Note from bellreisa: I'm posting this for Lynxara, the author of this
story. Please send all comments to her at lynxara@bad-candy.com.
Note from Lynxara: My friend Megane was gracious enough to post the first
two of these; on the off chance anyone remembers the series, this is the
third one. ^_^ All of these stories are archived at
http://students.roanoke.edu/a/aashby/EvoWebpage/evopage.html and
fanfiction.net (just search for author Lynxara) in case you want to catch
up or read some more. I hope ya'll enjoy this! -- Lynxara
____________________________________________________________________
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
Approximately 7.5 kilometers outside of Veridian City
Four years after the 237th Mastership Tournament and the Great
Pallet Massacre
"Alright... here's the plan," the woman with the long, bright red
hair said to her companion. She carefully spread the plan out on
the ground, tapping at it with an elegant, gloved finger.
"According to my sources, at approximately 11:10 AM the
brat is going to come down that path at high speed down on his
motorcycle."
Her blue-haired companion nodded, examining the somewhat crudely
drawn map carefully. "Right. So the brat speeds along on his
bike, hits the patch of leaves I used to cleverly conceal the bed
long sharp thumbtacks we placed on the road..." The young man
traced a finger along the diagram as he spoke, indicating the
boy's predicted path of motion. "He gets thrown from his bike,
and lands in the cleverly concealed pit trap we dug just a few
yards ahead.."
The red-haired woman smiled wickedly. "Precisely, James. Even
if he can still move after taking a fall like that, he'll be left
completely helpless while we make use of our shockproof
rubberized gloves..."
"Steal his Tenchu when it tries to get out of the bike's riding
compartment, and then stuff it in that oversized glass
Rattataball you... borrowed for this job. Pure genius, Jessie,"
he replied.
"Of course. Would Team Rocket come up with anything less?" she
said smugly as she pointed to the final image that comprised the
crudely drawn picture: stick figures of the two of them
standing victoriously over a sad-looking rodent who was hunched
inside the slightly malformed circle that indicated the
Rattataball.
"Of course not. Though, even brilliant plans have a way of
getting complicated when we're dealing with the brat." James was
very hesitant about making that statement. He didn't want to
offend Jessie, but it was true.
"Yes, but then again, getting that little rat of his has never
been this important before, now has it?" Jessie countered.
The distant whine of an engine announced their quarry's impending
arrival. The charming and lovely villains that had declared
themselves to the world as Team Rocket quickly moved to hide
themselves as thoroughly as they could in the brush by the
roadside, hissing and cursing at each other to be quiet.
Fortunately, they managed to settle themselves unobtrusively in
the bushes just as the brat came into sight. Soon, he appeared
over a rise, barreling down the road on what looked to be a very
new, top-of-the-line model of motorcycle.
Jessie and James shut their eyes as the boy drove over the
leaf-strewn section of the path where the thumbtacks lay, waiting
to the hear the sound of exploding tires and screams.
Instead, what they heard was the roar of the motor slowing down
to an idle, eventually stopping. Team Rocket blinked at each
other as one, then hazarded creeping closer to the edge
of the brush so they could see what happened.
The motorcycle seemed to have somehow made it through the
thumbtacks with no real tire damage at all, despite the tacks
that were practically covering the wheels. The boy had simply
stopped his motorcycle in confusion, the front tire just
happening to fall perhaps an inch short of the edge of the pit
trap they'd labored to dig and conceal hours before. He quickly
slid his helmet off, and examined his tires intently, pausing to
pull one of the tacks out. The point of it was barely visible
through the layers of glossy leaves it had stuck through.
"Wow... good thing this was covered up so well. I could've blown
a tire," the brat mused aloud.
Jessie immediately turned towards James, glaring at him more
fearsomely than her Arbok could ever hope to. James simply
shrugged and attempted a nervous smile. "Um... heh... well, you
did tell me to make sure they were covered...." he began with a
weak shrug. Inwardly, though, he was wincing at himself.
Jessie's temper had been steadily growing shorter over the past
several months, and he didn't relish the verbal abuse she'd
likely level at him later on that day. Not that he ever really
had, mind you, but she'd been getting particularly bitter about
it lately, moreso than he thought he really deserved.
The two turned again at the familiar sound of a mouse-type
pokemon's squeak that was emitting from the stopped motorcycle.
The top of a compartment on the back end of the bike popped up,
revealing the shining yellow eyes of Tenchu. It squeaked
curiously at his master, who looked back at him with a reassuring
smile. "Don't worry, just a little holdup. We'll get going in a
few," the brat said before returning to the job of picking
thumbtacks out of his tires.
Jessie's left eyebrow twitched slightly in anger as she watched
the boy. "That's it," she whispered fiercely. "Come on, James,
we're going to get that rat right now!" Jessie punctuated
her exclamation by grabbing James' hand and dragging him in the
direction of the nearest tree.
"But..." James started to whisper back, desperately trying to
keep a grip on his Rattataball as he was dragged.
"If we give the brat a good scare, we can get him to fall into
the pit and get out of our way!" Jessie snapped at him.
"Oh... oh!" James suddenly whispered brightly. They were going
to get to say it! Good, they hadn't gotten to say it for awhile
now.
The feeling was, as always, breathtaking as they climbed up to an
appropriately wide branch and took up their poses for The Speech.
There was nothing in the world quite like the feeling of
announcing your presence so brazenly to your prey, and watching
them tremble in awe and fear. Granted, it did cost them the
element of surprise, but was that really such a loss to such
masterful criminals as Team Rocket? James only wished he didn't
have to hold the glass ball; that way, he could have gotten a
rose out and delivered his lines with real style. Ah, well. A
pose is a pose, regardless of props.
The boy took a startled step back as he heard Team Rocket's
voices ring out the first lines of The Speech, and both he and
his Tenchu immediately turned to glance up at the tree limb where
they stood in carefully selected poses that instantly proclaimed
their glorious evil.
"Prepare for trouble!"
"And make it double!"
Just one more step back....
"To protect the world from devastation!"
"And unite all peoples within our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"
"And extend our reach to the stars above!"
"Jessie!"
"James!"
"Venusaur, Vine Whip!"
Jessie and James paused and blinked. That most definitely was
not part of The Speech.
They turned to look down at the brat, who should have long since
backed himself into the pit, and saw that he had instead held his
ground, pulled one of the pokeballs off of the belt around
his waist, and released his rather shrimpy Venusaur. The
creature's size belied its strength, though, and it easily ripped
the branch Team Rocket had chosen to perch on off the tree with
one of the vines that extruded from the flower on its back.
Team Rocket screamed, of course, anticipating a very painful fall
to the ground below. Instead, the second of the Venusaur's vines
lashed out to wrap around the two of them and haul them
screaming through the air, dropping them to the ground just
behind the brat. Needless to say, both he and his Venusaur were
quite surprised when Team Rocket crashed through the ground
and fell into a deep hole that seemed to almost magically open up
in the ground beneath them.
The brat and his two free pokemon then glanced down over the edge
of the pit, staring at the mass of screaming, cursing limbs
struggling to be free themselves of each other that currently
constituted Team Rocket. They paused, though, as the shadows of
the onlookers fell over them.
