As Lazarus hides behind the boulder, bleeding, trying to stay alive, an aerial vehicle approaches what used to be a research outpost.
"I'm afraid we are too late Captain," Mira sigh as she looks at the live footage from the cameras mounted on the exterior of the AV.
The footage shows what remains of the building after Sunfyre melted half of it away with a single Hyper Beam.
Tobias examines the images on the monitor before asking, "Is there any chance someone is still alive?"
Mira searches through the footage for anything of note, "Maybe. I see some rover tracks are leading away from the outpost, which suggests at least some people managed to escape, but we can't be sure without sending some drones down there."
Tobias nods, "Do that. Also, send some of the drones to search for the Salamence."
Mira nods as she releases a couple of reconnaissance drones from the AV. They spread out as half of the drones follow the rover tracks to see where they lead to, while the remaining drones try to find any sign of Sunfyre.
It takes the drones more than five minutes to cover the distance Sunfyre did in a matter of seconds. 3 kilometers away from the outpost, the drones manage to locate Sunfyre.
"Found it. And looks like another fight took place here," Mira says as she shows Tobias an image of Sunfyre, eating the Houndoom it recently killed, on the HUD display of the rover.
"Wait, I see something else as well," Mira zooms in on the footage.
The footage reveals a vague human figure hiding behind some boulders.
"Found someone who looks to be in his late teens, blond hair, but I can't make out if he is alive or dead," Mira says.
Tobias looks relieved, "That's probably Arthur Hawke's son."
He then turns to the rest of his team and says, "Change of plan, guys. We don't have a lot of time, so I'll do this my way. Mira approach the dragon, stop when we are around three kilometers away from it. I'll send the kid up, and when you have him, you take the AV as far away from this place as you can. Ronan, since you are new to this team, you are on emergency first aid duty. Elliot, make sure you record this."
Elliot smiles, "You bet I will."
The rover takes off towards Salamence and around ten minutes later Tobias walks over to the cargo ramp of the aerial vehicle. "Open it,"
The AI piloting program responds to his command, and the rear cargo ramp of the AV opens.
Ronan is surprised, "Wait, Captain, I am confused. Are we going to abandon the plan we spent so much time creating? Operating on a new plan might cost us our teamwork. Are you going to send out pokémon from up here? And how will we rescue that guy down there?"
Tobias turns to look at Ronan and smiles before jumping straight out of the aerial vehicle, flying at least a kilometer above ground.
"Holy shit, what th-" Ronan, shocked by this, runs over to the cargo ramp to see Tobias falling towards the group at immense speed.
He turns to look at the rest of his teammates with a shocked look, "Did he jus–"
Elliot just shrugs at him, "Don't worry about that. He does that sometimes, you'll get used to it."
—
As he falls through the sky, Tobias looks up at the AV.
He closes his eyes to feel the sensation of the wind hitting his back before he reaches out to his utility belt and unclips a pokéball and with the press of a button, he releases a pokémon mid-air.
An orange spherical pokémon comes out of the ball. It has eight yellow, rocky spines extending from its spherical body, making it look like a sun.
The first thing the Solrock does the moment it's out of the pokéball is link with its trainer psychically.
And the moment the trainer and pokémon are telepathically connected, Solrock communicates its confusion and bewilderment to Tobias, wondering why they are falling to their death from the sky.
'Sup Helios. Apparently, we have to fight another Calamity. I know, we never get a break from this. Also, this time it's a huge ass dragon. Sound fun?" Tobias says to Solrock through their psychic link.
Just before Tobias and Solrock hit the ground, Solrock uses its telekinetic powers to levitate both itself and its trainer mid-air.
"That was a nice save, much faster than last time," Tobias says as Solrock slowly lowers him to the ground.
He pats Solrock and smiles at it, "Alright. So there's this big, scary dragon that is terrorizing the area. We need to take down that dragon. Should be easy, what do you think?"
Solrock looks at him with a suspicious expression, or as suspicious an expression as it can make with its nonexistent facial features and slit black eyes.
"Oh, right, link to Nyx. He is flying up there," Tobias says, pointing at the sky.
Solrock looks up to see Flygon flying alongside the AV. It extends their psychic link to include the Flygon.
