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Codename, Stealth

Alana

Pokemon Trainer
A few notes before I post this. Description is not my strong point but I am working on it. Any advice you can give me on this that will fit fairly easily into my writing style would be greatly appreciated. Also, the first chapter is kind of rough (in my opinion anyway) but the rest of the story runs a bit smoother. I used to have a prologue to this story but it needed to be thrown out and was. ^^; This is rated PG-13 as a precaution because I'm not entirely sure how violent I'm going to end up making this. Enjoy.


Chapter 1: Mission Talk

Stealth looked carefully around the dirty lot as she approached the old building. She was tall, but not too tall for a girl of seventeen. Her dirty-blonde hair was tied back in a loose ponytail and a black headband with a dragon on the front was tied around her head. She wore a black tank-top with the dragon on the back covered by a brown jacket. Her dusty jeans were faded and her dark shoes looked well used. On her wrists were loose golden bands that fell slightly past her wrists.

She moved quietly, making sure that her footsteps could not be heard. The chances of someone discovering that this rundown, seemingly deserted building was actually one of the few bases controlled by the Resistance was very unlikely. However, she was always cautious. If she was followed and the location of the base was discovered it would be a very nasty situation indeed.

She heard a rustle to her left and whipped around, her sharp dark blue eyes flashing dangerously. She waited, holding her breath. The sound came again. Stealth now knew exactly where it had come from. A pile of crates were stacked haphazardly a few feet away from the building. She had definitely heard the sound over there. She bent down, apparently tying a loose shoe lace. When she stood up she was holding a lethal looking dagger. The bright steel shone in the dim light still radiating from the sky. She held it ready, hoping she had not been tricked by the fading light and led a member of the Government to the base. She wouldn't want anyone to discover their location but if someone did she would much prefer it to be a member of one of the gangs. They, at least, would not be trying to bring their organization down. More likely they'd be after a Pokemon or some valuable item.

Something moved behind on of the crates. Stealth's muscles tensed. She gripped the dagger tighter in her hand and moved forward. Suddenly a figure leapt from behind the crates and charged her. Stealth began to laugh as the creature jumped into the air and collided with her, knocking her off her feet.

"Aronato, you know better than to scare me like that. I was about to jump behind those crates and cut you to bits!" The large Houndoom laughed and began jumping around gleefully.

'Was worth the risk, Atra. You should have seen your face!'

Stealth pushed herself to her feet and placed the dagger back in its sheath then said, "I'm sure it was very amusing. Sadly, I'm afraid that's the last time I leave you on your own. You promised you'd be good while I was gone." The young trainer gave her Pokemon a stern look but couldn't entirely conceal her smile.

'I was very good. Ask anyone. But I was getting bored so I went for a walk outside. That's when you came along.' Aronato gave another laugh and had to brace his legs to stop himself from falling over. 'The look on your face, priceless! I will be sure to tell the others about it so they can see for themselves.'

"I'll twist your horns off," Stealth replied coolly. "But enough of this, let's go inside. It's getting dark."

'Sure thing, then after I've finished laughing you can tell me how the mission went.' Stealth simply shook her head and walked the rest of the way to the rundown building. She entered through a door that appeared to be boarded up and rusted. Once she had made sure the door was securely closed behind her, she moved on. The room she was in looked just as rundown and rusted as the outside. She wasn't bothered by this however. She pushed open a second boarded up door and descended a flight of stairs. When she pushed open the third door she was stopped by a guard dressed in black.

"Hey, Stealth. Things went all right I hope."

"Ay, they did," Stealth replied cheerfully. She lifted her right arm so that the gold band on her wrist would fall down her arm and held her hand under a bright white light. On her wrist, just above her hand, was a tattoo. The guard nodded, satisfied, and Stealth removed her hand out from under the light. The tattoo vanished.

"I take it Aronato was outside waiting for you, was he?"

"He was indeed, Check." She shook her head at her Houndoom's gloating smile and moved on.

She followed several hallways, stopping occasionally to exchange a few words with someone, until she reached the one she had been heading towards. There were many doors spaced a few feet apart. Beside each door was a small box mounted on the wall. Stealth walked to the seventh door on the right side and turned to face the box. She punched in a nine digit number and the door slid open.

The room was lightly decorated with a few posters, some furniture, and a few random items. The door slid shut again as Stealth and Aronato entered. She sighed as she dropped the small backpack she had been carrying and sank onto the bed. "I'm beat," she said sleepily.

