He Still Remembers This Crash And Just Wants To Be Prepared For Another One (abandon Crashing Airship

You mean, Zero? Unforntunately, as for now, Megarig and Mecha-Giratina are destroyed and data about Giratina’s abilities is most likely lost, so, no RescueRig any time soon. Also, Graceland is far from being cooperative in this area and Zero is in jail.

apparently lillie gets lost really easily?? someone save this child

Colress is worst (like he just saw keyboard yesterday), James is the best (he can do this with closed eyes and he turns this into ART!)

Who does it better?

Past of the future, future of the past...

Chapter 9. A strange beginning

25.06.2000, 20 years after the Shift Neighborly Town, Sinnoh

Gentle ringing sound filled the room. With a sigh, a boy with long blue hair has removed the blanket and got up, doing morning stretches. After he was done, he took a shower, changed from his favorite dark pajamas to something more suitable and left his room, going down to kitchen for breakfast.

As always, his mom Deborah has made something amazingly-smelling and his dad Yakob was trying to start himself up with a cup of some horrifying caffeine mix, as dark as…

"Oh, and there you are, just in time!" said Deborah, as a figure has arisen from the shadows in the far end of the room.

"Suppose so. Morning, everyone," replied the Pitch-Black Pokemon, crossing the room.

"Morning, Darkrai," sighed Tobias, taking a seat. Yakob mumbled something welcoming too, then returned to drinking his crime against coffee. Darkrai visibly shifted away from Yakob, still having highly unpleasant memories about that one time he tried whatever infernal substance Tobias' dad was brewing for himself. There was a good reason it was once nearly classified as a chemical weapon, as a wide-awake Komala in Yakob's lab, who also made a mistake of trying this liquid insanity, could attest to.

After a wonderful breakfast (with Latios joining them soon after the beginning), the entire group started to pack up for today's trip in Unova. Thankfully, whatever unholy mixture Yakob was taking was sufficient to finally wake him up, so, he took the wheel, leaving Deborah, Tobias and Darkrai free to take seats, while Latios has cloaked and clung to the car's roof, loving the thrill of "riding" like that.

With a silent hiss, hydrogen started flowing into the fuel cells. Seconds later, with a quiet whine, wheel hub motors kicked in, driving the car away from the home and towards the Sunyshore City - specifically, the Theta Spaceport.

----

The not-so-young-anymore dragon silently flew underneath the forest's canopy, using the flexibility of its serpentine body to maneuver between trees. Something in the back of its mind screamed, that it shouldn't be going like this, that it should be soaring free in the sky, but immediate concerns continued to override it for many years.

Jet-black Legendary knew, that here, it was in relative safety. Humans would have massive troubles searching for it there. They won't risk using their horrific weapons there… or, at least, so it hoped.

Right now, it was nearing the edge of the forest, near the road from place, known to humans as "Pallet Town". It has decided to stay here for a bit, until the night comes… which should happen relatively soon, in fact.

Rayquaza took a rest on a tree, monitoring the situation around. Thankfully, the road wasn't used this often and Rayquaza knew, how to hide, so, even with its jet-black scales, it didn't have much trouble hiding.

Some time later, it has noticed a single young human, who was traversing down the road with two Pokemon at his side - a Pikachu and a Solosis.

Sky High Pokemon knew this human - quite a few years ago, this young human got lost in the forest and ended up taking shelter from rain under the roots of a large tree, together with a lot of Pokemon. Rayquaza knew this moment very well, especially since it also took a shelter there, coiling around others… and, despite worries of the Legendary, it all went pretty nice.

Sensing no one else of note around, the not-so-young dragon decided to take a risk and lit up the bioluminescent stripes, then flew almost right in front of the young human, even showing off a bit. While human did end up taking some device and pointing it at Rayquaza, evidently, it has malfunctioned and produced no result of worth… although Sky High Pokemon decided to stop doing the risky things now, darkened the bioluminescent stripes again and disappeared under the canopy of the forest, barely noticing Ho-oh flying above it, to which none of the participants paid much attention.

----

"Good afternoon passengers," sounded from the speakers. "This is the pre-boarding announcement for flight P-52-4 to Nuvema, Unova. Please have your boarding pass, Pokeballs and identification ready. Boarding will begin in approximately ten minutes time on Tower 12. Thank you."

Tobias, Deborah and Yakob nodded to each other and headed towards the appropriate access terminal. Two elevator and one travelator rides later, they were walking through the access arm to their vehicle, which was just finishing getting refueled with slush hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Seemingly short and stout (but only seemingly so), it, nonetheless, was capable of easily carrying up to 1000 people between any two points of Earth.

Family took their designated places, with Latios being confined to a Pokeball and Darkrai managing to secretly leave it and sneak into the shadow under Tobias' bunk.

"Attention, passengers, this is your captain speaking. The vessel will take off in ten minutes. Walkway is now retracting," sounded from speakers, as the doors to the outside world got closed and walkway got retracted. Passengers were still chatting, as they were taking their places and preparing for takeoff, some of them checking safety cards and/or watching the safety videos, some sharing their experiences, some merely talking… all was as usual.

"Attention, passengers, this is your captain speaking. The vessel will take off in five minutes. Make sure you're on your designated acceleration couch, safely strapped and with your Pokeballs put into the safe underneath it," sounded from the speakers again. Tobias, after a small check, found out Darkrai's small machination, but decided to stay quiet, knowing his oldest Pokemon partner all too well.

"Ten, nine, ignition sequence start, six, five, engine running fully... Liftoff! We have a liftoff on ballistic liner P-52-4! Tower cleared!"

As those words were being said, the plug-cluster aerospike engine has ignited and reached the nominal power. The launch clamps have opened too, letting the huge rocket soar into the sky and set the trajectory to suborbitals, while also making passengers experience moderate G-force. People, however, seem to take it just fine, some of them even joking about the flight being "Smooth, quiet and, in altogether, delightful experience".

Finally, all external fuel tanks ran dry and, with quiet dull clangs, separated from the rocket, starting their own flyback sequence to allow for easier recovery. In the meantime, ballistic liner finished the boost phase and entered the microgravity coast, with captain making another announcement:

"Good afternoon passengers. This is your captain speaking. First I'd like to welcome everyone on Talonflame Aerospace flight P-52-4. We are currently cruising at an altitude of 185 km at an speed of just under 7 km/s. The time is 1:25 pm. The weather under us looks good and with the lack of wind at the arrival point we are expecting to land in Nuvema with some fuel to spare. The weather in Nuvema is clear and sunny, with a high of 25 degrees for this afternoon. If the weather cooperates we should get a great view of the city as we descend. Right now, you will be able to unstrap yourself and to get some awesome views in the illuminators. I'll talk to you again before we reach our destination. Until then, relax and enjoy the rest of the flight."

Indeed, soon enough, people liberated themselves from the safety straps and started gathering around illuminators, with Darkrai managing to slip out of the shadows and get near Tobias too. While it did prompt some uneasiness, authority of Yakob and Deborah was sufficient to prevent it from escalating further, allowing a blue-haired boy and a white-haired Mythical to enjoy views of Earth from the space for a bit longer… until another announcement came through:

"Attention, passengers, this is your captain speaking. In five minutes, we will begin the flip maneuver. Please, return to your couches and strap yourselves back."

Grumbling, people have complied, returning back to their acceleration couches and strapping themselves in order to prevent flying away, when rocket fires maneuvering thrusters. In exactly five minutes from announcement, RCS engines rumbled and the rocket flipped around, pointing the main plug-cluster aerospike engine in the direction of travel. Soon, the main engine woke up again, decelerating the rocket a bit and correcting its trajectory.

