Last chapter was gonna be longer, but I was lazy. Heh heh... anyways shout out to LightningBlade49 for being the first review of the story. Although... I may have cheated and asked him to review... but you didn't see anything! For more info read AN at bottom.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Pokemon belongs to their respective owners.
As the surrounding grunts stood waiting for Mars' command, Cynthia skillfully swung her daggers around her hands extremely fast, to the grunts it looked like a blur, before she grabbed the hilts as she swung herself into a combat stance. This did nothing, except demonstrate her skill. The grunts didn't seem to be too affected, but Mars wasn't going to take any chances.
"Kill her!" she commanded firmly, and the grunts leaped into action. One holding a large mace charged her from behind, thinking he might catch her off guard. It failed, however, and she spun around him as he charged past her, and proceeded to run into another grunt, who instinctively brought up his ax in defense. The charging man couldn't control his momentum and he run face-first into the raised ax, cleaving his head in two. This caused the man holding the ax to yell out a childish scream.
Cynthia released a small knife she had pulled out as she had dodged the man's attack, and proceeded to throw it accurately in the chest of a grunt who was aiming a crossbow at her. She quickly dispatched two more grunts, and spun around to meet the attack of another grunt. She pulled his body as he ran by (she moved to the side), a small move but effective as it unbalanced him and turned her towards the remaining enemies.
'Oh, I should say something really cliché right now, something like "who's next?"' Cynthia almost smiled at her own silly thoughts, but managed to keep her face expressionless. She saw another grunt holding a crossbow toward her, and spurred into action. She quickly threw another small knife at the grunt, hitting him right between the eyes, causing blood to gush out of the wound rapidly as his body went limp towards the ground.. Ahhh my innocence! Oh no! Cynthia joked in her own head, unfortunately this brought forward the fact that she had brought teenagers on a suicide mission, and immense guilt cleared out all positive emotions.
She quickly realized she was directly behind the man that had rushed her earlier, who was still on his feet but dazed and unfocused as he tried to regain his bearings. She was about to finish him off by putting a knife through the back of his throat, but stopped when she saw Mars eyebrows raised and a dumb surprised look on her face. She immediately recalled the first lesson her mentor had taught her when she was younger. "Always try and unnerve your opponent. Then they will end up making a mistake for you, and that is when you strike" her former mentor would say. Cynthia then noticed the position the dazed man in front of her was in.
'Well' the Champion thought, 'might as well, I have had this whole emotionless mask up the whole time anyway, maybe I can finish Mars before we even start fighting.' Cynthia quickly jammed her foot into the back of the dazed grunt's knee, right below a pressure point. He gasped and fell forwards but managed to catch himself with his hands before landing face first in the dirt. He pushed himself back on his knees. The Sinnoh Champion stood directly behind him, and put one hand on his lower right chin, and put the other on the left side of his forehead. She made sure she was looking directly at Mars, who's eyes were wide open. 'Pause for effect...' Cynthia snapped his head sharply to the side. Too far to the side. Much too far.
Mars had a clear look of panic and shock on her face. 'Did they even hit her once? She doesn't look tired at all!' Mars quickly arrived at the conclusion that now might not be the best time to battle the Sinnoh Champion who stood in front of her, an face void of emotions, over the body of the grunt whose life she just ended. 'Yeah... definitely not now.' Mars quickly turned and fled towards the base, unknowingly letting out a shriek while she ran. She made sure that she could still see Cynthia. The last thing she needed was to be blindsided.
Cynthia managed to hold her mask up until Mars had retreated from view, then almost broke down laughing. 'Did... did she just scream? HAHAHAHAHA!' This continued for about 20 more seconds. The Sinnoh Champion than realized that the battle wasn't over. 'The others! Oh shit...' she thought as she turned tried to spot the group of teenagers. She was worried until she spotted them, and only then realized some of Team Galactic's troops were retreating towards the base. She spotted some of her Pokemon dominating everything they could touch. She saw Barry and Lucas, who seemed to be enjoying the Pokemon battles they were having, even if they know what's at stake. She spotted Brock, back to back with his Golem, swinging his machete at any attacking grunts. Cynthia could see focus and determination in his eyes. 'Wait what? How can he even see? I mean are those even eyes or... forget it.' She pondered this as she made her way towards him. A little to his right were Ash and Dawn fighting off a greenish haired man's Pokemon.
