-4 weeks remain in the Meteorfall Crater-
Leaning back on the park bench behind him, Andre takes another bite of the partially unwrapped protein bar in his hand, ignoring the crummy artificial Pecha flavor in favor of thinking.
Just two days ago, he and his pokemon managed to take the Dynamo badge in Mauville. Wattson was a sly old fuck, using Baton Pass to bypass the no substitution condition of the match and to make sure his Manectric fought Absol, but it didn't matter. Nowadays, if Andre's ace can't get out of the way of electrical attacks, he jams an Iron Tail into the ground to disperse as much electricity as possible.
After that kid Ash Ketchum embarrassed them, Andre made sure they were prepared for the eventual rematch. Without the money for a TM, they had to learn Iron Tail the old-fashioned way. If Andre wasn't good at sharpening the bladed side of Absol's tail before, then after all that practice, he was now.
Swallowing his bite, the maroon-haired teenager reaches back into the side pocket of his backpack and pulls out a badge case. Popping it open, he glances at the gleaming trophies inside.
Knuckle, Stone, Dynamo, and Heat. If he turned any one of them over, Andre would find a little "R" stamp on each one.
Andre smirks, finally, finally feeling accomplished for once in his life. 'And we did it all on our own, too. No sponsors, no handouts, no nothing. Talent and perseverance is all a real trainer needs.'
As he thinks that, he looks down at the half-eaten protein bar in his hand.
If he were still back on Dewford Brawly's mom would have been fixing dinner by now, and since it's Sunday, she would have picked up something from the Dewford fishery to cook. Brawly might be the dickhead to end all dickheads, but Andre could never find it in himself to deny Mrs. Toki's affections.
Grrrr…
A sudden growl catches Andre's attention. Turning his head, he looks at his partner, who is seated next to him.
Absol, pockmarked by mostly healed scratches and electrical burns, glances over, meeting Andre's eyes. The Dark-type quirks an eyebrow, silently asking what Andre is staring for.
'He didn't actually growl at anything, that was his stomach,' Andre glances back down to the half-eaten protein bar in his hand. Without another thought, he pulls the rest of the wrapper off and offers the bar to Absol. "Here. You used a lot of energy today."
Absol's mouth pulls down into a subtle frown, and he shakes his head.
In response, Andre simply pushes his hand closer. "C'mon, take it. You cinched that gym match and got us a badge, so this is literally the least I can do."
Andre's Ace remains unmoved.
A scowl mars the teenager's face. "What? Are you worried about the money again? We got thousands for our win today, so we can quit tightening our belts for a while. Eat, or this request is going to turn into an order. Your choice."
Sighing, Absol takes the offered bar in his mouth.
"And you better eat every fuckin' bite during dinner tonight, or I'm forcing it down your throat."
Absol simply grunts as he chews.
Exasperated, Andre pulls his phone from his pocket and gives his notifications a check. 'Dickhead. I'm the trainer, and I call the shots. If I say something, that should be the end of it.'
Nothing interesting in his email, and no new texts, so Andre does what every bored trainer does and opens up Battlenet for some mindless scrolling.
'A ton of unexplained crime in a place called Ryme City. Aren't they the guys who try to come down on pokemon battling in their city limits? No duh crime is going to skyrocket if no one is allowed to battle. Dipshit politicians up to no good again.'
Andre scrolls further down.
'Zoroark sighting? Fake as hell. Anyone who knows anything about Zoroarks knows you don't find them, they find you.
The next thread of note that he happens upon is Henson's megathread, making him frown.
Henson was named a conference shoo-in after his match in Lavaridge. Andre watched the footage of the match, explosive finale included, and was floored by what he saw. It stings, and he'll never admit it out loud, but Henson isn't the worst battler Andre has ever seen. The man is obviously carried by the power of his pokemon, but taming a temperamental monster like a Ninetales and going toe-to-toe with Mura Moore isn't something any old hack can do.
Henson is still a loser for sure, but less than initially expected.
Naturally, Andre has checked in on the mega thread from time to time, purely to keep tabs on someone he'll likely be facing in the Ever Grande Conference.
