The fields roiled and burst with anger and the dust rose in mighty plumes as the [Hyperbeam] shot across no-man's land. Screams were lost in the din of the subsequent explosions and many were cut off mid shriek as their owners simply evaporated. Rocks flew in all directions and molten slag cut through fiber and shore through steel. It was hell. It was as if Giratina himself had rent the veil that separated the living and the dead and ascended upon the earth to deliver his unholy justice upon them.
Ringing.
Private Johnson had lost an arm. Sergeant Nichols was missing both legs. Muller, Rossi, Tanaka, Petrov, Khan, Al-Farsi, O'Connor, Smith, and Kim were simply gone. An entire platoon. Gone.
Ringing.
It had all happened in less than five seconds.
Ringing.
Dean was still deaf in both ears, the only thing present was a tone not unlike funeral chimes. An infernal hum that drowned out the carnage that lay before him as soldiers lay stunned, dead, or in extreme pain. Rooster was knocked out. The only Pokemon that had managed to withstand the blowback was Nichol's Graveler, but even then, the rocky creature had chunks missing from its body. Ichor flowed freely from its wounds as its hastily created barriers of stone lay in shambles before it. Only the torn earth was left as a sign of its shield.
Ringing.
Dean managed to press the recall on Rooster's ball in time before a wave of paralyzing current raced across the wastelands. His muscles seized as it touched him. The electricity pulled his body into spasms that made him scream with no sound.
Ringing.
A sharp tug came from his back, and Dean was dragged back down into the fetid channels that they called a trench. He fought back, scraping at anything that he could reach, but hands pulled his arms apart and his field coat was ripped open. A needle was stabbed into his chest and Dean prepared for the end.
"S–! S–!"
Ringing that never stopped.
Warmth began to return to Dean's extremities. Feeling returned to his digits, and Dean screamed.
Ringing.
"Si-! Yo–'r- ord–s, Si-!"
He was hauled to his feet, but they crumpled beneath him. The same hands that held back his pitiful attempts at self-defense now supported him.
Quieter, but still ringing.
"Sir! We're outgun–d and t–y're adv—ing! Your ord–s, Sir!"
He looked up at his assailants and found none. Takahiro stood before him, and Jefferson and Peters were the ones holding him up. Explosions, gunfire, and tortured cries crashed in from all sides. Everything was in disarray as a multitude of colors flashed and turned the air into an acrid display of destruction. Brilliant golden flames spewed forth from an Arcanine that was bleeding from an empty eye socket. Azure blasts of pressurized water rocketed forth from a Blastoise missing one of its shoulder cannons. A flagging Raichu sent bolt after bolt of dimming lighting even as it clutched the body of its human partner, no longer moving.
Quieter still, yet the ringing never ceased.
Takahiro leaned in close. "Dean. What do you need us to do?"
It was obvious, wasn't it? Dean tried to speak, but his lips wouldn't work. He tried and tried again as the desperation of his men brought urgency to a mind that wouldn't cooperate. Peters placed a muddied canteen to his lips. Brackish, stale water seeped between his teeth. He drank greedily of the foul liquid until his mouth finally began to move as he bid it.
"We. Find the Captain." Dean's breath was hot, and the water threatened to resurface from his gut, but he pressed on breathlessly. "Rally anyone. We regroup. Then. Kill the Tyranitar."
"You heard the Lieutenant! Peters! Get him on Deus and don't hesitate to use another Hyper Potion! Jefferson, pass the word along! We're falling back!" Takahiro's voice was strong. Unwavering. Unhesitant.
Dean was half dragged, half thrown onto the Arcanine's back as they moved across the uneven boards at the bottom of the trench. The Raichu and Blastoise had refused to leave their posts, granting them covering fire and masking their retreat. Both knew that there would not be opportunity to follow later. They had their duty, and there was no reason to not remain. Their partners were dead. Even as others trickled into their skittering line of soldiers, the telltale siren of another [Hyperbeam] could be heard swelling above them.
"DOWN!"
Every soldier dropped where they stood. Dean's chest felt as if it would burst as Peters' Deus shook him to the boards and lay protectively over him.
White.
Ringing.
White. Ringing.
Pressure. Ringing. Red. Orange. Fire. Ringing.
The head of the Blastoise lay next to Dean. Its brown eyes stared into his own, unblinking. His stomach lurched and he could taste bile in his throat. There was nothing left in his stomach to vomit, but his abdomen heaved again and again. He barely felt himself being pressed back onto the Arcanine's back as they began to move again.
Ringing.