"Nice try, guys," he said cheerfully to them.
"Tenchu!"
"Saur," the Venusaur added with a smirk on its vaguely reptilian
face.
The three figures hunched over the pit then disappeared, the
distinct sound of the Venusaur returning to its pokeball and the
sound of walking announcing the brat's departure.
Team Rocket remained very quiet for awhile, then pulled
themselves to their feet and set about picking the shards of
broken glass from the destroyed Rattataball out of their clothes
and hair. Jessie finally broke the uneasy silence by scowling up
at the edge of the pit, muttering a few choice words about the
brat's lineage and sexual practices, and then demanding, "James,
give me a boost."
James nodded, and did as he was told, wincing a bit as Jessie's
spike heels dug into his knee and palms. "Well, he has to leave
that little thing by itself sometime," James mused in a way that
he hoped was helpful. "All we need to do is watch him for
awhile, figure out when--"
"James, shush," Jessie suddenly ordered, her voice unusually
quiet.
James blinked, then decided that it was probably worth risking a
spike heel in the face to look up. Jessie's torso was well over
the edge of the pit, though, so he probably had no chance of
seeing whatever it was himself. "Jessie? Is something wrong?
What is it?"
"James, I told you to hush," Jessie repeated as she pulled
herself out of the pit completely.
James sighed, and sat down on the pit's bottom to wait. He could
hear Jessie talking to someone not too far away, someone with a
deep voice that he could almost, but not quite, recognize.
His curiosity was maddening, but he simply reminded himself of
the fact that Jessie would surely explain it all to him once she
finished attending to whatever it was. It certainly seemed to
be taking a terribly long time, so it must be important.
He'd actually begun pacing by the time Jessie's face reappeared
over the edge of the pit, her blue eyes staring down at him with
unusual intensity. The greeting on James' lips froze as he
glanced up to see that odd, piercing look. "What?" he asked.
"James... you're a good friend," she said slowly to him. There
was an slightly spiteful edge to her voice as she said that, and
James felt himself wincing, as if he'd been slapped.
She also sounded vaguely upset by something, and there was a
distinctly labored, anxious sound to her words as she continued.
"However, I'm beginning to think that our current line of work is
beneath my skills. Another avenue of employment has opened up to
me, and it's the opportunity I've been waiting my entire life
for, James. I would be an idiot to pass it up now."
"Jessie," James began nervously. "That's nice and all, but you
make it sound like you'll be heading off to do this job by
yourself. I mean, we're not Team Rocket unless we're together,
right?"
A smooth, refined, masculine voice answered James. "This isn't a
job for Team Rocket. The Leader of the United Rocket Gang sent
me out to find some competent, trustworthy assistants for
a rather extensive new project. I remembered that Ms. Wentworth
has excellent potential to serve in such a capacity, while you
remain as useful as the proverbial third wheel."
James blinked, both at the speaker's sudden appearance and
unfamiliar terminology. United Rocket Gang? Had someone finally
managed to make sense of the mess of infighting the Rocket
Gang had degenerated into after Giovanni's death?
He didn't have as much time to dwell on the notion as he would
have liked. Now that it was closer, he recognized that silky,
poisonous voice. He glanced away from Jessie, and was not
terribly surprised to see a large feline-type pokemon, standing
perhaps three and a half feet tall at the shoulder, grinning and
observing him smugly from the pit's edge.
"Meowth?!"
"Persian, Mr. Hallendale. You know very well I've long since
evolved from that pitiful state," the feline replied with great
dignity. "When I heard about Veridian City's young Gym Leader's
departure, I hazarded the guess that you two would make another
pathetic, ineffectual attempt at somehow stealing away that
little rat you've had such problems with in the past. My,
what staggering progress you two have made in the past - what,
five years? "
"We've been doing just fine without you! This plan almost
worked," James snapped back indignantly at the great cat, before
being cut off by Persian's half-growling laughter.
"This plan almost worked? Didn't they all almost work?" Persian
replied, that maddeningly smug grin still on his furry face.
James tried desperately to think of some kind of retort, and
failed. "James, I am pleased to have been able to make your
acquaintance, however brief it was," Persian continued, his voice
remaining as even and smooth as ever. "I've seen much since I've
struck out on my own, and yet you remain the most stunningly
stupid creature I have ever beheld."
"I-- Jessie!" James wailed to his friend for some kind of defense
against the cat's remarks.
She simply crossed her arms, closed her eyes, and looked up and
away from him. "Jessica," he frowned, invoking her full name in
a desperate plea for her attention, "You can not be serious
about going off with that mangy little traitor! How do you know
he's even telling the truth?"
Jessie frowned down at him. "Do you think I'm not intelligent
enough to be able to tell a genuine offer from a scam, James?"
"What? No, of course not!" James immediately shifted his
expression to a nervous, placating smile. "Look, I know you're
upset. just help me out of here, we'll go somewhere and have a
nice long rational talk about this. Right, Jessie?"
When James glanced back up, though, both she and Persian were
gone. "Jessie?!" James shouted again, making a running leap at
the side of the pit. For a moment, his fingers found purchase
along the edge, before the dirt beneath them crumbled away,
dropping him back onto the pit's floor.
"JESSIE!" James called his friend's name out again, as loudly as
he could. "Jessie, please, think this through! At least come
back and help me get out of here! I can't do it by myself!!"
James tried a few more desperate scrabbles at the pit's ledge,
but it was simply too high for him to reach, and there was
nothing he could boost himself on. "Jessie?! Jessie, please!
Don't leave me like this! You can't! Jessie, please!" His
voice was beginning to crack slightly as his cries grew more and
more desperate, as were his frantic, futile struggles to get some
kind of grip on the edge of the pit. He was nearly hysterical by
the time his cries were finally answered.
At the apex of another of his frustratingly close attempts to
grab hold of the trap's ledge, he felt a pair of hands grab his
wrists and hold them tightly. With that grip anchoring him,
James finally dig his boots into the sturdier lower part of the
pit's walls and begin pulling himself up, assisted by a forceful
tug upwards on the part of his one who'd helped him.
James fell to his knees on the ground, the flat, dry, level soil
feeling at the moment like the most wonderful thing in all
creation. "Jessie," he panted, a relieved smile on his face. "I
knew you'd come to your sense and come ba-- "
He froze in midspeech as he looked up. Instead of his elegant,
red haired companion, he beheld a rather scruffy-looking teenaged
boy with painfully familiar features, unruly hair, and a short
ponytail spiking down his back. James' enthusiasm almost
instantly seemed to crash in on itself. "Oh. It's you."
"Sorry," the brat replied apologetically. "She must've just took
off, I saw a hovercraft heading back towards the city. At least
you're all right."
James crossed his arms over his chest and glared fiercely down at
the dirt. "Oh, go to hell."
The brat frowned back at him and stood up, engaging in the futile
exercise of brushing the dust off of his jeans. "Whatever.
Look, I heard what happened. You have any place to stay
tonight?"
"I'm a dangerous criminal, you know. I'll kill you in your
sleep," James sulked petulantly up at him.
"... uh-huh." The boy did not sound terribly impressed with that
statement. "Look, there's a Pokemon Center not too far up the
road, I could walk you that far."