The teenager takes a look at the news around Henson, frowning mightily when he sees that Henson's latest pokemon is an adopted Sylveon of all things. No expert on Fairy is he, but Andre knows that fairies are a type rooted deeply in emotion similar to Dark types. No one would give away a pokemon as rare as a Sylveon unless there is some kind of string attached. Henson is probably on the hook for something after that.
Then… That's it. There is no other news. A couple other posters in the thread are wondering where Henson has gone, because he apparently hasn't been sighted in weeks. Theories started popping up in the thread, like how he flew away on his Corviknight to go get something special from another region, or how he's secluded himself in some kind of special training, with a few even speculating that he gave up. His friends, Brendan Birch and a tribal woman named Zinnia haven't been seen either.
'Probably got too big of a head and got strangled by that Sylveon,' Andre smirks at the thought. He places a hand on Absol's head, combing his fingers through coarse white fur. 'Whatever. It doesn't matter who shows up to the Ever Grande Conference, because we're taking the whole thing.'
Andre's phone beeps, drawing his eyes to a new email. Without even bothering to look at the title, he opens it up and begins to read.
'…Mega Evolution? Mega Stones? What is this shit?' He frowns and glances at the 'sender' field of the email.
From:
'It's empty?'
----------------------------------------
-3 weeks remain in the Meteorfall Crater-
"Yeah! I got the Balance Badge!"
Still shaking from the adrenaline of a hard-fought gym battle, Ash Ketchum raises his prize high over his head, taking care not to jostle Pikachu and aggravate the electric-type's bruises.
The cheers coming from the stands of the Petalburg Gym redouble as the badge sparkles in the sunlight.
The battle with Norman was hard, one of the hardest that Ash has had to face thus far in Hoenn. Norman's Slakoth, Vigoroth, and Slaking each brought something new and difficult to counter to the field. Never did he expect a Slakoth to know Blizzard of all moves, which froze Pikachu solid. Ash had to burn his one allowed substitution to send in Torkoal, who evened the odds by taking out Slakoth.
Poor Torkoal couldn't cope with Vigoroth's sheer speed and aggression, and fell to a savage one-two punch of Bulk-Up into Crush Claw.
Pikachu, given some time on the sideline to thaw, managed to defeat Vigoroth, matching the sloth pokemon blow-for-blow.
And then came Slaking…
Even after being paralyzed by Pikachu's Static, Slaking was an utter force of nature. Pikachu fell in one savage strike courtesy of Facade, and it was all down to Shiftry.
Shiftry won. Barely.
'I gotta thank Brock for the Sunny Day idea,' Ash thinks to himself. The older teen recommended teaching Shiftry Sunny Day after he evolved. 'If it wasn't for Shiftry's Chlorophyll ability letting him speed in and out under the sunlight, we would have lost.
As if sensing his thoughts, Shiftry's ball does a little shake.
The recently-evolved grass-type has been a handful as of late. His new Dark-typing has made him cantankerous even on good days, and it has been reminding Ash of his early days with Charizard.
'Maybe I'll bring Charizard over for a day to show Shiftry that a strong pokemon and a trainer are always better when they work together,' Ash nods to himself, making a mental note to reach out to the Charicific Valley.
As the referee ushers Ash, Pikachu, and Norman off the torn up field, Ash searches the crowd for his friends and finds them quickly.
Brock looks proud, and Ash's smile widens.
May looks mystified, like she wasn't expecting the outcome. 'Norman is her dad, so it was probably weird to see him lose.'
Finally, Max…
Ash withholds a wince.
Max looks devastated. His shoulders are slumped, and his eyes are teary, in stark contrast to May and Brock.
The younger boy had been going on and on all day about how strong Norman is, saying that even with all his training and experience, Ash had no chance. It got on Ash's nerves for sure, but he understood that Max is just proud of his dad. That in mind, Ash kept anything unpleasant he had to say to himself, determined to prove himself with actions rather than words.
And prove himself he did.
