Krane, who’d been getting into a backroom elevator with his younger companion, turned to the redheaded boy with a diffident smile. “Would you excuse me, Maikeru?” Kenta heard him say. “I’ll be up in just a minute.”
“What? But . . . I need you with me for this-”
“Mr. Krane, sir?” asked Kenta, walking up to him and saluting officially. He noticed that Hibiki was still right beside him, clinging to his arm now. “I’ve got something for you. Can we go to your office for just a minute?”
He held up the Master Ball for Krane to see. Almost identically to the receptionist, the professor stared at the ball as though it were a snake, and all traces of his pleasant expression gave way to horror. Beside him, the boy named Maikeru looked at him with a confused expression . . . and was Kenta imagining it, or was there suspicion?
“Professor,” said Maikeru interrogatively, looking from the Master Ball to his associate, “what is the meaning of this? You don’t have the clearances to be holding a Master Ball anymore. This project was supposed to be dropped.”
“This . . . this isn’t for me,” stammered Krane in objection, backing away from the ball fearfully. “I never ordered anything of the sort! I know my boundaries!”
“Sir, this isn’t actually for you,” said Kenta hastily, thinking fast. “I just need you to pass it on to the right person. You are the head of the lab after all.” He motioned insistently at Krane’s office with his head. “Can we please go in there for a minute?”
The professor looked at Kenta with a mingled expression of guilt and frustration, then pointed at his office doors in a swift arm-sweeping movement. “After you,” he muttered, and Kenta hurried in without a second’s delay, pulling Hibiki with him. Krane looked to Maikeru beside him, and putting up his arms in defense, mouthed “I don’t know!” silently. Following the elder boy in the officer’s uniform and the cloaked younger man with him, he shut the doors behind him without another glance at Maikeru.
Kenta barely had time to sweep the rather bland and empty office with his eyes when Professor Krane was in his face, beside himself with fury. “Who told you to bring one of those things in here??” Krane demanded, pointing at the Master Ball in Kenta’s right hand. “Don’t you know who I was just talking to?! Don’t you realize what you might’ve done? Who is your commanding officer, huh?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Krane, sir,” said Kenta, tugging him gently towards his desk, “but you need to step away from the door, please.”
“Wh-? Get your hands off me. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Protecting you from being squashed. Hibiki!”
That was his brother’s cue. Hibiki reached into his pocket, withdrawing the Heavy Ball within, and flung it towards the door. In a burst of light, Snorlax’s gigantic body was covering the entire front half of the room, completely blocking any avenue of escape. A security camera on the ceiling crumbled to bits as Snorlax’s flab pushed relentlessly against it.
Krane looked blown away. His eyes grew even bigger as Kenta removed the cap and military jacket from his upper torso, revealing an inner layer of clothing- the Birch costume. Tugging Brendan’s trademark headband on, Kenta returned his focus to the shaken professor, his eyes glinting in the office light. It was time to talk business.
“Professor Krane, developer of the world’s first official Snag Machine. We need to borrow your technology for a short amount of time.”
Kenta watched as Krane’s eyes flickered over to his desk, before returning to his own. “Who are you children?” he asked, putting on a brave front. “What do you want with the Snag Machine?”
“What do you think we want with it?” snapped Hibiki, who was already going through the desk and scanning the walls. He turned to Kenta with a worried expression. “It’s not here.”
“It is here,” Kenta told him sternly, hoping as hard as he could that it was. “It’s just well-hidden. They’ll have amped up security after the Cipher incident three years ago. Try knocking on the walls and floors, see if you can find a hollow spot.”
“The people of Cipher were low-down thieves! Crooks! Kidnappers!” shouted Krane in panic, backing away from Kenta until he tripped and fell against the pudgy body of Snorlax behind him. “Just like you!”
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” said Kenta as composedly as he could- which was an effort. “Do you think we would use the Snag Machine to take someone else’s pokémon? No. We would not.”
“Oh, really?” Krane pushed fruitlessly against Snorlax’s belly, but the fat and heavy pokémon wasn’t budging an inch. “What other use could you possibly have for it?”
“How about . . .” Kenta eyed Krane sharply. “Taking back our own?”
Professor Krane looked back at him with a new astonishment, then resumed his outrage. “Steal back your own?” he snapped with a mirthless laugh. “Ha! So you can pull more stunts like this? This is precisely why Maikeru took Cipher’s shadow pokémon from them, years ago. They were a danger to society!”
