LST Gaiden Episode 8

A Couple of Sneaky Boys

In his house on the Nowhere Islands, Lucas laid out a rather massive map over the dining table. His eyes glazed over it intensely, focused on studying every inch of it, that he didn’t even realize his father was standing over him until he became startled by the sound of him clearing his throat. “D-Dad!” Lucas stuttered, his hazy mind becoming clearer as he settled back into reality. “Geez, sorry about that. Were you saying something?”

“Just wanting to know what you’re up to,” Flint stated. “You’re not, uh, doing anything too reckless, are you?”

“I’m just inviting some friends of mine over,” Lucas confirmed. “We’ve got something kinda big planned, but it’s still in its early stages. I’m not getting myself into any trouble, don’t worry.”

Flint nodded, adjusting his cowboy hat, “Well, alright. Just wanna make sure you’re alright.”

Lucas smiled, stepping around the table to confront his father before hugging him. “I promise, I’ll be fine. Nothing that we’re doing could possibly go wrong.”

The two were startled by a knock at the door. Flint glanced down briefly at Lucas, before stepping forward towards the door. On the other side was Solid Snake. “Hello there,” Flint greeted.

“Hrm,” Snake grunted, inviting himself in and walking right past Flint towards the table with the map situated on it.

Flint furrowed his brow, looking down at Lucas. “Now Lucas, I trust you and all, but some of the folks you hang out with… kinda worry me.”

“Snake’s a bit rough on the outside, but he’s a good guy at heart,” Lucas promised.

The next person to enter was Shulk. “Good morning, Lucas, Lucas’ dad,” he greeted. Just behind him was Tiki.

“Who’re you?” Lucas suddenly asked, surprising Flint who had expected Lucas to know everyone that was arriving.

“Oh, this is Tiki,” Shulk introduced. “I hope it’s alright if I bring her here. Elizabeth and I met her on our travels and she’s taken an interest in what we’re doing.”

“It’s very nice to meet you all!” Tiki smiled, rather chipper.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, too,” Lucas smiled in return.

A couple minutes later entered Fox McCloud, then Greninja. All six of them gathered around the table. Fox and Shulk stood together at one side of the table, Tiki occasionally peaking over Shulk’s shoulder out of curiosity. Lucas stood on the other side of the table across from them, while Snake and Greninja stood off to the side. Flint stood behind everyone, watching cautiously.

“The Guides uncovered something big for us,” Lucas revealed. “Recently, a group known as Cipher went to Galar with the intention of stealing Pokémon. While this didn’t seem otherworldy at first, it was soon revealed that they were working with strange beings that might not have been Pokémon.”

Shulk began to explain, “They examined the spacial distortion of that world and found multiple traces of interdimensional energy connecting directly from Galar and other regions within that world back to Aperture Science, where Lucas, Fox, and Elizabeth had all recently been kidnapped and taken to. We don’t know who else they might be working with, but it’s simple: this mysterious GLaDOS is working with Cipher, likely with the intention of kidnapping more people.”

“Snake, Greninja, we need you both to sneak inside and figure out what’s going on,” Lucas ordered.

“We shouldn’t have to worry about exits. The portal remotes function attune to the facility’s own portal guns, so all things considered, it should be easy to get in and get out,” Fox spoke up. “But, just in case your remotes fail, there are exits everywhere, but given the sheer size of the building, they’re very spread out.” Fox pointed at each of the exits presented on the map.

“The goal is simple,” Shulk added on. “All you need to do right now is get in, figure out what their plan is, then get out. Avoid fighting at all costs, and don’t throw yourselves on the line to rescue anyone. They likely have others captured as well, but we’ll rescue them when the time comes.”

Fox nodded in agreement. “This map only details one floor of the building, I’ll warn you that, but it gives you a good starting point to work off of. It has computers, but they won’t give you all the information we need, so we’ll need you to begin searching elsewhere throughout the facility.”

“I understand needing me, but why the frog?” Snake gestured to Greninja.

“Gren, gren,” Greninja mocked.

“Greninja is a stealthy Pokémon,” Lucas explained. “He can disappear into the shadows and vanish into smoke. You’ll need him just as much as he’ll need you.”