The moment Tobias feels Flygon's mind, he says, 'Nyx, fly above the clouds, charge up a Hyper Beam, and let me know when it's done.'
Tobias then looks at Solrock and points forwards, "Helios, you will sense the presence of a powerful pokemon three kilometers in that direction. Teleport us near it."
Solrock concentrates its psychic energy. And then a second later, they both warp away from that place.
—
Sunfyre devours the last of Houndoom's bones, and just as it's done eating, it senses a powerful pokémon appear out of nowhere.
It jerks its head to the left and sees Tobias and his Solrock materialize in front of its eyes out of nowhere.
Tobias stares Synfyre right in its eyes, and the dragon looks at the trainer unflinching.
"We should give him a greeting gift, Helios," Tobias says, "Throw some rocks at it."
Solrock uses Levitate to gather thousands of rocks and boulders from its surroundings and unleashes them all at Sunfyre.
Huge boulders followed by sharp rocks travel towards Sunfyre at an impressive speed.
Sunfyre uses its sharp claws to shatter one of the bigger boulders into tiny pieces, but is bombarded by the rest of the rock projectiles.
Sunfyre howls in rage and rushes towards them. And with its dwindling energy reserves, it charges a Hyper Beam.
Tobias and Solrock teleport away before Hyper Beam has a chance to hit either of them. Leaving a crater behind.
—
Lazarus feels the shockwave from the Hyper Beam reach him. The ground beneath him trembles.
As Tobias and Solrock teleport near him.
Tobias looks at Lazarus and sees the dried tears on his face and the shrapnel lodged into his bleeding thighs.
Tobias approaches Lazarus and says in a reassuring voice, "Hey, my name is Tobias, and I work for the League. I am here with my team, and we are here to help you. Don't worry, we will get you emergency first aid in a minute. May I check your injuries first? You don't have to speak, just a nod will do."
Lazarus gives a weak nod, ignoring the pain.
Tobias moves closer to examine him and checks to make sure his injuries won't be made worse because of the toll teleportation takes on the human body.
After making sure he is fit for teleportation, Tobias looks at Lazarus and says, "Hang in there buddy. I know you are in a lot of pain right now. But we will get you fixed. You have nothing to worry about. The injuries you have are not life-threatening. I'm going to teleport you to our AV. It might make you a little dizzy, so don't panic. There is a medic in there who will perform emergency first aid on you."
'Helios, is the AV inside your teleportation range?' Tobias asks his pokémon telepathically.
Solrock gently spins counterclockwise.
"Mira, I am teleporting him in now. Take him and leave," Tobias says through the comm in his visor.
'Do it,' Tobias then says to his pokémon.
"Thank you…" Lazarus weakly says before he is teleported to the AV, away from Sunfyre.
Sunfyre takes to the skies with a roar, trying to find and eliminate this new threat to its nest.
It swiftly manages to locate Tobias and Solrock. Sunfyre dashes after them at max speed, but they again escape its grasp by teleporting away.
A hot concentrated beam of energy falls from the sky and hits Sunfyre straight in the back, hot enough that even Sunfyre feels pain from it.
It lets out an angry roar and looks up to find the culprit, and chases after it.
'Fly east,'
Flygon beats its wings and dashes to the east at the command of its trainer, and Sunfyre chases after it.
Even with the headstart Flygon had, Sunfyre manages to catch up to it in a matter of minutes with its vastly superior speed.
It charges a Hyper Beam with barely any energy left in its body, intending to unleash it point-blank at Flygon and erase it from existence, when suddenly it is hit by another bombardment of rock projectiles.
Sunfyre roars in frustration and pain, and turns to look at the source of the attack.
It finds Tobias casually sitting on top of a rocky hill with his Solrock floating beside him.
—
Tobias looks at the raging Salamence with a calm and unbothered look. He unclips another pokéball from his belt and releases his strongest pokémon.
A pitch-black, shadowy pokémon comes out of the pokéball, with red spiky growth around its neck.
The pokémon has a small head with a white fog-like ghostly plume billowing from its head, covering one of its blood-red eyes.
It has black claw-like hands that look uncanny on its long, skinny arms.
Sunfyre gazes at the Calamity Class Darkrai and feels a primal fear build up within it as it looks at its demonic figure.
Tobias grins at his Darkrai, "I think it's scared of you, Zephyr."