James scowled up at the brat. Of course, he'd pick a time like
now to be insultingly helpful and compassionate. It was taking
some effort to resist the urge to punch the horrid half-grown
child, but Tenchu's warning glance from the boy's shoulder gave
James just the incentive he needed to maintain calm.
"If you must," James managed to reply in a tone that sounded
vaguely like boredom. "I suppose I also owe you an apology of
some kind."
"Ash," the brat said back at him, with a strange tone of
authority to his voice. "My name is Ash, use it. Come on if
you're gonna follow, it'll take awhile to get there on foot."
James remained still for some time, scowling, before he finally
began following sullenly along behind the brat as he began
walking his motorcycle down the road. This was, unquestionably,
the worst day of his life. Without Jessie, there was no Team
Rocket, and without Team Rocket... just what was he good for? It
wasn't a question that James liked to think about for long.
Dammit, Jessie knew how important all of this was to him. How
could she stab him in the back like that, and especially to side
with that awful feline? Bitch. He'd put up with too much
for her to deserve that sort of treatment.
He glanced up at the boy who was walking ahead of him. Being
beholden to the brat seemed like a truly unbearable situation,
but he was a Gym Leader. A rather well-known and, if he
guessed correctly, well paid one. He'd have to be, to have money
to waste on a trip into the wilds to catch the ridiculous amount
of rare pokemon - precisely 150 different types - one had to
have to quality for Grand Master status.
A trip to catch rare pokemon. Rare and valuable pokemon, no
doubt. Suddenly, it occurred to James that he didn't really need
Jessie at all. Let her take the easy way out by being that
hideous cat's lackey; he'd become a master criminal the honest
way, and on his own. He didn't even really need the Rocket Gang,
when he paused to think about it He'd never once been
thanked for all the times he'd been bruised and burnt trying to
follow out the boss' orders. Hell, the bastards had rarely even
remembered to pay him, and his status as an actual Gang member
had been questioned at times.
Well, to hell with Jessie and the Rocket Gang both. He had his
own ticket to a place in criminal history; he'd simply use this
overly forgiving brat as a meal ticket for awhile, and when Ash
acquired a reasonable amount of rare and wonderful pokemon for
him, he would simply relieve the boy of his burden.
James suddenly found himself smiling. Why hadn't he seen it
before? His ticket to the fastest, easiest way possible of
showing Jessie just how competent he really was had just been
delivered right into his hands - that is, if he played his cards
right, said the right things, and properly wormed his way into
the brat's confidence. As if that could possibly be a problem
for a con artist of his caliber!
He had to correct himself. Today had not been a terribly good
day for him, no... but it was definitely beginning to look up.
_________________________________________________________________
POKEMON: EVOLUTION THREE
Written by Alicia Ashby [lynxara@hotmail.com]
Co-Written by Damien Karolev [hacker@polarcom.com]
Aided and Abetted by Glazius Falconar and Christian Rogers.
_________________________________________________________________
Ash Ketchum - or Satoshi, to those who made his acquaintance in
his current line of work - scowled in anger as he fled down the
staircase of the shabby hotel. Rocket had finally got
irritated enough with him to send their own thugs after him,
which meant people were trying to kill him again. That never
failed to make for a really bad day.
It was worse when he mentally paused to consider who was in
charge of the thugs in question. Just thinking about that man was
enough to make him grit his teeth: James. Ash did not
consider himself to be an even remotely spiteful man, but if
there was any living person he would admit to deeply hating, it
was James. However, he reluctantly forced himself to put his
anger aside so he could focus on the task at hand, his mad dash
for the exist. It was only stopped when he reached the bottom of
the staircase, where he found the proprietor of the hotel he was
currently in, armed with a shotgun that was pointing in his
direction.
"Awright, pretty boy, you start talkin'. I wanna know what the
fuck was goin' on up there, and I wanna know now!" the portly man
bellowed.
"Um..." was all the response Ash could muster.
Gary charged down the stairs a moment later, pausing only when he
had to avoid barging into Ash and sending the both of them
plunging down the next few stairs. "YOU!" the manager
bellowed, instantly pointing the shotgun in Gary's direction.
Ash noted a distinctly unhealthy glint in the man's eye, as if
he'd been wanting to do something like that for quite some time.
"Awright, punk-ass, who the hell are those hoods that barged in
here, and what the fuck was all that shooting abou-- hey! HEY!
I'm still talkin' to you!" The manager shook his shotgun
angrily, not at all pleased by being ignored when he was toting a
perfectly threatening, deadly weapon.
By the time the manager had finished, though, Gary was already
down the stairs and out the door, Ash trailing a few steps
behind. He and Tenchu paused slightly at the door and turned to
regard the manager one last time, slightly embarrassed looks on
their faces. "Uh... really sorry about all this," Ash said
apologetically, before bolting out into the street.
"Ten," Tenchu added, then scampered after his trainer.
The manager swore vehemently after them for a few moments, then
slumped into the stool that he usually sat upon and let the
shotgun lower to rest on the counter. "Goddamn punks, no
respect for authority..."
The portly man had settled into his dissatisfied grumbling, when
he chanced to hear some more shouting from upstairs, followed by
the sounds of a small group of people charging down. He quickly
whirled around, aiming his shotgun in the direction of the
stairwell.
As the manager had expected, it was the two hoods who'd come in
earlier. They had a friend now, too; a man with an eyepatch and
a particularly odd white overcoat who was currently clutching his
side, a pained expression on his face.
"... she said you were skilled! How could you let them get away
like that?" The blue-haired one was shouting indignantly.
The big man remained quiet, while the one with the eyepatch
simply narrowed his good eye a bit and replied in a soft, almost
apologetic voice tinged with a rustic accent. "I apologize. I
should have executed the command decision you no doubt devised
while wisely huddling behind the couch with greater diligence,
regardless of my physical condition."
"Yes, you most certainly should have!" the blue haired one
exclaimed. He probably would have kept chiding his subordinates,
if the manager hadn't gotten tired of being ignored when he was
waving around a high-caliber instrument of destruction.
"Alright, assholes, you're gonna stay right where you are and
tell me what the fuck was goin' on up there!" he bellowed
fiercely.
The three men almost simultaneously turned to gaze upon the
manager, who maintained his shotgun's aim without wavering. The
one with the eyepatch coldly narrowed his good eye
contemptuously; the big man didn't seem to be phased at all.
However, the blue haired one blinked, then seemed to take a very
appraising glance at the shotgun. The manager grinned
slightly. Finally, some respect.
The respectful one obediently raised his hands and smiled
pleasantly at the manager, then began walking slowly forward.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," he apologized in a voice that was strangely
arrogant and humble at the same time. "I'm sure the little piece
of business my associates and I were attending to must have been
most upsetting to you."
The manager was obviously mollified, but still kept the gun ready
for appearance's sake. "Yeah, people shootin' up my rooms is
damn upsettin'. Now, who are ya, and what did ya want
with the punk-ass I rent out to?"
"Oh, I assure you, there's a very good reason for all this. My
name is James," the blue-haired one replied smoothly as he
stopped directly in front of the manager, the gun inches away
from his chest. "Those are my subordinates, Dario and AJ," James
continued, gesturing vaguely first at the one-eyed man, then at
his much larger counterpart.
