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// Chapter 16: Troubles in Manehattan 
// Story: Pokémon of harmony 
// by Firefoxino 
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We made our way into the metropolis, ponies looked at us with fear and some with curiosity. Nonetheless, we attracted a fair bit of crowd. “Where should we go?” Trixie asked me. 

“Well, Celestia told us to come here, so maybe she already told the guards stationed here to help us like she promised.” I theorized. 

“Trixie believes you are right, let’s ask around where the guard station is.” 

We proceeded to ask around, many of the ponies were simply too busy with their work and ignored us. But someone actually answered our questions and told us where to find the guard station. “Thanks!” I said, waving him goodbye.

“Let’s go.” Thomas said, hopping down from the roof of the carriage, he was still angry about his whole evolution convolution and wasn’t really his cheerful self, which genuinely saddened me. The fact I could feel his frustration in the air wasn’t helping either. 

“Sure,” I softly said, I opened the door with telekinesis for Trixie and Thomas. Once inside the busy station, we had to navigate through a literal tidal wave of ponies going left and right. After a bit of navigation, we reached the front desk. “Hello, miss” I said. “I’m Anne, this is Thomas, and this is Trixie.” I said, introducing ourselves. 

“The great and powerful Trixie is here on behalf of Princess Celestia to solve an important problem in the city.” Trixie explained. 

“Uh, uh sure. And I’m a princess too.” The mare said, bobbing her head before rolling her eyes. 

Annoyed by her manners, I went out to get the candle from my backpack, that was on the cart, so I had to go outside, grab it and the candle, return inside and then I could light it on and send a letter to Celestia to give us some help. The letter actually arrived in a minute or so, it popped into existence right in front of me, I took it before it could fall on the ground and gave it to the mare.

“Fine, let’s see here. ‘Her majesty Princess Celestia hereby announce that the team of Anne and her friends… are not… to be opposed under any circumstances…’” She whispered with an abundance of sweat on her face. “Uh, right this way, hehe.” She said, pointing to a nearby door and laughing nervously, we went inside and encountered what was possibly the captain of this station.

“Welcome, I hope my secretary didn’t hinder your travel.” He politely said, his coat was a brown, his mane was a light shade of orange up until the tips where it becomes red and fiery. He was wearing a blue suit decorated with twelve medals, the captain also was sitting behind a big desk filled with documents and other papers. He discarded them all though and instead hopped off his chair to come and greet us. “My name is Fiery Passion.” 

“Well met captain.” I said with a little bow. “I’m Anne.” 

“Greetings, I’m Thomas.” He said with a bit of aggressiveness in his voice. 

“And I’m the Great and Powerful Trixie,” Trixie said in her usual over the top tone.

“A pleasure to know you too, now let’s talk. In the last week, we received reports of small earthquakes, sounds of metal hitting metal, and many witnessed of a giant monster roaming around the city. Now we have some suspect that it could be one of your strange creatures.” He explained briefly, returning to his desk.

“We are Pokémon, anyway yeah the culprit may be one of us. What about the snapped railroad?” Thomas asked.

“That too is a big problem, the trains are not coming in anymore, for now, we are managing, but chaos and disorder is coming quickly, shops will be left without material, and the economy will start to crumble.” He said, sighing sadly.

“We will have to look at some of its traces to know what we are dealing with.” I said, rummaging in my brain to find out what Pokémon we were looking for. 

“Sure, I can send you to the scenes, show the guards there this.” He said and gave us a  distinctive badge. “They will let you pass. Also, take this.” he said, handing over a map. “It shows the places. Good luck.” 

We exited the station and started to walk towards the first scene, the map the captain gave us was easy enough to read. We reached the first scene in less than five minutes, and immediately the traffic that adorned the streets was gone, we parked the cart and continued on foot. 

We reached a cordon of guards, they eyed us suspiciously, but upon seeing the badge, they let us through. The area of the incident was located inside a giant factory, and if the sign outside held true, then it was a steel mill, we entered the building and witnessed the destruction inside. The entire floor was littered with glass shards, metal parts, and cement. “Come on, let’s look around for any evidence.” I said, starting to hop around. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything significant.

“Anne watch out!” Thomas shouted before I started to fall down a large crater, I fell on my face, and that hurts. I hopped back on my feet and saw Thomas also coming down. “You okay?” He asked.