“Let me get your opinion on something, Professor,” Kenta interrupted forcefully, cutting off Krane’s rant. “Let’s say there were two boys on a playground, and one was playing fetch with a new puppy he’d been given for his birthday.” He narrowed his eyes. “But the second boy didn’t like what he saw, so he dog-napped the puppy. If the first boy then tried to rescue his puppy back . . .” He crossed his arms resolutely. “Would you consider him a thief?”
“That’s misrepresenting the issue entirely,” Krane fired back. “Why don’t you try looking at it this way? What if the first boy was learning how to shoot a sling, and the second person was really his father, who knew the danger of slingshots? He would be no thief, if he took the sling away for the good of his son. On the contrary, his son would be a disobedient scoundrel if he tried to take his sling back!”
“My concern is that the father starts learning how to use the slingshot, himself,” Kenta parried. Krane let out another humorless laugh. “That’s ridiculous!” he said dismissively, flinging his arm in heat of the debate. “No father figure would do that!”
“Then maybe we should’ve stuck with my example,” said Kenta tenaciously. “The only thefts so far have been committed by the members of G.R.I.P. Call me disobedient if you want, but I consider my pokémon family. I don’t care if you consider them weapons. It only proves to me that you’re of the same mindset as Cipher. Like you, they were only ever able to see pokémon as tools of destruction.”
Krane opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. His expression softened from hard anger to horrified realization. “No,” he gasped. “I would never-”
“Kenta!” called Hibiki, sounding excited. “I think we’ve got something! The floor under Krane’s chair- it’s hollow!”
“Nicely done, Hibiki!” exclaimed Kenta, running immediately over to where Hibiki was standing behind Krane’s desk. He turned back to the professor, with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but please tell us where the button is for opening up the floor here. Otherwise we’ll just have to bust through manually.”
Professor Krane was silent for about five seconds. “The red one,” he finally said. “Under the desk.”
Kenta was too late to stop Hibiki as he reached for the button and pressed it. “Hibiki, no! Don’t-!”
“What? What?” Hibiki looked at him, terrified. Kenta gritted his teeth. “It’s the silent alarm. He made us hit the panic button!”
“G.R.I.P.’s intentions for your pokémon are better than anything you can do for them,” said Krane with gritted teeth. “They’re going back to nature. Where they belong.”
Kenta pulled out his Friend Ball and glanced over at Krane for one second. “If you seriously believe that,” he said, letting it drop, “then I’ll forgive you tricking us. You’re not a bad man at heart.”
One second later, Bolt’s gigantic form stood before the Nyna brothers. Kenta pointed at the floor, where Hibiki had spotted the hidden trapdoor. “Right there, Bolt. Use Brick Break!” The dragon pokémon immediately slammed its rock-hard head into the floor, and it gave way with a great shattering like glass. Concealed beneath the broken trapdoor sat a concrete stairwell leading down to a hidden basement of sorts, a descent into darkness. As Kenta and Hibiki gazed down into the passage, a banging from the front of the room issued behind Snorlax’s relaxed body.
“Open this door!” came a muffled demand from outside, from one of the guards. “Let us through, or we’ll force our way in!”
“We haven’t got much time,” muttered Kenta, motioning Hibiki to follow him. “Hand me the flashlight. We’ve gotta search quickly!”
Hibiki, who’d been in charge of their backpack, pulled out a heavy-duty flashlight from the side pocket and pushed it hurriedly into Kenta’s hands. The latter clicked it on and galloped down the stairs at once, beckoning Hibiki to follow. As the two brothers reached the bottom, Kenta spotted a light switch at the bottom of the stairwell and clicked it on. The downstairs chamber was flooded with light, revealing everything in Krane’s storage room. Mostly, there was nothing but scattered pages of notes all over the place, along with bits and pieces to old machines. However, in the very back left corner of the room, lying on the upper torso of a headless mannequin, sat the very prize that the brothers had come all the way out into the desert region seeking. Kenta beamed the flashlight onto the Snag Machine and nodded to Hibiki, who hurried forward and removed it, putting on gloves as he went. Without wasting another second, hearts pounding from the pressure, they scurried back up the stairs as fast as their legs could carry them.
“Kenta,” panted Hibiki, as he followed his brother back out of the opening in the floor, “weren’t you saying the Snag Machine was made of metal? It feels light . . .”
Kenta chanced a glance at the arm-and-chest shaped device in Hibiki’s arms, and he felt his stomach plummet at the sight. This Snag Machine was like the Snag Machine he’d seen previously in shape only. The whole thing was made of plastic, wires and all, and had no movable parts to it at all. It was a fake.