The manager blinked, so surprised that he actually let the
shotgun's barrel drop down to rest on the counter. He'd expected
all this to be some kind of gang violence crap - Adawhat'shisface
seemed the type to deal with that garbage - but gang types were
never this refined or direct. He'd actually been given names,
too, obviously real ones instead of those fakey foreign-sounding
covers that most criminals liked to use. And the blue-haired guy
had a uniform; maybe this was some kind of official business.
The gun's barrel continued to rest on the counter, as the manager
took up a slightly less hostile stance. "Yeah, well, I still
need ta know why you were shootin' up there. It's bad for
business if I can't explain it to people."
"Oh, my... that's a rather complicated question. You see..."
James began, trailing off thoughtfully. "How to put it, how to
put it..."
"Well?" the manager growled, leaning forward a bit in his
impatience.
James' reply finally came in the form of a startling, fast punch
that slammed into the manager's nose, sending him sprawling to
the floor. At the same time, he darted out his left hand,
grabbing the end of the shotgun and yanking the weapon from the
portly man's hands.
"Son of a bitch!" the manager swore as he staggered back up,
clutching a bleeding, broken nose. He seemed intent on throwing
further imprecations at James, but looked up to find him already
striding briskly towards the door, toting the shotgun with a
strangely unsettling intensity highlighted by the incongruous
grin on his face.
"Dario, clean up the mess, would you?" James asked, voice
pleasant, almost cheerful.
Dario's expression showed no perceptible change as he smoothly
slid a hand down into the left side of his overcoat's low,
collar-like opening, quickly withdrawing another pistol from its
folds. The manager's anger quickly dissolved into raw fear as his
eyes darted away from James' figure to Dario, who had already
taken aim.
James heard the shot as he was running out of the building and
paused slightly. Within moments, a faint but satisfying thump
became audible. Ah, good. Finally, some progress.
_______________
At the moment, more than anything else, Ash simply wanted to be
able to run faster.
Well, that wasn't quite accurate. Ash knew that he was
physically capable of moving faster. However, he also knew that
he'd have to moderate his pace to be able to make it out of town
and to the hidden motorcycles without completely exhausting
himself. Yet circumstances beyond his control, circumstances of
a particularly frustrating nature, were forcing him to go far
slower than even his usual moderated pace.
Gary simply was not in terribly good physical condition. It
wasn't that he was out of shape, but after a good ten minutes of
steady jogging, his breathing had started becoming increasingly
labored. Ash was beginning to suspect that Gary might have been
ill from Gringy's polluted atmosphere, or his apparently
none-too-healthy lifestyle. In any case, Gary simply couldn't
sustain a pace that was anywhere near the one Ash wished he was
running at, especially when there seemed to be extremely
homicidal people chasing him at the moment.
That fear was confirmed when he heard an uncomfortably familiar,
distant cracking sound, followed by a sharp squeak of alarm from
Tenchu. Ash promptly did what any pokemon trainer worthy of the
name should have done, and came to a dead stop so he could whirl
around and check on his friend. The rapid leap the frightened
rodent made into his arms was evidence enough that he hadn't been
hurt, but that didn't comfort Ash nearly as much as it ordinarily
would have.
When he turned to see the source of what had undoubtedly been a
gunshot, he was confronted with the image of James, smirking and
carefully preparing for the next shot. Ash rather forcibly
blocked out the image of what would have happened had Tenchu been
just a little bit slower, and cursed at James under his breath
for knowing how to manipulate him so damn well.
Gary stopped a just a few moments after Ash did, scowling and
trying to keep from openly gasping for breath. Leave it to Ash
to do the absolute dumbest thing a person can possibly do
when being shot at.
He whirled around, possibly intending to shout at Ash or attempt
some pre-emptive fire of his own. It didn't really matter;
whatever action he was attempting to perform was interrupted by
Ash running by him, grabbing the lapels of his trenchcoat, and
effectively dragging him towards a nearby alleyway. James
attempted to adjust his aim accordingly and fired, but he was a
second too late, causing the slug to slam into the corner of a
brick wall instead of Ash's skull.
Ash was rather surprised, once he'd regained his breath and
glanced up. Gary was glowering at him so murderously that Ash
began to wonder if he should be fearing for his life again.
"Um... what?" he asked.
"This alley is a dead end, Ash," Gary replied, voice frigid.
Ash blinked, and glanced down the alley. Sure enough, after
roughly a hundred feet, it ended in a brick wall that rose up as
high as either of the buildings surrounding it.
Tenchu, already perched on Ash's shoulder, first glanced down at
the alley's end, then gazed down at his trainer. "Tenchu ten," he
squeaked in disappointment.
"I didn't know!" Ash protested.
Gary stared at the two for a moment, then simply shook his head
and grunted. "Get back," he promptly ordered. "As far as you
can. The rat, too."
Ash complied and backed up until he was only a few feet away from
the alley's back wall, since whatever Gary had in mind was
probably his only chance to get out of this situation alive. He
and Tenchu watched intently as Gary then proceeded to glance
appraisingly around the alleyway. Apparently satisfied with
whatever he'd seen in that time, he then took several steps
back, dropped his pistols into his pockets, and proceeded to
wait.
Shortly, the sound of running became audible, followed by the
form of James stopping in the center of the entrance to the
alleyway and hefting his shotgun up with a frightening grin on
his face. Dario and AJ arrived moments later, quickly moving to
flank James.
"Now, where were we?" James asked as he made a show of carefully
aiming the gun at Gary's chest. "Oh, right, right, it was time
for you to die."
Gary didn't reply. Instead, he darted a hand into his trenchcoat
in the much same way he would've done had he been withdrawing one
of his pistols. However, this time, he pulled a very
different object from concealment, a tiny red and white sphere
that quickly maximized into its active form.
Ash knew the object well; he'd seen ones of its kind every day of
his life for well over a decade. Yet, for some reason, the sight
of a pokeball struck him as enormously comforting at the
moment.
The brightly colored orb fit easily into the palm of Gary's hand.
He didn't bother to throw it, but simply curled his middle finger
forward and tapped the release button to free the pokeball's
contents. The usual blast of bright red energy flooded out of
the ball, quickly beginning to solidify into a glowing white
outline as the released pokemon took form.
A roar that carried all the fury and power of shattering stone
split the air as the massive creature reared up into the air and
announced his presence. "ONIX!"
Gary's action had been swift enough that James hadn't had time to
pull the shotgun's trigger before being blinded by the light of
Onix's emergence. Even when he'd recovered, he was quickly
confronted by the sight of the stone snake lowering its massive
skull enough that it could look him in the eyes, in the process
bunching the rest of its stone body tightly into the alleyway.
Soon, Onix formed an impromptu wall of living stone that
completely separated Ash and Gary from James and his men.
"Shit," Dario swore respectfully, as he began slowly backing away
from Onix. James and AJ, however, held their ground. James
scowled at the creature, took aim, and fired off a round that
was aimed rather precisely at Onix's left eye. Onix idly
twitched his head to the right, speeding slug merely nicking
the left side of his face and sending a relatively tiny chip of
stone flying. Onix, however, still winced a bit, and began to
rumble dangerously in irritation.