Again and again they moved for what seemed like mere moments before another siren and the world became banished of shadows. Again and again they pressed on, the size of the group never swelling even though others joined them. Through the maze of earth they crawled and scraped, back to the rear, back to the Captain.
Then the trenches were breached. Their walls buckled and vomited them up, up in the air, rejecting them all from the safety of its embrace. Jefferson was gone now. Peters too. Deus lay atop him, scooting its rapidly cooling body over Dean's form in a final act of defense. The Arcanine only got up to his belly before sighing once and laying still.
Ringing.
Dean looked through darkening eyes upon Takahiro's form as the man rolled to his side. A bent line of rebar was clutched in his grasp and he had a look upon his face.
The look.
The look that said, "I'm about to do something stupid." The look that said, "Damned be the consequences." Dean reached out his arm. It flopped uselessly upon the broken ground. He tried to call out to the man, but his lungs could not get enough air. Dean willed with everything in him that Takahiro would notice him. Some providence must have listened, for his Sergeant met his wordless gaze. Dean shook his head and rolled his eyeballs towards the rear of the battlefield.
Ringing.
"Go" he wanted to say, "flee, run, survive!"
Takahiro shook his own head. Dean pleaded silently, his head weakly bobbing back to the main force again and again.
The look intensified as the Sergeant pulled out a golden canister from his ammo pouch.
Ringing.
"Idiot!" Dean screamed internally.
The Sergeant grimaced as he ripped the top off the canister with his teeth and drove the revealed needle into his own thigh. His eyes widened and became black as his pupils dilated.
"Goddammit, save yourself! Mirabelle and Sammy are waiting!" But Dean's mouth couldn't exhale the words he thought. "Use that Elixir to get yourself to safety! Don't you dare do what I think you are going to do!"
Takahiro Himada lifted himself to his feet and roared.
Ringing.
Every Pokeball on the man's belt opened at once as his team found the last dregs of their energy and careened forward. A Primeape, a Geodude, and a Magnemite all led the way in a suicidal charge across no man's land. Dean summoned all of his own strength to just turn his head.
Ringing.
On and on they ran. Over the pitted and scarred battlefield they charged. Bullets pinged across a shimmering barrier held by the Magnemite. The Primeape became a missile, hurled by the Geodude into the ranks of the advancing opposition. Blood vessels burst from the Primeape's forehead as it hurled itself recklessly into the fray, too angry to die. Takahiro Himada did not stop running even as the Tyranitar snarled and laughed its guttural bellows. What could a man do to a dragon?
Dean kept waiting for the [Hyperbeam] that would end it all, but it never came. Instead, it simply stomped its foot and made the ground shake. Takahiro Himada did not falter, his Geodude keeping him steady upon the splintering earth. He continued to press onwards.
Finally, as if the dragon could stand such impunity no longer, the Tyranitar shattered the air with its challenge and stormed forward in a show of pure elemental wrath. With each step the ground vented chasms and erupted in shards of ballistic stone.
The Tyranitar leapt.
The earth vomited its bowels as it rent itself asunder.
Takahiro Himada flew, his hands gripping that simple piece of wrought iron that had previously held up the trenches that had failed them. As the man drifted high aloft in the air, time slowed.
Surprise was etched on the armored guise of the dragon as the impudent human drove the iron home into its right eye. Indignation creased Takahiro's face as he sought to leverage his weight behind the iron bar and dig it deeper. Rage enveloped everything as the Tyranitar thrashed and howled, gouging the battlefield and sweeping aside everything in its path as it registered the pain.
Takahiro Himada became two.
Entrails dangled from the monster's claws as it tore the would-be hero's body apart. Yet the Sergeant would not relent his hold upon the iron spike. He held on even as the Tyranitar whipped its body to dislodge him.
"Gyrados! [Ice Beam]!"
Scintillating frost cracked through the air and struck the flailing monster. Crystals of water forced its armored plates apart and drove themselves deep into the flesh beneath. The beast that had laid low an entire advance force slowed and screamed.
Takahiro Himada still hung on even as his own body succumbed to the unrelenting cold.
Only the now terrified peals of thunder from a dying monster could be heard as it became encased in a mighty prism of ice. But as more of its body became frozen, the quieter it became until all was silent.
No explosions. No gunfire. No ringing.
"Onward, men! Hold nothing back!"
Dean wept at the sight of his best friend locked in a battle of tenacity with a monster, frozen in his determination to save all he could. He continued to weep even as Captain Gram led the charge that would route the Johto forces for miles before finally breaking them.
He wept until all went black.