'Aw, come on! At least tell me a little of what happened on your mission before you go to bed.'

"All right, keep your fur on. Here," she took three black balls from her belt and hit the dark grey button in the center of each, causing them to expand to a larger size. She opened each one, watching as each of her Pokemon appeared in a burst of black light. "There, now everyone can hear. And Alalia can help me tell it." Aronato nodded and lay down, waiting. Alalia, a Nidorina, Zephyr, a Fearow, and Rayten, a Manectric followed suit. Stealth shifted into a more comfortable position and began to tell them about her mission.

“It wasn’t all that exciting, really. I was sent to do some spying on a group of soldiers stationed a few miles from here. They mostly just talked about personal stuff but some discussed tactics and the locations of other camps. I knew I wasn’t going to get much from just listening to them babble. I had to get closer to the commanding officer which proved to be harder than I thought.”

‘No kidding? I had to sneak through about fifty million people to get to the center tent!’

“I thought it looked more like twenty, maybe fifteen, but hey, I’m not the one who snuck through the camp, so what do I know?”

‘Absolutely nothing,’ Alalia replied cheerfully.

Stealth gave her a half annoyed, half amused stare, then continued with her story. “Anyway, after Alalia battled her way through the fifty million troops I snuck around to the part of the camp that had the fewest guards and slipped in. I only had to dodge about five people or so to get to the tent. Alalia was waiting for me, brave soul. I took my dagger and cut a very small whole in the side, just enough to be able to listen through. I tell ya, I had no idea those army guys could talk so much. He rambled on and on about how unstable the ground was around these parts. Not unstable as in you couldn’t walk on it. Unstable as in it was too soft when it rained.” She rolled her eyes then said, “Eventually he got around to what they were planning to do. They had no idea they were so close to a Resistance base and all they were really planning to do was raid a nearby town to look for Pokemon and Trainers. Sad really. Most Trainers belong to some kind of group and those that don’t are in hiding. They’re not stupid enough to reveal themselves to people. And the Pokemon left the towns a long time ago.”

‘Aw well, a guy who worries about mud isn’t the brightest apple in the barrel. Then again he was hired by the Government so what do you expect?’

“Nothing better, Rayten. Still, you’d think after five years of fighting they would have learned something. But perhaps some people just never learn. Moving on, they talked and talked and talked with nothing interesting being said. Finally they decided that some sleep would do them good so the officer and whoever he was talking to said goodnight and I heard him hang something up. I guess he had been talking on the phone the whole time. Now with as much as he talked it’s strange that people think girls talk too much.” She shrugged and shook her head then continued, “we waited a while then snuck back out of the camp.”

‘If it was that easy why did it take so long? Six days to listen to a guy talk about mud?’

“Well that wasn’t all we did. After I reported to Boss everything I had heard I moved on to the next part of my mission. He’d got word that there was a special stone somewhere in the mountains. After doing a lot of research he managed to pinpoint its location. With Zephyr flying it didn’t take very long to get there. The hardest part was getting down on my hands and knees and looking for a rock. Boss said it would be easy to recognize but he didn’t say it’d be so hard to find. I search for hours and didn’t find a thing. Eventually it got too dark to see anything so I gave up for the night. I stayed two more days and actually managed to find three stones,” here she paused and reached into a pocket for something. All four of them stared as she produced three medium sized transparent stones. They wouldn’t have been anything special if they hadn’t had a faint silver glow inside that seemed to be swirling around a gold dot in the center.

‘Wow, they’re beautiful,’ said Aronato in awe. The other Pokemon seemed to agree as they stared transfixed at the stones.

“You should see them when they catch the light of the sun or moon. And in darkness they seem to glow even brighter. That’s how I found the first one. After that the other two weren’t so hard.”

‘What does Boss want with them?’ asked Zephyr in a far away voice.

Stealth shrugged. “I dunno. I’m debating on whether to give them to him or not. They’re like nothing I’ve seen or even heard of. And when I hold them I get this weird feeling. I can’t explain it but I don’t think I should give them to him. Not all of them anyway. I’ll give him two and keep this one,” she held up an oval shaped stone with a small knick on the side. “It’s my favorite. No idea why.”

‘Good idea. I’ll bet he sends you out to look for more soon, though. Something like that, there’s no telling what it could be used for. And I bet it’s worth a fortune.’

