To Steal the Heart of a Thief {Pokemon Ranger Fanfiction} (Pokemon Watty Awards 2015)

Chapter 37: Let the Games Begin

(Third Person POV)

Rena felt as if there were no words to accurately describe what it was like to fly on the back of a Staraptor; the feelings muddled themselves together. She had never been afraid of heights, but there was a strange exhilaration in flying that words could barely fathom to explain. All she did know for a fact was that it was awesome.

"There it is." Keith motioned with his head towards a spiraling, purple tower that rose much higher above than any building in all of Pueltown. As the night moon cast against it, its dark shadow engulfed the harbor city.

They had finally arrived.

"Time to touch down, I guess." Rena hushed as she nervously stole a glance at the ground one hundred feet below them. The thief was a little anxious about finally getting to execute this mission once and for all.

"Hang on tight, we're going to land now!" Keith brusquely shouted an order back to her, directing his Staraptor to begin his decent. Rena, riding with Keith on one Pokemon, drew a breath quickly as the high winds tried to steal it back.

"...wait, what!?" Rena quickly traced her shocked look towards the back of Keith's head, even though she knew he couldn't see the look on her face.

Keith was growing impatient with her new-found hesitance. They really didn't have the time to be awkward around each other right now. A mission was a mission. "Just hang on to me, alright!?"

"Okay..." Rena slowly wrapped her arms around Keith's waist and pressed her cheek gently against his back, hanging on tight to him. Her face slowly heated up, and her grip tightened as if to say she was ready.

On a single Starpator, the two humans barely fit. This was why it was good that their partner Pokemon had Pokeballs for transportation purposes.

Keith almost flinched at her touch even though he knew it was coming as they grew closer and closer to the tower below them. "Looks like there's some sort of riot out front. I'll take us to the back."

A swelling crowd of Altru's employees, who were recognized by their dark business attire, could be seen on the ground shouting and causing an uproar in front of the tower. One of Dim Sun's admins was blocking off the front doors, handling crowd control.

"Hey! You in the full-body leotards! Open the doors!" One of the men shouted to the admin, raising his fist to the air. His rage was a prominent flare that joined the inferno of workers.

"Is this some kind of sick joke? The company can't just fire us without warning!" One of the secretaries vocally expressed her complaint, but the panic of her unemployed future clung to the woman's tone of voice.

Another one of them voiced their angry opinion, their anger outweighing any consequences that could follow. "Don't treat us workers like we're disposable! We demand an explanation for why we're being fired!"

The Dim Sun admin in front of the door just rolled his eyes and carelessly disappeared within the building, locking the doors behind him. When the front row of laid-off employees heard the whispering click of the lock, their shouts and protests only grew louder and more apparent to the now mildly alarmed bystanders.

As Keith and Rena quietly landed a ways within a thicketed forest behind the dark tower, Keith jumped off the Staraptor and turned to face the tower. "Well. I guess those are the barriers we have to take out."

Thick, swirling stormy clouds ominously hung around the tower's peak as if they too were crowding around to see what would follow next. Any cloud wanting to get closer was pushed away by the first of three different colored layers of a barrier projected out by the tower's rooftop in domes. The outer most layer was colored yellow, the following being a pink hue, and sheltering the very center of the barrier was an icy blue layer. Keith had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach as to why each of those were colored the way they were.