“What? But . . . I need you with me for this-”
“Mr. Krane, sir?” asked Kenta, walking up to him and saluting officially. He noticed that Hibiki was still right beside him, clinging to his arm now. “I’ve got something for you. Can we go to your office for just a minute?”
He held up the Master Ball for Krane to see. Almost identically to the receptionist, the professor stared at the ball as though it were a snake, and all traces of his pleasant expression gave way to horror. Beside him, the boy named Maikeru looked at him with a confused expression . . . and was Kenta imagining it, or was there suspicion?
“Professor,” said Maikeru interrogatively, looking from the Master Ball to his associate, “what is the meaning of this? You don’t have the clearances to be holding a Master Ball anymore. This project was supposed to be dropped.”
“This . . . this isn’t for me,” stammered Krane in objection, backing away from the ball fearfully. “I never ordered anything of the sort! I know my boundaries!”
“Sir, this isn’t actually for you,” said Kenta hastily, thinking fast. “I just need you to pass it on to the right person. You are the head of the lab after all.” He motioned insistently at Krane’s office with his head. “Can we please go in there for a minute?”
The professor looked at Kenta with a mingled expression of guilt and frustration, then pointed at his office doors in a swift arm-sweeping movement. “After you,” he muttered, and Kenta hurried in without a second’s delay, pulling Hibiki with him. Krane looked to Maikeru beside him, and putting up his arms in defense, mouthed “I don’t know!” silently. Following the elder boy in the officer’s uniform and the cloaked younger man with him, he shut the doors behind him without another glance at Maikeru.
Kenta barely had time to sweep the rather bland and empty office with his eyes when Professor Krane was in his face, beside himself with fury. “Who told you to bring one of those things in here??” Krane demanded, pointing at the Master Ball in Kenta’s right hand. “Don’t you know who I was just talking to?! Don’t you realize what you might’ve done? Who is your commanding officer, huh?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Krane, sir,” said Kenta, tugging him gently towards his desk, “but you need to step away from the door, please.”
“Wh-? Get your hands off me. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Protecting you from being squashed. Hibiki!”
That was his brother’s cue. Hibiki reached into his pocket, withdrawing the Heavy Ball within, and flung it towards the door. In a burst of light, Snorlax’s gigantic body was covering the entire front half of the room, completely blocking any avenue of escape. A security camera on the ceiling crumbled to bits as Snorlax’s flab pushed relentlessly against it.
Krane looked blown away. His eyes grew even bigger as Kenta removed the cap and military jacket from his upper torso, revealing an inner layer of clothing- the Birch costume. Tugging Brendan’s trademark headband on, Kenta returned his focus to the shaken professor, his eyes glinting in the office light. It was time to talk business.
“Professor Krane, developer of the world’s first official Snag Machine. We need to borrow your technology for a short amount of time.”
Kenta watched as Krane’s eyes flickered over to his desk, before returning to his own. “Who are you children?” he asked, putting on a brave front. “What do you want with the Snag Machine?”
“What do you think we want with it?” snapped Hibiki, who was already going through the desk and scanning the walls. He turned to Kenta with a worried expression. “It’s not here.”
“It is here,” Kenta told him sternly, hoping as hard as he could that it was. “It’s just well-hidden. They’ll have amped up security after the Cipher incident three years ago. Try knocking on the walls and floors, see if you can find a hollow spot.”
“The people of Cipher were low-down thieves! Crooks! Kidnappers!” shouted Krane in panic, backing away from Kenta until he tripped and fell against the pudgy body of Snorlax behind him. “Just like you!”
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” said Kenta as composedly as he could- which was an effort. “Do you think we would use the Snag Machine to take someone else’s pokémon? No. We would not.”
“Oh, really?” Krane pushed fruitlessly against Snorlax’s belly, but the fat and heavy pokémon wasn’t budging an inch. “What other use could you possibly have for it?”
“How about . . .” Kenta eyed Krane sharply. “Taking back our own?”
Professor Krane looked back at him with a new astonishment, then resumed his outrage. “Steal back your own?” he snapped with a mirthless laugh. “Ha! So you can pull more stunts like this? This is precisely why Maikeru took Cipher’s shadow pokémon from them, years ago. They were a danger to society!”