The rocket plunged through the atmosphere, decelerating even further as it goes, with liquid hydrogen circulating through the truncated spike of main engine and cooling it down, allowing it to work as a heat shield. Soon, it ended its flight by a gentle hover landing, with exactly right position and heading to allow one of the access arms on the service tower to reach it. After the connection of access arm and opening of doors, Tobias and his family packed up and left the rocket, reaching their rented car two elevator and two travelator rides later.

As usual, human part of the family took their places in the vehicle, Latios cloaked and clung to the outside, while Darkrai stayed in shadows near the backseat.

"So…" started Tobias. "What's this conference's going to be about?"

"As always, yearly conference between researchers of Legendary and Mythical Pokemon," replied Yakob, driving the car to the hotel. "Thanks to your help, we've got some nice results."

"Yakob, if they ever try this again…" said Darkrai from the shadows in a pretty grim voice.

"I know, crouch, get to the nearest cover and wait for the Dark Void attacks to stop flying, then use the replicas of Lunar Wing over the victims, once you've cleared the area."

"Exactly. The fact of me deciding to follow Tobias and you two on my own volition does not mean me welcoming invasive experimentation."

"I sure remember the last time…" muttered Deborah in a strange voice.

"I didn't kill anyone back then, though," quickly replied the Pitch-Black Pokemon, as if slightly afraid, prompting Tobias to enter the conversation again:

"Mostly because of Latios with his Heal Pulse being capable of stabilizing their condition, until I was there to break the Lunar Wing replicas from my personal stash out."

"Yep. Exactly what I've counted on," said Darkrai, even leaving the shadow a bit and nodding.

"Not the best strategy… but, I guess, we'll have to let it slip for now." mumbled Tobias' mother, then sighed. "I hate the rocket lag, to be honest."

"We all do!" agreed everyone inside the car with her.

----

"Now arriving to the Space Colony Core-Middleway," sounded in the cabin of "Drapion" Galarian deep space transporter, as it was slowing down and preparing to dock to the still-unfinished Bernal Sphere - a greatest testament to the insane race of the Space Fever, alongside with automated factories on the Moon, as well as mass driver, which was used to deliver parts of the colony into space, where they were assembled.

"Finally…" mumbled a remarkably unremarkable human, cradling some strange case in his hands. Soon, a quiet, dull "clang" announced, that the ship has docked to the gigantic space installation. Man, blending in with the rest of passengers of the Earth-L5 express, left it through the docking tube and went through a route few people knew, heading straight to the biolabs block on the equator of the sphere.

Inside the Lab 14, another man was already waiting for him.

"So?.."

"Recovered," said the newcomer, opening his case and extracting a strange, tubular device with a faint glow inside the transparent middle section. "You have no idea, how hard it was, though. But old Fuji built some stuff real sturdy."

"Heh… brother was sure like this… was."

The colonial sighed, knowing too well, what's happened back on the planet, then went for another question:

"What about the second specimen?"

"Was unable to recover."

"Well… I guess we'll have to do with only her for now."

"I guess."

The newcomer gave the device to the colonial scientist, who, gently cradling it, took it to the adjacent room and placed it on the table, starting to connect it to the equipment.

"Lessons were learned, mistakes will not be repeated," mumbled the scientist, working on the device and, from time to time, looking at a huge empty biogrowth tube behind him. "I just hope you'll understand me, when the time comes…"

----

"Your Majesty?" sounded a message from the comm app.

"Yes?" replied the Empress.

"Project SAS is going almost as planned. Phase 2 is at 70%, industrial automation is progressing surely, second level networks are almost established."

"ISFs 3, 5 and 9?"

"Gave us all-clear on the technical side."

"And… what about possibility of Scenario 5?"

"Non-zero, but not too great. Roughly 3.6% possible."

"3.6% - not great, not terrible," concluded the Empress, before the call has ended and she relaxed in the chair, remembering, how has it all started fifteen years ago...

----

The Empress was sitting in her chair, listening to the group of scientists, who were standing before her and telling about a plan - a very audacious one, but, given, what has happened a week ago, worthy of consideration. When they've finished giving the explanation, she stood up a bit, walked to the window and, looking at the city outside of the Palace, asked:

"Automation of the economy, huh?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"And… what does it promise for the Empire?"

"Well… an economic solvency that will eclipse that of the rest of the world, no corruption, once it's fully implemented, highly-reactive planning, allowance…"

"Enough. Tell me one thing… Does it mean, that, should it be fully and completely implemented, I will lose my power and be, in fact, left without ability to rule the Empire, remaining merely a face of the new, automatic government system?"

"... Yes."

"And… will this system bring more prosperity to the Empire, than I and the rest of the current rulers can?"

"... Yes."

"... Then you have my full approval."

"... Huh?"

"You are to begin the implementation process as soon as you can. If sacrifice of my position and power will mean the best for the Empire - I am ready to do that."

"... As you wish."

The group of scientists left the room, leaving Empress looking in the window and thinking, whether this decision was right or not and should she cancel this project, while there's still some time left.

Author's notes: The ballistic liner Tobias and his family rides is based on ITHACUS global transportation rocket; The "Drapion" is based on a real project of a "Scorpion" general-purpose space transportation system; Space Fever will be explained more, as the time goes; Can you guess, what was the device the newcomer gave to the scientist on the space colony? The hint is in the only name mentioned in this section...

Past of the future, future of the past...

Chapter 5. Soarin' over the space...