Fox pulled out two flat, metallic objects from his pocket. “My pal Slippy made these two devices. They’ll be used to extract as much data as needed. All you’ve gotta do is find whatever big computer the place uses, latch these onto the sides of the machine, and let it do all the work from there. It’s of the utmost importance you keep them safe.” Fox reached across the table, handing one to Snake and one to Greninja. Snake inserted his into one of his pockets, while Greninja stuck it in his mouth under his tongue. “…right.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but…” Flint suddenly intervened, everyone stopping to look his way. “What are you guys planning to do, exactly? Will Lucas be safe?”

“Daaad…” Lucas whined, his cheeks reddening.

“I assume Lucas already filled you in, but he found out about a facility in another world that we believe to be holding people from different dimensions hostage,” Shulk clarified. “We’re sending in our two stealthiest operatives, Solid Snake and Greninja, to figure out just what their plan is, see if they really are holding people hostage, and find who is working with them.”

“Your son will be fine, Mr. Flint,” Fox promised. “He’s not going in right now. We plan to make an assault on the building much later, but we’ll all be going in to back Lucas up.”

“Alright, I just wanted to make sure,” Flint nodded. “I’m sure you guys are doing a lot of good work. I just… want to make sure Lucas is safe.”

“He will be,” Fox smiled. Lucas dug his face into his hands out of embarrassment.

“Also, no telling Elizabeth about any of this,” Shulk immediately requested. “She definitely won’t be happy to know we’re using our tech to head back into the lab.”

Tiki suddenly let out a gasp, attracting everyone’s attention. “You mean Elizabeth doesn’t even know about all this?”

“She really wouldn’t approve of this plan,” Shulk admitted guiltily. “There’s a huge risk going back there, and if any of us get caught, it’ll blow a huge hole in our operation.”

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt us,” Fox chuckled. “It’ll be real quick, right in, then right back out. Shouldn’t take them very long.”

“Hmm… alright, if you’re certain,” Tiki nodded, though seemed unconvinced.

“Alright, if everything’s settled, let’s get this started,” Fox nodded. He held up the remote to a wall of the house and shot a portal. On the other side of the room was a closet. “Gotta get you there as discreetly as possible of course.”

Snake gave a thumbs up to Fox while passing him by into the portal, then Greninja followed immediately after. The portal closed, and the two were sealed in darkness. They were immediately pressed up together, unable to move freely around in the small closet space. Just outside the closet, the two could hear voices, the sounds of multiple people talking with each other, but too muffled to make out how many or what they were saying. “Great…” Snake muttered quietly under his breath, to which Greninja immediately attempted to silence him by placing a finger to his mouth. “Don’t touch me.”

Once the talking stopped, the two waited for the very faint sound of footsteps moving away from the door before carefully turning the knob and stepping out. They exited into a hallway, completely empty, much to Snake’s relief as he was free from the cramped confines of the closet. Greninja emerged with him, immediately turning to walk in a direction before Snake grabbed his shoulder. “Hold it. We need to know where we’re going,” Snake cautiously berated. “We can’t just run off aimlessly, or else we’ll get caught.”

“Gren,” Greninja spun around towards Snake. “Greninja, gren.”

“…I don’t know what you’re saying,” Snake stated, squinting at Greninja.

The two froze up as, just around the corner further down the hallway, they could hear the echoes of voices getting louder; two people, talking with one another, from the sounds of it. Two Cipher Peons walked around the corner, casually strolling down the hallway and passing by a cardboard boxing laying against the wall. “That Lycanroc can be so testy sometimes, I swear,” one of the Cipher Peons griped, drinking a cup of coffee.

“Well, don’t let him hear you say that,” warned the other. “He’ll kick your rear end in if he hears you insulting him.”

“This concept of different universes is so weird,” the first Cipher Peon waved his hand as a gesture of shrugging off the very notion of being threatened. “It was easier when there were just rumors of other universes having different Pokémon, but now we’ve got all these weirdos and monsters locked up and it’s just confusing.”

“I’m with you there,” the other Cipher Peon nodded. “Hopefully Greevil knows what he’s doing, working with the robot and the Lycanroc.”

“I wonder if a Pokéball actually would work on him,” the first Cipher Peon began to wonder, scratching his chin.

The two Cipher Peons rounded the other corner of the hallway, and Snake emerged from the cardboard box he’d been hiding under. Greninja then immediately hopped up next to him, hiding within the shadows of the box. The two turned and made their way down the direction the two Cipher Peons had just come from. Snake stopped at the corner, sidling up against the wall before cautiously peeking around the corner. It simply led to another corridor with more doors to more rooms. He glanced up and didn’t see any cameras, so he continued forward with Greninja following.

