"Hnngh!" Rose grunted, trying with all of her might to roll aside a boulder twice her size. "Riley, come help me!" she understandably demanded.
Riley looked around at his surroundings. Both he and his best friend were face-to-face with a dead end in the middle of the expansive Ragnoh desert tunnel. There was a tunnel behind them and one to their left, but neither of them were the way forward. The way forward, to Sherrow City, was to the right. However, it was clearly blocked by a huge, heavy, and roughly spherical boulder.
Riley immediately ran over to help Rose push the boulder aside, but not even both of their strength combined was enough to make it budge even an inch. They both panted as they turned their heads to look at each other. Both of their faces were painted with exhaustive red heat. "This isn't budging…" groaned Rose. "Maybe we should wait for someone to dig through this boulder…"
Just then, they heard the echo of someone's heavy boots as it ricocheted off the stone walls of the tunnel system. It got louder, implying the creator of the footsteps was getting closer. Rose and Riley both turned to face the leftward tunnel. Through the darkness, a tall, slim figure was slowly revealed through the cave's shadows. They had pale skin and a slender build, complete with a stoic expression. Their lavender-coloured hair was styled into an almost spiralling quiff, with bits of black spicing it up.
Their outfit stuck out, particularly to Riley. They wore a black trench coat, complete with a black leather belt through the coat's belt loops, and even one woven loosely through the ends of the coat's torn right sleeve. It was just like the coat Team Delta's mysterious and dangerous Leader had worn in all the encounters Riley had had with him, only this character's coat was torn at the bottom, and on the sleeve. The rips and tears in the jacket made it looks almost piratical.
The male character also wore dark brown jeans that bunched up near their boots, which were thick hiking boots. A popular style in Chinocko, because of its many different types of terrains, with Riley and Rose even having a pair in their bag each. The nameless man's were entirely black, save for a triangular gold buckle on the outside of each, and the details of them could only be made out because he was standing directly in the light of a lamp hanging from above.
Furthermore, he had an intimidating but simplistic studded pauldron on his left shoulder, with an onyx fingerless glove on the corresponding hand. Around his wrist was a black-cased PokéTek with its flashlight function turned on, pointing to the ground. He lifted up the flashlight and its light cast upon Riley and Rose, making them both flinch. Then, he touched the screen of his PokéTek, which made the flashlight deactivate.
Stoically, he proclaimed, "You are in my way."
Rose grinned. "If we're in your way, you know what that means! You'll have to beat us in a Pokémon Battle before we go anywhere!"
"I don't have time to fight Trainers the likes of you, children," the man scoffed. Three Machoke appeared from the darkness of the tunnel behind him, two resting at his sides and the third coming to a stop close behind him. "I have more important things to do than fight weak, juvenile Trainers. Stuff like saving the world."
Rose's face was hit with an expression of shock at the unexpected response.
"Now," the man said without intending to include a sentence with the preposition. The three Machoke walked forward, with the farthest back one carefully walking around the man who was supposedly its Trainer. Two of the Machoke physically pushed Rose and Riley out of the way into opposite directions, while the last one slammed its knuckles together. This gesture invigorated its Strength, and its muscular body flared with a white energy that seemed to share similar physics with wind. It pressed its palms onto the surface of the round boulder, then gave it a hefty push. It moved a tiny bit at first, but then after it had been pushed out of the crater it had made in the ground, it rolled easily along the rocky floor. Or, at least, Machoke made it look easy. The Machoke continued to roll the boulder until it made a crumbling sound, colliding with a perpendicular wall.
The trench coat wearer walked forward and through the path that his Machoke had just opened. "The name's Stiles . . . and I only engage in Pokémon Battles with strong, experienced Trainers. Their long-honed strategies will challenge me and allow me to grow." He walked further, his three Machoke letting go of the two Trainers and following him promptly, back into the shadows, only this time into the shadows of the newly-opened tunnel. Before he was completely shrouded in the darkness, though, he turned around. "You're welcome for pushing aside that rock, by the way." Then, he was gone again.