Survival ch. 18

"You're outnumbered," the female Lucario stated, holstering her handgun. "Surrender."

At first Arthur could not believe it. He looked back at forth at the Lucario and soldiers behind him.

"Do it," Dan suddenly said, in a lower tone than usual.

Arthur was shocked. He looked at  his Grovyle comrade, who, to his surprise, had a regretful expression. He actually looked like he was defeated. Arthur never knew him to be like this. Alan had the same look, too.

What's wrong? He's not himself...is he serious?

"Wha...?" Arthur mouthed.

Dan remained silent, and dropped his weapon. Alan did so as well. Arthur simply looked on, confused.

"I said drop your weapon!" a soldier said from behind, jabbing a cold barrel of a rifle into Arthur's back.

"Agh!" Arthur grunted. He gave another look at his defeated squad mates.

"Look, Arthur...It's over. We lost."

Still not understanding the situation, Arthur finally decided to drop his gun.

Are you really giving up now? But all we worked for...!

"On your knees," the female Lucario ordered. Dan and Alan slowly got to their knees with their hands in the air, and two soldiers stood behind each one of them, their guns pointed to their heads. Arthur kept standing, however.

"On your knees, dammit!" the soldier behind him shouted angrily again, shoving Arthur to the ground. He came to his hands and knees.

....Please...Don't just give up...

Arthur could not believe anything that was happening. He couldn't believe it was truly coming to an end like this.

"Sir, what should we do with them?" one of the remaining soldiers asked from behind.

The Lucario looked at the ground. It took her a moment to answer.

"Kill them, but wait," she said. She pulled out a radio and said the same thing.

Wha..? Why?

The soldiers still stood with their guns pointed at the three Pokemon. Suddenly, the Lucario pointed off to the right.

Arthur looked off to where she was pointing to-and he was frozen with shock.

Not too far off was the outpost- and right in front of it were soldiers forcing the Pokemon out of it, and making them stand in front of the outpost. A line of soldiers also stood in front of them, their guns drawn.


No!

In an instant, Arthur stood up and tried to run towards the edge. The soldier behind him quickly shot him in the leg, which brought him to the ground.

"Dammit, Arthur!" Dan shouted.

Arthur clenched his bloody wound in pain, and simply glared at the Lucario, who seemed to blankly stare back through her emotionless sunshades.

"Fine!" Arthur yelled. "You want me dead, that's fine by me!"

Alan was completely confused at this point, while Dan facepalmed himself.

"Nice way to sell yourself out, Arthur..." he sighed, but that got nowhere near the enraged Zoroark.

Arthur then pointed to the outpost. "Just don't hurt them...please..." he breathed, his voice breaking a bit. "Do whatever you want with me, just leave them and my comrades ALONE!"

The Lucario looked at Arthur for a moment. Then, to everyone's surprise, she dropped Storm's body to the ground and slowly walked over to Arthur. She kneeled down so that she can see each other clearly in the eyes. She put a hand behind Arthur's head, and brought his face closer to hers. With her other hand, she took off her sunshades-and behind them were a beautiful pair of violet eyes. Her eyes were somewhat sincere, compared to Arthur's emotional teal ones.

"What is it that you really want...?" Arthur said in a broken voice, a tear escaping his eye. It rested on his cheek.

"Sometimes life..." she slowly began in a somewhat soft and soothing voice, "doesn't give us what we want."

Dan blankly stared at the two, while Alan tilted his head at them, still quite confused.

"It's a ruthless monster that takes what it wants..That's why we can't keep what we want to, either...That includes our very lives..."

She looked him deeply in the eyes-and somehow Arthur could clearly see the honesty in hers, and could hear it in her voice, too. It was like she completely understood how he felt. She very much reminded him of his own mother-calming, caring. In that moment, he once more felt like the young Zorua he once was a long time ago-and he felt like his own mother was there, nurturing him once more with her special love that only she could bestow.

