Pokémon 2099 : A Space Opera
Mission 003 : Stealth
By Mega Raichu

Vega 4. The city planet. One of the few planets in the known universe that is completely covered by cities. One of the greatest conglomerations of businesses this side of the asteroid field. Also one of the best places for a high-priced criminal to hide out. Everything on this planet is high class, and high priced. Even the liquor in the café that I now sit in, watching my latest bounty. Donald "The Don" Richfeld is wanted for three counts of murder one, four grand theft auto's, several assaults with and without deadly weapons, and many other crimes, as the list goes on and on. This guy is a career criminal, and is rumored to have amassed quite a fortune from his illustrious career. His bounty is quite high, 1.5 million. Marcus wasn't lying when he said he had some good missions lined up for me. I smiled at that thought, as I reached for my camera. The Don was living it up, with waitresses and other women surrounding him as he enjoyed expensive exotic drinks and fine foods. I reached into my pocket where my camera lay hidden, but there was nothing there. My eyes widened as I dug around in my empty pocket, and then began to pat myself down, hoping I had simply put it in another pocket.

"Ooooooh nice camera!" A girls voice said from behind me.

I turned around to see a young girl, with short red hair, wide blue eyes, donning a pair of goggles on her head, a white t-shirt, black speed-o's, white tennis shoes and a knapsack on her back, inspecting my camera.

"Hey kid, give that back." I said in a hushed tone.

"Oooooooh what does this button do!?" She said as she pointed the camera at me and snapped a few photos.

"You little punk! Those were my last exposures!" I shouted angrily.

A man in the back of the room pulled out a gun.

"Hey Don, that guy's a merc!" He shouted.

The Don cursed and flipped his table up as the other man and several others began shooting at me. I cursed as I flipped my table over and hid behind it, the girl crouched next to me.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!? You trying to get killed!?" I shouted at her.

I didn't wait for an answer as I leaned to the side and let loose a few bullets at the men shooting at me. I quickly depleted my clip taking down three men, spun around behind the table again, reloaded, and started returning fire again. By the time my clip was depleted two more men fell, the table I was using for cover was now full of holes. I cursed again, scooped up the girl and dived behind the bar. Bullets ricocheted off the top of the bar and broke bottles of liquor and glasses above us.

"What the hell were you thinking!?" I shouted at her again, but she was engrossed in digging through her knapsack.

I couldn't help but be curious as to what she was doing, but I didn't have time. I slammed a fresh clip into my gun and started returning fire. Two of The Don's men went down by the time that clip was depleted. I ducked down again and searched myself for another clip. The girl was still snooping through her knapsack.

"Kid, this is no time for makeup!" I shouted.

She pulled a small tin box out of her sack. I sighed as I found another clip, my last one, and loaded my gun. I stood and commenced firing. Another man went down, but there were at least two left. Suddenly one of the men pointed at me.

"She's got a bomb!" He shouted.

I turned, and indeed, she held a block of what looked like C4 plastic explosive. The men stopped firing as she tossed the block. I quickly scanned the area, but The Don was nowhere to be seen. The bomb had a timer on it. I grabbed the girl and ran out a door at the back of the bar. I cursed under my breath some more as the C4 exploded, taking the café with it.

"Dammit kid are you nuts!?" I asked.

She didn't have enough time to answer. Some men came around the corner of the alley we were in and started firing on us. I depleted my last clip into them and ran. The girl followed for some reason. Once around the block I found the car I had rented to get around this place. It was a convertible, so I jumped into the driver's seat and fired it up. The girl clambered into the passenger side and buckled herself in. I was about to tell her to get lost when more men started shooting at us. I cursed and floored it and took off. Traffic was awful and there were cars following us, with men hanging out the windows shooting at us. But I had an ace up my sleeve. When I rented the car, I made sure I put in a special "provision". Not exactly legal, but necessary in my line of work. I had a switch temporarily mounted in the steering wheel. I flipped the switch and the front end of the car suddenly shot upwards. A bullet sailed between us and shattered the windshield as several other bullets began slamming into the body of the car. I flipped the switch one more time and the back end of the car shot upward again. The car was now flying through the air, over the stopped traffic. The car made a rough landing on a clear expressway. I looked back and saw that the men that were chasing us were at a dead stop in traffic, unable to follow. I breathed a sigh of relief as I drove on. I looked over at the girl. She was clutching the sides of the chair and had a look of surprise pasted on her face.

"What did you do!?" She gasped.