"Saturn!" she realized, and picked up her pace. She wasn't needed, however. Cynthia noted this as she saw Brock take of the head of a grunt with a swipe of his machete. 'Thank god that Kanto has a law making it mandatory for Gym Leaders to take advanced combat lessons, and it's easy to see why with terrorist organizations like Team Rocket running around aiming for world domination.' She silently thanked Arceus that Team Rocket had no presence in Sinnoh (excluding those three idiots), as if Team Galactic wasn't bad enough.
The Sinnoh Champion was knocked out of her thoughts as a Pokemon barreled into her, knocking the wind out of her, and sending her rolling in the dust for about ten feet. 'That... really fucking hurt...' she picked herself back up, noting that her trench coat (thing) had a large tear in it on her shoulder. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there and underneath that a long (but not too deep) cut was visible. She looked angrily to see what had hit her, and once she saw it a look of shock took over her face. 'Get out. No way. No WAY! I just got blindsided by... a fucking Sneasel? Oh god Steven would die if he heard that... fucking Sneasel...' she shook her head and made her way over to where the Sneasel lay, which was still on the ground. As she approached she sucked in a deep breath when she saw it was whimpering in pain, as it was impaled by a spear shaped rock that was thin but long. Cynthia sighed, before a look of pity crossed her face, as all previous thoughts vanished. Nobody should have to suffer before they died. She knelt down, and whispered soft and quiet words to the dark type as she slowly pulled out her knife, and ended it's misery. As she did so the sharp claw Pokemon let out a long, painful, final whimper which caused Cynthia to grit her teeth. She felt like a knife had just gone through her heart. She stood up and decided to make her way back to the others.
Ash had always like battling, training, and all other things required to reach the top of the pyramid that was being a Pokemon trainer. It was essentially his life, he never had felt better than he did when he was facing off against a strong opponent. This, however, was a much different experience. When Cynthia had explained the dire situation to them Ash of course leaped to whatever she had to offer. It wasn't everyday that the Sinnoh Champion calls for assistance of a 19 year old and his friends. What had followed was a discussion about death and not to get caught up in the moment should he end up taking a life. He, however, wasn't as much of an idiot as he came across as. He had seen death before, hell, he technically died right in front of his best friend on Mewtwo's Island. He had played along, but it turns out that his world was much more violent than everyone thought. People live and people die. He had experienced this when he overhead Professor Oak telling his mom that Pallet Down had once been reduced to rubble by Team Rocket, which killed his two children and granddaughter.
Ash had taken awhile to recover from that. With the help of his friends such as Dawn and Brock, and Pikachu, and Dawn... Ash blinked out of his thoughts as he and Dawn were planning on taking down an enormous Ursaring that was threatening to squash them both. He looked to his right to hear Dawn command Piplup to use whirlpool in a firm yet light voice. Piplup did so and launched the giant maelstrom at the Ursaring, effectively trapping it in the vortex. 'Now, it's our turn.' with a short nod towards his partner on his shoulder. He put his arm back and Pikachu jumped into it, he then threw Pikachu towards the titanic bear trapped in the whirlpool.
"Now use Thunderbolt, and give it your all!" said Ash as Pikachu was now high in the air.
"Pika...CHUUUUUUU!" came from the small rodent as he released an enormous bolt of lightning that went straight towards the Ursaring, which was still coated in Piplup's Whirlpool attack. The bear roared in pain as the vortex surrounding it was now supercharged with Pikachu's super effective Thunderbolt. After 30 seconds of fighting the inevitable, the bear fell forward, completely lifeless.