Despite the rock serpent's obvious warning, James simply took
another step back and prepared to fire again. Dario's good eye
widened a bit, and he quickly darted a hand forward to wrench
the shotgun's barrel away. "Don't piss it off!" he hissed
angrily.
James stared at him for a moment, incredulous. Then he narrowed
his eyes and indignantly wrenched the shotgun out of Dario's
grasp. "How dare you!" he snarled. "I am your
commanding officer--"
"That doesn't mean I'm going to let you get me killed," Dario
calmly replied.
AJ glanced over at the two, a strangely smug expression on his
face. "Don't worry, y'all. Ah've got this covered."
James winced at the intensity of AJ's hideous rustic accent, but
paused to listen anyway. Dario simply put a hand up to his
temple and grimaced, as he watched AJ pull a pokeball of his own
from one of the pockets on his vest. "Goddammit, AJ, don't you
even think of using that thing...."
"What?" AJ shouted back. "Mah Sandshrew could take it!"
Dario's eyebrow twitched in repressed rage. "Your stupid
Sandshrew can NOT-- "
He was cut off by an infuriated, thunderous howl from Onix;
apparently, the stone snake was losing patience with their
bickering. He wasn't the only one.
"Onix," Gary spoke. "Go rip their lungs out."
Onix snapped his head forward to face the three offending humans
again, the corners of his jaws extending upward in something that
frighteningly resembled a grin. James, Dario, and AJ all froze
as one as the creature reared up a bit and roared its name out
again. It was only when the reality of Onix's rapid descent was
impressed upon them that they all simultaneously decided
that running away would be a very good idea. They quickly
proceeded to do so.
As such, Onix smashed into the asphalt where the humans had been
moments before and simply continued on until he'd burrowed
completely into the ground. The cracking pavement
that rose out of the ground clearly showed the direction of
Onix's underground movement, which inexorably followed the path
of the fleeing humans.
Ash, Tenchu, and Gary strode out of the alleyway a few moments
later, and glanced after the receding forms of their enemies.
"He's not really going to... hurt them, is he?" Ash asked
hesitantly as, in the distance, Onix burst out of the ground,
roaring and snapping his jaws.
"Not unless he feels like it," Gary replied, as Onix crashed back
down into the earth and continued herding his targets away, this
time down a sidestreet.
The nervous expression that still lingered on Ash's face caused
Gary to scowl a bit. "No," Gary repeated emphatically. He then
wordlessly turned away and resumed moving in the direction they'd
originally been running in. This time, however, he was moving at
what appeared to be a more comfortable and steady pace.
Ash remained standing alone for a few moments, listening to the
faint sound of Onix's distant roars. He found the pokemon's
presence profoundly comforting; not just because it had saved
his life, but more for the implications that arose from the
simple fact that Gary had it. Considering the creature's size
and the particularly dark grey shade of its stony skin, there was
no doubting that it was the same Onix that Gary had terrorized the
Mastership Tournament with long, long ago. Such an exceptional
physical condition couldn't possibly exist without the consistent
care of a very attentive trainer.
As he briefly jogged ahead to catch up, Ash couldn't help but
wonder what other relics Gary also carried with him.
_______________
Despite the slow pace - well, it felt slow to Ash - it wasn't
long before the two young men were safely out of the city. Gary
apparently knew several shortcuts that allowed one to exit Gringy
City quickly, quietly, and unseen, which was useful in light of
the ruckus that Onix was no doubt causing back in the city. Once
in the wilderness that stubbornly insisted on thriving outside
the city limits, making their way back to the sinkhole where
they'd concealed their motorcycles underneath a tangle of foliage
was simple enough.
Getting the bikes back out proved to be another matter, though.
Between Ash's moderately athletic build and his bike's relatively
light frame, he managed to haul his motorcycle up and over the
rocks and roots that lay on the upward slope with only minor
difficulty. After carefully making sure no stray branches or
vines had gotten themselves wedged someplace dangerous, he
then made his way out to the lonely side road that would take
them to the nearest main Route. From there... well, he wasn't
sure at the moment. However, he had a tendency to find his way to
places he needed to be when he simply trusted chance to lead him
in the right direction. It hadn't failed him yet, so Ash saw no
reason to assume it would start doing so now.
Ash was still musing on the subject of where to go next as he
fiddled with the helmet he usually kept stowed with the bike and
waited on Gary. Tenchu didn't seem to understand the reason for
the delay, though, and squeaked impatiently at his master,
popping his head up from the padded compartment that he usually
traveled in. Located towards the vehicle's rear and usually
locked shut during travel to ensure Tenchu's safety, the
compartment was one of the features that Ash had ordered built
into the motorcycle when he'd bought it years ago. Even when he
could have afforded a new one, he'd never been able to force
himself to give it up; although dented and faded by age, the red
fiberglass shell and chrome still appeared flawlessly impressive
to Ash's eyes.
He glanced back at his impatient friend, and chuckled a bit.
"Give him a minute, I'm sure he's on his way."
"Tenchu," the little rodent replied imperiously, his squeaks
clearly being the pokemon equivalent of "he'd better be." An
explosion of loud rustling and frustrated swearing a few minutes
later announced Gary's arrival. He emerged from the bushes at
the roadside, straining against a black-trimmed chrome
monstrosity that somehow seemed too ostentatiously oversized to
deserve being called a bike.
Ash watched on as Gary continued struggling against the
motorcycle's heavy frame in his efforts to get it to the road.
"Um... do you need help with that?" Ash asked.
"No," Gary replied as he paused, gasping just a bit to get his
breath back.
"Are you sure?" Ash asked dubiously.
Gary's breathing returned to a normal pace as he looked up and
glared balefully at Ash. "Yes," he said icily.
Ash fell into an uncomfortable, fearful silence, and simply let
the matter drop. Instead, he set about securing his backpack to
the motorbike's rear, then checking over various other things
that hardly needed to be checked. Tenchu darted back into his
riding compartment once Gary finally managed to drag his vehicle
to the roadside; Ash had long since gotten into his seat,
and readied his helmet. "Should we go back for Onix?" he asked.
"He'll be here soon," Gary replied evenly as he made a vain
attempt at dusting his motorcycle's seat off.
It was perhaps only a few minutes later when the ground between
the motorcycles began trembling ominously, provoking a startled
look downward from Ash and Tenchu. Gary's only reaction was to
step slightly over to one side, so the massive upsurge of dirt
and billowing dust that erupted up out of the ground moments
later didn't get in his eyes.
Ash went with his instinctive reaction, ducking down and
flinching away from the choking debris that flew as the living
avalanche called Onix shook its massive skull and rumbled in
dissatisfaction. The stone serpent was allowing itself to hunch
low to the ground now, and seemed strangely subdued. Gary's eyes
narrowed slightly as he observed Onix's condition; it was barely
perceptible, but it was clear to him that the rock snake was
fighting to keep his head and neck steady. Considering that Onix
could easily hold his own against a Gyarados now, that distinctly
worried him.