A small speck plunged through the atmosphere of Earth, burning pretty bright yellow. Dozens of radars and telescopes were tracking it. It's really ironic, but the Sky High Pokemon, who was supposed to rule the skies and above, was now helplessly falling to the ground, mercilessly dragged by gravity and burned by atmospheric ram pressure. All Draconids, who were now watching TV, could not believe their eyes. The Dragon Lord, the great Rayquaza… got destroyed by the titanic machine, constructed by sorisians. The machine, which was crammed full of nuclear weapons, capable of obliterating cities, should they start flying to Earth. In fact, the same thing could be said for most of other TV watchers… bar sorisians. For them, what little re-entry of the serpentine dragon they've seen, marked a beginning of a new age - an age of open skies, when people can turn their gazes towards the stars and not be afraid, that someone territorial and feral will stop their journey before it even starts. While the rest of the world was either shocked, horrified or furious, Soris was celebrating the first victory of their first space warship. Now the other regions will know, that the Empire is not something to be tampered with! ---- On the Grey Sea, a decent fleet, consisting exclusively of nuclear-powered ships, was underway, towing a giant floating unusually-looking rocket in the middle of the formation. Several ships with "buzzers" - arcanotechnological devices, designed to drive off the Pokemon before the launch - and depth charge launchers, a tanker with kerosene, an electrolyzer-equipped ship for creating liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on site, four deep space communication ships, several frigates with anti-air weapons and a single launch control ship - all of those machines were preparing for something great. A personal tiltjet of the Emperor, which was speeding to the landing pad of the launch control ship, only confirmed this further. A long distance from it, a research plane from Kanto was flying, trying to get a decent picture of what the heck was even happening. If the reports of astronauts from a nearly year ago were to be believed, imperials claimed, that their Moon mission was launched by the similar rocket 3000 years ago… but how? And what was their reason for this launch, not even ten hours after the launch of their space warship? And what was the payload of this giant rocket? ---- Young Draconid could not believe, what she was seeing. She once saw the Lord Rayquaza with her own eyes - a long, majestic serpentine dragon of incredible power. What lied before her… wasn't like it. This one was thoroughly burned, up to the point when the originally green skin wasn't recognizable, some of the mug-fins were completely destroyed, eye sockets were empty and scorched, the horny ridges of mouth were chipped, one of the fangs was missing… The strange crackling sound interrupted her thoughts and, less than a second after, someone rudely yanked her away and started to mercilessly drag her. "What the Reverse World?" "The less we spend time near the corpse, the better," the assailant replied, revealing himself to be Damien. "The Geiger counter is going crazy near it, as you've heard. When we are back at the Meteor Village, we'll need to throw away our clothes, shave all the hair on our bodies and wash ourselves thoroughly, lest the radiation poisoning get much worse." "Radiation poisoning?" "Valencia works on the nuclear power project, she knows a lot about it and lended me a Geiger counter. Let's go faster, since the sooner we decontaminate ourselves - the better." ---- "Fueling of the Water Dragon is now finished. The rocket is ready to be set into launch position," said one of the launch control officers. "Fill the cap's ballast tanks and set the rocket into launch position," gave an order the Emperor, who was just delighted to see one of his creations being ready to go flight pretty soon. "Executing, Your Majesty." Giant rocket started to slowly sink and, after several hours, stabilized itself half-submerged and vertical. "The rocket is now in the launch position, Your Majesty. Buzzers working good, no Bedolangs or other Pokemon for several kilometers, all systems good." "Excellent. Resume the launch countdown." "Aye-aye." ---- "Much better," said Damien, who has just finished thoroughly washing himself with soap, having already shaved everywhere he was able to. To his left, Helian sat, also washed and completely shaved. "Now can you tell me, what is the meaning of all this?" asked them Renza, who was clearly not happy. "We've seen Rayquaza's corpse. It's so radioactive, the Geiger counter near it goes crazy and, apparently, the corpse itself glows in the dark slightly." "... Wait, what did you just say? Rayquaza's… corpse?" "Yes. As much as it's shocking to us all, apparently, sorisian nuclear weaponry was able to kill the Dragon Lord. And no, you better don't go there, since, as I've already said, it's radioactive as heck. I think we've got a small radiation poisoning by merely standing near it. Good thing wind was blowing away from us too..." "Damien, Renza, I don't feel so we…" started Helian, then fell to her knees and started vomiting. "Uh-oh," murmured the shaved Draconid, carefully helping her to get back up. "Well, it's been six hours already, so, it shouldn't be so bad. Does your head ache?" "Barely, but… yes," Helian said, trying to not throw up again. "Well, Renza, now you see, what the radiation poisoning is. Bury the bag with our old clothing somewhere and get us a new ones. Oh, and also - call the Elder!" "Will do," replied the scared Renza, sprinting out of the building. "Don't worry, Helian, the worst part will be over in less than a 24 hours and all of it will be over in a month or so," murmured Damien, trying to calm the girl down. ---- "... Ignition sequence start, four, three, ballast detached, all engines are running! Liftoff! We have a liftoff! Fifty-four minutes past the hour, liftoff on the Water Dragon!" As those words were being said, the rocket, which was calmly floating in the sea, shuddered, the water around it started to rise from the giant bubble of exhaust gases, but the rocket was already lifting off and setting the course for beyond the sky, propelled by titanic aerospike engine in the aft and four smaller assist engines on top of the first stage. "Never gets old," the Emperor said with a nearly childish glee on his face. "Ah, I remember, how hard it was to fit an aerospike in there… At least it works and is pretty cheap to manufacture and use, as well as recoverable." "The combustion instability for the big bell was even bigger of a bastard to get rid of, though," noted one of the engineers, who worked on this project. "No wonder we've ditched it after a single launch and placed an aerospike engine instead." "Yeah. Arcanics for stabilizing combustion in engine of this grade aren't cheap and aerospike is just better overall." "Not for non-atmo conditions, though." "Of course." ---- "Zemlino has just reported launch of the Water Dragon, crammed full with cargo," happily reported the comm operator. "A hundred-something of drive nukes, a few tons of liquid hydrogen, two retro-missiles and, what's really important - repair supplies!" "Cool!" whistled the engineer. "It's pretty much a miracle, that we not just survived yesterday, not just achieved victory, but also made it with no serious damage to the ship." "Yeah, but this very un-lucky Hyper Beam, which passed right between the second-stage shock absorbers, was… unnerving," the pilot replied. "Even though they are armored, if the shock absorbers got damaged and stuck - we would've been left with no primary propulsion and, as you can guess, majorly screwed." "To speak truthfully, you are the real hero of yesterday battle," noted the weapons operator. "I don't know, how you've managed to do it, but to take the most powerful attacks on the well-armored pusher plate or, at least, make them just scratch the hull's surface - it's more than something. If not for it, our ship would've got a few "unplanned ventilation ducts" - maybe, even through the drive bomb magazines or reactor!" "Me? How about you? After all, it's you, who was constantly scoring the hits on this dragon and not letting it get a metaphorical breath!" retorted the pilot. "Gah, I was just deciding targeting and launch priorities for the offensive weapons, while the fire control system did all the aiming and shooting!" "Comrades, let me just say, that we were all heroes yesterday," interrupted them the captain, who was trying to prevent discussion from getting out of hand. "We all did our part in taking out the tyrant of the sky, so, no need to get hesitant about your achievements. By the way, it's time for us to go rest and allow second shift to take the stations." "Aye-aye, comrade captain!" ---- Deep under the Lumiose City, inside the War Room, quite a few people sat. "So, basically, now we have a giant militarized spaceship above our heads," one of them said. If his badge was to be believed, he was the current Secretary-General of the Pokemon Nation. "As scientists from Unova told me, it uses nuclear explosions for propulsion and for weaponry." "Nuclear explosions? Isn't that just a theory?" said a woman from Kanto. "As you can see, not anymore," unovan president replied, slightly irritated from having to state something so obvious. "By the way, Mr. President, I must note again, that cancelling the Castelia Project was a very, very big mistake," one of the nuclear scientists decided to put a word. "Castelia Project? You mean, weaponizing Forces of Nature and using them against us during this war was not enough?!" the Hoenn delegate responded with a great fury in voice. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" the Secretary-General decided to take a measure before the actual battle could've ensued. Even if no one had a Pokemon here, all-out physical pummeling was still not entirely out of the question. "Anyway, I will stand on that cancelling the Castelia Project was a great mistake," scientist resumed his talk. "Since, apparently, Soris Empire had no moral or other restrictions in performing their own version of it, which resulted in what we see today - they've got nuclear explosives of many kinds, while we've never ever performed a single test, making the nuclear explosions pure theory until the recent events! We have absolutely nothing, that can even scratch their ship! And it is loaded to brim with nukes, probably, ready to turn entire regions into scorched wastelands! Even the Rayquaza itself fell before this horrible weaponry - by the way, we still have no idea, where should we dispose of this corpse, which is so radioactive, it glows in the dark..." "Loaded to brim? Are you so sure about that? It's entirely possible, that they've exhausted their armament during the fight - there were quite a lot of explosions!" "Not anymore," said a director of the Mossdeep Space Center, getting off the phone. "Just a few minutes ago, a superheavy rocket was launched from the sea. Of course, it's not the same kind of monster, but still something. For what it looks like, it's a cargo mission, designed to resupply their space warship. I'm sure, that there'll be a lot of nukes to replenish the storages." "Arceus damn it," representative from Sinnoh mumbled, grabbing his head. "Can you contact the rulers of the Soris Empire?" "The Emperor is now onboard one of the ships in the fleet, which launched this superheavy rocket. The Empress… we are trying to contact her, but she is not available right now and representative refuses to give any comments." "And those damn journalists are on it again…" stated grimly the Kanto's representative, looking at the TV screen. ---- "Workpods deployed, set to meet the cargo carrier," reported Pyotr Petrov, who was working as an engineer in the second shift. On the outside, one of the lander bays opened, allowing two small, mostly-cylindrical crafts with several manipulators and chemfuel engines, to detach from the space warship and enter the interception course to meet the "Hauler" superheavy cargo spacecraft and ensure, that it safely arrives to the "Red Explorer" for resupplying the massive nuclear pulse-propelled vessel with drive bombs, hydrogen, spare parts and like this. Right now, the pods were working in the automated mode, even though each of them was able to house a single human operator, should the situation require it. As Pyotr looked on the flying pods through the secondary cameras, he thought, that, probably, Pokemon Nation would have used a Reuniclus or something for operation like this. He still could not understand, how did it come, that they were in so close with Pokemon. Of course, cosmonauts of the Nation were using some kind of spherical containment devices, as the crew of the Space Lab 2 reported, and scientists of Soris Empire were going just crazy about them, but… how did it come, that they've relied on Pokemon so much? ---- "Zhorik, how long do we have to wait?" asked the captain in slightly irritated voice. Right now, the entirety of this shift of bridge crew gathered in the mess hall in the outermost level of the habitation centrifuge, which was pretty cozy, with a big display on the wall, several stands with books and magazines (mostly the "Human Will Conquer Space Soon!" and "Human Conquers Space!", because someone in the ground crew had a strange sense of humor), a few tables with comfortable chairs and a galley with mini-bar. "Not much… Here!" happily exclaimed the engineer, who has just managed to reconfigure one of the backup comm antennas into a TV signal receiver and jury-rig a decryption program for the broadcast standards of Pokemon Nation, before running the decrypted signal to the display. "Let us try to tune to one of their channels…" A few minutes of fiddling with settings later, they were greeted by some kind of a news broadcast about their recent battle with, how the hoennians called it, Sky High Pokemon. None of the cosmonauts knew the general language of Pokemon Nation well (though no one from Soris did as for now, even the linguists - the language barrier is not an easy thing to overcome!), but they could get a basic outline. "Taras Grigorievich, do they really think, that we sleep and dream of nuking their cities to ashes?" asked the perplexed sensors operator. "Apparently, yes. Just like we are afraid of them using their Pokemon - especially Ghosts and Psychics - to wage a war on us. Teleport raids, guerrilla warfare and so on… In short, this'll be really bloody, should it happen. I don't know, if the people of Soris would be able to win." "And they are afraid of us razing their cities from orbit, where nothing of their origin can reach our ship without getting intercepted. Makes sense… and parity - if they try to attack Soris, we blow their homes up with nukes and vice versa." ---- "Drive bomb magazines reloaded, RCS tanks full of propellant, retro-missiles loaded into silos, damaged armor plates replaced. I must say, our ship is now almost as good as new", reported engineer Petrov, looking at screens. He was very happy, that there were no heavily-damaged parts, which would've required more repair than removing a damaged armored plate and slapping a fresh one in place, as well as the fact, that most plates were designed to be easily interchangeable. After the trainwreck of a repairability the Project 21A Space Ferry was, no one wanted to go through the same nightmare, except for Pokemon Nation with their Space Shuttle (though even this was debatable). "Wonderful," replied the current commander of the ship. "Incoming transmission!" said the comm officer. "Patching through." Author's notes: "Human Will Conquer Space Soon!" (10.05.400 AFE - 18.05.425 AFE) and "Human Conquers Space!" (18.06.425 AFE and ongoing) - monthly magazines in Soris Empire, which are mostly centered around the Imperial Space Program, but also host some comics and stories. Even though, originally, they weren't selling well, they've managed to rack up a really decent fanbase over time, especially after the Sergiy Vyugenko started to write his stories for those journals. AFE - After Foundation of the Empire. Water Dragon rocket is based on the real Sea Dragon, except with aerospike engine in the first stage (second version of Water Dragon). Bedolang - the Pack Hunting Pokemon, very dangerous aquatic predator, native to Soris. During the Shift, for the reasons yet unknown, most of the Bedolang population got time-shifted as well, while the rest slowly died out from inbreeding. At the current day, the shifted population is sufficient to safely breed and starts to become a sea hazard to rival Gyarados again (in fact, before the Shift, packs of Bedolangs were known to hunt and kill Gyarados without much problems). However, due to the actions of Soris Empire, they prefer to avoid the ships.