"Just a couple of turbo lifts to get us past the traffic." I replied. "But now I have a few questions for you. Who the hell are you?"

She relaxed.

"Mike is my name. Your name is Ryudo huh?" She asked.

"How did you know that!?" I asked, surprised.

"Mike knows a lot of things."

"So why did you pull that stunt in the café huh?"

"Mike just wanted to help."

"You nearly got me killed!"

"But Mike saved your life."

"So you think I owe you or something? You're the one that got them started!"

"Sorry. But you did save Mike's life too. Mike owes you her life!"

"No way kid. I don't work with children. My line of work is way too dangerous for you."

"But Mike is a merc too!"

"So?"

"So, Mike can help you!"

"Look, you've helped enough already. First chance I get, I'm going to let you out of this car."

"Mike isn't going anywhere."

I pulled out my gun and pointed it at her head.

"I told you I don't work, much less like, children. You're getting out of this car one way or another."

"You won't shoot Mike."

"What makes you so sure?"

"You're out of ammo."

I silently cursed as I put my gun away. She smiled.

"Mike can help you capture criminals."

"You nearly got us killed in there. You actually think I'm going to let you help me?"

"Mike knows the location of where The Don lives."

"You do!?"

"Yup. But if you don't want that information, then you can just let Mike out here."

I mulled it over in my head.

"Alright fine. But just this once, and then you're going home!"

I drove on to the freighter.

"You assured me that you were going to bag the Don, Ryudo." Marcus said in an unpleasant tone. "And on top of that, you bring this kid in here."

"This 'kid' is the one that screwed up that bounty in the first place." I replied as I lit a cigarette.

"Oooooh what a cute pokemon you have!" Mike squealed with delight as she embraced Raichu. "What do you have on your face?"

She started touching Raichu's implants.

"Hey don't pick at that!" I shouted.

"Okay, geez." She replied, letting Raichu go.

"Okay kid. You said you know where the Don lives." I said after taking a drag from my cigarette.

"Yup. Mike knows where the Don lives." She replied.

"So is Mike gonna tell us where the Don lives or not?" Marcus said in a mocking tone.

"Ummm, ok. Got a map of the planet?" She asked.

Marcus moved over to a monitor, pressed a few buttons, and a coordinate map of the planet appeared. Mike went over to the screen and pointed out a large set of buildings.

"The Don owns this set of buildings. This is his sky-scraper mansion," she indicated one of the buildings, "where he spends most of his time."

"How do you know all of this? You a hacker?" Marcus asked.

"Mike is a hacker and then some! Only the best hacker around." She replied.

"No one can out-hack Raichu here." I said, giving Raichu a scratch on his good ear. "And now that you've done your duty, you can go home."

"Nuh uh! There's more to it than that." She said.

"More? How much more?" Marcus asked.

"The Don has a very complex security system in his buildings. Uh huh, veeeeery complex. Mike knows all about that system, and can get you through without setting it off." She said.

"And how does Mike know so much about this system?" I asked, in the same mocking tone that Marcus had used.

"Because Mike designed the system, silly." She said with a childish giggle.

"Designed it? But you're just a kid." I said.

"Mike may be young, but she knows about different types of security systems, weapon and defense systems, and she's a great hacker too!" She said excitedly.

"Great. That means I have to put up with you for a little while longer." I said sarcastically.

Mike simply grinned.

"The Don has several pokemon in his mansion, and as you already know, killing pokemon is strictly forbidden." Mike said.

"That means you're coming along with me Raichu." I said.

"Chu!" Raichu replied happily.

Mike started rummaging through her knapsack again, and produced a strange looking visor with an earpiece.

"Here, you can use these for communication." She said as she handed the visor to me.

I put the visor on. I could see perfectly well through the visor. She pulled a small laptop out of her sack, and fired it up.

"You should be able to link up with Raichu so he probably won't need one of these." I said.

She nodded as she started typing on the laptop's keyboard. The visor came to life with a flurry of diagnostics information, then it went blank. Then she immediately took charge.

"Okay, you have three modes of view : infrared heat vision, night vision, and normal. When you're in normal mode, any life forms picked up by the visor will be surrounded by a box." She said.

She was right. I looked over at Marcus, and a box had appeared around him.

"That's your hit box. If you aim your gun anywhere in that box, you're guaranteed some kind of hit." She said. "Now in heat vision and night vision, you won't see the box, but life forms will be lit up for you, so you won't have any trouble finding a target."