"And it's so unfortunate..." she whispered, gently moving a hand down Arthur's cheek to wipe away the tear he cried, "that our innocent loved ones are torn apart by it...And we'll never know why..."

Delilah and Marina were the first things to come to mind in Arthur's head when she said that. He also thought of his squadmates, his friends.

With her other hand, she put her hand on Arthur's leg over his gunshot wound, and used a Heal Pulse to remove the bullet, and heal the wound, all to his surprise.

At this point the soldiers were completely lost as well. "The hell is she doing?" one of them whispered.

"But..." she then said, suddenly removing her hand from behind Arthur's head, still looking into his eyes. He looked directly in hers as well, with curiosity. His fear and sadness disappeared.

"...Huh...?" Arthur quietly breathed. His voice returned to normal.

"There's always a light at the end of the tunnel...." she whispered. "You just have to keep fighting..and eventually...you'll get there..."

Suddenly, she stood up, pulled out her pistol again, and fired at the soldier that used to be behind Arthur, and the soldier that stood behind Dan. They fell dead.

"Whoa!" Dan shouted. Alan was shocked out of his confusion.

...What...?

"Aah! What are you-?!" the soldier behind Alan yelled.

She aimed at him, but before she could fire, the soldier had raised his gun and accidentally shot her first. Two rounds pierced through her stomach. She fell to the ground immediately.

Dammit, no!

"Now!" Dan yelled.

Taking the opportunity, Alan quickly grabbed the soldier's arm while he was looking at the Lucario, and threw him hard to the ground, knocking him out. At the same time, Dan picked up his weapon he dropped earlier, whirled around, and shot the two remaining soldiers behind him.

"Alan, check Storm!" Dan told Alan. He quickly nodded and ran over to his body, and kneeled. He put two claws on his neck.

"He's alive!" he reported.

"Good..." Dan said. He slowly looked over to Arthur, who was kneeling, tending to the Lucario. She was breathing heavily, covering her bloody stomach.

"..Just hang on, okay? We'll get you help soon..." he whispered.

"Arthur!" Dan called, pointing out to the outpost in the distance. "Our buddies are still in trouble!"

Hearing this, Arthur quickly stood back up. "I know!"

The wounded Lucario slowly pointed to the helicopter on the helipad. "Sniper rifles...in there..."

Arthur nodded at her, and quickly ran to the chopper. "Watch her for me!" he called back.

There was no one inside the helicopter, but there was a small rack of four sniper rifles in the rear. Arthur took three of them, and quickly ran back to his squadmates.

"Perfect, mate..." Dan said, as he took one of them. Alan took another one, and they went to the edge of the building, and raised their guns.

Through the scope,  Arthur could clearly see the three soldiers that faced the outpost-and had their guns drawn at his friends. He could just as clearly see their trembling in fear. Then he saw Delilah and Marina, hugging each other tightly, crying of fear and sadness.

You're going to pay...!

"We need to take them all out at the same time," Dan said. "Or else they'll kill them."

"It's probably a bad time to ask," Alan said, "but who are the Pokemon?"

"Like I said, they're friends..." Dan sighed. "On the count of three!"

Everyone aimed at the soldiers far away.

"One!"

Arthur tried to hold the rifle steady.

"Two!"

He tightened his grip on the handle. He took a deep breath.

"Three!"

Three loud cracks went off at once, and the soldiers far away fell dead. The Pokemon soon realized this, and began to relax and celebrate.

"We did it..." Dan chuckled, as he dropped the rifle.

Suddenly, Travolta and Lennon came running through the roof access door. "What the heck happened?" they both said.

While Alan explained to them, Arthur also dropped his rifle, and exhaled. He ran straight back to the wounded Lucario, who was watching the whole time. She ignored the pain and smiled.

"You're going to be just fine..." Arthur said again, picking her up in his arms.

She managed a small laugh and winked.


"Don't worry about me...You're the heroes here."