Ash and Dawn the exchanged a high five, but Ash saw that the smile on Dawn's face was forced. He didn't mention it because he completely understood why. 'I don't like hurting Pokemon either.' He then realized that he hadn't released his hand from Dawn's. 'That's awkward.' he thought as he hastily did that. Smiling, he turned back to the battlefield and saw with relief that it was mostly empty as all the Galactic troops had retreated, were retreating, or were dead. He turned and saw Cynthia walking up to where the were with a troubled look on her face, as if she was in deep thought about a bad decision. Brock had already started to make camp.
Cynthia had seen the scene and couldn't help but smile as she saw Dawn and Ash high five, which ended up in Dawn blushing before Ash removed his hand. 'Ah young love. They're so cute together.' The blonde woman really wanted them to hook up, and a pang of guilt speared through her as she realized that neither would likely survive the inevitable fight with Cyrus. Luckily the realization that she had arrived at where Brock and Lucas had set up camp shook her from her thoughts. Her Pokemon returned soon after, tired and weary but in good condition. Cynthia apologized for not fighting beside them, and after a brief conversation with Lucario she returned all of them to their Poke Balls. All, that is, except for Garchomp, who didn't seem to be the least bit tired, and was acting very excited. 'Yeah, I wouldn't have let Garchomp loose on her own if it weren't for the dire circumstances.' The pseudo-legendary had come back covered with blood, and looked eager for more fights. Cynthia knew that almost all that blood wasn't Garchomp's.
Brock was examining an inpatient looking Garchomp for injuries, until Cynthia said she would do it. 'I probably should've warned them to stay away from Garchomp after big battle.' As if it could read her mind, Garchomp turned towards her trainer and let loose a sky-shattering roar., before trying to lick itself clean of blood. Everyone but Cynthia jumped in surprise, and Barry tripped over... probably his foot. That kid was always moving.
"Cynthia, uhm... can you please return her to her poke ball... that thing is a complete monster!" said Lucas. The 'monster' then turned towards Lucas, stood up to its full height, and slowly tilted it's head to the side. 'Oh shit, now you've done it Lucas.' Cynthia looked at the very pissed off Garchomp and the soon to be dead trainer who insulted it.
"Enough! Garchomp!" Cynthia demanded in a very serious and firm voice. Garchomp marched over towards her and looked down at the Sinnoh Champion. Cynthia just stared directly into her eyes. The tension around the camp was so dense Barry thought it would actually solidify. Then Cynthia just smirked, her eyes never leaving Garchomp's. She held a hand out and patted Garchomp on the nose, before scratching her underneath her chin. Garchomp just nuzzled against her and flopped on her side, and now looked as cute as an innocent puppy. A 8 feet tall dragon puppy covered in blood. Cynthia smiled and just sat down and started stroking Garchomp's shoulders, causing the land shark to make a weird noise that everyone assumed was it trying to purr... or something.
The others broke into their own conversations. Dawn, Ash, and May were in a circle laughing and jokin- wait May? Cynthia then remembered Ash had said he was bringing someone else. Barry was babbling about ice cream flavors to Lucas, and all the sudden Cynthia had an urge to join the conversation, but restrained herself. She returned a snoring Garchomp to it's Poke Ball and decided to lay down by the fire. She pulled her sleeping back close to the war campfire, and soon she was just staring into the fire. Everything became background noise, and it was just her and that warm, blurry, warm, fire. Eventually sleep reached out to her, and Cynthia embraced it with open arms.
AN/: So that's all for chapter two. Be sure to check out LightningBlade49's story "Ash's Unleashing", it's a 'what if?' scenario where Ash decides to play it smart and safe when he battles Tobias. It's really good so far. And a story like that is needed in the Pokemon fandom. Is there anyone who was cheering after the outcome of that battle in the show? I didn't, but that could be just me.
In case anyone is wondering about the Pokemon League getting involved (or not), Chapter 3 will be a flashback chapter covering just that.
Anyway thanks for reading, and I think at the bottom of the AN/: of each chapter from now on I'm going to ask what your opinion is for certain theories that are flowing around the Pokemon world. I'm actually really curious what people think, and maybe it'll get me more reviews XD
So for this week:
Is N a Zoroark?
Leave your thoughts below and don't forget to leave a review.