After he ran a hand through his hair, hoping to shake out some of
the dirt it had no doubt picked up, Ash finally glanced over at
Onix. The first thing he felt was vague embarrassment; he
should've been expecting that, and shouldn't have had such an
unnerved reaction. He'd had an Onix too, after all, and had
clearly let himself get too used to dealing with pokemon that
were small enough to perch upon his person. That same
disorientation was probably why it took him a few moments to
realize that there was something distinctly not right about
Onix's behavior.
"He doesn't look too good," Ash said in concern.
"No," Gary agreed, his voice edged with the same quiet sarcasm
that he might have used to agree with someone who informed him
that the sky was, in fact, blue.
Ash frowned slightly and seemed ready to begin some kind of
retort, when he was distracted by a sharp, curious squeak from
Tenchu. Both he and Gary glanced back to see the little
rodent's head poking out of his travel compartment, paws braced
against the motorcycle's fiberglass shell. His ears were perked
up, listening, and he seemed to be doing his hardest to catch
some scent upon the cool evening wind.
The humans strained their duller senses to catch some trace of
whatever Tenchu had noticed, while Onix simply sank a bit lower
to the ground and emitted a surly, stony grumble. Eventually,
it approached close enough to be detectable to human senses, a
series of repeated green flashes interspersed by a faint thumping
sound that resolved itself into the familiar repetition of
hoofbeats as it continued to approach closer to the two young
men.
Tenchu crawled out of his compartment and knit his little brows
in an attempt at grim determination. Gary had long since
silently drawn his pistols out of his pockets. Neither of
the humans or the crouching pokemon moved a muscle when the final
flash of Teleportation appeared perhaps two or three yards in
front of him, and the livid green light resolved itself into
the forms of two living creatures.
One was easily recognizable as the form of the third gunman from
earlier that evening, the one-eyed man. His hair hung raggedly
down in his eyes, so darkly violet that it seemed black in the
cold light of the rising moon. His face remained utterly
expressionless as he gazed down at his enemies from the back of
the pokemon that he was sitting astride of with the comfortable
grace of an experienced Pokemon Rider.
It was not the fact that the man was a jockey that disturbed
Gary; Pokemon Riders were a somewhat rare, but not unheard of
type of specialist trainer. It was the other creature that had
appeared in the Teleport that bothered him, the Rider's mount,
that was managing to unnerve him. He supposed it was a pokemon.
It had to be. Yet... he didn't know what it was. And
while the days when he could effortlessly rattle off the average
stats, attacks, and evolving level of pretty much every type of
pokemon known to humankind had ended a long time ago, he
should've at least been able to recognize the damn thing.
In fact, Gary found himself tightening his grip on his pistols
and crouching away from the unknown creature, eyes darting to
glance nervously at Ash's eerily calm figure. "What the fuck
is this?!" he exclaimed, voice shakier and louder than he would
have cared to admit.
"Mutate," Ash quietly replied. "Looks like it started out as a
Rapidash. No wonder Onix is out of it."
Ash's explanation was barely comprehensible to Gary, save for the
comparison to Rapidash. That he could clearly see. The creature
had a horse-type body, though the coat was a completely
impossible color, a deep charcoal black. The horn that would
have sat atop a Rapidash's forehead was completely missing, and
its eyes glowed with a cold green light instead of a firey
orange. The most chilling difference, though, was the creature's
mane and tail. Instead of Rapidash's plumes of living flame, a
hair-like cloud of softly billowing green vapor rolled down
the pokemon's neck and twitched gracefully behind it Even the
rims of fire that a Rapidash stallion might have fringing the
tops of his hooves were gone, replaced with the livid green gas.
Whatever effect the cloud of living vapor streaming along the
horse-type's back might have had in combat, its rider seemed as
exempt from it as a true Rapidash's rider might have been from
the heat of his steed's flames. Even with only one eye, it was
easy enough for him to see the effect his pokemon was having on
his enemies, and he allowed the beginnings of a smirk to play
about the corners of his mouth. "He's called Nightmare," Dario
said, his voice soft, only the barest traces of a rustic accent
audible. "Want to see his Psychic attack?"
"Want to die?" Gary snapped back at him, pointedly leveling his
guns at the Rider's skull.
"Vapor Storm," Dario calmly commanded. At his trainer's command,
the Nightmare's eyes took on a bright emerald glow, the streaming
vapor from its mane and tail beginning to flow out
and swirl together in a manner similar to Rapidash's Fire Spin
attack. Another flash of the horse-type's luminescent eyes sent
the spiraling bolt of noxious poison gas streaking unerringly
towards its human targets.
Neither Ash nor Gary dodged. They didn't have time to. The
instant the poison attack was launched, Onix emitted a subdued
rumble of rage and slid his skull down and around his
trainer. He then swung his stony snout like a club towards the
vapor bolt, the impact causing it to lose its coherency and fly
apart into a cloud. Some was absorbed into Onix's rocky skin,
but to little effect; the rest simply drifted harmlessly away on
the wind.
Only a split second later, Gary pulled back on the triggers of
his pistols, sending two bullets flying under Onix's upraised
head and towards the rider. His aim was flawless, but
that didn't matter. In a flash of crackling green energy,
Nightmare and his rider simply ceased to be at that location, the
bullets flying uselessly through the empty air where the Rider
would have been moments before.
"Nice try. Nightmare, Psychic."
Gary glanced to his right, in time to see Nightmare standing only
three or four yards away, its rider gazing down at him with a
look of quiet, cold confidence. The black horse-type was now
manifesting the horn that its Rapidash-like body was missing, a
horn composed of cold green light that flashed abruptly to life
on its forehead.
Onix's head suddenly swerved violently downward, howling in pain.
Only the faintest hint of a greenish was visible around the top
of the creature's skull, as the telepathic equivalent of an ice
pick tore through the rock-type pokemon's unprotected psyche.
In Onix's weakened state, bearing the full brunt of the
super-effective Psychic attack was simply too much. The stone
serpent's eyes rolled back into its skull, and the massive body
began dropping to the ground.
Gary simply made a quick lunge to the left to get out of the
falling rock snake's path; Ash was in a far more complicated
situation. The bulk of Onix's body was dropping directly towards
him and his motorcycle. Tenchu and Ash both made frantic dives
off of and away from the vehicle, though Tenchu managed to land
far more gracefully than his trainer. Ash immediately
scrambled to a crouching position and turned around to see Onix's
body abruptly dissolve into a burst of reddish energy inches
above impacting with this bike, and slowly flow back into
the pokeball that Gary held in his outstretched hand. Despite
the direness of the situation, Ash couldn't shake the feeling
that this justified his old arguments about the hazards of using
anything more than twice your own size in battle.
Gary swiftly minimized the pokeball and dropped it into one of
his trenchcoat's deep pockets, then spun around to see where his
foe was. He turned in enough time to see the rider swiftly
draw a pistol from his white overcoat. Gary did not drop so much
as forcefully throw himself to the ground, firing off an awkward
pre-emptive shot with the pistol that remained in his other
hand. Nightmare simply Teleported perhaps a yard to the right,
effortlessly moving his rider out of danger again.
Ash watched this from where he crouched, a thoughtful expression
crossing his face. "Tenchu," he asked quietly, "let the guys
out." His pokemon friend nodded, then ran over to Ash's
motorcycle. Once there, he climbed into the seat, sat up on his
haunches, and began using its paws and teeth to work with the
zipper to the backpack's outer compartment.