The cheers and chatter of the crowd fade as Ash, Pikachu, and Norman cross the threshold into a small office area behind the gym arena. Ash gives the space little notice, having seen these little administrative areas in gyms many times before. The boy wonders to himself why gyms even bother making these spaces when all they do here is give out victory prizes and do paperwork? The lobby would be fine for that.
Norman lets out a sigh and wipes at his sweaty brow. "What a fight," he murmurs, gesturing for Ash to sit down at a small table, where a few forms and an aide armed with a laptop already sit. "Talented kids are just popping out of the woodwork these days."
"That was definitely the toughest gym match we've had in Hoenn so far, Mister Norman," Ash replies with a grin. "I thought you had us for sure!"
"Chuuu…" Pikachu tiredly chimes in for emphasis, his battered and bruised form sliding down from Ash's shoulder to sit in the boy's lap.
"Me too," Norman sighs, looking down at the gym aide. "Nina, three on three, nonstandard team."
"Understood, Mister Maple!" The teenage girl chirps, already typing away.
Norman turns his attention back to Ash. "So, mine is your fifth badge, then?"
Ash nods. "Yep. We're thinking of heading to Fortree City after this for number six."
"Going after Winona next?" Norman asks with a short laugh. "Good luck, Ash. She's a terror. Don't think Rock or Electric types will be able to walk all over her, because she teaches Ground-moves to all her pokemon. Her Altaria even knows Earthquake."
Ash's eyes widen until he feels his eyebrows touch his hat. "Earthquake? On a Flying-type?"
"Oh yes," Norman smiles thinly. "If there's any truth to the rumors I'm hearing, she's also looking into getting a Dragonite. Be careful with her, or she'll stonewall you for ages."
A Dragonite? Ash exchanges a look with Pikachu and mentally reviews all the moves his pokemon know, finding that his team's arsenal is lacking anything Ice or Dragon. 'Oh crud. We should probably prepare for the worst.'
----------------------------------------
-2 weeks remain in the Meteorfall Crater-
Curled up on her tiny bed, her knees pulled to her chest, Courtney stares at the stone wall blankly.
It's official. She's lost track of how long she's been in quarantine. The fluorescent light overhead is turned off, so it must be the night hours still, but she's been waking at odd hours. Or at least she thinks she is, for the quarantine chamber has no clock.
The Team Magma standard quarantine period after contact with a hostile telepath is four weeks. Courtney knows this, for she's one of the ones who drafted the measure, which was approved by Leader Maxie.
'It's been…' Courtney blinks sluggishly. She's not tired, yet her vision is blurry. 'It must have been… Twice standard length. Maybe more. Leader Maxie... I'll be better. Please let me out.'
There is no answer to the silent prayer.
Day in and day out has been the same each time. A morning meal, then a visit from a Magma telepathic therapist, who spends hours trying to find out how and when Henson's Ninetales made it past all of Courtney's mental blocks. The therapist reveals nothing to her, but from how they came in every day at the same time, and from how each brain dive gets deeper each day, Courtney knows they're finding nothing.
Courtney screws her eyes shut as a migraine blooms behind them. Just thinking about the coming 'therapy' is unpleasant. 'For Leader Maxie, I endure.'
After the midday meal was another round of therapy, then dinner, then a short block of time to herself before lights out. Recently, she's simply been going to bed early, as she has nothing to fill her free time with. Courtney has long since read all the books on the modest bookshelf within the room, and she dares not ask for more. 'Leader Maxie is gracious to have already done so much for me. Where would I be without him?'
The dark, blank wall by her bed stares back at her, and Courtney swears she sees faces. She sees Tabitha's sneer, her pokemon, worried, and most of all…
Her breath hitches.
She sees Leader Maxie, disappointed. His eyes bore into her like drills of ice, and she quakes to herself.
"I'm sorry…" She curls into a tighter ball. "I… Didn't mean to be a traitor. Please, Leader Maxie. Just one more chance. I will prove myself to you, I promise."
The expression of the wall remains unchanged, unconvinced, and Courtney screws her eyes shut, clawing at her scalp. The sharp pain of her nails digging into her skin does nothing to make the face inside her eyelids go away. Despite the sterile cool of the room, Courtney sweats profusely and feels her clothes stick to her. Worse yet, she's gripped by a sudden nausea.