Continuation (Lawrence III and Yveltal).

Lawrence III is a scientific genius and the single best artist in the Pokemon world. He travels all around the planet in his giant airship - Flying Palace of Arts - and seeks inspiration everywhere and in everything, creating unique and priceless artworks in process. During the Orange Islands Incident, he tried and succeeded in awakening Lugia to get the inspiration he was seeking throughout his entire life. After the incident was over, he has donated his entire art collection, except for the Ancient Mew card, to the Shamouti people and flew away in his somewhat damaged Flying Palace of Arts. His last heard words were “How it all began, and how it will begin... again.”

“I’m afraid I’m not a trainer, young lady, I’m merely... an artist. I’ve began my artline with the Ancient Mew card, and now, I’ve created all this. Legendary Pokemon have always been my passion, and soon, my artwork of life itself will be Legendary.”

Unlike her normal world’s counterpart, backwards world Yveltal does not look that fierce and predatorish. While her body retains the normal Yveltal look, her eyes are not full of anger and a desire for prey. Instead, they are almost always filled with sadness and sorrow, because she never forgets those she was unable to save. Hovewer, she loves playing with both human and Pokemon children, because, as she says, “It’s one of those things that gives a meaning to my life”, and during these sessions, she may temporarily get herself out of her depressed state and become happy.

“Why do I, the Destruction Pokemon, look like this? Because I understand the value of life, unlike the Life Pokemon, Xerneas. What a cruel irony - the Life Pokemon loves to create a new means to kill and the Destruction Pokemon is the one who saves lives from the twisted creations of Xerneas. Being functionally immortal and having nearly infinite memory, I can never forget those I was unable to save and had to put out of theirs misery. Even more painful to me is that I was not able to save Zygarde from the one of the most evil Xerneas’s creations - the mind-altering virus. Sometimes I think, that there is nothing I can do about this irredeemable immortal psycho Xerneas, and it makes me want to curl up in the Cocoon form and never leave this state. However, when I look at the happy smiles of the humans and Pokemon, when I see them fulfilling theirs dreams, when I play with theirs children - these thoughts go away and I feel that I’m needed. As long as there is hope in anyone, there’s a reason for me to live and fight Xerneas.”

@blackjackgabbiani, how do you like this? For some reason, I can’t imagine Artist!Jiri without toga and some unfinished artwork on the background.

APPARENTLY IN ANOTHER WORLD HUNTER J GIVES OUT RARE POKEMON

If you look closer at the moments when the last shell from those, which were  launched on island, hit’s the rock, you can see, that it DID some damage (rock shards flying), and sheer kinetic power of impact can be observed when shells hit the Moltres (he is pushed backwards pretty hard). And yeah, I’d like to learn more about Flying Palace too. From what I’ve seen in the movie, she has 5 levels plus exhibition hall and control tower (it can be seen during the scene where Moltres and Zapdos are wreaking havoc on her), her GUI language is English and she has 3 main anti-gravity modules (”Mayday! Mayday! Prepare for crush landing on Lightning island!” scene. If you look closer, you can see the word “CAUTION” on the left side of hologram GUI and three power scales on the right side, which are going criticaly low).

Why don’t any bad guys in pokemon carry guns. This one guy is okay with glassing the entire earth but he won’t shoot a child.

Past of the future, future of the past...

Prologue: Once upon a time...

The universe is a strange thing. A smallest change in the single chain of events can produce incredible amounts of new timelines.

In one of them, Ancient Soris Empire never came to be. Worlds from this timeline are the most known ones.

In other, it came to be and never experienced the Ancient Soris War. It took only a few generations, until the entire world was united, and one more, until the gaze got turned to the stars. When the time, known to us as "present", came, they've already had colony near the another star.

In yet another, it was completely obliterated during the Ancient Soris War, waged and won by the local Legendaries. For the thousands of years, Soris was pushed back into stone age, where Pokemon reigned supreme.