I switched the visor over to heat vision and looked over at Marcus. Instead of seeing him as I normally do, all I saw was a red and yellow blob in the shape of his body. And as Mike had said, the hit box was not present in this mode. Mike switched off the interior lights in the room so I could try the night vision. As I looked through the visor in night vision mode, everything was tinted green. I looked over at Marcus, and I saw a bright green blob in the shape of his body. Everything else seemed to be normally lit, but everything was green. I switched the visor back to normal as Mike turned the lights back on. As she had said, the hit box was not present in night vision mode either. But with a target that was that well lit up, I would have no trouble acquiring a target. Raichu cooperated with Mike as she enhanced his cyber implants to do the same thing as my visor.

"Now about your earpiece. Mike will be able to hear and see everything you do from here. And if Mike has anything to comment on, you'll be able to hear that, but no one else will. Just talk normally and Mike will be able to hear whatever you have to say." She said. "Think you can handle that?"

"This should be fine." I said. "When do we get started?"

My ship hovered above the sky-scraper mansion. Raichu and I exited the ship and dropped down safely and undetected on the roof. After a few moments, my ship flew away, on a pre-programmed course straight back to the freighter. Raichu and I ducked behind an air-duct structure. My earpiece came to life.

"Ryudo, do you read?" Mike's voice echoed from the earpiece.

"Yea I hear you. Can you hear me?" I asked.

"Loud and clear. Now look, this is supposed to be a stealth mission, so try to keep the casualties to a minimum ok?"

"I'll do what I can, but there's nothing wrong with a little shut-eye if it can't be helped."

"Fine. Now listen, the building you're on is sixty stories tall."

"Sixty stories. Man, how much money does this goon have?"

"Tons, and almost all of it is illegally gained. You'll have to start from the roof, duh. The Don's room is on the thirtieth floor. Now don't forget that he's got all kinds of bodyguards, and that security system. And after what we did in the café, security will be extra tight, especially on the Don's floor."

"No pressure right?"

"Right. Good luck."

The earpiece went silent. I had three ways to enter the building. First there was a skylight. I peeked into the sky light and saw a ballroom. Nobody was in there, but the doors would most likely be locked and heavily guarded. No dice there. Secondly there was the roof access stairs. Luckily there had been no guards on the roof, but that doesn't mean there aren't any guards at the bottom of the stairs. I tried to open the door that lead to the stairs, but it was locked. I had the perfect lock pick, my gun, but that would only cause problems, big problems. So it seemed my third option was my only choice, the air ducts. The thought of crawling through dust filled air ducts wasn't exactly appealing, but it seemed to be the only way I was going to get in. I inspected the grate on the air duct structure. It seemed rusted with age. Obviously no one really came up here that much. The grate silently came off with a quick tug. I slowly put it down on the roof and climbed into the duct. Raichu followed. We moved down the duct with a deathly silence. Soon we came upon another grate. I peeked through and saw a few bodyguards roaming the halls. I kept silent and moved on, periodically checking to see if Raichu was still behind me. We came upon another gate. A bodyguard was leaning up against a wall. Another bodyguard approached him.

"Can someone explain to me why we have to be doing the graveyard shift?" The first guard asked.

"Didn't you hear? Some merc and a kid took out ten of the Don's men." The other replied.

"Wow. So that's the stick he's got up his..."

"Look all we have to do is make sure no one comes in this building. Just do your job, get payed, and you'll go home alive."

"Whatever."

The two guards walked away. I took a look around the area. There were a few doors lining the hallways. I had no idea what was in the rooms, but I needed to take a chance. Once I could no longer hear the guards' footsteps, I pulled the grate out and dropped into the hallway. Raichu quickly followed. I quickly scanned the area and saw an elevator down the hall. I heard footsteps and quickly ushered myself and Raichu into a nearby room. It was an office. I listened through the door as the footsteps passed.

"Hey Raichu, link up with one of those computers." Mike's voice said in my ear.

It seemed that whatever I heard, Raichu also heard. Raichu nodded and approached a computer. Using his implant, he linked up with the computer. He stood there for a few minutes, not doing anything. Suddenly, Mike's voice came through the earpiece again.

"Okay, the elevators will only work if you have a card key. All of the bodyguards carry one." She said. "Mike can't shut down the system from this console, but... um hang on..."

There was a momentary silence.

"Okay, the main console for the security system is on the forty-fifth floor. But first, you'll need to snag a card from one of the bodyguards on this floor. If you don't use a card, an alarm will go off, and you'll be in deep doo-doo." Mike said.