She was compromised.
She's a failure.
She's a traitor.
…Bang bang!
For a moment, Courtney forgets her woes as a banging noise followed by the sound of scuffling echo through the steel door of her room. Turning away from the wall and swallowing the bile in her throat, the former Magma admin turns over in her bed and stares at the doorway.
Clang-scritch!
Something metallic drags against something else metallic down the hall, and she begins to hear actual, human voices crying out.
"Stop them!"
"-one berserk! If you can't fight, get out of the way!"
"They're heading for the quarantine cells!"
They? Who are they? Courtney's sluggish brain scrambles for an answer as she sits up. "Aqua?" She wonders aloud. "Are they… Attacking the hideout?"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The more the disgraced admin thinks about it, the more other options seem outlandish. A police raid would be far louder, and a league raid would be lightning fast. An Aqua admin or someone comparable must be assaulting the base.
Now Courtney can make out violent stomping coming down the hallway, each footfall seemingly shaking the entire hideout, and she jumps when a gigantic dent is put into the cell door with a bone rattling CRASH! All the while, the sound of combat rages further down the hall.
'If they're breaking down my door, then they must have been tipped off about how I was compromised!' Courtney's eyes widen, and she quickly stands. 'Do they want to be rid of me, or capture me? I can't allow either!'
Courtney's eyes dart about her cell as the attackers strike the door again, deepening the dent. To her dismay, she sees no serviceable weapons.
CRASH!
Wild magenta eyes turn towards the bookshelf, and Courtney scrambles over as fast as she can. She unceremoniously dumps the books on the ground and dashes the bookshelf across the floor as hard as she can.
CRASH! The dent is getting larger, and the door hinges are giving out.
The flimsy wooden bookshelf cracks and splinters on the floor, bursting into pieces. Taking a piece that ends in a sharp point, Courtney ignores the splinters stabbing her hand and stands ready.
She will not be leaving without a fight.
With a final thunderous impact, the cell door falls, the hinges shearing off with hideous shrieks. With a snort, a lumbering form steps into the cell, and Courtney nearly drops her makeshift weapon.
"Camerupt?" She questions, scarcely believing her eyes.
Her own Camerupt stands before her, his eyes sharp and full of hate. When he turns his gaze to her, Camerupt lights up and steps closer, lovingly pushing his head into her torso with a subdued croon.
"Camerupt, what are you doing here?" She questions uncomprehendingly. "You damaged my cell. That's unacceptable."
The camel pokemon's expression flashes with hurt, and he takes a hesitant step back. As he does so, the din of battle further inside the hideout begins to die down, and Courtney is treated to another surprise when her Swellow flies in and lands on Camerupt's back, looking exhausted. Trailing in behind Swellow is her Mightyena, who is walking with a limp.
"What are you all doing here?" Courtney's question sharpens into a demand, a rare prickle of anger within her. "I'm under quarantine by order of Leader Maxie, and I am not to receive visitors. You're going against orders."
Swellow trills a note tinged with deep concern, her face dismayed. The bird trills once more and gestures over towards the door with a wing, her meaning obvious. 'Come with us!'
"I am under quarantine by order of Leader Maxie," Courtney repeats, her grip on her shard of wood tightening. "I've been compromised, and until the method used for the compromise can be determined and rectified, I am not to move."
Mightyena whines, her pearly fangs bared in a grimace.
"Leave," Courtney forces out, shutting her eyes and looking away from her pokemon. They can't be here, no matter how much seeing them balms her raw nerves. "Leader Maxie has forbidden me from – "
The blow to the side of her head is as sudden as it is unexpected.
Courtney's head swims as a pair of twin warmths suddenly find their way to her sides. She's looking at the ground for some reason, and it's moving by at a clipped pace, making her stomach roll. 'I'm slung across Camerupt's back,' she realizes. The warmths she feels are his volcanoes. There are voices, yelling, bellowing, shrieks, barks, and her head pounds. She blinks, but everything remains blurry, both her vision and her thoughts. 'Concussion.'
Fighting, flashes, doors broken down.