Snake began to carefully peer into the rooms surrounding them. Each room led to an office room overlooking a test chamber. He grimaced, as he could see through the windows there were people being subjected to tests. Various different sorts of people, some human and some not, ran through white rooms shooting holes in walls and attempting to solve puzzles to little avail. “No rescuing anyone. No rescuing anyone,” Snake repeated to himself, turning from the rooms and walking further down the hallway. Greninja was confused at Snake’s behavior, but followed after him.

“Ninja…” Greninja pondered to himself, before lighting up. “Ja~”

Snake sidled up against the wall of a corner again, peeking around to see if anyone was on the other side. Suddenly, water splashed against the back of his head, soaking down his suit. Snake snapped around to Greninja, but he’d already vanished. “What the hell-”

Snake froze up as the sound of footsteps approaching echoed just around the corner. Snake quickly slid his way through a nearby door, hiding in an empty office room as footsteps passed by just outside. “Oh, geez, watch out. Someone spilled something here.”

“Hope it’s not coffee, that stuff would stain. Hmm… weird, it seems it’s leading into this room here.” Snake’s eyes shot open, only just realizing that splotches of water trailed off of his suit into the room he’d just hidden inside of. He braced himself for them to step into the room.

“Ehh, let’s just leave someone else to clean it up.” The shadows in front of the door quickly disappeared, the Cipher Peons outside walking back down the hallway.

Snake quietly exhaled with relief, slipping back out of the room where Greninja was waiting for him. “What do you think you’re doing?” Snake scolded.

Greninja blinked, almost as though feigning confusion. “Grenin-”

“I don’t care what it is you’re trying to say, I won’t understand it anyways,” Snake interrupted. “We have a mission to do here. Do not jeopardize it with such childish pranks.” Snake turned away and marched back down the hallway. Greninja sulked, following after him.

The two approached a staircase and began their descent downwards, careful that no one was coming up it in their direction. Several flights down, they reemerged onto a floor almost identical to the one they were just on. They found hallways and office rooms, filled with computers and Cipher Peons patrolling the area. Greninja slunk back into the shadows as Snake hid under a nearby available cardboard box when a Cipher Peon walked past them. When it was safe, the two came out of hiding and resumed their search.

Snake entered an empty computer room, one disconnected from testing areas and simply filled with documents and computers. He sat down in a chair at one of the computers, which was surprisingly already on. It was then Snake noticed every computer in the room was on, but no one was around using them. Snake moved the computer mouse around and began looking through files. “Keep an eye out,” Snake ordered. Greninja nodded, moving back towards the door to make sure no one interrupted them abruptly.

Snake was by no means a computer expert. Most things computer related, he’d leave this up to Otacon to handle. But Otacon wasn’t available for this mission, and he was fairly certain that no one else in the immediate team was any more skilled with computers than he was. Snake searched through folders on the computer, but many of the files were compressed and encrypted, which Snake had no idea how to work around. Growling to himself, he pulled out the device that Fox had given him and latched it onto the side of the harddrive just beside the computer. He dug his face into the palm of his hands, annoyed with the work he was having to do on his own. After a few seconds passed, the device suddenly gave off a beep and had a red light emit from it. “Sorry!” a high pitched voice suddenly emitted from the device. “Not enough data on this computer!”

“Oh, come on,” Snake griped, tearing the device off of the harddrive. “Where am I even supposed to go?”

The voice suddenly responded, “Well, the computer had a file for a map of the entire facility, so if I can encrypt it and go over it, I should be able to-”

“Y-you heard me say that?” Snake interrupted the voice in shock.

“Yeah!” the voice responded again. “The name’s Slippy Toad! You’re Snake, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Snake affirmed. “Apologies, I assumed you were just some sort of computer voice.”

“Hehe, no worries!” Slippy giggled. “I made this device, you see. It isn’t able to just automatically download data; rather, I manually control it and download all the data available myself!”

“Uh, whatever you say,” Snake frowned. “Where do we go from here, then?”

“Hmm… the map says there’s a pretty large computer near the very top of the facility,” Slippy mused. “Run by the owner of the facility, GLaDOS. Weird name for someone, but I won’t question how other dimensions work. If you can get up to where her computer is and attach my data retriever to her computer, I’ll be able to hack into Aperture Science’s network and get all data possible.”