Then there was silence. I couldn't hear any footsteps anymore, but I wasn't sure that there were no guards in the hallway. I switched the visor over to heat vision. My hunch was right, a guard was standing just outside the door of the room we were in. I motioned for Raichu to hide. Raichu dived under a desk. I went over to the door and rapped on it with my knuckles.

"What the hell was that?" The guard outside asked himself and opened the door.

He was dressed in a black suit with sunglasses, with his gun drawn. He cautiously entered the room pointing his gun in front of him, completely unaware that I was behind him. The door automatically shut itself silently. I silently came up behind him with my gun drawn. I put my gun up to the back of his head.

"Freeze." I said in a slightly hushed tone.

He almost jumped. He raised his hands.

"Don't make any sudden movements or you're dead." I said in the same tone.

"Please don't kill me, I have a wife and two kids." He said nervously.

"Put your gun down on the ground, slowly."

He complied. I noticed that his gun had a removable silencer on it.

"Your key card. Take it out and drop it on the floor."

He complied again.

"Now kneel down. No sudden movements or you'll die of lead poisoning."

He slowly got to his knees, I could hear him beginning to whimper.

"Since you've been so cooperative, I won't kill you. But since I can't have you following me..."

I hit him hard on the back of his head with the handle of my gun. His unconscious body slumped to the ground with a dull thud. I dragged him over to a desk and propped him up beside it. I then went and picked up his key card. Then I inspected his gun. I quickly removed the clip from the gun. By a stupid twist of fate, the clip was the same type that I was using for my gun, though his gun was a different model. I unscrewed the silencer from his pistol and hid the pistol in one of the drawers of a nearby desk. I then screwed the silencer onto the barrel of my gun. It fit perfectly.

"Now we're getting somewhere." I said with a smile. "Okay Raichu, now we have to go to the forty-fifth floor and shut down this security system."

Raichu followed me as we made our way to the elevator, undetected. I slid the card through a card slot, then pressed the button for the forty-fifth floor. When the elevator came to a stop on the forty-fifth floor, I quickly pressed the door close button. No one had noticed the elevator. I took a quick scan of the walls around me with the heat vision. There was no one in sight. I pressed the door open button and took a peek into the hallway. It was completely abandoned. Raichu and I rushed into a nearby room, which turned out to be a broom closet.

"What does one man need with a sixty floor building anyway?" I silently asked myself.

I scanned the walls with the heat vision once again. Two guards were roaming the halls. One of them stopped every few minutes to check in with security. The other just kept walking. I waited for the one who didn't check in with security to come near the door. Once he was past the door, I quickly opened the door, covered his mouth with my hand, put my gun to his head and dragged him into the closet with me and Raichu. A quick blow to his head and he silently passed out. I took his clip and rummaged around in his pockets for any more goodies I could use. The only useful thing on him was a small bottle of a strong tranquilizer liquid. I pocketed this treasure and turned my attention to the remaining guard. Then my earpiece came to life again.

"Okay, Mike got a map of the place. Mike's uploading it to your visor now. You'll only be able to see it in normal mode." Mike said.

I switched the visor over to normal mode and a map of the floor I was on appeared in a window on the left side of my field of vision. I searched the map and found that I was not too far away from the computer core of the security system.

"That room is most likely to be heavily guarded." Mike's voice resounded in my earpiece. "Be careful."

I memorized the location of that room, and switched back to heat vision. The guard was coming down the hall. He started speaking into his radio.

"Nothing to report. Anyone seen Johnson? I think he's gone AWOL." He said.

I looked down at my unconscious friend. He had a name-tag on his coat. It read "Johnson" and had a picture of him on it. I tensed up and silently cursed.

"His shift's almost over, he probably skipped out early. Don't worry about it." A voice came back over the guard's radio.

"Roger that." The guard said, and then moved on.

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. Once the guard was out of sight, Raichu and I made our move to the computer core. We got inside without incident. Mike was right, this room was heavily guarded. We ducked into a dark corner and I surveyed our surroundings. The guards in this room carried Uzi's, instead of the pistols the other guards carried. Some also had pokéballs strapped to their waists. Those pokéballs were probably empty as there was a scyther, a hitmonchan, a hitmonlee, a hitmontop, and a scizor presently roaming the room with them.

"That's waaaaay too many guards. You'll definitely be seen if you make a move Ryudo. What are you going to do?" Mike's voice asked over the earpiece.

"Only one thing to do." I whispered.

I silently pulled out my gun and the bottle of tranquilizer.