Then a pair of red flashes irritate her eyes, and Courtney feels a trio of spheres shoved into her pocket. Before she can get her bearings, talons grip the back of her shirt, and the ground falls away. The trees rush by, then they all become a green smear as she rises higher and higher into the sky.
Despite the cool morning air in the first taste of sunlight she's had in months washing across her skin, the disgraced admin is perilously close to tears.
If she wasn't marked a traitor before, then she certainly will be now.
She's failed Leader Maxie yet again.
----------------------------------------
-1 week remains in the Meteorfall Crater-
Sitting on the sidelines deep within the Draconid training chamber, Octillery ponders to himself as a pair of his teammates spar before him. It's something he's been doing more and more as of late. Without a proper wireless signal, Lee's laptop is quite useless to him, so the cephalopod has been turning inward.
Their seclusion within the Draconid holy land will be coming to an end soon, and they'll be returning to the outside world to resume the gym circuit and the crusade on Magma and Aqua. As regrettable as losing the Dragon TE thrumming through his body will be, Octillery relishes the thought of new foes to trounce and humiliate.
In these few weeks, so much has happened that someone else's head might spin, but not Octillery's. Disorganization is a trap for the apathetic and dull-witted. He's been carefully categorizing and cataloging each event — his own growth, chiefly.
'Were I to clash with myself from a month prior,' he begins, imagining many scenarios in parallel, 'then the result would be a foregone conclusion.'
A 'foregone conclusion' is a polite way to put it. Over the last month, Octillery has seen himself grow to heights he wouldn't have even dreamed of before being brought into the fold of Lee Henson's team. If his current and past self were to meet in the field of battle, then the past Octillery would surely perish. His skills, might, and repertoire have ballooned.
Protect, Thunder Wave, Psychic, Payback, and Focus Energy have been welcome additions to Octillery's move pool. The usefulness of Protect and Psychic go without saying, and he's found a delightful loophole with Payback after much experimentation.
Self-inflicted pain will trigger Payback's muscle strengthening effect.
As expected, Lee did not approve when Octillery shared this finding, but after demonstrating the effectiveness of the results, the man reluctantly allowed Octillery to continue his testing, so long as he was allowed to supervise.
An unexpectedly pleasing outcome. Octillery planned around being denied outright. It seems his trainer's newfound resolve after the showdown on the volcano is genuine.
Thunder Wave and Focus Energy were grand boons for this yet-to-be-named technique. Octillery swiftly learned how to modulate the power output of electrical techniques using Focus Energy's amplification. Using Focus Energy in tandem with Thunder Wave, he can electrocute himself. The actual damage from the technique is negligible, but Payback still swells with power when everything is fused together. The discomfort is a small price to pay.
Then Lee began working on yet another technique with Octillery, one utilizing Octazooka and Psychic; his favorite moves. Octillery is already familiar with Corviknight's Pursuers, and Lee's proposed technique was Pursuers taken to its logical extreme:
An Octazooka that cannot miss.
With Octillery's mental prowess, using Lock On for ballistic calculations is simply a waste, so Lee proposed using Lock On's accelerated calculating for something much more devious and intensive. Namely, telekinetically assisted flight control for Octazooka.
Combining his two favorite moves together seems like a 'no-brainer' as they say, so why didn't Octillery think of that?
It took weeks of practice and meditation to turn into a serviceable technique. Octillery needed to shift Lock On's thought acceleration property into his control of telekinesis, which was more difficult than expected. Going against the move's in-built programming was hell, but Octillery refused to be controlled by a limitation that is purely mental. He could do without the migraines it causes, however.
Then came practicing the first part of his new technique. Lee once more proved himself an unusually astute human by handcrafting a small, wooden maze for Octillery and instructing him to move a pebble through the miniature labyrinth as fast as possible without touching the walls. With each success, Lee reconfigured the maze and gave him a larger pebble. Within a few days, Octillery had less than a millimeter of clearance on all sides for his pebble, and some of the maze turns were intentionally made too small, forcing Octillery to rotate the pebble to clear the turn. Then the time trials started, and Octillery had to beat his best time or suffer the indignity of failure.