“Let me get your opinion on something, Professor,” Kenta interrupted forcefully, cutting off Krane’s rant. “Let’s say there were two boys on a playground, and one was playing fetch with a new puppy he’d been given for his birthday.” He narrowed his eyes. “But the second boy didn’t like what he saw, so he dog-napped the puppy. If the first boy then tried to rescue his puppy back . . .” He crossed his arms resolutely. “Would you consider him a thief?”
“That’s misrepresenting the issue entirely,” Krane fired back. “Why don’t you try looking at it this way? What if the first boy was learning how to shoot a sling, and the second person was really his father, who knew the danger of slingshots? He would be no thief, if he took the sling away for the good of his son. On the contrary, his son would be a disobedient scoundrel if he tried to take his sling back!”
“My concern is that the father starts learning how to use the slingshot, himself,” Kenta parried. Krane let out another humorless laugh. “That’s ridiculous!” he said dismissively, flinging his arm in heat of the debate. “No father figure would do that!”
“Then maybe we should’ve stuck with my example,” said Kenta tenaciously. “The only thefts so far have been committed by the members of G.R.I.P. Call me disobedient if you want, but I consider my pokémon family. I don’t care if you consider them weapons. It only proves to me that you’re of the same mindset as Cipher. Like you, they were only ever able to see pokémon as tools of destruction.”
Krane opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. His expression softened from hard anger to horrified realization. “No,” he gasped. “I would never-”
“Kenta!” called Hibiki, sounding excited. “I think we’ve got something! The floor under Krane’s chair- it’s hollow!”
“Nicely done, Hibiki!” exclaimed Kenta, running immediately over to where Hibiki was standing behind Krane’s desk. He turned back to the professor, with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but please tell us where the button is for opening up the floor here. Otherwise we’ll just have to bust through manually.”
Professor Krane was silent for about five seconds. “The red one,” he finally said. “Under the desk.”
Kenta was too late to stop Hibiki as he reached for the button and pressed it. “Hibiki, no! Don’t-!”
“What? What?” Hibiki looked at him, terrified. Kenta gritted his teeth. “It’s the silent alarm. He made us hit the panic button!”
“G.R.I.P.’s intentions for your pokémon are better than anything you can do for them,” said Krane with gritted teeth. “They’re going back to nature. Where they belong.”
Kenta pulled out his Friend Ball and glanced over at Krane for one second. “If you seriously believe that,” he said, letting it drop, “then I’ll forgive you tricking us. You’re not a bad man at heart.”
One second later, Bolt’s gigantic form stood before the Nyna brothers. Kenta pointed at the floor, where Hibiki had spotted the hidden trapdoor. “Right there, Bolt. Use Brick Break!” The dragon pokémon immediately slammed its rock-hard head into the floor, and it gave way with a great shattering like glass. Concealed beneath the broken trapdoor sat a concrete stairwell leading down to a hidden basement of sorts, a descent into darkness. As Kenta and Hibiki gazed down into the passage, a banging from the front of the room issued behind Snorlax’s relaxed body.
“Open this door!” came a muffled demand from outside, from one of the guards. “Let us through, or we’ll force our way in!”
“We haven’t got much time,” muttered Kenta, motioning Hibiki to follow him. “Hand me the flashlight. We’ve gotta search quickly!”
Hibiki, who’d been in charge of their backpack, pulled out a heavy-duty flashlight from the side pocket and pushed it hurriedly into Kenta’s hands. The latter clicked it on and galloped down the stairs at once, beckoning Hibiki to follow. As the two brothers reached the bottom, Kenta spotted a light switch at the bottom of the stairwell and clicked it on. The downstairs chamber was flooded with light, revealing everything in Krane’s storage room. Mostly, there was nothing but scattered pages of notes all over the place, along with bits and pieces to old machines. However, in the very back left corner of the room, lying on the upper torso of a headless mannequin, sat the very prize that the brothers had come all the way out into the desert region seeking. Kenta beamed the flashlight onto the Snag Machine and nodded to Hibiki, who hurried forward and removed it, putting on gloves as he went. Without wasting another second, hearts pounding from the pressure, they scurried back up the stairs as fast as their legs could carry them.
“Kenta,” panted Hibiki, as he followed his brother back out of the opening in the floor, “weren’t you saying the Snag Machine was made of metal? It feels light . . .”
Kenta chanced a glance at the arm-and-chest shaped device in Hibiki’s arms, and he felt his stomach plummet at the sight. This Snag Machine was like the Snag Machine he’d seen previously in shape only. The whole thing was made of plastic, wires and all, and had no movable parts to it at all. It was a fake.