"What are you doing?" Mike asked.

"Watch and learn grasshopper." I whispered.

I silently removed my clip and poured the contents of the bottle into the clip. The clip was watertight so it did not leak. I let it sit for a minute, and then drained the liquid back into the bottle and then pocketed the bottle. Then I put the clip into my gun.

"If this liquid is what I think it is..." I whispered.

"Then you've got a tranquilizer gun now." Mike said, realizing what I had done.

"Silent havoc." I whispered.

I looked down at Raichu. He was keenly watching and listening for danger. I leaned over to whisper to him.

"I can take those guards out pretty quickly from this vantage point, but that means you have to take out those pokémon. You up to it?" I asked.

Raichu nodded. He crouched down in a ready position as I took careful aim at the nearest guard. I carefully watched all of the guards to see if they were going to make any sudden movements. There were five of them. They made no moves. I plugged the first guard and he dropped, before the other four noticed him dropping, another went down. Once the remaining three had seen the first two fall, I capped another one and he fell. The other two were about to draw their guns when another one fell. Raichu had run out and fully paralyzed the hitmontop with a controlled thunderwave. Then he leapt at the hitmonlee and planted a mega kick in its face, knocking it out. The last guard noticed Raichu's savage attacks and was about to call for backup, when one of my bullets ripped into his arm, knocking him unconscious. Raichu let loose a mega punch to the head of the hitmonchan, causing it to faint. The scyther and scizor were going to double team Raichu, but Raichu was one step ahead of them and surprised them with a thunderbolt to each of them. The entire assault lasted a minute, and word had not leaked out to the other guards in the building. I breathed another sigh of relief. The room was now vacant, except for ourselves and the unconscious bodies of the guards.

"Okay Mike. How do we shut this server down? You got some kind of a fancy virus or something?" I asked.

"Well, actually no. But Raichu can handle that? Can't you Raichu?" Mike asked.

Raichu was ahead of both us. He had already linked up with the main server. I looked at a console and saw that he was systematically shutting down every subsystem in the security system. It only took him a few minutes to shut it down completely.

"Way to go Raichu. Like I said, there's no better hacker than my partner here." I said as I patted Raichu's head.

Raichu smiled, and Mike stayed silent.

"Okay, now lets go take care of the Don." I said.

I checked the hallway once again with the infrared scope, and once the coast was clear once again, we made our way to the elevator. This time, the elevator did not need the card key, and thus took us to the thirtieth floor without mishap. The floor was crawling with guards. My current clip was halfway empty, so I took a moment to coat the bullets in another clip with the tranquilizer liquid.

"Stay here." I muttered to Raichu.

I pressed the door open button and burst into the hallway firing at guards left and right. Before any of them had noticed me, half of them had gone down. It only took me a moment to reload my depleted gun and start firing again. When the entire episode was over, I had depleted both tranquilizer clips, and none of the guards had gotten off a shot. I rummaged through the guards and picked up two clips to replace the two I had used. I searched the map and quickly located the Don's "office". I checked the walls surrounding the room and saw that there was only one heat source in there. The Don was in there alright. I called for Raichu and we burst into the room. This was no ordinary room. It was laid out as a throne room of a humongous palatial estate. There was a long oriental rug that took up the center of the room with large marble columns on either side of the rug, all the way to a solid oak desk. Hanging from the ceiling above the center of the rug, was a crystal chandelier that bathed the room in a soft white light. Behind the desk sat the Don. He stood up as I aimed my gun in his direction. He was a large man, well large is an understatement to describe him. He was just plain fat.

"Welcome!" He shouted in a deep bass voice. "I have been expecting you!"

"Expecting me?" I asked.

"Of course! After that little fiasco in the café I knew that you would come looking for me here, so I have been waiting for you. You're late though. I had expected you'd be here sooner."

"Sorry to disappoint you. But now you're coming with me," I said as I aimed my gun at his head, "one way or another."

"Isn't it customary to have my picture taken first?"

He moved around to the front of his desk and smiled. These high-priced bounties are always so pompous. I pulled out my camera and took a snapshot.

"Ah yes, that will be the best picture I've ever had taken of me." He said.

"What?" I asked, taken aback.

"Would you like to see my photo album? It's quite nice."

Before I could answer, he pulled out a portfolio and opened it. Inside were six pictures of him.

"Each of these photos was taken by a merc, much like yourself. And each one failed to bring me in." He said.

"And why is that?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

"Because they were out classed!"

"I don't see how a fat man like yourself could out class a well trained merc."