Putting all the pieces together, it was sweet to see his Octazooka pull hard 90 turns to dodge around obstacles and pin his target right where it hurt most.
Ink Spear, they decided to call it. Simple, distinct, and as descriptive as it needs to be. Though, Octillery spied the name Gáe Bulg crossed out in Lee's notebook. Gibberish, or something else?
A crash draws Octillery's attention outward again.
In the middle of their sectioned off area of the underground training arena, Ninetales and Corviknight rebound off of each other with a thunderous bang.
Ninetales' paws drag across the ground as she slides backwards to a stop, her red gaze locked on her aerial opponent. At the same time, Corviknight flares his wings, arresting his momentum midair.
Three of Ninetales' tails shiver like snakes, their tips shining like steel, then all of them rocket forward, extending far beyond their resting length using a trick she learned from Sylveon.
Corviknight weaves through the first two and barely dodges the third, which shrieks as it gouges his armor.
Lee's first pokemon doesn't let up and throws her open maw forward. In a split second, a raging conflagration the size of a Snorlax appears and races towards Corviknight.
Octillery lazily watches as Corviknight crosses his wings in front of his body, a green barrier, Protect, encircling him. It's all that he has time to do.
The fireball smashes into the barrier with a furious explosion that shakes the entire cavern down to its foundation. Dust is shaken from the high roof, and the square pillars that make up the floor all dance beneath their feet on the vibrations.
When the smoke clears, Corviknight's emerald shield is rendered naught but a collection of spiderweb cracks. Protect falls like shattering glass, and the great avian is panting.
Had he not raised Protect in time, the match would be over.
Forbidden Sun, a fitting name for the technique, Octillery thinks. Lee explained it to Octillery when asked. The move is merely Ninetales unleashing the fire within her inside a spherical psychic shell and throwing it at the foe. Apparently, learning Protect was the push Ninetales needed to learn shape control with telekinesis, thus turning Forbidden Sun into a reality.
Lowbrow, but the cephalopod can't deny the effectiveness.
Octillery lets his eyes roam over the rest of his teammates, who were gathered around and watching the spar.
Shinx must be the most surprising of the bunch. Octillery expected her to remain a pet to warm Lee's lap, but instead she has been growing at a prodigious rate. Each day, the kitten improved by leaps and bounds. Her techniques sharpen, her body strengthens, her mind is startlingly focused, and even with teammates that utterly dwarf her, she doesn't fall into childish pitfalls like jealousy or pettiness.
"She's as strong as I was when Lee and I first set out on our journey," Ninetales said at dinner a few nights ago, regarding Shinx with glowing pride. Pride in someone else is an alien notion to Octillery, but he nodded along anyway to keep the conversation moving. "She'll be something wondrous someday soon."
Shinx looked up from her bowl when Ninetales said that, a silly smile on her face and food stuck to her cheeks.
Octillery tries not to roll his eyes at the memory and resumes with his thoughts.
Ninetales, as expected, retains her place as the mightiest of the team. Her power swells each day, threatening to outrun her control, but with Lee's mind joined to hers, she can offload issues of control to him. With two minds and two perspectives to work with, new techniques came to her with ease. Protect, Iron Tail, Energy Ball, Dig, and even the legendary Hyper Beam were learned and brought to a professional level of expertise in just a few weeks. The only reason she hasn't used her Solar Beam TM is because of how unsuitable a learning environment an underground cavern is for such a technique.
As a control exercise, Lee started Ninetales down the path of Double Team experimentation, hoping it would help her with her fire clone move, Fox Fire. With some focus and imagination, the fox can make her illusions take on the appearance of other pokemon, and even humans. They're still as immaterial as ever, but progress is progress.
With fire, curses, illusions, telekinesis, and soon clones, it seems as if Ninetales has an answer for every situation.
When night falls, Ninetales would retire with Lee, often spending time meditating with him. Recently, they've taken to sitting and pressing their foreheads together, eyes closed. What goes on between them is anyone's guess.
Octillery isn't sure if that's par for the course for a paradoxical gestalt entity, but once he has access to research material once again (the internet), he'll be beginning a side study on the subject. It wouldn't do if the human handing him power hand over fist accidentally lobotomized himself.