“Got it.” Snake hooked the device onto his belt and turned back towards the door, seeing that Greninja had vanished. “Oh great.” He rolled his eyes and approached the door, only for the door knob to suddenly shake.

The door opened up, as numerous Cipher Peons stepped into the office, sitting down in the desk chairs. “I don’t understand why they have us manning the computers,” one Cipher Peon commented. “Lovrina’s the smartest one out of all of us. She should be doing the computer work.”

“Look, we get to sit around and relax,” another Cipher Peon replied. “So long as we’re keeping an eye out to make sure no one’s escaping the tests, we’re good. We don’t have to understand the computers.”

Snake, hiding under another cardboard box, slowly slid his way out of the room, just before the door closed behind him quietly. He stood back up, stealthily walking down the hallway. “Where in the world did Greninja run off to?” Snake griped. He made his way back to the staircase, looking upwards. “Do you know what floor the computer room I’m heading towards is on?”

“The 3rd floor,” Slippy informed.

“Great. What floor am I on?” Snake then asked. Looking into the stairwell, he read the writing on the wall indicating what floor he was on; floor 108. Snake felt his blood immediately run cold. “You’re kidding me, right?” He asked, before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Shit. Alright, fine. Is there an elevator I can take?”

“Yes!” Slippy assured. “Just follow my directions.”

Meanwhile, back on the Nowhere Islands, Lucas paced back and forth throughout the room. Shulk, Fox, and Tiki watched, Flint having since left them to their devices. “Young Lucas, are you alright?” Tiki spoke up.

“This is a really dangerous mission we threw them into,” Lucas said. “I just hope that they’ll be okay.”

“Slippy told me he’s gotten in contact with them now,” Fox assured. “If something goes wrong, Slippy will let us know.”

“Who is this Slippy?” Tiki tilted her head.

“Oh, Slippy’s part of my team,” Fox explained. “I’m part of a mercenary group known as Star Fox. Slippy’s my best friend and a mechanical genius. We work together to protect the Lylat System from danger.”

“How lovely,” Tiki smiled. “I used to accompany an army led by my dear friend, Mar-Mar. And recently, I’ve assisted his descendents that have a group of their own as well.”

“His descendents? …how old are you?” Shulk asked, surprised. “I don’t think you ever mentioned that bit to me before.”

“Oh, well… several millennia old, actually,” Tiki clarified. “Manaketes such as myself live for a very long time. I’ve seen many, and… well, I’ve lost many.”

Shulk looked sorrowfully towards Tiki, “I never would have guessed that, since you always seem so upbeat.”

Tiki maintained her own smile, “Oh, do not worry. I assure you, I don’t let such things hold me down. I’ve come to appreciate life in all its fleeting beauty. I treasure the memories of those I’ve made friends with and let them carry me forward.”

“Heh… that’s a good way of looking at it,” Shulk nodded.

“I guess we all have our own bands of heroes, huh?” Fox smiled, looking towards Lucas.

“I, uh, I suppose so,” Lucas mulled it over. “If you count my adventure with Kumatora, Duster, and Boney, at least…”

“I wonder if Snake had anything like that…” Shulk pondered.

“You don’t know?” Tiki was surprised. “You have known one another much longer than I have. I’d assume you’d know more about him.”

Shulk chuckled nervously, “Snake’s a bit of a lone wolf. He doesn’t really like telling us much.”

“Let’s ask him when he gets back,” Fox suggested. “I’d certainly like to know more about that dude.”

“And what of the strange creature that accompanied him?” Tiki continued. “Greninja, I believe it was?”

“Greninja is definitely a loner,” Lucas nodded. “Pokémon usually like to be captured by trainers and be part of teams, but… Greninja’s an odd case, because he prefers having the freedom.”

“I can certainly understand that,” Tiki smiled. “Those two are opposites in many ways, yet so similar at the same time.”

“Greninja and Snake?” Fox repeated. “Huh… I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

“As polarizing as it is to mull this over, perhaps it’d be best for us to wait for them to get back first so that we know they’re safe,” Shulk recommended.

Fox chuckled, “Perhaps.”