"Don't believe me? Then I suppose I have to prove it to you before you die."

He pushed a button on his belt and he began to float.

"A personal anti-grav system!" Mike's voice came through the earpiece.

"And that's not all!" The Don said proudly.

Suddenly a force field surrounded him and glittered in the light of the chandelier.

"He's got a tachyon shield!" Mike said surprised.

The Don produced two odd looking guns and grinned.

"Now you see why the others have failed! No bullet can penetrate my shield! Now prepare to die!" The Don shouted.

I cursed loudly as I dived behind a column. I quickly came out from behind the column and started firing at the Don. But my bullets ricocheted harmlessly off of his shield. I got behind the column again.

"Damn! I could use a little help here!" I said as bullets rained down on the spot I just vacated.

"Hang on, Mike's looking it up!" Mike said over the earpiece.

"Hah ha!" The Don exclaimed as he came around the column.

I bolted as he opened fire on me. Bullets pelted the ground behind me as I took cover behind another column.

"Any time now!" I shouted.

"Okay okay! All tachyon shields have a generator." Mike said.

"I know that!"

"Well then you probably already know that the generators cannot be inside the shield. They just don't work that way. If a generator were to be inside it's shield, then the resulting exchange of energy would cause an anomaly called a singularity, which in turn would..."

"In English please!"

"Basically, the generator cannot exist inside the shield it creates. So all you have to do is find the generator. It's gotta be in that room somewhere."

"Damn. Raichu did you hear that?"

I could not see where Raichu was, but I somehow knew that he had already started sniffing around for the generator. The only thing I could do to help Raichu was to create a diversion. I whipped around to face the Don.

"Hey fat man!" I shouted and opened fire on him.

That got his attention. He turned to face me and started shooting at me. I dived for cover. A bullet just barely missed my head. My heart was racing and I was breathing hard. This is the most fun I've had in years.

"Come on fat boy! Can't you hit a moving target!?" I shouted from behind the column.

"Look me in the face and say that!" He shouted and started firing around the room randomly.

"Come on Raichu, get that generator." I whispered as I came the column, opened fire, and dived behind another one.

My bullets weren't harming his shield at all. But my comments were hitting home. His attention was completely on me, and he didn't even notice that Raichu was looking for his shield generator.

"Raichu found it!" Mike's voice squealed over the earpiece.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I took a quick glance around, but still could not find Raichu. It didn't take me long to locate him when he attacked the generator with an electric attack. The generator was under the desk. That was a good place to hide it, right at the Don's feet. Raichu would stay under that desk for the time being. It was a good hiding place, as the desk was solid wood.

"What? What is this?" The Don asked as his shield shut down around him.

I grinned.

"I call it victory." I said as I came around the column.

Before he could react, I had already shot the two guns out of his hands. Then I charged at him. He had a look on his face that was akin to that of a deer caught in the headlights of a truck. I leapt forward and delivered a powerful kick to the side of his head, knocking him unconscious. I stood there, staring at the unconscious drooling fat man in the anti-grav unit and I sighed.

"Truly, a sleeping beauty." I said. "Hey Mike, send Marcus with the 'clean-up crew' over here."

"Okie dokie lokie!" She replied happily.

After a few minutes a smaller ship appeared outside the window. It was a normal cruiser, but with one distinguishing characteristic, it had a large claw arm and harpoon on top. I opened the window and shoved the fat man out the window. Marcus caught him easily with the claw. Raichu and I hopped on top of the ship and Marcus brought us over to the freighter.

"You see? Mike is a big help!" Mike said.

"Yeah well we're even now." I said. "I saved your life, you helped with that mission. Now you go home."

"Awwwww come on. Pleeeeeeeze?" She pleaded.

"You have to admit Ryudo, she really did a good job there. She could be a really big help." Marcus said, in Mike's defense.

"So now you're taking her side?" I asked angrily. "We already have a hacker!"

I motioned towards Raichu.

"Mike's not just a hacker. Mike knows stuff about everything! Mike can be a big help to you!" Mike said.

"She's got a point. If it weren't for her, you'd never have known about that generator." Marcus said.

I mulled it over in my head. Raichu seemed to like her, as she was hugging him like a teddy bear and he was smiling ear to ear.

"Fine. But her pay is coming outta YOUR cut." I said, pointing at Marcus.

"Fine, fine." Marcus said. "Welcome to the team Mike."

"Yay!" Mike cheered. "When do we eat?"

...Until our paths cross again.