The brooding dark knight of the team is the least remarkable when it comes to improvements. Corviknight continues to train diligently, and makes strides each day, but his movepool is already impressive, and he has few untapped talents to exploit. Lee has been brainstorming a new technique for the raven after seeing how quickly his metallic feathers regrow, but has said little at this stage.
Grovyle… Where does Octillery even begin? If Octillery has any friends among his team, then the sole one is Grovyle. The green reptile keeps his mouth shut unless needed, is surprisingly wise, and is talented, the last one being evidenced by the way it pushes himself to keep pace with Ninetales and Corviknight.
When compared to the other senior members of the team, Grovyle falls short in all aspects but raw skill and speed, but with just those, he still thrives. Grovyle's now-signature Siphon Blade is a menace of a technique, and he's adept at slipping his blade past one's defenses to steal their energy. No one makes the mistake of leaving themselves open to him anymore.
His mastery of Quick Attack is also in a realm of its own. Now bordering on Extreme Speed, any foe without their own grasp of Quick Attack or some sort of omnidirectional defense is simply destined to fail against the bladed onslaught that Grovyle will unleash.
Yet, frustration still clings to the Grass-type. He yearns for evolution, but it simply eludes him. Or perhaps he yearns for something even further, like the Mega-evolution his ilk are supposedly capable of. Whatever it is, Octillery doesn't really care to ask.
The sixth member of the team, Sylveon, is also another surprising one. When she was introduced to the team, Octillery recognized the look in her eyes.
The Fairy looked dead on her feet, like she was merely going through the motions of life. It was something he often saw in his own face before he resolved to be something better.
Her improvement was not so profound, but it didn't need to be. Being the eldest member of the team by far, she was no slouch, she merely had bad habits that needed broken and poor health weighing her down.
Lee did away with both, and it makes a twisted sort of sense that a human as disturbed as Lee would be able to easily get into the head of a Fairy. Sylveon has had little time to mope to herself with the intense daily training, and her condition improves each day.
More recently, Octillery has spotted her watching him and the rest of the team with an expression he can't place, her previous dreary attitude gone. He doesn't waste too much time thinking about it, knowing that trying to make sense of a Fairy is a futile effort.
Last and certainly not least, Octillery looks towards his trainer.
Standing several yards away, Lee stands with his arms crossed and his face stoic. His blue eyes follow each one of Ninetales' and Corviknight's lightning fast movements.
For the longest time, Octillery couldn't make sense of the man, and if he is being honest with himself, he still can't; not entirely, at least. He didn't understand all the sympathy - the unwavering altruism. At first, it seemed like he was just like every other trainer, out seeking glory on the backs of his pokemon. Octillery had no time for such nonsense, as a trainer would simply hold him back. When he woke up in the Lavaridge Pokemon Center and was informed that he was captured, he was dismayed.
Then Lee gave him the option of leaving, no strings attached.
"Everything."
Octillery still remembers the chilling word that Ninetales uttered when he asked just what Lee meant to her. That single word was packed with so much emotion, it made the comforting numb that has been shielding him for years actually falter. Only curiosity kept him with the team.
He then began to grow under Lee, and at a rate he honestly found acceptable. They faced many foes, some of which were overwhelming and redefined what Octillery knew of power.
The bellow of the Camerupt upon the volcano was the second time that his numb had fled him for a fleeting moment. In that moment, he felt the terror of his imminent demise once again, for the first time since the river.
He was powerless. A better had come, and he could do nothing. No amount of ingenuity could save him.
Yet, despite death coming to claim them all that day, they lived.
Each one of the pokemon who clashed with Camerupt fought with a desperation far beyond what fear for the self can conjure. It would have made far more sense to lie down and allow the better to end them quickly, but none did. Where did that desperation come from? What caused it?
Octillery pondered that every day since, and never could he find a satisfying answer. He knows instinctively that he cannot ask, for the pokemon around him would perceive something amiss. No, it's something he has to figure out himself.