Snake followed Slippy’s orders as he was directed towards the nearest elevator, with Snake having to carefully sneak past passing by Cipher Peons. Once he reached the elevator, he stepped inside as quickly as he could and closed the doors before hitting any other buttons. Looking at the floor buttons, he quickly saw that specific floors were not mapped to the buttons; rather, you simply typed out the numbers for the floor you wanted to go to. Snake typed “3” into the number system, and the elevator started rising upwards towards the third floor.

Snake sighed with relief at how easy the mission was going, at least without Greninja weighing him down. He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and waited. He wouldn’t wait long, though, as only a few seconds passed and the elevator slowly stopped. He opened his eyes, to his surprise finding that the elevator only stopped on the 62nd floor. He immediately realized what this meant, and pressed himself up against the elevator as a Cipher Peon stepped into the elevator. He stayed just out of the line of sight as the Cipher Peon turned to the number pad and typed for floor 108 again.

“I’m on my way,” the Cipher Peon said into her headset. “I can’t believe one of our Pokémon escaped. You said it was a… Greninja, right? Yeah, I remember us snagging one of them in Kalos. Lovrina doesn’t wanna admit it, but I know something’s up with the Pokémon we’ve been snagging. Ever since that… well, you know, the big one we got back in Kalos, the Pokémon have been acting restless, even after we close their hearts. Maybe Lovrina’s just losing her touch, huh? Haha… please don’t tell anyone I said that, I’ll get kicked out for sure.”

Snake cautiously approached the Cipher Peon from behind, before immediately pulling her into a chokehold. She panicked, but was immediately knocked unconscious as Snake tightened his grip. He laid her safely on the ground, then tapped Slippy’s device. “You get any of that, Slippy?”

“Greninja was with you, right?” Slippy asked. “What happened to him?”

“Hell if I know,” Snake groused. “He vanished on me when I started talking to you. He was supposed to keep an eye out for me, but just disappeared. Must’ve run off and alerted everyone he was here. Now I gotta go find him and get him out of trouble, ‘cause apparently these Cipher freaks are searching for him now.”

“That’s not good…” Slippy worried. “From the sounds of it, though, they think it’s one of theirs. If we’re lucky, we can still get through this without anyone growing suspicious.”

“Yeah, we can only hope,” Snake grumbled.

The elevator returned to the 108th floor, and Snake immediately hid as several Cipher Peons rushed past the elevator, not even noticing that it’d just opened seemingly on its own. He peeked out and carefully emerged, then turned and headed in the opposite direction they’d come from. “Snake! Wouldn’t it be better to follow them? They’re chasing him, after all.”

“If I know Greninja, he would have diverted their attention, not attracted it,” Snake corrected him.

“Oh! That’s smart,” Slippy realized.

Snake began walking down the hallway, eyes darting around for anything that might’ve seemed out of place. He began to reach an empty corridor, all things relatively quiet. “Greninja…!” Snake harshly whispered, trying to get Greninja’s attention if it were around without alerting anyone. He scowled angrily, continuing further before attempting to open a door at the end of the hallway. However, he quickly found it was locked with a keycode. “Huh. I guess I should be surprised I hadn’t seen one of these yet, but this place is already so weirdly built.”

“I think I heard something down this way!” came the distant shout of a Cipher Peon, followed by footsteps headed in his direction.

“Shit…!” Snake realized immediately that they were headed his way. He looked around cautiously, but there were no cardboard boxes just lying around for him to use this time.

“Gren!” Greninja appeared behind Snake in a puff of smoke. He immediately used Mat Block, and Snake was flipped upwards into the air. There were two long, clear pipes above him that stretched down the length of the hallway before passing through a wall, and Snake managed to latch onto them, maneuvering himself around to seat himself on top of them.

Four Cipher Peons rushed down the hall to where he’d just been standing, where Greninja had been standing before disappearing into the shadows as well. “Drat… Must’ve gotten away again.”

“Enough fooling around!” Another Cipher Peon shouted, smacking the other’s head. “If Gorigon or Snattle knew you were fooling around like this, they’d have your head!”

“I said I heard it down this way!” The Cipher Peon defended himself, before storming off as the others followed.

With the coast clear, Snake slid himself off of the pipe and touched back down on the ground, as Greninja reemerged from the shadows before him. Snake stared him down angrily. “This wouldn’t have happened had you just stuck with me like you were supposed to. You nearly got us caught and now this facility is searching everywhere for you,” Snake immediately lectured. Greninja looked genuinely upset by this, worried and tapping his fingers together. Snake paused at this, reeling himself back. “Still… I suppose you could’ve just let me get caught and save yourself, but you didn’t. And they think a Pokémon of theirs is loose only on this floor, so by all accounts, we should be able to sneak up to the computer room we need to go to while everyone’s distracted.”

