Episode 4: WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
Note: Please note that I don't mean any offense to genwunners, DarkSteelShippers, HoennChampionShippers, or MetalDragonShippers. This is just my random take on certain characters and stereotypes. I'm finally on summer break, so updates will hopefully be weekly. I've even got a little story arc in mind for this fic!
"Good morning, Kanto," Chase said unenthusiastically, slumped over in his chair behind the table in the usual studio. He gestured to the empty seat next to him. "As you can see, Elaine isn't here today - I think she's still mad about the whole reading her FanFiction thing - so I'll be doing this by myself. The Morning Show with Chase." He sighed, looking down at some papers on the table. "This show was brought to you by the Mahogany Souvenir Shop - just a souvenir shop, nothing suspicious about it, no need to be alarmed. Somehow, that description makes me even more alarmed." He stifled a yawn and continued. "Anyway, not much is happening today. It's been two days since the invasion of Saffron City, and Team Rocket seems to have gone into hiding. Red, Silph Co.'s hero, is currently being interviewed by the police, which for obvious reasons isn't going very well. So today, we'll probably be doing an analysis of the newly discovered Pokemon of Galar - Scorbunny, Grookey, and Sobble."
"Sobble is obviously the best," Trace added from behind the camera.
Chase shook his head. "Nah, Scorbunny all the way."
Before either boy could say another word, the door flew open, banging into the wall. Elaine barreled into the studio, sweating and panting hard. Just a few seconds later, a sleek white Pokemon with red wings flew in behind her.
Chase's mouth dropped open. "Elaine, what's going on? Is that Latias? Isn't that a legendary Pokemon? How'd you meet one before I did?"
Elaine ignored him. "People of Kanto, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"
"Wait, what?" Trace yelped.
"I said, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" Elaine screeched.
"A little detail here, reporter?" Chase snapped. "Exactly who is going to die, what is causing us to die, when are we all going to die, where is this happening, why are we all going to die, and how are we going to die?"
Elaine held up a hand, gasping for breath, then heaved in a long breath of air and proceeded to speak as fast as humanly possible. "TeamAquaandTeamMagmaawakenedtwoancientlegendaryPokemonandtriedtousethemtoexpandthelandandseabuttheycouldn'tcontrolthemandthentheystartedfightingeachotherandthey'regonnadestroytheworldandkillusall!"
"Huh?" Chase asked.
"I think she said something about Team Aqua and Team Magma killing everyone," Trace translated. "Which doesn't make any sense, but I'm gonna go with it."
Elaine glared at the two boys. "I guess I'll have to start from the very beginning, because you two don't understand the simple concept of legendary Pokemon are about to kill us all. This is what happened. I saw Latias flying around from my window, so I went outside to take a video, because, you know, she was a legendary Pokemon and would get my YouTube channel tons of views, but then Latias started wailing and her eyes went all white and glowy. And when I asked her what was wrong, she showed me… Latias, could you please show them? Wait a minute, does your sightshare work on cameras?"
Latias nodded and made a high-pitched cry that translated to, "Of course. How do you think my brother and I make all of those awesome MewTube videos?"
With that said, Latias's eyes began to glow, and glowing auras appeared around Chase, Trace, Elaine, and the camera.
Trace looked down at his glowing arms, his eyes wide. "Umm, this isn't radioactive, is it? Because radiation can - AAAAACK!" He let out a scream as he looked around to find that he was no longer in the studio. Instead, he and Latias, Elaine, Chase, and the camera all seemed to be standing on air right above an epic battle.
Two gargantuan Pokemon - one blue with fins and glowing yellow marks, the other red with black spikes and, like the other one, glowing yellow marks. The two Pokemon clashed in the middle of the ocean, roaring so loudly that their roars sent ripples through the water. The two of them appeared to be at a standstill - the blue one crashed its fins into the water, creating towering waves that instantly evaporated as soon as they neared the red one, while the red one stomped its feet to create massive spikes of earth that crumbled under the force of the blue one's waves. Above the two monsters, the too-bright sun bathed the world in harsh light, seeming to bleach the sea of its color, while the ocean churned and crashed in ever-growing tsunamis.