Then, just a few short weeks ago, Lee set them all down and told them a story. One about himself and another world doomed to be washed clean in fire.
"I died."
It was outlandish, clearly the work of a delusion, and it lent credence to Octillery's theory of mental illness, but the words made his stomach clench beneath his numb. That should have been the end of it, but Ninetales, Grovyle, and Corviknight all vouched for the story.
Ninetales could be explained away as Lee's mental illness seeping into her. Corviknight, after his evolution, became a proper and obedient servant, so he could have simply been ordered to confirm the story.
Grovyle's belief, however, was the tipping point. Subservient he is, but a liar he is not, this Octillery knows.
In a fashion, he and Lee have the same origin. They are the very last ones. Yet, their paths could not be more different.
"If there is anything I fear, it's being alone."
Lee spoke those words a handful of weeks ago, in response to the Draconid Oracle asking his deepest fear. Not fire, not death, but loneliness.
Is there truly something out there greater than living for the self? Something greater than staving off death? Something that grants such distinguished power? The answer feels as if it should be obvious, yet it escapes him.
The coat of numbness around Octillery shivers, an occurrence that is becoming increasingly common. Crossing his front two tentacles over each other, the octopus narrows his eyes.
He needs more examples to study, so it appears he's committed to this adventure for the foreseeable future…
----------------------------------------
-5 days remain in the Meteorfall Crater-
Nigel smiles and sits roughly in his chair behind his desk, savoring the soft padding against his back. The shoulder bag he was carrying is set on his desk gently so as to not damage the laptop inside. Having just returned from Sinnoh's Snowpoint City for a study on the back of his trusty Flygon, a real seat after the nonstop flight is absolute heaven.
'I knew that the fur density of the average mammal pokemon is influenced by their birthplace, but I didn't expect the deviation between each successive generation to be so profound.' Nigel thinks to himself. The family of Poochyena that were moved to Snowpoint for the study grew thick, winter worthy coats after just a few generations. Raising his arms over his head in a stretch, Nigel let out a pleased groan as his back pops. 'Oof. I think today is going to be a half-day.'
After waking his computer and sending a message to the rest of the lab informing them that he'll be leaving at noon today, the professor set about catching up with his work. A few requisition requests from his researchers and aides are all approved easily thanks to the funding Lee and Brendan are attracting, a few emails from the Academic Board are answered, as are a few requests from prospective trainers wanting to board pokemon with the Lab. There's nothing new from Lee, which isn't surprising considering that he, Brendan, and Zinnia went off of the grid into tribal land. Before Nigel can do much else, his computer pings with a new email.
New mail from: [email protected]
Subject: Bbirch New Capture
The email is backdated to a few weeks ago, so Brendan must've just now gotten a signal for his pokedex. Eager to see what his picky son caught, Nigel smiles and opens the email.
His smile becomes brittle.
Acquisition Details:
Pokémon Species: #0380 – Latias
Gender: Female
Method of Acquisition: Capture
Location: ???
Research Value Index: 0.95
Oh… And to make matters worse, he's not the only one who gets these emails. Nigel looks up at the carbon copy field of the message.
The Academic Board got that email, too.
Before he's given much time to process what he sees, the office phone on Nigel's desk begins to ring. Looking over, he already knows the number on the caller ID by heart.
It's the Academic Board, and their timing is no coincidence.
Sitting perfectly still, Nigel lets the phone ring out to voicemail once. Whoever's calling doesn't bother leaving a message and just calls again, making the phone ring incessantly.
Slowly and carefully reaching into the back of the phone, Nigel yanks the power cord out and the ringing stops. To make extra certain, he reaches into his pocket and holds down the power button on the side of his cell phone until he hears its shut down chime.
"On… Second… Thought… Guys… I'm… Not… Feeling… Good," the professor quickly types off a message in the lab's IM app on his computer, ignoring the ping of a new email coming in. "Back… Tomorrow… Send!"
Standing and taking his shoulder bag, the professor quickly exits the lab, pops into his jeep, and begins the drive home.
"That's tomorrow Nigel's problem…" he mutters to himself. "So is finding something to spend all the incoming grant money on. That boy is going to drive me to drink."