A/N: I know it's been awile, but I tend to write less in summer because there other things I'd rather do. Hopefully the next update will be sooner. Anyways, thanks for the reviews and such. I hope to see more from whatever readership is left.
Disclaimer: Pokémon is not mine, never was, and never will be.
Legends on Earth: Chapter Nine: Shock Wave
Giovanni was, once again, sitting in his office. On the screen of the videophone sitting on his desk was the image of two waterlogged Rocket agents. Hazard was looking at his boss worriedly; his green hair dripping in front of his eyes. The other agent, known as Duke, was standing a little behind him, unaware of the degree of her crush's failure. Giovanni had been surprised to see her, though he didn't show any signs of such.
"Sir, I'm sorry to report that the mission was a failure. I was unable to capture the girl like you ordered," Hazard informed him through the monitor.
"Is that your entire mission report, Hazard," the evil organization's leader said, "or is there actually a reason why you failed?"
The agent responded, "Well, there was a trainer with her, and he challenged me to a battle. The two pokémon you sent didn't follow commands, battling on their own, and they ended up being defeated."
Giovanni sighed. He should have known that those two would end up being a problem. They were just a little too independent. Perhaps he should have Hazard send them back for some more "training". No, he decided, it wasn't worth it. "Very well," he finally said to his underling on the screen, "at least you didn't make things worse. You also managed to locate Agent Duke, which I must say was quite unexpected. I won't fire you, this time, but don't mess up again. Did you, at least, manage to put a tracking device on her?"
Hazard nodded in reply. His slakoth had put the undetectable GPS locator on the girl when it had grabbed her. It had certainly become a necessary precaution.
"Good," Giovanni continued, "then you'll be able to find her, again. Consider that your new mission: find the girl, keep tabs on her, and try to recapture her if and only if you have a good opportunity. Also, I'll be reassigning Agent Duke as your new partner in order to assist you."
The girl's face lit up at his last words. She would finally be partnered with Hazard, who she had loved since she first saw him. He was the reason that she joined Team Rocket in the first place. It was so that she could be closer to him.
Hazard's face, on the other hand, fell. He had been trying to avoid Duke for the last year or so. Now, she was going to be working right with him. It's not like he hated her, but her little crush on him could get annoying. "I don't think that's really needed, sir," he protested.
"Nonsense. You've been working alone for far too long. You could certainly use the help for a mission this vital. Besides, Agent Duke has been putting in applications to be transferred to your unit for some time. Now, get on it." He turned off the communications device.
Giovanni gave an annoyed sigh. It may be a cliché, but the old adage was true: good help is hard to find. Of course, running illegal operations tended to deter any respectable employees from joining. This brought up another saying: beggars can't be choosers. Not that Giovanni actually begged for anything. If he really needed someone more competent for something, he could just kidnap and/or blackmail them.
He arose from his chair. Walking around his desk, he made his way to the door out of his office. He opened it and stepped into the adjoining secretary's office/waiting room. Persia was at her desk with her head down; crossed arms separating it and the desk. Her eyes were closed, and Giovanni could tell that she was sleeping.
"Still so much like an animal," he muttered to himself. Walking over to the girl, he said calmly, "Persia." Not getting a response, he raised his voice slightly and shouted, "Persia!" There was still nothing. "PERSIA!!"
This got a reaction from the girl. Not only did she wake up, she bolted straight up into a stiff sitting position. Ignoring the faster pace of her heart for the moment, she half-yelled, "Yes, Giovanni?"
"I'm going out," he told her, returning to a calm voice.
"May I ask where? You know, in case someone is looking for you."
"I'll be visiting our little friend."
"Oh, I see," she said, understanding his implied meaning. After he had walked out into the hallway, she slumped back onto her desk. "I'm not cut out for this," she sighed.
On the other side of the door, Giovanni had begun walking down the hall. He soon arrived at the sliding doors of his personal elevator. That elevator was the only way to access this floor and required a keycard to operate. Not only did it make it harder to reach his office, but it also separated him from his underlings. He inserted his keycard into the slot, and the doors opened. Stepping into the elevator, he pressed a button labeled "B2".
"To the dungeon," he joked mildly.
The doors slid closed, and the elevator descended. An LED display of the floor number counted down, a beep accompanying each level, until reaching the basement levels. At that point, the display went from "1" to "B1" to "B2". The doors opened to reveal the almost surprisingly well-lit sublevel.
Giovanni came out of the elevator. He had just entered the area where they kept prisoners. Each room on its own was the most well secured holding facility in the world, and each was also the best furnished as far as prison cells went. The place was more like a psychiatric hospital; it kept people in while keeping them comfortable.
