Once Alex finally received Morgan's request for help, he released his Pokémon and divided them into two forces. He and the Champions raced behind the main hub, out of the enemy's sight, and climbed to the top of the building, while the Elites made their way toward the entrance.
Meanwhile, Lyra and Mika were teleported by Gardevoir outside the breached walls to act as an ambushing force, preventing the enemy army from escaping. They released all 40 of their Elite ranked Pokémon and created a choke point at the wall's breach in a full defensive formation while riding their Champions to gain a better view from the sky.
Nyx hurried toward the bunker now that a battle in the building was about to erupt, while Rhea prepared to meet the intruders in the main hub on her own.
She had plenty of new toys to test, courtesy of Team Dominion, having been a busy bee over the past year since their invasion. Aside from upgrading the turrets and drones using Team Dominion's more efficient designs, studying the airships and refurbishing them, and mass-producing their weaponry for the bounty hunters and the base, she had also been tinkering with improvements to her own personal security.
Sure, the Mauler was quite impressive, but she had to admit it had its limitations as a lone combatant. So she ended up building an android army of her own, one controlled by her Magnezone.
It was the same Pokémon she had received as a Magneton when the farm next to Saffron City defended itself against a Pokémon flood. It had been her little helper in her laboratory all this time, and now that it was an Elite ranked Magnezone, it had trained with Metagross to manipulate drones for combat. Albeit with far less expertise, but when paired with Rhea's Mauler, they were a force to be reckoned with.
With her handy space bag in hand, she released an assortment of drones: quadcopters for fast enemy removal and scouting, humanoid androids for taking cover, beastlike ones for charging and chasing, and spider tanks for, well… tanking. There were only about a hundred of them, but unlike Team Dominion's poorly controlled AI-assisted, human-operated versions, these were significantly more efficient and operated entirely under Magnezone's control.
They raced through the lobby of the main hub and made their way to the side entrance just in time to greet their invaders with a barrage of bullets fired from defensive positions.
The quadcopters hovered near the ceiling. The humanoid androids took cover behind pillars and inside shops, while the spider tanks stood front and center with the beastlike androids flanking them.
Behind them stood Rhea in her Mauler, ready to send anything strong enough to break through to its maker. They held the formation, preventing entry while the battle outside continued to intensify.
Alex's Elites burst through the main hub entrance and joined the bounty hunters' defensive formation. They took the center, greatly relieving Morgan and Dale's Pokémon, who were suffering melee assaults from 10 Champions doing their best to wear the defenses down. Then they reassembled into the chainsaw formation before driving forward, one Pokémon at a time.
They stuck out like a sore thumb, a clear threat compared to the stale defensive formation the invaders had been hammering for the past few minutes. Predictably, they started taking heavier fire from both flanks, greatly relieving the pressure on all the bounty hunters. They even managed to attract the direct attention of Logan, who didn't like where this formation was going.
"Attack that formation on both sides," Logan instructed. "Try to single out a Pokémon in the center and break that chain down."
The base leaders around him followed his orders and instructed their Pokémon to do just that, splitting them 5 on each side before targeting a lone Pokémon in the center of the chain, exactly as Alex had wanted.
He jumped from the rooftop of the main hub with his Champions, landing heavily on one of the flanks right in the middle of the fight between both sides, taking the enemy Champions off guard. Then his Pokémon split up and took on the Champions 2-on-1, while Alex pulled out his Stormline and opened fire, protecting his team from the barrage coming from Team Dominion's side.
"Fuck!" Logan shouted, recognizing Alex and his style, before retrieving his Pokémon and prompting the other trainers around him to do the same. "Time's up. We're done here. Retreat!"
They began retreating from the base the same way they had come, back through the wall they had breached, with their army following after them while covering their withdrawal. But Alex wasn't about to let them escape.
He sent his Pokémon after the trainers, weaving through the reorganizing army and barreling through them with sheer power. One by one, each trainer who was caught released their Pokémon and fought back rather than be taken out with a single hit. This bogged them down long enough for Alex's Pokémon to swarm them, while Alex himself ran at the front, opening fire with Stormline and carving through chunks of the army one swing at a time.