In yet another, sorisian people won the war and killed their Legendaries, but at terrible cost. However, even in the horrible, sorry state, life in the Soris continued. In this timeline, Soris gave birth to two megacorporations, which later will (not so) silently oppose the world government and, in the spirit of the Ancient Soris Empire, about which they've had no idea until very recently, try to build better and safer future for the humans.

However, in one of the strangest of them, Soris Legendaries decided to attempt to erase the Ancient Soris Empire from the time itself. No one truly knows, what has happened this day, but the result is known well - the Legendaries disappeared forever and the Empire, along with its creations, were moved 3100 years into future. This is the timeline, which this story will follow...

ISF 9 Chronicles, part 4.

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Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

04.07.419 AFE

Arcanists finished replacing focusing lenses in irradiation chamber. The material for them has to be imported from Kalos mining site, then purified by using some equipment, unknown to me, and many, many kilowatts of electricity and only then they can start forming the lenses themselves. Also, after the initial forming, they have to be autoclaved and microwaved, as well as sterilized by gamma radiation, before further procedures can be commenced, then this cycle has to be repeated again. No wonder they’re so expensive!

08.07.419 AFE

Vitya brought something from his friend in Bioscience Division. Says, that it’s some kind of a “really dank kush” and we shall “blaze it”. Whatever, I guess. My intuition does not say anything bad about it.

08.07.419 AFE

Shiiit... This weed was really dank as flak. We easily glomped two bags of small pies. I think I’m starting to...

08.07.419 AFE

Dude, I can FEEL data. This is such a wonderful feeling... I mean, my brain is a bioneural computer or whatever, the things I maintain are also computers, only non-bioneural. I think I need to share my ideas with IDE.

09.07.419 AFE

I don’t even know what to think anymore. Yesterday, I’ve got really high and wrote a program under the effects of weed. The program itself is fine and good, but the structure and language... How I’ve managed to do it on several esoteric languages... WHAT WILL I TELL TO SUPERIORS?!

EDIT: Thankfully, my high self was high and kind enough to make version on the UPL3 with commentaries. It’s just as optimised as other versions and even has all the commentaries, though I’m yet to fully decipher them, because of them being written under the effects of the weed.

12.07.419 AFE

Arcanists and bioscientists had finally discovered the reason behind the Mega Stone’s explosion. Yes, my suspicions were right - it was tied to the Flygons’ adaptability. Apparently, this metamorphosis-inducing trait conflicts with usual Mega Evolution metamorphic signature or something like this, their speech was complicated. What’s more important is that it’s too similar to the Mega Evo and, when the Proto Stone gets irradiated with Flygon’s tissue serving as life energy modulator, it starts to morph into five kinds of different Mega Stones at the same time, crystallic structure becomes unstable, tensions rise, then boom - every last bit of energy gets released as Stone becomes high-velocity dust.

18.07.419 AFE

Arcanists monitored our region today. They say, that there are some pretty strange readings in the Grey Mountains. No shit. There’s like, a whole science town up there, dedicated to the research of this phenomena! Still, if the readings are strange for them, compared to the previous ones... I don’t like it, not at all.

25.07.419 AFE

Saw arrival of the “Overlord of Skies”-class airship in person. It’s so magnificent. Interestingly enough, some Flygons not just flew along with it, but, like, escorted it, trying to provide additional data as much as they could and helping to correct course. Of course, with autopilot, developed here in the Robotics Sub-Division, it wasn’t necessary, but still, I (and pilot, for what it seems) appreciate it. Looks like those dragon-bugs are smarter than they seem to be...

End of the “NB-CHRN-2″ datafile has been reached.

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Past of the future, future of the past...

Chapter 4. Breaking the blockade.