He walked down the hallway until he found the room that he was looking for. It was labeled "B261" and had a warning symbol on it. Giovanni inserted his cardkey into another slot, which disengaged the locking mechanism of the door. Opening the door, he headed into the room. After closing the door behind him, the locks automatically reengaged.
In the completely white room, there was a couch, a bed and a table with two chairs at opposite ends. Sitting in one of the chairs was a man in his early thirties. His dark violet hair was short like Giovanni's, but obvious attempts had been made to style it differently. His build was similar to that of the Rocket leader, but he was less muscular and therefore skinnier. In many ways he could have been the younger Giovanni, or at least a relative of his. The younger man wouldn't appreciate that analogy, though.
The sitting man only gave a little grunt to acknowledge the entrance of the Rocket leader. He did his best to return to the state of meditation he was in before, but he could hardly stay focused with the other man in the room. Finally giving a sigh and looking at Giovanni, he asked in a distasteful tone, "Do you want something?"
"I only came to check on you, Mewtwo," Giovanni replied, taking a seat across from the other man. "Or, should I call you 'Mathew'? It would certainly be more appropriate to your current form." He gave a laugh, though he kept an eye on the man across from him.
Mewtwo just continued to stare at him with the same glare that he had been doing the entire time. When Giovanni had finished laughing, Mewtwo said, "Well, if you came here only to give me a human name, then you can go now. Mission accomplished."
The older man shook his head. "No. Like I said, I'm here to check on you. They tell me that all you do every day is sit there with your eyes closed. You barely ever eat. It's not healthy. What could you possibly be thinking about while doing that?"
"All the ways that I could kill you," the former pokémon replied with a smirk. "I could do it right now. Even if they kill me for it, it would be worth it."
Giovanni gave a smirk back. "You're forgetting that you're rather weak physically. You may have been able to take me on when you had your psychic abilities, but those are trapped by that simple human mind." He pointed to his own head for emphasis.
"Maybe not as trapped as you think." Though Mewtwo had said the words out loud, they still echoed inside of Giovanni's head. It was shrugged off by the older man, though. He figured that "Mathew" was just trying to mess with him.
"Perhaps," Giovanni said, standing up, "but, nonetheless, today is not the day that you kill me." He walked to the door as Mewtwo returned to his meditation. He reinserted his cardkey into another slot, and looked one more time at the other man before stepping outside. As he walked away from the room, he smiled, thoroughly satisfied with his little visit.
(-o-)(-o-)(-o-)(-o-)(-o-)(-o-)(-o-)(-o-)
Meanwhile, miles away in the ocean between Johto and Hoenn, a single passenger ship was in the middle of an unusually large storm. Though still a good sized vessel, the S. S. Finneon was a bit smaller than most other passenger ships. In a storm as rough this, there was a potential that the ship could be tossed about. If the fearless crew wasn't able to guide it through the storm, the Finneon could be lost.
This was all fairly unknown to the passengers, though. All they knew was that they had to stay inside, limiting their movement throughout the ship as it would rock violently and unpredictably. It had been four days since the storm had started, and it had delayed the trip. The ship had been scheduled to reach its destination the previous day, but it was still out at sea, stuck in this storm.
While these thoughts were on the minds of Kirby, Aile, and Mattle, they were concerned more about other things. Each was thinking about something different, but each was doing it with about the same amount of worry.
For Kirby, the object of concern was Espeon. Not long after returning to their cabin four days ago, the psychic pokémon had retreated under Kirby's bed and hadn't come out since. While he had managed to get her to eat, she never left the shadow of the bed.
The trainer was now lying on his stomach on the ground while looking underneath the bed. He was once again attempting to coax Espeon out. Slowly reaching his hand out with the intention of petting her, he said softly, "Come on out, Es'. It's alright. You know I want to help you."
She apparently didn't want it though, as she backed away from his hand and went to the furthest corner of the bed. There, she lied down in a curled up position, visibly shaking. To Kirby, she called back, "Es peon."
Kirby sighed when he heard this. Though Kirby couldn't understand pokémon any more than other humans, he knew what Espeon meant by her tone of voice. He had heard her say things the same way many times before. It had mostly been when he first had her as an eevee. The tone was still the same, though, and so was the meaning: "Leave me alone."
He got up off the ground and brushed the dirt off of himself. Taking a seat next to the window, he looked out at the stormy waters sadly. He didn't like seeing Espeon like this. It reminded him of when he first found her. "I just wish that there was something I could do for her," he muttered.