“Ninja, ja!” Greninja beamed excitedly.

Greninja immediately threw its arms around Snake in excitement. Snake would have just tolerated this normally from anyone else, but Greninja’s long, wet tongue pressing up against him was incredibly unsettling and grossed him out. Still, he put up with it to keep Greninja happy, before prying himself away and walking off. “Come on, we aren’t out of the woods just yet.”

Snake and Greninja made their way back towards the elevator. No Cipher Peons were around, giving them just enough time to slip back into the elevator and make their way up to the 3rd floor. The elevators moved fast, having to while in such a large facility. Soon enough, they stepped off at the 3rd floor.

The air was dead silent aside from the sounds of running machines running. The two cautiously walked through door after door, looking around. “Slippy, any chance we could get directions to that computer you keep talking about?”

“Hmm… you should be right there, actually,” Slippy confirmed.

“Right there?” Snake scoffed, stepping through another door. “Yeah, I don’t see anythi- oh, wait a minute.”

Just across from the door that Snake opened was another door, slightly raised by a few steps with signs reading “DANGER” and “CAUTION” next to it. Snake and Greninja exchanged almost knowing glances, before they stepped through the door. They opened it and stepped through, entering a long hallway with windows showing a metallic room beyond the hallway they were in. Further down the hallway was another large room. A strange, blue, semi-transparent field covered the end of the hallway, but the two walked through it unharmed, despite initial hesitation.

On the otherside was a vast room. Immediately at the end of the hallway, there were of course computers, monitors, and chairs, but just passed that was a gigantic machine hanging from the ceiling with enormous screens hanging around it, though displaying nothing. “Alright, Slippy, I think we found it,” Snake confirmed. “And no one is here, either. We’re in the clear.”

“Excellent!” Slippy congratulated them. “All you need to do is attach my device to the computer and I’ll handle everything.”

“Think you can do the honors?” Snake handed the device off to Greninja. “You’ll want to attach it to that monstrosity hanging up there, and there’s no way I’ll reach it.”

“Gren,” Greninja nodded as he took the device from Snake. He jumped forward, hopping up a staircase surrounding it, then jumped up and climbed through the machine, before randomly attaching the device to the inner mechanisms of the machine. He dropped back down, landing beside Snake.

“Alright, I think that should be it,” Snake stated. “…thank you, by the way. For rescuing me earlier. I would have been caught otherwise, and even though you were the one that caused the mess to begin with, you still made sure I was out of harm’s way. For that, I thank you.”

“Ninja,” beamed Greninja.

Snake nodded, pulling out his portal device. “Alright, we should be going, then.”

“Going where, exactly?” echoed a woman’s voice.

Snake and Greninja froze up, looking behind themselves, then around. There was no one nearby. “Who’s there?” Snake spoke up.

“You two certain have some nerve coming here and making a mess of the place,” the woman continued. “I’d applaud you for managing to make it all the way up here, but honestly, Cipher is simply that incompetent in the first place.”

Snake and Greninja slowly looked up at the machine that was dangling above them. It was moving, and a white sphere at the end seemed to be staring right at them. “The computer… is alive,” Snake realized.

“Congratulations! You finally figured it out,” she mocked. “Maybe you’re not as stupid as you are ugly.”

“G-guys!!” Slippy’s voice echoed from the device still latched onto the machine. “GLaDOS isn’t a person! It stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System! She’s the central computer system, and she’s self-aware!”

“Can it.” A claw lowered down latched onto the device, ripping it off. It then squeezed it until it was destroyed, cutting off Slippy from Snake and Greninja. “Now. I don’t know who you are or how you got in here. But one thing’s for sure, you aren’t getting out.” The walls around the area began to shift. “I can only assume you must be with that human… Elizabeth.”

“You know Elizabeth?” Snake growled.

“So I was right,” GLaDOS chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. When you fail to return, she’ll know that you failed your mission.”

Snake and Greninja were taken by surprise as two turrets were dropped down on either side of them. “Hello?” One of the turrets beeped to life.

“There you are,” the other turret spoke as two red beams of light targeted Snake and Greninja, then immediately began to fire.