“Yeah, I think we found our first clue don’t you think?” I asked. 

“Sure seems like it, ok, so look around what’s missing?” He asked, I did as he said and started to look around, the walls were almost intact, the glass windows were all destroyed, and all the machines were gone. 

“Where are all the machines?” I asked.

“Not only that, look there says that it was a warehouse, the wall is completely destroyed and it’s empty. The debris came from the hole and went outwards. Whatever did this came from the hole, stole all this steel, and disappeared through the same hole.” Thomas pointed out.

“Stole them? What Pokémon actually steals steel…” I asked, confused.

“What if it ate them?” Trixie proposed, “Look here this metal thing has bites marks on it.” Sure enough, the metal bar actually had those, all around its length. 

“Do you think an Aggron did this?” I offered. 

“Could be, it’s not the only one that eats iron and steel, though.” Thomas pointed out. “And even if it is one, how do we fight it? Psychic is weak against rock and steel, it will squash us.” He said darkly.

“Even if that’s the case, we must try.” I said, determinedly. “Celestia asked for our help, we will help solve this problem.” I started finally, with a look of resolve.

“Fine.” He sighed, defeated. “Then what do we do?” 

“A trap, of course.” Trixie interjected. “This Pokémon eats iron, right? Lee’s ask the guards if they could lend us some iron to create a tasty meal for this one too, when it will show up we will catch it.” She said.

“As a good plan as any other, although I don’t know how we will actually win against that thing.” Thomas said once again, casting doubt.

“We will find a way, come on.” I said, trying to be positive. “Let’s go ask the captain some more iron.”

And so we exited the ruined factory and returned to the guard post, the traffic returned after we went away from the building and we spent a good half an hour into it. We didn’t have anything to do while we waited, so I sparked a conversation.

“Thomas?” I asked.

“Yeah?” 

“I know you are scared of this whole evolution thing, but you shouldn’t.” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“You can’t understand, you want to be a Gardevoir, becoming a pretty and beautiful Pokémon that radiates grace, and that’s ok.” He put a hand on his chest. “But I don’t want that, I want to become a Gallade, a strong and almost fairy-tale like knight, that’s what I want to do, but without an evolution stone… how can I…” He said, sitting down, utterly defeated. The glow of evolution started to spark from within him, “Maybe I should just give up, I’m so tired, I hadn’t slept in days…” He said weakly.

I slapped him on the face as hard as I could. “Don’t you dare throw in that towel on me, goddammit!” I shouted. “I will find a dawn stone, we will find one.” I said with the utmost confidence, “We will find one, and you will be my strong knight, ok? Now, a knight doesn’t surrender against the odds. If he does, then he is no knight.” I said, looking at him in the eyes. 

For a brief moment, the light intensified, and then immediately diminished. “You are right, I won’t cry on myself anymore, no more moping around and no more thought of giving up.” He said, a spark of renewed vigor in his eyes. “Come on, we have a possible Aggron to defeat and a city to save!” He said vigorously. 

“That’s what I thought.”

‘I’m happy they made peace.’ A sudden voice said in my head.

‘Excuse me? I thought you were gone after the hydreigon.’ I replied, annoyed.

‘Uhm, Anne? What are you talking about?’ Thomas answered.

‘Anne? Is that you? How are you talking in my mind?’ The now recognizable voice of Trixie said.

‘Trixie? Do you have telepathic abilities?’ Thomas asked curiously.

‘I do have some magic, but telepathy not part of that, what is happening?’ She asked a bit worried.

‘I don’t know, for now, though it is a buff, I mean telepathic speaking is faster than common speech and silent too.’ I said, listing off the good parts.

‘True, and welcome to the mental link Trixie!’ Thomas greeted her.

‘This voyage is truly becoming a bizarre one, at least there aren’t any vampire.’ 

I stopped the link. Was that?

Nah, so we arrived at the station, we entered, greeting the secretary and went into Fiery Passion’s office. “You are already back?” He said, looking up from the pile of paperwork.

“Yeah, and we might have a plan to lure our suspect out.” I said.

“say it on me.” He ordered. 

“Ok, we need a lot of iron.” I said.

“Uh, uh…” He said, motioning us to continue.