"What's the matter with her anyways?" Aile asked. She was sitting on the other bed, with Mattle next to her.
"Espeon can predict the future, right? Maybe something bad is going to happen," Mattle suggested, the slightest hint of fear at the thought in her voice.
Kirby shook his head. "No. An espeon's ability to predict the future comes from it being able to read air currents. A bad storm like this would probably be throwing all sorts of crazy air currents around. She's picking up on those, making her feel all sick and stuff." He sighed again, thinking about what she must be going through.
Seeing that there was nothing they could do, the two girls returned to their own thoughts. Both had some idea of what this storm meant in the big picture. They saw it from different perspectives, though.
Mattle was concerning herself with thoughts about the cause of the exceptionally bad weather. She knew that if both she and this lugia had been changed, it was likely that others had been changed as well. Though she couldn't know how many, she did know from being a ho-oh that without certain legendaries, nature could become greatly unbalanced. She just hoped that there weren't too many natural disasters like this going on elsewhere on the planet.
Aile, on the other hand, was thinking about the effects of a storm like this. It could give some of the local pokémon a problem. Though it was true that the underwater environment was usually spared from any ill effects of a storm, this one was worse than any she had seen before. Under the right conditions it had the potential to change underwater currents and water temperature. Of course, there was one thought in the back of her head that she was trying to avoid: if this ship sank, it could end up providing a habitat for some pokémon.
Suddenly, the silver-haired girl got a chill down her spine. She wasn't sure how, but she knew something was coming. It wasn't anything good, either. Closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate on the feeling in an attempt to discern what it was. As she focused, a picture started coming into her mind. The picture grew clearer until she could see what it was. What she saw wasn't pleasant, though. It was a gigantic tidal wave heading straight for their ship.
"You can feel it coming, can't you?" she heard a voice say. The voice was male; and, although it seemed familiar, she had trouble placing it. It wasn't Kirby's, but she was sure that she had heard it not that long ago. The actual identity of the person escaped her, however.
She opened her eyes, looking around the room in order to find the speaker. There was no one new in the room, though. The only other people were Kirby and Mattle, who were both lost in their own thoughts and didn't show any sign of hearing anything. Aile closed her eyes again, trying to figure out what was going on. She saw the same picture of the wave in her mind, and it had gotten closer.
"You know it's coming." The same voice again. This time, however, she just listened to it. "You're the only one that can stop it. You know what you need to do. You have the power inside you, Sea Guardian. Use it."
The power? How could she have any power as a human? Yet, there it was: a feeling inside of her. She didn't know where it came from, but she could feel it. She also somehow knew what it was and how to use it. It was like gaining the instruction manual for a god. With her newfound powers, she knew that she could do it; she could save the ship.
Without even saying a word to her companions, she quickly stood up and walked to the door. She ignored their confused expressions and callings of her name. She had only one goal in mind. Nothing else mattered right now. She went down the hallways, Kirby and Mattle following her the whole way. Eventually, she reached the observation deck. Despite her friends' worried protests, she stepped out into the pouring rain and went to the side opposite the doorway.
Mattle and Kirby would have followed her to that position, had they not been stopped in their tracks by an unexpected and horrific sight. There, a few miles out to sea in the direction they were looking, was a giant tidal wave heading straight towards them. The massive wall of water could easily take out the ship if they collided.
Kirby shook this off and called to the silver-haired girl, "Aile, I think we better go inside, now." He took a few steps towards her but was stopped by a sudden bolt of lightning striking mere feet in front of him. The lightning caused him to jump back a little. "What the…" he muttered, looking up into the sky.
There was then laughter; a dark and humorless sort of laughter. It made both Kirby and Mattle shiver (though, most likely the rain was at least partially responsible for that). The laughter came from behind them, which was odd because they hadn't been followed onto the observation deck.
Turning around, they saw a man not in the doorway but above it. His blonde hair was sticking up a little, which seemed impossible since one would think that the pouring rain would push it and/or wet it down flat. His brown jacket and dark pants were soaking wet, but the waterproof fabric in the jacket and the heavy pants likely kept the man mostly dry. What really drew attention, though, were his piercing red eyes.
"I hope you enjoyed my little display," the man said with a little smirk. "I also hope that it made my point clear."
"What point is that?" Mattle asked. She felt something from this man but she wasn't sure what.
Instead of responding immediately, the man made one quick motion and jumped into the air. He went over Mattle and Kirby easily and landed on his feet between them and Aile. He turned around to face Kirby and Mattle again and responded, "Do not interfere with the lugia. That is my point."