"Don't worry, boys," Elaine explained. "This is just Latias's sightshare. She can use it to show us the location of her brother, Latios. We aren't really here - can't you feel the floor beneath your feet? - and nobody can see us unless Latios allows them to."
"O-Okay then," Chase stammered. "B-but where's Latios? And w-w-what's going on?"
"The total obliteration of the Hoenn region, if not the whole world, is what's going on," a voice sounded out from behind. "And yes, I can see you. Latios gave us all permission."
Latias and the three kids spun around to see a well-dressed man with light steel blue hair and eyes behind them, riding on a Skarmory. Latios flew next to him, carrying two unconscious men - a man dressed in red and a man dressed in blue - by their collars. Upon Latios's back perched a girl, maybe about twelve years old, with light brown hair and a green bandana tied around her forehead.
"I am Steven Stone, Hoenn's champion," Steven continued. "This girl next to me is May. She's been helping me fight Team Aqua and Team Magma for months. The two Pokemon you see fighting are Groudon and Kyogre. And the two wretches being carried by Latios are Maxie and Archie, the leaders of Team Magma and Team Aqua, who awoke these monstrous creatures."
"So that's Steven Stone, huh?" Elaine muttered. "Eh, Lance is cuter."
Chase elbowed her. "What she was asking was how and why Team Aqua and Team Magma did this, and how much destruction is going to happen because of it."
"I'm not sure exactly what happened. May was there, I wasn't," Steven replied.
Elaine exchanged a nervous glance with Chase, then spoke to May, slowly and loudly. "Umm...so, could you please tell us what happened? If you can, that is."
"Well, you see -" May started.
"You can talk!" Elaine exclaimed.
May gave her a funny look. "Um...yeah. Anyway, Team Aqua and Team Magma stole the Blue Orb and the Red Orb from Mt. Pyre. Then they stole a submarine - well, at least Team Magma stole the submarine, I think Team Aqua just had their Pokemon use Dive - and they took it down to the Seafloor Cavern, where Groudon and Kyogre both slept. They used the orbs to wake them up, and they sent them to the surface to expand the land and sea. They both went peacefully to the Cave of Origin, and there they reverted to their primal forms, so now they're even deadlier. And right after that, they started fighting. At first, Archie and Maxie were controlling them just fine, but I guess you can't just control legendary Pokemon like that - anyway, Archie and Maxie started talking in really strange voices, and their eyes got all creepy and glowy, and that was when I realized that they weren't controlling the legendary Pokemon anymore - the legendary Pokemon were controlling them. So I had to knock them out. By that point, Seafloor Cavern was starting to collapse, so I got out of there as quick as possible. Team Aqua and Team Magma got out too, and I think they all got into the submarine and hid somewhere. And then I ran into Steven, and here we are now."
Chase frowned. "The Cave of Origin...isn't that in Sootopolis City? If Groudon and Kyogre started fighting right after they went into their primal forms, what happened to the city?"
"Look directly down."
Trace, Chase, and Elaine stared down. Right below them, water churned around piles of rubble.
"That," May finished, "was Sootopolis City. I hope Wallace managed to get everyone out alive."
Steven nodded. "All of the gym leaders are evacuating their respective cities. The Elite Four are helping the towns without gyms. And I've called Cynthia in to help us, for obvious reasons."
Elaine raised her eyebrows. "Oh, obvious reasons? Are you confirming DarkSteelShipping?" Beside her, Chase and Trace sweatdropped.
Steven stared at her. "Huh?"
"You and Cynthia as a couple."
Steven jerked back. "What? I'm g- I m-mean, I'm n-not attracted to Cynthia. I just said for obvious reasons because she's so strong."
"What about HoennChampionShipping, then? You and May?"
Steven gagged. "Eww. I'm twenty-five and she'd twelve. That would never be an option."