"Finally," said the Emperor, looking at the monumental machine, placed in the largest temporary sort-of-a-VAB built so far. "Finally! FINALLY!!!" Officers, which were standing not too far away from this genius, but a crazy one at that, exchanged looks of understanding. After all, this was his dream made real, even if forced to be remade for destruction… and protection. The ship itself - the first real, atomic explo-flyer, envisioned long ago, but built only recently - was truly a masterpiece of technology. Massing 4000 tons fully loaded, equipped with the most advanced sensors, protected by the arcanotech-enhanced composite armor, armed with railguns, howitzers, rotary cannons, space combat missiles and retro-missiles for planetary bombardment, this was the most powerful warmachine of the Soris Empire... so far. The nuclear fission reactor of this ship was built with inclusions of components from the reactor of Space Lab 2, as a way to drive the point of revenge and attract the blessing from the Red Spirit (though barely anyone believed in this one). After all, according to the mythology, this spirit gave its blessing to anyone, who was fighting to avenge the fallen comrades. Right now, the giant rocket was quietly sitting on the launchpad (built specifically for it) and receiving final checks. The first stage - the NUCLEUS booster - had simple, but pretty efficient chemfuel engines, which used liquid hydrogen as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidizer. A titanic tank of fuel in center of rocket, a sectionalized torus-like oxidizer tank around it, a monstrous plug-cluster aerospike engine right in the middle of bottom and several blocks of control engines near the edges - all of that could lift two thousand tons to orbit just by itself and then safely come back and land. However, that was not needed - it only needed to raise the payload roughly halfway to the space... The payload - the first manned interplanetary spaceship in the history of the world, remade into first space warship - had the nuclear pulse engine. When the separation happens, the shock absorbers, collapsed for the duration of the first phase of launch to make the rocket more compact, will first extend to full length, then the shaped-blast charge will be launched from gas gun between them and fly through the trapdoor in the pusher plate, before exploding and launching a wave of superheated nuclear plasma, which will impact the plate, protected by the layer of graphite, and transfer the momentum to the ship through two stages of shock absorbers. Then the auto-sprayers will apply the new layer of graphite, the new bomb will be launched and explode, and then it will repeat again and again... "Comrades, I think those nine months of accelerated work weren't for naught!" the Emperor finally stopped laughing like maniac and got himself together. "Prepare to remove the building shell. Prepare to fuel the NUCLEUS booster. All cosmonauts - prepare to board the ship. Begin the launch countdown." "Aye-aye, Your Majesty. Countdown begins, T-72 hours and counting. Beginning the launch pad preparations. Beginning the VAB final disassembly." Most of the stuff in the giant building was already removed in the preparation for launch. Now, the only thing they've needed to do was to activate fast-disassembly mechanisms, which will safely collapse the roof and walls outwards, without damaging the launch pad and the monstrous ship on it. ---- Empress knew, that her husband was crazy. She knew, that this launch can - and, likely, will - worsen the already-far-from-good terms, on which the Soris Empire now was with the Pokemon Nation (culture clash did not help, especially with the whole thing about decent amounts of nationals worshipping Legendaries and Mythicals). She knew, that Nation can see it as an act of war. But for some strange reason, she was nearly as excited to see this launch, as her husband was. Or, actually, like the most of sorisians will be very, very soon, when the "Red Explorer" gets finally unveiled. After all, her internal political campaign about honoring the memory of 11th expedition to the Space Lab 2 really helped. The sheer growth of the metal processing and nuclear, chemical, arcanotechnological and many other industries, amongst other developments… it was wonderful. Besides, this launch, should the ship survive the upcoming battle, will majorly lift her support. Even after all those years (The Shift not included), "Bread And Shows" still worked great time - both for the Soris Empire (some parts of the space program, along with most entertainment) and Pokemon Nation (League and Contests). And if the Nation decides to try to attack them… well, that's what for the ship has several "Lightning" retro-missiles with city-buster warheads! ---- "Look at this," said one of the operators in the Mossdeep Space Center, showing the director, who was walking nearby, transmission from the kantonian research plane, which was flying near the Soris. Right now, the biggest building in the complex of Zemlino Space Center has just… fallen apart, slightly reminding them of a flower, and revealed a giant rocket inside. This rocket was roughly comparable to those, which Pokemon Nation used for the Moon missions… except much, much thicker. "Are you even sure, that this is a rocket?" wondered director. "It's so huge… How would it even take off?" "No idea," replied the operator. "I suggest we get some Cornn Berries and watch the fireworks, when the Rayquaza destroys this thing!" "Be careful with your words!" notified him superior, then quietly added, "I agree. If they didn't get yet, that as soon as it flies to strato - it dies, then we can have some good views. Though I wonder, what they are overcompensating for…" ---- "T-10 minutes and counting," announced one of the operators in Zemlino. After several very hard days of final workings and pre-flight checks, the "Red Explorer" was finally preparing to leave the ground. The nuclear reactor of the ship was now working at minimal capacity, cooling through external loop, the NUCLEUS booster was checking the thrust vectoring and aerodynamic control surfaces, the cosmonauts were getting more comfortable in their chairs… The final launch poll resulted in "go" and now there was only one way - the way up. ---- "… Seventeen, sixteen, water suppression system online, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, ignition sequence start, six, we have ignition, four, three, two, all engines are running!" reported the announcer. "Liftoff! We have a liftoff, thirty-two minutes past the hour, liftoff on "Red Explorer"!" With a horrifying roar, the giant rocket started to slowly, but surely rise above the launchpad and accelerate, shock diamonds visible in the exhaust flames of working plug-cluster aerospike engine, rest of the launchpad clouded in steam, created by evaporating water from the water suppression system. "Tower cleared!" happily screamed Emperor Ivan the Second, tearing the microphone from the hands of announcer, when the giant machine passed the tower - the last remain of VAB's scaffolding. "T plus ten seconds, tower cleared, speed increasing as planned! The roar is terrific! The building is shaking! Look at that beauty go!" People, who were in this room, saw the Emperor going flat-out childish, jumping around while laughing like a madman and crying tears of joy. The last time he was like that was during the launch of Imperial Moon Mission on the Water Dragon rocket. ---- "Holy crap," mumbled one of the telescope operators in the Mossdeep Space Center. "Josh - do you see what I see?" "If you're about the unreasonably giant rocket finally going up - yep, I do. Honestly, what in the name of Ray… sorry, but still, what is this thing?" "No idea." Image from kantonian observatory was quickly routed to the main screen, allowing everyone to have a nice view on the rocket. Finally, the main engine in the first stage has gone silent. "The stages separate… Wait, what? The first stage is actively decelerating, and the second… What it this? I don't even…" The second stage indeed looked weirdly. Instead of the usual great bell of the rocket engine or the cluster of smaller engines, there was a thick plate with some kind of a tube in the middle of it, installed on several shock absorbers, a cone between the shock absorbers - and that's all. On the screen, suddenly, something was launched from the cone, flew through the plate, and… "Feed from O7 is dark. No idea, what the Reverse World was that, but the telescope's matrix is dead." "Routing the SolOb6 to screen… Arceus the Original One, what the frak?" "..." entire room got speechless, as the telescope camera, designed for studying the Sun, showed ship steadily accelerating on what seemed to be huge explosions - probably, nuclear in nature. Thick plate (which, for some reason, was varying in thickness as the explosions were going - probably, serving as an another shock absorber) and long piston-based shock absorbers served well to protect the giant ship from explosions and soften the acceleration. Blast after blast, the giant ship was surely rising higher and higher... ---- "Separation commencing," reported the pilot, looking at the screen, which displayed the data of active autopilot. "Separation complete. Booster is out of the danger zone. Initiating nuclear pulse propulsion. Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing." Entire ship shook, when the drive bomb, launched from the gas gun, detonated behind the ship's aft. Wave of superhot tungsten plasma, along with aerial overpressure wave, struck the plate, but thin layer of graphite worked well, ablating, but protecting the arcane-enhanced steel alloy underneath from getting damaged. Under normal conditions, the sheer acceleration would've instantly killed the cosmonauts and collapsed the hull of the ship. However, thanks to the gas bags right behind the plate and heavy, two-staged hydropneumatic shock absorbers, the fraction of second of acceleration got elongated, proportionally lowering the loads on the machine and men inside it. Milliseconds after the plasma from the detonation of the drive bomb dispersed, auto-sprayers deployed themselves and created a new layer of graphite on the plate, then retracted back, right before the new bomb was launched and exploded. And then it repeated again, and again, and again, and again... ---- "So, if I'm understanding even remotely right, the first and, so far, only launch table for ultra-heavy rockets got destroyed by the exhaust?" Empress Svetlana asked her husband. "Yep," replied Ivan in surprisingly jolly voice. "Launch Table ST-1 has partially melted now due to insufficient power of water suppression system, but the ship is in space and there is barely any radiation trail in the atmosphere! By the way, launch stage recovered successfully." "That's good to know, but still, we've lost our only launch table for this kind of rockets and it'll take a long time to repair it." "I know. It's not like the Sea Launch Platform was an option for us at that time, though…" "On the topic of the sea launch - are you planning to use the Water Dragon rocket for building the replacement space station, since the Space Lab Two was destroyed by the Rayquaza? I've seen some suspicious increases in funding…" "Yep. The NUCLEUS rocket will remain for launching explo-flyers mostly, while the Water Dragons take lesser operations. One of them is getting prepared right now for launching the supply block to the "Red Explorer", when it gets to the orbit." "Uh-huh. And what about your spaceplane project?" "The Project BLUEBIRD? So far, so good, tests of the final version should begin in a week or so. I must admit, the hypersonic hybrid air-breathing nuclear rocket engines are still somewhat problematic, but we are very close to ironing those problems out." "Range?" "Unmanned - all the way to the Red Planet. Manned - to the Moon in a reasonable amount of time." "Docking to the "Red Explorer"?" "Possible through the expandable top adapter, but the spaceplane won't be able to fit into the docking bay." ---- "We are on the action orbit now, comrade captain," said pilot, getting himself more comfortable in the acceleration chair. "Drive bomb magazines and propellant storages for the reaction control system are at optimal level after orbital injection, we can go to the Moon and back on those reserves in just a day!" "Nuclear ordinance for anti-space engagements and planetary bombardment is nominal, awaiting codes and targets," reported weapons operator, scrolling through the lists and making some mental notes. "Point defense rotary cannons ready, main caliber railguns ready, Lance Howitzers ready." "Targeting telescopes nominal, thermal scopes nominal, radars nominal," sounded the report from the sensors operator, who was already switching through the feeds, monitoring the surroundings. "Radiators deployed, cooling system nominal, reactor nominal," said the engineer, feeling proud of his participation in creating power plant of this ship. "Shock absorbers are fine, pusher plate is fine, drive bomb launcher, graphite sprayers and plasma deflection cone are fine, RCS nominal. Oh, nearly forgot - life support is also nominal and will be in this condition for at least a year. We'll run out of food much earlier. And landers, along with space workpods, are also fine and ready." "All comm systems are ready and tuned," added the comm officer, fiddling with headset, then suddenly turning pale. "Uh-oh. Comrade captain, FCC just told us, that Rayquaza is exiting the atmo and will engage us in few minutes, arrives from the east." "Then all hands to battle stations!" ordered captain, feeling shivers. Of course, their ship was the technologies of tomorrow embodied, a state-of-art space warship, armed with the most advanced, yet reliable and efficient weaponry Empire has created, but their opponent was no less than the Sky High Pokemon itself, who was once considered by less developed humans to be god of the skies and even now, it remained a great force to be reckoned with. However, this battle was a decisive one. There can be only one winner… and all of the humans aboard the "Red Explorer" will do their best to make sure, that the Rayquaza won't be it. "Aye-aye, comrade captain! Retracting the radiators, reactor output set to combat levels," reported the engineer, trying to keep his confidence in the great machine. "Railguns and point defence are deployed, the capacitors are charging up, anti-space missiles are armed, Lance Howitzers are loaded," calmly stated the weapons officer. Among the fellow crew members, he was the calmest and most confident one - mainly because dozens of nuclear missiles and howitzer-launched shaped-blast bombs, along with electromagnetic railguns (with nuclear and canister shots) and rotary cannons, were now under his control. "RCS and bomb drive are ready," said the somewhat unnerved, but slightly cocky pilot. The drive bomb counter and RCS propellant storages indicators told him, that the battle can go on for a decent amount of time - the NUCLEUS chemfuel booster allowed them to save a lot of bombs during the ascent. "Radars located bandit retrograde-breaking the atmo west and a little south, but no definitive lock so…" began the sensor operator, suppressing his nervousness with deep focus on work. Calling the Rayquaza "bandit" helped all of the officers to distance themselves from the fact, that they were fighting an actual Legendary now. "Yeah, telescopes acquired it! Locked on!" "SCMs away, 3 "Firestorms", 4 "Firelances"!" nearly screamed weapons operator, pressing the launch trigger. On the ship's hull, several round armored hatches opened, revealing missile silos. Right after it, seven of the streamlined machines of death were ejected by small explosive charges, turned around and engaged their solid-fuel engines, accelerating at 100 g and doing their best to track and intercept the designated target. Even with remote guidance from the ship, sensors of which were far superior to those, which could be installed on space combat missiles, it was not an easy task. The Sky High Pokemon, seeing several dots leave the more massive target, started to perform the evasion maneuver, as uneasy as it was during the already-ongoing Dragon Ascent. It was a wise decision and, probably, would've helped… were it not for the missiles with Lance warheads. When four of the missiles, armed with shaped-blast charges, reached the optimal distance, the "Red Explorer" sent a very simple command to them - "detonate". Under normal circumstances, this command would have served only for performing self-destruct… but the circumstances now were anything but normal. The small stars of exploding 10kt thermonuclear warheads grew for a split-second in space. It would've been a nearly-harmless firework for the Rayquaza… but, unfortunately for it, for each of the "stars", more than 80% of the thermonuclear power got channeled and concentrated onto a small tungsten disk. Even this metal could not withstand such a magnitude of energy, so, it turned into plasma and, shaped and accelerated by the still undergoing fury of the fusion reaction into a tight stream, flew in the desired direction at the recognizable fraction of the speed of light. Four jets of very hot relativistic plasma impacted Rayquaza. Even with the energy of Dragon Ascent surrounding the Legendary, it still hurt major time… and then the rest of the missiles came. When the Sky High Pokemon was distracted with the pain from the nuclear lances, warship directed the last three small machines of destruction to come in-close and detonate the neutron warheads. Even though the effects of fireballs were negligible (as it was with most of the nuclear detonations in space), the neutron flux from explosions was pretty decent, especially with overlapping irradiation areas. Now that the Rayquaza's body was irradiated like this, the combat capability of this Legendary will be lowering and lowering as the time goes, until the radiation poisoning takes the max effect and turns it into the agonizing wreck, before the death finally comes. As a nice bonus, those explosions have also caused enough of a shock to the Rayquaza to cancel out the Dragon Ascent. "All hits scored. I think the battle has started pretty good, comrade captain," cheerfully reported the weapons operator. "Don't get too cocky," warned them all commander of this ship, silently reminding, that they were still fighting a being of incredible power, which held the atmospheric and orbital superiority undisputed for who-knows-how-many years, only occasionally leaving its position and allowing a few travels up there. "Bandit has recovered from the shock and prepares to use the Hyper Beam," grimly stated the sensors operator. "Acknowledged, stand by for rotation. RCS now firing," warned everyone the pilot, slightly smiling to himself. The relatively small attitude control jets expelled streams of superhot hydrogen, turning the massive ship around. The Hyper Beam is a powerful move. Really powerful. But it has some drawbacks - the first one being exhausting user and forcing it to spend some time recovering and the second being relatively low velocity of the energy beam itself. The space is big. Really big. Even in low Earth orbit, dozens of kilometers are still considered pretty small distances. Between Rayquaza firing the Hyper Beam and it getting to the "Red Explorer", a pretty long time has passed. Long enough for the ship to turn and take the stream of destruction not the nose- or side-first, but on the pusher plate, built to withstand close nuclear explosions and covered by ablative layer of graphite. "Attack over, no damage to drive. Graphite layer restored. Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing," reported pilot, smiling even wider. Wham. Wham. Wham. Only the crew of the ship, who got pressed into acceleration chairs upon the drive's operation, heard those sounds, as the vessel began to change its trajectory. "Railguns charged, #2 locked on, "Firecracker" loaded. Firing," said the weapons officer with a slight smirk, as he pressed the trigger. Deep inside the ship, a one of three groups of electric capacitors of tremendous, well, capacity, already charged by the energy from ship's nuclear power plant, discharged all at once, transferring the power to the two parallel rails of one of the simplest electrodynamic mass drivers. The railgun spat out a projectile with barely any fireworks (save for plasmified remains of launch assist armature). In the vacuum of space, there wasn't even a characteristic "crack" of sonic boom… and the projectile experienced no aerodynamic drag, keeping the velocity at constant level with no need for active propulsion. And since this velocity equaled more than 2503 meters per second, and the projectile carried a small nuclear warhead… ---- ""Red Explorer" is firing "Thunderlance" railgun, "Firecracker" 1kt nuclear shell"- emotionlessly said one of the operators in the Zemlino's FCC. "Hostile Rayquaza's biological armor is being damaged." "Is she always like this?" whispered Emperor to the FCC's director. "Sometimes." "Huh. You know, I'm still unpleased, that we weren't able to make guidance system being capable of directing more than seven space combat missiles and two howitzer charges at once before the ship was launched…" ---- "Bandit is temporarily inoperable, trajectory - full retrograde orbital, roughly similar to ours," reported the sensors operator. "The respite will be brief, assume re-intercept in 45 minutes." "Acknowledged," said the engineer. "Deploying the radiators, beginning cooling." Several small square hatches opened on the hull of the ship, allowing the thin