“True, Ray, but I doubt he’d sell ‘em. He wouldn’t send me out to find them if he was just going to use them for money. A job like that is usually given to a lower ranking member. And the way he talked when he was telling me about the mission. I got the feeling he didn’t want me to tell anyone else about it and that he was only assigning it to me because he trusted me. Whatever these are, they’re not something that’s likely to be sold.” She stared at the stones for a few moments longer then put them back into her pocket. “Boss is gonna be mad when he finds out I got back and didn’t report to him.”

‘Just tell him you were so tired you forgot,’ suggested Alalia sleepily.

“It wouldn’t be far from the truth. I’m not too worried though. I’m just gonna tell him I was exhausted and I needed sleep. I’ll report to him first thing in the morning.” She stretched and flopped back onto her bed. “For right now I’m just going to get some sleep. Goodness knows I need it.” She kicked off her shoes and muttered something to Zephyr about the light. He lifted his large bird-like head and hit the light switch. Stealth gave a glance at her pocket and saw a faint glow coming from it. She yawned and rolled over, falling asleep shortly afterwards. If she had been more awake, she might have noticed that the stones were giving off a soft pulse.
 

bluwirz

An Ode to the Fallen
Yeah, description is beyond me! I lack description greatly. I found this quite good actually. :D
 

Arcanine Royale

Well-Known Member
Hey, glad to see this here as well as at PE2K...

Once again, the first chapter does a good job of introducing the setting and the characters and stuff. As for me, the description is fine.

I also like the "boss" thing. Or sort of makes me feel like this is about Team Rocket or someone like them...
 

Alana

Pokemon Trainer
Thanks. The one on PE2K kind of...well, died, poor thing. The way that they refer to their boss is simply a lack of creativity on my part (though I blame it on him because they give themselves nicknames). :p It was just the only thing that seemed to fit. Anyway, I might as well post the next chapter. I have 1-9 completed and am working on 10 so I should be able to keep this alive for a while (hopefully to the end of the story.)


Chapter 2: Facing Boss

Stealth opened her eyes slowly, allowing them to adjust to the darkness. She sat up and stretched, wondering what time it was. She swung her legs over the edge of her bed and stood up, accidentally trodding on one of her Pokemon's tails. A shock of electricity told her it was Rayten. "It was an accident," she mumbled, staggering slightly.

'That's why you’re still conscious,' Rayten replied dryly.

Stealth rolled her eyes and made her way to the light switch. She closed her eyes before clicking it on so that she wouldn't be blinded by the sudden light. Spots flashed before her eyes but it didn't hurt to open them when she felt her eyes had adjusted enough.

'Give a little warning before you do that next time, eh?'

"Sorry, Zeph," Stealth said apologetically. She glanced around at her other Pokemon and saw that Alalia was sitting up with her eyes closed, Rayten was yawning but still lying down, Zephyr had rolled onto his back and was covering his face with a wing, and Aronato hadn't woken up at all.

'What time is it?' asked Alalia quietly.

"No idea," Stealth replied, glancing at a small clock on her night stand. "Five a.m., a good time considering how late we were up yesterday."

'And how long you were on that mission.'

"Very true," she glanced around again then walked over to her bed and opened a drawer on her nightstand. She always slept in a shirt and jeans in case there was an alert during the night. When she had changed out of the clothes she had been worn the day before she began to look around for a pair of socks. Once she had located some she pulled them on along with her shoes then tied a headband around her head and fastened her belt around her waste.

"Come on guys, let's go get some breakfast before we face the Boss."

‘Before you face the Boss, you mean.‘

Stealth merely shrugged as she returned all of her Pokemon to their Pokeballs, clipping each onto her belt as she did so.

Outside in the hallway she saw that she was the only one in her section that was up. Or at least that hadn't already gone to get breakfast or hadn't stayed in their room. She sighed and headed towards the cafeteria. The cafeteria was a large room with tables scattered all over the place. On the far side of the room were two food booths and a table with drinks on it. There she saw a fair number of people and nodded to a few of them as she wandered over to the line to see what the selection was for the day. The food choices weren’t too bad. Eggs, bacon, cereal, and muffins. The only thing to drink was orange juice. Stealth gave the orange liquid a cold look before taking a glass full. She walked over to an empty table and put her plate of bacon and eggs and her glass of orange juice down then headed for a different line. This line had an assortment of food that Pokemon favored. She selected enough to fill two plates then walked back to her table.