The bounty hunters gave chase, unwilling to let their invaders escape, while the nest that had suffered heavy casualties managed to withdraw, returning to the forest to lick their wounds.
The fight continued as a massacre unfolded. The retreating army couldn't possibly defend itself with its back turned, while Logan ran for his life, unwilling to be entangled by Alex and his Champions.
He weaved past his army, ignored his bogged-down base leaders, and jumped through the breach in the wall, right into a barrage from over 40 Elites led by 2 Champions.
Before he was taken out, he managed to release his Pokémon, 5 Champions and 1 Elite, as they used Protect to shield both him and themselves. Amid the barrage, several Feint bullets from Lyra and Mika slipped through, shattering the Protect shields of 3 Champions and nearly knocking them out.
When the second barrage of attacks inevitably came, none of them could use Protect again, and they were wiped out, with Logan dying before his own Pokémon.
What followed was an absolute massacre. The trainers were eliminated by Alex, and the army, caught between the choke point and the rabid bounty hunters seeking vengeance, was decimated, with most of the invaders dying as quickly as they had arrived.
Once the cleanup began, Morgan and Dale met up with Alex, who had a satisfied smile.
"What did we learn?" Alex asked.
"That we're not strong enough to defend the base yet, and we should ask for help," Morgan replied like a scolded child, while Dale smiled off to the side like the sibling who knew he was right.
"Close. The lesson here, Morgan," Alex said as he approached and placed a hand on her shoulder, "is that the Silver Network is greater than even you, the base leader, or me, its supposed owner. It's an organization, so treat it as such and don't be afraid to use it. If you encounter trouble you can't handle, send me a mission and I'll come running to help you. Otherwise, we'll be as weak as all the Underworld organizations out there who prefer their independence rather than surviving."
Morgan sighed heavily, her pride slipping from her grasp. "What now?"
"Personally speaking," Alex said, "I would interrogate the survivors, find out where their bases are, which shouldn't be covered under their psychic blocks, and hunt down any that I find before the League or the Underworld manage to get to them. I would also bring a lot of space bags and destroy everything I can't take with me, making sure they have to put in the effort to build new ones if they ever want to rebuild in this region."
Morgan nodded before releasing her Gardevoir, and Dale released his Gallade. They were Pokémon they had managed to get from the nest in the Kanto base for the sole purpose of reading minds. The two then began their interrogation while the rest of the bounty hunters started the cleanup. Afterward, they each took a team and, with Althea's help, teleported all over Johto to bring down Team Dominion's bases in the region.
Alex meanwhile temporarily held the base, ensuring it was protected from opportunistic enemies who might take advantage of its weakened state. He had the girls help with the cleanup and the assessment of the damage before Celise called in a construction company to handle the repairs.
Overall, they had to patch the wall, rebuild the hydroponics farm, fix potholes, repair structural damage to the main hub, and replace several glass panes. The repairs were quick and cost less than what they had gained from the spoils and the bounties on the trainers' heads.
Rhea also collected any materials she wanted while replacing the drones and turrets lost in the battle, a fair trade considering they received the same upgrades as the main base.
By noon the next day, Morgan and Dale returned with even more spoils that completely justified the battle, taking over as the leaders again while Alex's status returned to that of a guest.
He and the girls stayed for a week in total to help out where they could before returning home, satisfied with the outcome of the visit. It was in good hands, he concluded, now more than ever considering Morgan's pride had been brought down a peg.
They returned to their monotonous life of training and improvement until two months later, when, for the first time ever, Alex received an emergency mission from Interpol to defend Kanto.
The sky darkened out of nowhere one sunny afternoon as dark clouds rolled in from the southeast. Lightning flashed, followed by rolling thunder, and the sky's wrath bore down on all of Kanto.
A battle may have erupted, one of significant magnitude, and Alex was being called to help quell it.
Just as he was preparing to move out, he received another call, one that was of even greater importance. It was from Alvera, who had left home over a year ago and had been traveling around the region taking pictures to build up her own blog and portfolio.
"Dad, I think I messed up," she said, the thunder rumbling through the call far more intensely than what he could hear outside.
"What happened?" he asked, concerned.
"I may have pissed off Zapdos."
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