"You're out of your league," Dario paused to say before returning
fire, as he reappeared after Nightmare's third Teleport in a row.
Gary jumped back, narrowly evading the bullet's course, before
letting out a frustrated grunt and returning fire, this time with
both pistols.
He'd hit a stalemate, and he knew it. He also knew that there
was no way he could hope to do anything but hold his own in this
fight; the... thing's Teleport was just too damn fast. It was
only a matter of time before he got hit, and once he was down, he
and Ash both would be dead. He found that fact deeply
irritating, enough so that he kept firing. The shots were little
more than a distraction to the rider and his pokemon-like thing
at this point, but anything else would be giving up. And if he
was going to do that, then he would have done it a long, long
time ago.
The stand off continued for a few more Teleports and missed
shots, when something besides the sound of gunfire became
audible. It was so utterly startling that both Gary and the
rider paused in their attempts to kill each other, and turned and
stared at the source.
"Um, excuse me?" Ash announced, standing where he'd landed when
he dived off his motorcycle. "There is a reason why you're
supposed to be killing me," he continued, as if gently
reminding a small child of some chore they'd forgotten.
Gary would have broken out laughing at the statement, under
normal conditions, and he was fairly confident that his opponent
would have done the same. However, this did not quite
qualify as normal condition. There were things hovering about
Ash - spherical things, about a dozen and a half or so of them,
each sparking slightly with suppressed electricity. Each had a
pair of glaring eyes that were the only feature that
distinguished them from a common pokeball, which they otherwise
perfectly resembled in size and color. They buzzed threateningly
as they hovered around their master, the repetitions of the words
"Volt!" and "Orb!" creating a cacophony of chaotic noise.
Nightmare started underneath his master, upset by the clamor of
the Voltorbs. Gary and Dario could do little more than stare.
To train even one Voltorb was something only the greatest
trainers could dream of. They were notoriously ill-tempered
pokemon, with a narrow and rather ineffective selection of
attacks, when compared to other electric types. Their dangerous
habit of Exploding or Self-Destructing when irritated made them
too potentially lethal to be worth the effort to most trainers.
That Ash somehow had eighteen or so of the notoriously
ill-tempered creatures, an entire pack, apparently waiting for
his commands, would have been considered utterly impossible by
every precedent of pokemon training. It occurred to Gary, as he
stared at miniature army, that he really should have been
expecting something like this.
"Jerry, sic 'em," Ash proclaimed, a triumphant smirk forming on
his face as he thrust one hand forward and pointed at the Rider
and his bizarre steed. One of the Voltorbs, apparently
answering to his nickname, hovered ahead of the pack, his eyes
narrowing further in grim determination.
"VOLT!" it buzzed in command to the others. At that, the horde
of Voltorbs surged forward in waves, throwing their highly
explosive little bodies around Gary and towards the target Ash
specified, the rider and his Nightmare. Gary simply lowered his
pistol to his side, and proceeded to watch the odd spectacle of
the Voltorbs swerving around the Nightmare and exploding around
it. The fact that they didn't just hurl themselves directly at
the creature was no doubt a silent testament to Ash's influence
on them.
Dario tried to direct his Nightmare's frantic attempts to
Teleport away from the attacks, but the Explosions had too much
range to make doing so worthwhile. The clouds of flying,
blinding dirt thrown up by the Explosions still remained, as did
the thunderous noise and waves of heat thrown off by the repeated
detonations. Eventually, the inability to escape the chaos
became too much for Nightmare. It became unruly, the poison gas
shifting in composition until it began affecting his rider they
way it would any other enemy. Dario choked and coughed as he
found himself suddenly inhaling poison as he tried to calm his
rebellious pokemon. He was quickly hurled to the ground, where
he landed limply upon his stomach. Nightmare then
focused and Teleported a good ten yards away from the site of the
Voltorbs' kamikaze attack, where it stood panting and savagely
whinnying at the direction of the little spheres.
Ash shouted out a command to return the moment he saw the Rider
hit the ground, which the few unspent Voltorbs reluctantly
obeyed. Even the ones who had gloriously detonated themselves,
as they came out of the fainting stupor expending all their
energies on an Explosion attack caused, began hovering back to
float at Ash's feet.
"Voltorbs," Gary found himself saying. It was a stupid,
redundant statement, but he somehow felt the need to check the
reality of what he was witnessing.
"Yeah," Ash confirmed with a proud smile.
Dario cautiously looked up, once silence had reigned for longer
than a few seconds. He saw Gary's black-clad form standing over
him, aiming a pistol at his skull.
"Don't move," Gary quietly instructed. Dario, not surprisingly,
complied.
Ash, meanwhile, had sat down on the ground. Tenchu had retrieved
his trainer's backpack from the motorcycle, and the two of them
were currently working on assisting the exhausted Voltorbs
back into their usual home.
"Don't," Ash said without looking up, as he gave a spent Voltorb
a congratulatory rub on the top of its sphere before gently
setting it back into his backpack's outer compartment.
Gary blinked and glanced in Ash's direction, still keeping the
pistol trained on the rider.
"Let him go," Ash repeated.
"That's nuts," Gary replied.
"Killing him would be wrong. Let him go."
Gary had to fight the urge to stare at Ash incredulously. "He'll
just come after us again," he said with tightly controlled calm.
Ash finally glanced up to meet his gaze. His expression was
different now, the look in his eyes almost incongruously harsh.
"Killing him would make everything I'm trying to do meaningless.
Let him go." This time there wasn't even the slightest hint of
entreaty in Ash's voice; the statement was nothing less than a
command, and obviously one he wouldn't allow to be
disobeyed.
It annoyed Gary, but he somehow couldn't bring himself to simply
pull the trigger with Ash glaring at him like that. Instead, he
stepped rather heavily on the prone rider's back, eliciting
a grunt of pain from the one-eyed man, then leaned over and took
his gun. He took his time about pocketing it, then stomped off to
stand by his bike, glowering balefully at his opponent.
Dario stood up a few seconds later, paused to brush the copious
amounts of dirt off of his body, and then stalked over to his now
placid Nightmare. He glared openly back at Gary and Ash, but
didn't risk trying to get back on his horse-type. It would have
been pure idiocy to try, between Gary's watchful stare and the
eyes of the Tenchu and few unspent Voltorbs upon him.
"You're not bad," the Rider said quietly, focusing his good eye
in Gary's direction. "Too bad you've thrown in with a stupid fuck
like him."
Gary's response came in the form of a bullet, planted neatly in
the ground between the rider's feet. The rider did not move in
response, or jump aside. He simply regarded the tiny bit of dirt
kicked up by the bullet's impact with a cursory glance, before
looking back up.
"Next time, you're dead," Dario evenly stated.
"Maybe," Gary replied dismissively. But by then, Dario had
placed his hand on Nightmare's side. Now that it was calmed, the
creature's vaporous mane had once more shifted back to the
state that made it harmless to his trainer. A green light
briefly flashed as the both of them had Teleported away.