“That’s it.” I said simply enough.

“That’s it.”

“That’s it.”

“Ok, so why do we need iron? We are already dangerously near-complete depletion of it now that our major factory is down. If it gets stolen, the results will be devastating.” He said, now pacing around the room.

“Yes we know that.” Thomas said. “But we believe that we can at least draw it out and possibly defeat it after we do that, we can either transport it away so that it doesn’t return or, put it down.” 

“A bit dark, but yes, we could do that.” I continued. 

‘Should we really take it down?’ I asked.

‘If push comes to shove, then yes, we need to think about how many jobs and lives are hanging on this decision.’ Thomas said.

And we already killed one, that Hydreigon was causing a lot of damage and deaths we can’t let that happen here too.’ Trixie said.

‘You are becoming pretty good with this.’ I said in awe.

‘Adapting is what the Great and Powerful Trixie does best.’ She boasted.

‘I thought those were your pancakes.’ Thomas said with mirth.

‘Those too.’ 

After this little dialogue, we refocused on Fiery Passion. “Ok let’s say I actually give you that iron, are you sure you can beat it?”

“No.” I said truthfully. “We are aware that this would be a big risk, there will be risks. We can’t say for certain that we will beat it, there isn’t enough info for that, we can try though.” I said.

“And you want me to just trust you!?” He asked shocked.

“Yes.” 

“Fuck it, take the iron it’s not like I can say no, Princess Celestia herself ordered to give full help to you.” He said, sighing.

“Thanks Mr.” I said with a hug, “Don’t be too sad, we will try our best.” 

“Go. Before I start pounding my head on the wall.” He deadpanned.

“Sure, let’s go.” I hastily said, ordering a tactical retreat. 

“Where to?” Trixie asked.

“The outskirts of town, we will lure it there.” 

“Come on, guys, we will need some help to transport all that steel!” Thomas said to a group of guards who scurried off to find carts and help.

‘Let’s pray, this all goes well.’ With this in mind, I hopped on the cart and started coming up with an actual plan to deal with the aggron. I knew we were at a severe disadvantage, I hoped that quick thinking and many many hits would work.

We reached the center of the immense city after an hour of carting, the streets were all cleared of civilians, so our travel went without interruption, upon arriving at the edge of the city we felt the ground tremble with a mighty roar even if muffled. 

“What was that?” A guard said, looking around, clearly shaken.

“Our Pokémon, quickly before it gets to us in the city!” I said, spurring them to go faster.

We started to gallop out of the city, some guards fell behind exhausted, others upon hearing the roar fled, but some remained stoic and fearless.

We finally came out of the city and rested in a nearby plateau, we waited there. The ground shook and trembled, dust rose in the sky, the mighty roar deafened us all once again. Our bones shook with the immense strength of whatever was behind it. Then the tremors stopped, the air was heavy, our hearts were pounding, I could feel it. Right under us.

“MOVE OUT!” I shouted, fortunately,  Trixie, Thomas, and I were farther behind from the actual transport cart. So we avoided the attack, the earth split into a thousand pieces that rained upon us, the giant pokémon exited from the hole, a huge dust cloud hiding its features. Large spikes of metal exited the cloud, piercing the air with a sinister clash of metal on metal, the Pokémon rotated around dispersing the cloud.

It was as big as a building, it was covered with spikes. Most were on its hands and spine, blue electricity crackled and fizzed through them while an unholy amount of heat washed over us, blistering the grass directly under the Pokémon. When it made a move, the earth trembled with his power and weight, the air shifted, and wind was created by is giant form moving.

It took the cart like it was a mere toy and snapped it in two gulping down all of the steel and iron on it in a second. Unfortunately, it wasn’t only that that got captured by the immense jaws of the Pokémon, at least I knew it was quick.

The Pokémon now satisfied let out a roar of satisfaction, the air pressure pushed us all away, the sound almost got me deaf. Still, the scariest thing was seeing the Pokémon look down upon us, the fiery red eyes locked on us and only one feeling behind them. Destruction.

It opened its jaws, letting out yet another roar this one filled with hate and death. The air became impossibly hot, the inside of its mouth spat out molten metal along with toxic gasses from the molten metals inside, it emitted a hellish glow right in front of us.

“God…”