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Chapter 62 - Lowengren’s Madness

"My entire platoon is dead," Lander reported.

"At least you're alive. You should have noticed by now. With the equipment's they have, this is more than just an ordinary terrorist attack. How do you think they did it?"

"The enemy should have easily snuck in and out of the building without being noticed. The only group of people that could do that are the military and the police. So it should be the Central Bomb Squads."

"Correct. Then you already know your next mission." Garland gave a lazy reply.

Deep anger was surfacing in Lander's eyes.

"You are now promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Lowengren sure has a lot of weapons."

"Yes, sir. It's as if he already had an army here."

"Maybe that's how he did it. The Pangean Nations have always been wary of us. What if they've been sending immigrants who would travel here to be a part of a secret army?"

"That would explain the organized attacks and access of weapons."

"I'll send an order to detain all Pangean natives."

Garland immediately ended the call.

The military received orders to round up all citizens who have Pangean blood and started raiding residences and using their detailed network to capture all Pangean natives.

While the chaos increased, a bus was slowly traveling on its usual route while being escorted by two police cars. One police car led the way while another was on the back of the bus.

A military blockade was seen on the front and the first police car approached an awaiting soldier.

"Officer. Who's on the bus?"

"Sir! These are the relatives of Mark Haulfed! We were instructed by Central to escort these group to a safe house."

"Alright. We'll do a quick check and identify the people-"

"INCOMING ATTACK!"

BOOM!

The police car behind the bus exploded. The bus immediately moved to the left side in an attempt to move through the blockade and the police car in front. As the bus moved out of the way, another rocket was seen approaching. The two officers bailed out of the police car and jumped behind the military convoy as the rocket blasted their car.

Several gunshots were heard and several passengers of the bus were seen to have been shot.

The driver panicked and accelerated.

"Move! Go! Go! Go!" The soldier commanded and ordered the military to give way to the escaping bus.

The soldiers immediately guarded the bus ensuring to cover its tail.

"Find them! HQ! The BOC's and their relatives are in danger! Enemy attacks have been directed towards them!"

The bus continued to drive at fast speed.

"Looks like they bought it." Alean sighed.

"Lowengren sure knows how to make a plan."

While Alean and Charles talked to the soldier, Cliff, who was the driver of the other police car shouted and immediately detonated the explosives which destroyed the police car at the back.

At the immediate moment of the explosion, Charles, who feigned to have ducked under the police car during the explosion, launched another miniature rocket at the bottom of the police car. The rocket zoomed below the police car and went under the bus. Stanley's quick control turned the rocket around after it passed by the bus and the moment the bus moved away, the rocket appeared to have been zooming towards the bus with the intent to hit it.

The Pangean soldiers hidden inside the bus shot at the dead bodies they've recently acquired to make it look like the bus was under attack.

Alean then turned to look at the other passengers. Many of them had grateful looks while others still had a fearful expression.

"Who would have thought that Seeker's strange orders would surface this early? To think that most Aragarian human trafficking operations were targeting the Jews?"

A purple Exoskeleton was zooming on the skies of Australia. It finally found its destination. It zoomed towards the building and shot several rounds of its Propulsion Rounds and broke the walls of the building.

"Where is the Commissioner?" Lander demanded at the surprised expression of the officers in the building.

"The Hero of Helion's Tragedy?"

"Where is the Commissioner?" Lander shouted in anger once more.

"He's in a meeting Sir! In that office!" The officer pointed.

Lander dashed towards the room and did not slow down as his Exoskeleton came crashing through the wall.

He immediately found the Commissioner's body along with several other high-ranking officers.

"Commissioner!" The police officer shrieked in horror.

Lander frowned. Seeing the surprised expressions of all the officers around him, he knew that they were unaware that their Commissioner's been dead for some time.

"Where is the Communication's office?" He demanded.

The officers jolted at the shout of Lander.

"Where is it?" Lander shouted once more.

"Over there!" The officer pointed to another room.

Lander immediately dashed and came crashing through the wall once more.

Once again, he witnessed dead bodies around the room. And there standing next to the exit, stood a masked man.

"The Hero of Helion's Tragedy himself!" A crazy laughed resounded.

"That voice... Lowengren."

"How do you like the send-off party of my dad?" Lowengren then gave a manic laugh.

"You're insane. You've killed hundreds for the sake of your revenge!"

"HE WAS MY FATHER!" Lowengren screamed once more.

"We didn't kill him! Stop this now!" Lander extended his metallic arm and several small holes opened up.

"Go ahead and shoot! Death is what I await after this party! Even my entire team was willing to blow themselves up for this! So go ahead, Hero. Kill me!"

"You have eight members in your team. If you've made them suicide bombers then there should be six more bombs set to blow up in the city. Tell us where the others are. Think of your mother! Do you want her to feel the pain of losing her son? What about your friend's parents? Stop this now!"

"HAHAHAHA" Lowengren gave another manic laugh.

"My mother would be proud if she knew what I did! Oh, wasn't it brilliant, Hero? My best play yet! Father? Did you see it? How I infiltrated the police and used their communication devices to get the needed bombs? Did you see how I fooled everyone by mixing my team in their bomb squads? My team did you proud!" Lowengren gave another crazy laugh.