“Gren,” Greninja grabbed onto Snake and used Shadow Sneak, pulling the both of them down into the shadows. The two were pulled out of the way just in time as the two turrets fired at one another, immediately destroying each other until they fell over. Greninja then pulled Snake out from the shadows.

“How curious…?” GLaDOS focused on Greninja.

“Please don’t do that again,” Snake requested, shaking off the bizarre feeling of having been pulled into nothingness. He turned back to face GLaDOS. “You should not underestimate us.”

“Believe me, I won’t make that mistake a second time.” Two long pipes slinked out from the walls, pointing right towards the two of them. A green gas began to seep out of them.

“What…?” Snake recoiled, covering his mouth with his arm.

“Deadly neurotoxin, a favorite of mine,” GLaDOS stated. “Your body will begin to shut down rather quickly, so you won’t even have enough time to struggle.”

“Shit…” Snake realized, not having anything on him that’d protect him from the poisonous gas.

“NINJA!” Greninja used Mat Block, summoning a mat on the ground and kicking it straight towards one pipe, blocking it off as the mat wrapped around the pipe. He repeated this with the other pipe, sealing it off as well with another Mat Block.

“Watching you struggle is adorable, but you’re too stupid to realize that the deadly neurotoxin is already in the room,” GLaDOS reminded them. “Now you’re just going to suffer even longer as it slowly takes effect. It seems Pokémon really are just as dumb as humans.”

Snake glowered angrily at GLaDOS. “I don’t know who or what you are. But this crackpot facility you’ve got going on here… We’re going to shut everything down here. Everything you’re doing here ends soon. The next time you see us, we’re ending this then.” Snake then pointed his portal device downwards and created a portal underneath himself and Greninja. In an instant, the two fell through it and tumbled back into Lucas’ home, as the portal immediately closed behind them, though not before GLaDOS got a glimpse of Lucas rushing to Snake and Greninja's side.

“You’re back!!” Lucas exclaimed. He gave a hug to Snake and Greninja both, as Shulk, Fox, and Tiki all looked on in shock. Snake gave Lucas a look of annoyance, while Greninja happily hugged him in return.

“Are you guys okay?” Tiki asked, worried.

“Lucas, you’ve got healing powers, right?” Snake hastily asked. “Greninja and I were injected with neurotoxin. It’ll shut down our nervous systems if you don’t hurry.”

As Lucas used Healing on both him and Greninja, Fox spoke up. “Slippy contacted us and told us-”

“Yeah, GLaDOS is a living computer system,” Snake reconfirmed. “She knows about Elizabeth, too. Thanks, Lucas.”

“Elizabeth was briefly a test subject there, after all…” Shulk pondered.

“Yeah, but she seems to have it specifically out for Elizabeth,” Snake clarified. “She specified that we are ‘with that human’.”

“Mmh… she did spearhead the escape… She must think that she'd be the one leading the team,” Lucas surmised.

“Slippy says he’s processing all the data he managed to get in time,” Fox affirmed. “Soon enough, we’ll have all the info we need to take on Aperture Science.”

“You guys did a great job,” Shulk smiled, opening up two portals. “You two should get some rest.”

Snake waved Shulk off without another word as he stepped through his portal, while Greninja vanished through his respective portal in a puff of smoke, both portals closing as they did. “So, GLaDOS knows about us…” Lucas began to worry.

“I doubt she knows who we are or where we are,” Fox attempted to reassure him.

Shulk nodded in agreement, “If she could follow us or knew where we were, she would have by now, right?”

“Mmmh… I suppose that’s true, yeah,” Lucas nodded.

“F-Fox!! Fox!!” Slippy’s frantic voice echoed over Fox’s headset.

Fox stepped aside, pressing a finger to his earpiece. “Fox reporting in. What’s the situation?”

“Okay, so, uhh… as I mentioned before, GLaDOS is a computer,” Slippy stated. “Supposedly, Aperture Science put someone’s conscience into the computer, but there’s no record on who it was. They used to run a whole bunch of tests and had thousands of test subjects, but it all went under due to funding issues, and then when GLaDOS went sentient, she killed everyone there. But that’s not it. She’s trying to rebuild Aperture Science by kidnapping people from other dimensions to use as test subjects, a-and… she’s not just working with Cipher.”

There was an awkward pause following this. “Slippy? Who else is working with her?”

“Star Wolf,” Slippy spat out immediately after. “She’s working with Star Wolf.”