metallic structures to unfold from them and start barely noticeably glowing dull-red, allowing the waste heat to leave the heat accumulators and prepare the machine for the new round of combat. Combat, which will need a lot of energy and leave a lot of waste heat. ---- The big digital timer above the main screens in the "rubber room" of the Zemlino Space Center ticked off the seconds since the launch of the "Red Explorer". When it passed half-hour, Emperor said, “Try it now.” He put on his own headset. Far outside of the armored launch bunker, across the entire Empire, both on the ground and on the sea ships, many giant parabolic antennas started turning around, trying to lock onto signature of the first space warship and establish connection. "Routing through the Grey Sea fleet… link established!" happily reported the comm operator. "Dancer, this is Pothouse, report!" said the Emperor, deciding to use codenames of both ship and flight control center for some reason. Sometimes, it was really hard to understand this man. "Pothouse, this is Dancer. No big scratches so far, re-intercepting bandit in five minutes or so. Radiators are now retracted, cooling is internal, preparing to launch SCMs." "Dancer, this is Pothouse, acknowledged. Be careful - bandit is likely to employ new tactics, don't let it hit the shock absorbers!" "Pothouse, this is Dancer, understood." "That's good. May the Red and Green Spirits bless you, guys!" "Thanks. Warning, bandit is in range, engaging!" The link cut off, as the ship resumed the combat. ---- "Go, Dragon Lord, blast this thing!" young Draconid cheered, looking at the TV screen. An hour or so ago, the live broadcast of telescope and radar surveillance of the Imperial warship started and, less than an hour ago, Rayquaza started the battle with it. So far, the battle was going… strange. The giant weaponized spaceship of the Soris Empire was constantly turning around, engaging her explosion drive from time to time and attempting to take beam and projectile attacks on the aft plate, which was more than capable of withstanding them without getting scratched, since the nuclear explosions were the primary method of propulsion for this ship. In addition to this, most weapons of this warship, as the TV commenter pointed out, were also using nuclear explosions to cause damage. Few Draconids knew about nuclear technology enough to understand full ramifications of it, but those, who did, were really worried. If the sorisians have harnessed the power of atom and truly mastered it, then even the mighty Lord Rayquaza was in danger. ---- "Bandit now re-engaging!" warned everyone sensors operator. "Ancient Power, two seconds!" "Incoming projectile attack," noted weaponry operator, who was obviously enjoying this battle. "Point defence firing… Attack neutralized. Seven "Firelances" away… Hits scored." "Warning, damage to the lander bay #2 armor!" reported engineer in somewhat worried voice, then eased up. "No penetration, no damage to contents." "Stand by for acceleration and rotation," said pilot in steel voice, while his eyes were burning with excitement of being among those, who fought the Rayquaza itself. "RCS and bomb drive now firing." Hiss. Hiss. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham. The whole battle turned into series of reports and memorized actions, which happened a dozens of times on the ground simulator already, combined with sounds of propulsion and reaction control systems, weaponry and occasional hits to other places, than the pusher plate. Rayquaza was a formidable opponent… but the ship, originally intended for peaceful space exploration, then remade into warship, was designed to be capable to take on even the most powerful opponents and be victorious. Entire nuclear industry of Soris was recently redirected to supply the ship with enough propulsion bombs and weapons. Hundreds of millions were watching their battle right now. They've had no right to fail, lest the humanity forever become prisoners of this planet, with insanely territorial feral dragon ruling the skies and killing everyone, who dares to try to break free of gravity's hard embrace and turn their eyes towards the distant stars. Not to say anything about the Pokemon Nation, which, probably, will consider starting the war with Soris Empire, if the ship goes down, along with all the nuclear armament. "Bandit prepares Dra-Met, five seconds," noted the sensors operator, monitoring feeds from targeting telescopes, radars and thermal scopes at the same time. "Acknowledged, railguns charged, #1 locked on, "Dustbin" loaded. Firing…" half-reported, half-mumbled the weaponry operator, looking at his screens. "Draco Meteor dispersed and denied." Indeed, shooting a canister shell, loaded with tiny pellets of depleted uranium - byproduct of nuclear industry - right in the direction of Rayquaza's mouth was not a bad way to prevent the dangerous attack from being performed. As a nice bonus, several pellets hit eyes of the Legendary, causing it great pain and making it squirm. "Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing." Wham. Wham. Wham. ---- The old dragon was hurt. Really hurt. For thousands upon thousands of years, it ruled sky undisputed. It showed the inferior beings their places. Even the Eon Duos were rightfully afraid of it. A few… days? Weeks? Months? ago the Sky High Pokemon has destroyed the human constructions, which violated its territory. It thought, that this time, they'll learn, that higher skies and space are not meant for them… but they didn't. They've decided, that they can force their point. They've built a giant machine, far beyond any previous constructions. It wasn't like old ones, which were frail, sacrificing everything to save the weight - no, this one was huge and sturdy, capable of taking hits and unleashing inferno in return. More than just capable, in fact. The battle was going on for a several hours already, filled with constant flybys and intercepts, where the combatants did their best to injure the opponent as much as possible and don't get killed at the same time. The whole body of the Legendary was either in pain, like from fire (even though the dragon's body should've been resistant to it), or slowly going numb. The machine, however, was still kicking with no visible major problems and unleashing attacks like no tomorrow. In fact, for one of the combatants, there indeed will be no tomorrow. Someone will remain victorious and hold the control over skies, someone will be destroyed and burned upon re-entry. The old dragon prepared for the final, death-or-glory attack… and suddenly the entire world for it turned blinding-white for less than a split-second, before everything disappeared and the complete abyss came. ---- "All nine hits with Lances scored - seven SCMs, two Howitzers with "Matchsticks"." "Bandit… completely inoperable and will re-enter atmo in two hours," reported the shocked sensors operator. "Guys… did we just... win?" "I hope so," replied the engineer. "I really hope so, since the heat accumulators are nearing critical and if it goes on like this for another dozen minutes or so - it's either scramming the reactor, dumping a decent amount of our hydrogen for open-cycle cooling or deploying radiators mid-battle!" "Deploy the radiators," gave an order the captain. "Power down the weapon systems and retract the weapons. Set reactor output to non-combat level. Return the ship to patrol orbit. Activate the habitation centrifuge. Report to the ground… that we've secured this frontier and avenged the 11th expedition to the Space Lab 2. Red Spirit should be proud of us now." "Aye-aye, comrade captain!" replied all officers in unison, before the attitude control jets hissed again, the pulse engine thumped a few more times and commlink received happy screams from the FCC. Captain of the "Red Explorer" barely cared about all of that. He was just happy, that this battle ended with them as victors… and he also hoped, that, whatever this dragon was doing to keep the balance on this boulder, humans will be able to do just as fine. "Comrade captain, FCC congratulates us! They say, that, when we return to the ground, Emperor and Empress themselves will give us the Medal of Skies!" happily screamed the comm officer, who still could barely believe, that they've done what was considered to be next to impossible - they've successfully defeated the higher-grade Legendary! "Yeah? Okay then. And what shall we do now?" "... Emperor told me, that we should just… "Soar over space"? What does that mean?" "It means, pals, that we did fine and we can take a break. A well-deserved break. Tell the service team to start total damage evaluation and repair." Author's notes: Green Spirit - yet another mystical being in Sorisian mythology, which patrons those, who protect and help others. Launch configuration of the "Red Explorer" and the "Red Explorer" itself were based on the data about the Orion Battleship, gained from here. SCM-1 "Firestorm" - mid-range solid-chemfuel space combat missile with TD-ENF-10K-1 enhanced radiation thermonuclear warhead (a.k.a. "neutron warhead"), 10kt yield. Radio command guidance. SCM-2 "Firelance" - mid-range solid-chemfuel space combat missile with TD-SB-10K-1 shaped-blast thermonuclear warhead (a.k.a. "Lance warhead", based on the real Casaba Howitzer project), 10kt yield. Radio command guidance. PBRM-1 "Lightning" - planetary bombardment retro-missile with liquid-chemfuel engines, armed with TD-CB-25M-1 heavy "city buster" thermonuclear warhead, 25 megaton yield, or six TD-CB-1M-1 1mt yield "city buster" multiple independently targetable maneuverable reentry vehicles. Combined radio command/inertial/active terminal homing guidance. Lance Howitzer - simple auto-loading mortar for firing "Matchstick" shaped-blast thermonuclear warheads. STW-10K-1 "Matchstick" - shaped-blast 10kt thermonuclear warhead with basic radio command guidance system and some tiny attitude jets, launched from Lance Howitzer and detonated shortly after. ERMA-2-S "Thunderlance" - 127mm electromagnetic rail mass accelerator (a.k.a. "railgun"), adapted for space and capable of accelerating shells up to 2506 m/s. NRS-1K "Firecracker" - nuclear shell for the ERMA-2-S, 1kt yield. Contact/remote/timer detonation. CRS-3 "Dustbin" - canister shot for the ERMA-2-S, depleted uranium pellets. RC-6-20-S "Chestnut" - 6-barrelled 20mm rotary cannon, adapted for space and used in the PD-1-20-S "Sweeper" space-adapted point defence system.

You’re lucky. Once I’ve watched a movie with plot-crucial scene subtitled as “I have no idea what are they talking about”.

I’m watching a movie that’s in about a dozen languages and everything is subtitled EXCEPT when a character gets up on a stage to sing. Than it’s just “singing”. This song pops up several times throughout the film and none of it is subtitled or captioned.