"Then what about MetalDragonShipping? You and Zinnia?"
"Um, no."
Elaine suddenly perked up. "Maybe I've been going about this the wrong way. How do you feel about OriginShipping? You and Wallace?"
Steven looked down, blushing slightly. "No comment."
"Aha!" Elaine exclaimed, sensing weakness.
"Can we not discuss this right now?" Chase snapped. "Maybe we could talk about something more trivial, like, I don't know, maybe the utter obliteration of Hoenn?"
"Oh. Right. That." Elaine cleared her throat. "Can you Hoenn guys think of any solutions to this problem?"
All of a sudden, Maxie's eyes snapped open. They were glowing with a harsh red light. His voice came out in a distorted growl. "There are no solutions to the mighty Groudon. All who stand against it shall perish, including that stupid Kyogre guy. And then the world will become nothing but pure land. Water shall be obliterated from all existence. There will be not a single drop of moisture in existence - in fact, the word moist shall cease to exist. And random people will not get into debates as to whether water is wet, because there will be no wetness. Hoenn will never again receive 7.8/10 for having too much water! Yes, all must tremble at the power of Groun-" Maxie was cut off as May whacked him on the head, knocking him out again.
Meanwhile, Archie lifted his eyelids, his eyes glowing blue, his voice a distorted moan. "The great and terrible power of Kyogre will utterly crush Groudon, and the land, and IGN, and everything else in its path. The planet will return to its primal state, where there is no land, only sea. Not a single molecule of earth will remain. The world will flood over, and everything will erode under the awesome force of water - which is totally wet, by the way. And as for the 7.8/10 thing, you can't spell ignorance without IGN. Yes, all but the mighty Rayquaza are helpless to resist the power of Kyo-" May rolled her eyes, then knocked him back out, too.
A thoughtful expression appeared on Steven's face. "Did he say something about Rayquaza being stronger than Kyogre? Rayquaza...I've heard of that Pokemon before. If the paintings in Granite Cave are accurate, it lives on top of Sky Pillar, and it can stop Groudon and Kyogre."
"Why didn't you mention that before?" May asked.
Steven glared at Elaine. "I was distracted by ships."
May shrugged. "Whatever. So you say all we have to do is go to Sky Pillar, somehow summon an extremely powerful, wild, unpredictable legendary Pokemon, and get it to help us and not eat us?"
Steven nodded. "Pretty much."
May smiled. "Sounds like a plan! I'll drop Maxie and Archie off at a jail on my way there." She whispered something in Latios's ear, and the two of them were off like a flash, Maxie and Archie's unconscious bodies flapping in the wind.
Steven nodded to Chase. "By the way, all of us who are evacuating are going to Kanto. I hope you Kantonians don't mind."
"Of course not," Chase replied.
Trace frowned at Chase. "So you do mind?"
Chase looked at him. "Huh?"
"You just said no when asked if you didn't mind. Which would be a double negative - you don't not mind, which means you do mind. And that's a very unfriendly thing indeed."
Chase just blinked at him in silence for several seconds, then spoke. "Um...okay. I'm not entirely sure what you meant, but I said no as in no, I don't mind. Not as in, no, I don't not mind. So I didn't not mind - I mean, I don't not not mind - I mean I don't didn't not - aaargh! I just confused myself!"
"Well, we don't not mind. Or rather, we do mind." The voice seemed to come from nowhere.
Elaine whipped her head around. "What was that?"
"What was what? I didn't hear anything," Steven replied.
Elaine gasped. "That means that the voice is coming from our broadcasting room!"
Latias jerked forward, flinching in pain, as if something had just kicked her. Her glowing eyes flickered, then flashed back to normal. Just like that, Chase, Elaine, and Trace were standing in the broadcasting room again, exactly as it had been only minutes before.
The only difference was that this time, there were two strangers, a man and a woman, standing in the room, looming over Latias. They wore something that looked like military camo, which would've been cool had it not all been colored in various shades of red, green, blue, and yellow.