Gary watched them go, then glanced back over at Ash. He had
mostly finished the task of putting the Voltorbs back in their
apparent home, save for a rather presumptuous one that insisted
upon butting itself repeatedly into his back. It ceased only
when Ash took it into his hands and gave it a thorough, lavish
rub between the eyes, causing the little explosive sphere to
buzz in contentment. "Jerry! I already said you did fine," he
sighed to the pack's apparent leader.
"How are you still alive?" Gary abruptly asked, looking at Ash
and his friend's antics with an odd mixture of amusement and
disbelief.
"Huh?"
Gary's voice quickly became serious. "He's not gonna give us
another chance."
"He can try whatever he wants," Ash snapped, a strange sort of
bitter confidence in his voice. "I won't get killed easy, and I
won't sink to his level, either."
"Your luck'll run out," Gary said, gazing pointedly at him over
the rims of his sunglasses.
Ash didn't reply immediately, instead choosing to focus on the
task of putting Jerry the Voltorb back into the backpack with his
subordinates and zipping it shut. "Maybe," he finally
acknowledged. "But what I'm doing is about setting things right.
I can't let it turn into vengeance. That'd be... personal."
"It already is personal," Gary replied, his voice bordering on
outright mockery.
"It is not!" Ash snapped back quickly. "You don't know what I'm
doing. I'm not sure it's even something you could understand."
Gary remained infuriatingly calm. "I know how it is."
"Really? Tell me, just how is it?" Ash asked, his irritation
evident despite his attempts to make it seem otherwise.
"Payback for wiping out the League."
Ash became very quiet, as he stood up and re-affixed the his very
full backpack to its place on his battered motorcycle. He
studiously refused to look at Gary as he evenly replied, "You
know about that? I didn't think you'd bother to keep up...
considering."
Gary grunted slightly in reply. He was actually vaguely insulted
that Ash seriously thought he wouldn't know about the dissolution
of the Pokemon League two years ago. Granted, he had made a
point of avoiding actually reading any of the seemingly
never-ending series of newspaper articles about the supposedly
mysterious tragedy, but he'd had more immediate problems of his
own to deal with at the time. Well, that was a good excuse for
it, anyway.
"It's not payback. That wouldn't do anyone any good," Ash began
defensively. "Tell me, what's the story you heard about what
happened in Cerulean City?"
Gary shrugged.
"Whatever it was, it wasn't right. I was there. I was in the
middle of it. And I don't care what they say, I know nothing
human destroyed the Pokemon League," Ash said angrily.
"Doesn't matter," Gary said, unmoved by Ash's vehemence. "You got
your justifications, but it's all about revenge."
Ash had been growing increasingly agitated with him even before,
but that statement provoked an outright rage. His face contorted
in anger, and he shouted with enough for to cause Tenchu to
start. "No, it's not! Look, you saw the thing that thug was
riding! That's why I'm doing this," Ash furiously shouted.
"And you'd really be doing this if they hadn't destroyed the
League." The words, in and of themselves, should have been
phrased as a question. However, Gary easily twisted them into a
sarcastic parody of their apparent meaning.
Ash bristled again under Gary's scathing words, but managed to
keep himself in a semblance of calm. "Yes, I would. I just
wouldn't be doing this alone, and I wouldn't have to convince
people I was a criminal to get anything done." Gary didn't reply
to him at all, and simply emitted a guttural noise that could be
vaguely interpreted as assent.
"Look, that thing was one of the saner mutates I've seen. It at
least still vaguely resembled a pokemon. What kind of trainer
would I be if I just let them get away with that?" Ash waited for
an answer, an apology - even another sarcastic, mocking rebuttal
would have sufficed. However, he again failed to produce
anything remotely resembling a reaction from Gary's impassive
face. He simply shrugged again, as if he didn't understand or
didn't really care about anything that had been said.
Ash glared at him for a moment in disbelief, then abruptly turned
away and stalked over to his waiting motorcycle. "Why am I even
trying to explain this to you?" he asked himself aloud.
"He knows about your secret weapon now." The sound of Gary's
voice as he made the unexpected statement shattered the sullen
silence that had followed Ash's tirade.
"I never tried to keep them secret, and they're not weapons.
They're my friends."
It was an answer so utterly typical of a "serious" pokemon
trainer, so conceited and self-righteous, that Gary found himself
feeling something slightly more intense than the incredulous
annoyance that most people inspired in him. "Whatever. He'll be
prepared next time."
"There won't be a next time." Ash sounded completely confident.
An emotionless smile began to form, ever so slightly, on Gary's
face. "Sure there will."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Ash grumbled.
"I know guys like that. He won't let it go."
"I can handle him."
"I doubt it."
Ash scowled as he took his seat on the motorcycle and picked up
his helmet. "Look, I'm out of town, and I have places to be.
Feel free to leave any time now."
"I'm coming with you," Gary announced. It was not so much an
offer as it was a demand.
Ash turned to face Gary again, making no attempt to hide his
disbelief. "What?"
"I said I'm coming with you. I'm not leaving you to get killed by
that idiot," Gary said, his voice utterly implacable.
"I don't need you to be my bodyguard, Gary," Ash finally managed
to respond, hoping he sounded more indignant than stunned.
"Too bad." Gary crossed his arms and tilted his head up slightly,
making it utterly impossible for Ash to see anything but a dim
reflection of himself in Gary's dark sunglasses.
For a moment, Ash's brows knitted in anger, and he looked ready
to shout. However, almost as quickly as he began the motion, he
simply clamped his mouth shut and looked away for a
moment. He glanced down for a few minutes, clearly pondering
something. When he did look up again, his expression was calmer,
but strangely harsh. "Assuming I do let you come with
me," Ash began quietly, "I'll expect you to help."
"Fine," Gary assented.
"Well," Ash said after a deep, slightly stunned breath. "I'm
leaving now, so if you wanna follow, you'd better get ready for a
long drive." Gary didn't reply, probably owing to the fact that
he was already sitting astride his bike, putting his pistols and
pokeball back into their proper place on his bandoliers.
Ash glanced back at him and sighed again, before securing
Tenchu's riding compartment safely shut. The he simply put on
his helmet, lowered his visor, revved his bike's engine, and then
took off down the highway. Gary followed suit moments later, his
vehicle's overly massive engine rumbling to life as it rolled out
onto the stretch of smooth pavement. Soon, Gringy City fell
away into the shadowy distance behind them, as they sped towards
a new destination.
_________________________________________________________________
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Not much to say about this one, other than that
it took a really long time to write and is probably the longest
single chapter of anything I've ever written. It was exhausting,
but seems worth it.
Thanks again go out to the Evo 3 pre-reading crew for going way
above and beyond the call of duty in helping me edit this one. I
went through roughly three different versions of it before I hit
upon the release version, and a lot of stress. Particular thanks
go out to Jeff Yang and Steve Savage, and they already know why.
:)
As usual, C&C is welcome and may be sent to lynxara@hotmail.com.
Flames may be sent to hacker@polarcom.com; Damien could use a
good laugh. ^^
See you all next time.
_________________________________________________________________
COMING SOON: EVOLUTION FOUR
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
__________________________________________________________
bellreisa <<-->> Jeff Yang
homepage http://bellreisa.cjb.net
current project http://angelsquest.cjb.net
"Blazing friendship!"
__________________________________________________________