Once she had placed them on the floor and released her four companions she set about eating her own food. She took her time, trying to delay the moment when she’d have to bring the “two” stones she’d found to Boss. She knew he’d be thrilled at her success but would also be irritated by her late delivery. Still, there was always the chance that he’d be so delighted with her find that she wouldn’t have to put up with any remarks on her lateness.

‘The longer you delay, the more grouchy he’s gonna be.’ Steal turned a cold look on Rayten but didn’t answer. Her Pokemon had already finished their meal and Aronato was returning to the table after brining the plates up to be washed. She had still only gotten half way through her eggs and hadn’t even touched her bacon.

‘You eat like a Slowpoke. Come on, finish up so we can get going.’

Stealth sighed and stuffed down the rest of her food then gulped down most of the orange juice and stood up. “You lot are too impatient. It’s bound to get you into trouble some day.” She left her plate and glass at the washing area and walked quickly out of the cafeteria. “Ok, since Alalia was the one who assisted me the most on the mission I’m going to leave her out of her Pokeball and the rest of you in. Please don’t complain, I expect I’ll get a headache soon enough anyway.”

‘That’s what you get for being lazy,’ said Zephyr cheerfully as he vanished inside his Pokeball.

With Alalia dragging her feet beside her, Stealth made her way through the halls, past different kinds of laboratories, past the training arena where some people were already training their Pokemon, past sleeping quarters and planning offices, until finally she reached the room she was after. For the sake of safety in case of infiltration, Boss’s office looked like any of the others from the outside. Stealth took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Inside was a fairly simple room with an embroidered carpet. Against the right wall were bookshelves and against the left were cases full of strange artifacts. One held the very first Pokeball that had ever been invented. On the side of the room opposite the door was Boss’s desk and behind that was a large portrait of Ho-oh, the legendary bird that had captured his heart since long before the portal opened.

Sitting behind the desk, writing something on a piece of paper, was a man with neatly trimmed brown hair. He wore a black business suit without the jacket – Stealth assumed he had tossed it on the back of his chair – and has an air of power about him. He had an aura of age and wisdom about him, though he was only twenty-five. Though is wasn’t visible because he was sitting down, he had on a belt with six black Pokeballs clipped on it. He was one of the few people who had six Pokemon. They were not nearly as easy to come by as they were in the games and shows. They hid, they fought, they ran, they would do everything they could to avoid humans. Even trainers were people to be wary of because of all the gangs after power. To own four was a feet in itself, six was an amazing accomplishment.

When Stealth entered, the man looked up. He jumped to his feet and strode purposefully around his desk as she closed the door. “Stealth! I heard a rumor you were back but I wasn’t sure if it was true. I’ve been expecting you for hours now. I thought you would have come the moment you arrived.”

“I’m very sorry for the delay,” Stealth replied seriously, giving a little bow. “I arrived very late last night and I didn’t want to wake you. I was also very tired and might possibly have been unable to give you a full report.”

“Yes, yes I understand. And I am grateful for your thoughtfulness. Now,” Boss’s expression was blank but Stealth could sense his eagerness, “did you manage to secure a stone?”

“I secured two, actually.” She reached into her pocket and felt the stones for a moment then pulled out the two she had decided to give to him.

Boss’s expression turned to one of awe as he took the stones from Stealth and held them up to the light. “They’re more beautiful than I thought, and they’re power must be great indeed…” His voice trailed off and he moved slowly over to his desk and leaned against it. “You are truly a superb member of the Resistance Stealth. You have done a spectacular job.”

“Thank you , sir,” said Stealth, inclining her head, “I am honored. If I may ask, what is it that those stones do?“

Boss considered her for a moment, his bright green eyes fixed on hers. Finally he said, “I shall answer you, but not now. I doubt you would understand anyway.”

Stealth nodded but said, “You underestimate me, sir. But I am content to wait until you feel the time is right to tell me. I thank you for your time. Feel free to call on me if my services are needed again.” She turned to the door and placed a hand on the door knob.

“Stealth,” she turned back.

“Yes, sir?”

“I want you to be on your guard. Don’t ever tell anyone your true name, and be careful who you trust.” The young man’s expression was very serious, and his eyes showed concern.

Stealth was confused by what he had said, and by the look Alalia gave her, she was too. But she felt it would be best not to question him, just to do as he said. “Yes, sir.” Boss nodded to her. Still confused, and a little concerned, she turned again and left.
 
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