The woman kicked Latias again. "Leave this place, you foreign filth!"
Latias let out a scared cry and flew away, crashing through the window in her haste to get out.
"Who the heck are you two, and how did you get in?" Chase yelled.
"We," said the man, "represent a group of Kantonian patriots who are growing concerned with the amount of non-Kantonian Pokemon in our home region. And we got in because the door was unlocked."
"Oh, are you those - those things - what're they called?" Elaine muttered. "Starts with a g…"
"What the idle masses call us is none of your concern!" the woman snapped. "We just wish to rid Kanto of the horrible, invasive Pokemon species that other trainers have brought here from overseas! And the slightly less bad, but still terrible, ones that cross over from Johto, with their uglifying Johto stuff!"
Trace cocked his head. "What uglifying Johto stuff?"
"I don't actually know," the man confessed.
The woman glared at her partner. "Bad stuff as in they're going to mate with honest Kantonian Pokemon, and then their babies will be impure, and soon there won't be a single pure Kantonian Pokemon left in this glorious region! There will just be sentient ice cream cones, and walking trash bags, and evil candles, and stone noses, and swimmy hearts with mouths! No real, interesting Pokemon, like -"
Elaine cut her off. "Genwunners! You're genwunners! I thought they were just a myth!"
The man shook his head. "We will not be referred to by such disrespectful terms! We are the Genuine Excellency Numerators With Unlimited Nostalgia - or G.E.N.W.U.N. for short!"
The woman threw a Poke Ball from her bag, releasing a Muk. "You see this? You see it? This is the face of true Pokemonity!"
Trace leaned over and stared into the Muk's droopy white eyes. "It looks...nice."
"Translated from friendly-speak, that means all I see is a living lump of goo with soulless white eyes that look like they're being eaten by its own body," Chase stage-whispered. "But really, what are you two doing here?"
"Two things," the man explained. "One, driving Latias out from the fair Saffron City. Two, cutting off your access to the Hoenn region so that your shameless propaganda could come to an end!"
Chase gawked at him. "What do you mean?
"Obviously, under the guise of doing a report about Hoenn, you were just making the situation seem much worse than it actually is so that people would come to help and put their precious Kantonian Pokemon at risk! Also, you were trying to get everyone to just accept the fact that all of Hoenn is coming here - no, they couldn't have gone to Sinnoh, or Kalos, or even Johto, then had to come here - and bringing their tainted Pokemon with them!" the woman cried. "You're all just agents of Hoenn! Come on, show me your Pokemon - or should I say your Fakemon?" She turned to her partner. "Search their bags!"
"Yes, ma'am!" the man said, saluting. He sent out his own Pokemon. "Kadabra, go! Use your majestic Kantonian psychic powers to find any Pokemon they might have!"
The Kadabra nodded and closed its eyes. Slowly but surely, the bags of the three kids all unzipped, and a Poke Ball came floating out of each bag, enveloped in purple light.
Kadabra dropped the first Poke Ball, releasing Chase's Pikachu. "Pi pika pika!" the annoyed Pokemon snapped (translating to, "Hey, I was napping, stupid! Go find someone else to bother!"). The man stared at it curiously, then, nodded to Kadabra to the release the next one.
The next Pokemon out was Elaine's Eevee, which just glared at the man and said nothing. The man looked at Pikachu and Eevee nervously. "Um...these are both good Kantonian Pokemon."
"Exactly!" Trace stammered. "S-so you can just not b-bother to check my Poke Ball, because it obviously contains a normal, p-pure Pokemon, not my secret weapon or anything." The man narrowed his eyes. Chase and Elaine glared at Trace quite murderously for a pair of ten-year-olds.
"Kadabra, open the Poke Ball," the man growled.
"No!" Chase cried. "Pikachu, use Thunderbolt!"
"Pika pi!" Pikachu snarled. ("For the millionth time, I can't use that move yet!").
At the same time, Trace lunged forward and grabbed his Poke Ball, keeping it closed as Kadabra struggled to open it with psychic power. Trace let out a not-so-friendly grunt as the ball began to crack open.