Lander looked at Lowengren and couldn't help but feel pity. He pitied this deranged kid who fell into depravity because of the loss of his father. Lander clenched his fist and vowed to make whoever is trying to make the two nations start a war.

Lander lowered his arm.

"Lowengren! Stop this. If you order your team, they will stop. Kill yourself if you must, but don't kill your teammates who trusted you and believed in you! Don't send them down that path!"

"Shut up! Shut up!" Lowengren gave a berserk cry.

"Lowengren. Tell us where your other team members are. They don't have to die. This was all a misunderstanding. We did not attack the plane your father was on. Stop this game!"

"Game? You want a game? Then let's play Pokémon!" Lowengren immediately took out a red and white ball.

"Go Arceus!" Lowengren tossed the ball which simply fell below and rolled on Lander's feet. Lowengren then did a deranged laugh.

Lander continued to look at Lowengren in pity.

"Stop this Lowengren. This has to stop!"

Suddenly Lowengren's movement's changed.

"You had your chance to kill me. That was stupid of you." Lowengren's voice suddenly turned serious. A hint of pride could be heard in his voice.

Lander gave a strange look at the sudden change of Lowengren's mood.

"Lowengren! Stop this stupidity! You're delusional! Look at yourself? The once world-renowned gamer now a crazy kid with a Pokéball! Tell us where your friends are and stop this madness!"

"Madness? This isn't madness, Hero." Lowengren spoke in a calm expression.

"This was a well-thought-out plan. Your hesitation allowed me to live longer. My team will continue to sacrifice themselves and I myself will be the final grand bang. And lastly, Hero. That's not a Pokéball. That's Voltorb." Lowengren pointed.

"Voltorb?" Lander looked at the Pokéball.

Lowengren took this opportunity to jump behind the wall. A faint laugh was heard as Lowengren softly commanded.

"Voltorb… Self-destruct."

BOOM!

Lander was caught in the blast and was thrown backward. He was once again, thrown into confusion and disarray.

Lander felt intense discomfort as a strong whiplash made his sensation go all haywire. The Exoskeleton, however, was well equipped to prevent such damage. Lander immediately checked the state of the Exoskeleton before moving.

Lander stood up and was about to ask the surrounding officers for Lowengren's route but noticed everyone else on was also thrown off from the blast.

Lander cursed in frustration. He immediately dashed out of the building and began looking around for any signs of Lowengren.

The crowd below were of no use to Lander. None of them saw what had happened after the explosion as they saw a powerful bright light coupled with an intense sound which disoriented them.

Meanwhile, in the sewers directly under the police station, Arthur finally removed his mask.

Several soldiers were already waiting for Arthur.

"Let's move," Arthur ordered and they started to sprint.

"Great acting Arthur. You managed to match my voice perfectly." Lowengren commended. His tone, however, returned to his usual serious voice.

"Speak for yourself. Still, I can't believe you're stupid Pokéball plan worked."

"An unexpected attack is always the one that deals the most damage," Lowengren smirked.

"I didn't expect Lander to react that fast though. My lies should buy us more time but its best to assume they'll immediately figure it out. Meryl managed to rescue another group of Jews. But I ordered her to make them stay there. I think that that facility would be the perfect hiding spot for all rescued Jews."

"I see. So that's where Charles and his team are headed too."

"Right. We are pressed with time. You all have to save as much as you can while I cause more distractions."

"I'm sure that's not hard for you. You should have a lot of tricks up your sleeves."

Lander finally stopped searching for "Lowengren."

"General." He finally called.

"I was watching your mounted camera but it got trashed right after the bomb. Did you catch him?"

"I'm sorry sir. I was deceived."

"No. That was pure genius. Feigning insanity and throwing that ball when you lowered your guard. Did you at least see where he went?"

"He used a flashbang to blind everyone outside. No one saw how he escaped."

"Oh. So Voltorb used Flash?"

"What?"

"Never mind. I want you to maximize the operations in capturing and detaining all Pangean Natives. Give an alert that all who refuses to comply will be shot on sight."

"But sir, why would we do that? It's clear that Lowengren's acting alone with his team. He took control of the Police station and probably managed to acquire the weapons that the police have procured from the recent weapon smuggling operations they completed!"

"Wrong. This isn't a terrorist attack by some crazy kid, Colonel. This is war. He might have fooled you with his antics but that Voltorb wasn't just an ordinary bomb. That was a Pangean Whiplash bomb. And if he managed to configure it into a Pokéball, then they not only have people here but a military headquarters as well."

Lander was shocked at the General's statement.

"Gather all the Pangean-Natives and make it look like we're trying to search for traitors. Place a bomb at the center of the crowd, blow it up and make it look like its Lowengren's doing. We can use Lowengren's anger towards these natives for migrating and betraying their country."

"We're killing all those people?"

"Yes. The enemy soldiers should be Pangean-Natives. With such a large scale spy network established over a long period of time, it's expected that these spies will only develop relations with one another. So if we kill a large number of them, then we might draw out some angry enemy soldiers."

Lander remained silent.

"Prepare yourself, Colonel. We are about to start a war.. And I don't want to start this battle with the enemy in control of the flow."