salt in the air probably was not helping much in preventing the oxidation of metal. The containers were stacked to an unbelievable height and it seemed as if the tiniest breeze would cause it to tumble.

From the corner of his eye, Isaac thought he saw someone – or something – running rapidly across. Isaac immediately ducked behind an adjacent green storage crate, preparing his pokeball for battle. He breathed a deep breath and composed himself, and then before the thing could escape, he jumped out of his hiding spot and sent out his Pokémon.

“Peace, use-“

‘Boom!’ Noctowl immediately flew out of his pokeball. However there was no one there. His Noctowl flew lazily around, waiting for further instructions from its trainer.

Isaac wrapped his palm on his face. There was nothing there. “All these shadows! They’re playing with my mind!”

He quickly planned his next move. “Peace, fly overhead and find… just go find a man running in this maze and put him to sleep. I’ll come join you in a minute.” He decided that splitting up would be wiser as they would be able to cover more ground. Aerial surveillance was always nice.

He tried to recall the man’s clothing. He could not see his face at all but the man was wearing some sort of loose fitting clothes with a cloak wrapped around his entire body. He was skinny in built and rather short for a man. Aside from that, there was not much for Isaac to follow up on. If the man changed out of his clothes, Isaac doubted he could recognise the man anymore.

He turned left, right, and right, left… Then after a while, he just stopped keeping track. To his left and to his right were two never ending rows of unused storage, stretching to as far as he could see. Being sandwiched like that caused a mild sense of claustrophobia, a feeling Isaac had not felt in a long, long time. In spite of all of this, he carried on running.