The woman pointed a finger at Trace. "Muk, Gunk Shot!"
"Eevee, take out that Muk!" Elaine ordered. Eevee shot forward and sank her teeth into the gloopy body of Muk, distracting it.
"Elaine, call 110 for the police!" Chase yelled.
Elaine took out her phone, only to freeze. "Wait, what's the number to 110?"
Chase shrugged. "I think it starts with a four."
"Chase...get...my tranquilizer gun…" Trace grunted, still fighting to hold the Poke Ball closed. "It's in...my backpack…"
Chase started rifling through Trace's backpack, throwing random things out - a book, a bottle of berry juice, a cinder block, a glass vase, and a bowling pin - but before he could find the tranquilizer gun, the woman grabbed him and tugged him away.
"Um, guys?" Elaine piped up. No one was listening.
Kadabra narrowed its eyes, a bead of sweat trickling down its forehead. Trace glared back unflinchingly.
Chase lunged forward and reached inside the backpack at the same time as the woman. They both came out holding onto different sides of the tranquilizer gun, which they proceeded to tug back and forth.
"Guys!" Elaine snapped. Again, no one paid her any heed.
Chase's grip on the tranquilizer gun slid down a few inches, and his finger brushed something - the trigger. With a maniacal smile, he pressed down, and the gun fired out a dart - which flew right past the woman and sank into her Muk, knocking it out. Eevee popped out from behind it with a happy bark.
"So you think you've beaten me now that you've knocked out Muk, huh?" the woman cried. "Think again. I'll fight you myself if I have to! FOR THE GLORY OF GENWUUUUUUUN!"
Chase cocked his head. "Did you just misquote Fire Emblem Fates?"
"GUYS!" Elaine screamed.
Silence fell. Everyone in the room, Pokemon included, dropped whatever they were doing and turned to look at her.
"About time," Elaine muttered. She cleared her throat and continued. "I just saw the latest news online when I was on my phone. The whole thing with Groudon and Kyogre ended while we were fighting. May, Steven, and Rayquaza saved the day. Due to the choices of some people, we didn't cover that part - Latias went to Vulpix News and sightshared with them instead, which the manager won't be happy about - but I digress. There's been a lot of damage done to Hoenn, but nobody's going to have to evacuate to Kanto." Elaine turned to the genwunners. "And as you can see, we aren't agents of Hoenn. Whatever Trace's Pokemon may be, it isn't from Hoenn. You can stick around and take a look if you want, but I'd recommend getting out of here before the police come and arrest you for breaking in and assault."
The genwunners looked at each other, then slowly recalled their Pokemon.
"Fine," the woman said, "but hear my words - you haven't heard the last of us. Yes, children, in days to come, you will grow to fear and respect the majestic heroes that call themselves G.E.N.W.U.N.! You will -"
"Can you get the boasting over with and leave already?" Chase suggested.
The woman sighed. "Goodbye...for now."
And with that, the man and the woman hurled themselves out the window, falling straight into a convertible with the top down, which sped off to the east.
Chase stared out the window. "They can't do anything without being overly dramatic, can they?"
Elaine shook her head. "Adults. Always acting like we're in some bad, amateur fanfiction based on a RPG."
"Y-yeah," Trace stammered. "Like t-that would ever h-happen." He cast a furtive glance at something in the distance, then shook his head and looked away.
"Anyway, how about wrapping this train wreck of an episode up?" Chase asked.
Elaine nodded, then turned to face the camera. "Well, that's it for today. We'll see you again in the ne- hey, wait a minute, why isn't the camera flashing red?"
"Because it isn't on," Trace groaned. "Those unfriendly genwunners must've turned it off."
Elaine sighed. "Well, at least this can't get any worse."
Suddenly, two police officers burst into the room. "Genwunners, put your hands up!"
"And now we remember the golden rule of journalism," Chase muttered as he put his hands into the air. "No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse."