"Interfere?" Kirby asked in confusion. "Is she doing something important that could be interfered with? Who are you, anyways?"
The man smirked again. He had been waiting for that last question. "I am the protector of electric pokémon, the embodiment of the speed of lightning, and one of the three legendary beasts resurrected by Ho-oh." He stopped, glaring at Mattle, and added in a tone of distain, "That's the real Ho-oh," before continuing. "I am the legend of thunder: Raikou!" He created a few sparks with his hands in order to emphasize his words.
Both of them gasped when they heard this. Mattle was most surprised. Why hadn't she sensed that he was a legendary? There was that small feeling that she was getting from him, but it had been so much stronger with the young lugia. In fact, it still was; she could sense that feeling that identified Aile as a legendary even now, though it seemed slightly different. She didn't have time to investigate that right now, though.
Kirby wasn't quite as stunned as Mattle, not knowing the things going through her head, and quickly regained any composure that he had lost. Addressing Raikou, he said, "You still haven't told us why it's so important that we don't interfere with Aile. What could she possibly be doing while just standing there?"
"She," Raikou answered, "is trying to save the lives of you and all the other pathetic humans on this ship. I don't see the point, myself, but my leader wants her to do it for some reason."
"Just who is your leader? Why does he think Aile could stop a tidal wave?" Kirby asked, stepping forward. He was ready to run over to Aile, but another bolt of lightning in front of him stopped him from doing so.
"Perhaps you missed my demonstrations earlier. As you can see, I am perfectly able to control electricity despite being in this pathetically limited body. Lugia is the sea guardian. I think she could probably do something about a wave. Again, though, I don't think a boatload of humans is worth the energy, but…" He trailed off, shrugging. It was obvious that he was annoyed that the conversation was going on this long.
The young trainer was already having trouble keeping his head clear. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in almost a week, was shivering from being soaked by the rain, could still feel the static in the air from the second lightning bolt to almost hit him that night, and he could see the wave slowly coming closer. With all this already putting him in a less than desirable mental state, it was no wonder that the way the man spoke about humans caused him to release his frustration. Pulling out a pokéball, he said, "I've had just about enough of you, Rick," before throwing the spherical device.
Raikou's expression went from one of annoyance to one of anger. "You dare to brand me with a human name?" he shouted. With a small motion of his hand, he released another bolt of lightning from the sky above. This time, he was trying to hit the boy directly.
At that moment, though, the energy that came out of the pokéball finished forming into a pokémon. The lightning was forced to veer of course and instead was absorbed by the electrical sacs on Chinchou's antennae.
While the blonde man grumbled a bit about this, Kirby smiled a little. Pointing at Raikou almost theatrically, he yelled to his chinchou, "Now show him what you can do! Hit him with a thunderbolt!"
Though Chinchou seemed confused about his opponent being a human and not a pokémon, he would follow his trainer's orders. The yellow balls on the end of his antennae began to spark as he built up the electrical energy. Finally, he released the electricity in a blast directed at the man in front of him.
The electricity zigzagged along the deck towards the blonde man. The man just watched it come, not moving in the least. As the electricity reached him, he simply put up a hand and caused it to dissipate. He smirked at the surprised looks on the faces of his audience. "Do you really think that you have the power to defeat me? I am, after all, a legendary pokémon!" With that, Raikou closed the fist on his outstretched hand as the thunder in the sky rang out louder than before.
Kirby looked up at the sky nervously. Up above them, a large spot of light seemed to be forming in the clouds. "That doesn't look good…" Kirby muttered as the light continued to get larger.
The blonde laughed quietly before giving a flick of his wrist. With a loud crack, a bolt of lightning came down from the spot. It hit Chinchou's antennae, but it didn't stop striking. It just kept flowing energy into the electrical sacs. After a few moments of this, Chinchou couldn't take any more of it. With the electrical sacs full, no more energy could be absorbed. Without a place to redirect and store the electricity, it flowed into the chinchou's vulnerable watery body. Chinchou cried out in pain until the lightning stopped, at which point it fell backwards, unable to battle anymore.
"Oh no! Chinchou!" Kirby called, running to the fainted pokémon. When he got there, he crouched down and checked to make sure that Chinchou was okay before returning him to the pokéball. He got up and looked at the Raikou with a little bit of anger.
While still looking, he sighed. There wasn't any point in sending out any of his other pokémon. If one with a natural resistance was so easily defeated, he doubted that any of the others could win, and he didn't want to see them get hurt.
He wished Espeon could fight. She was his strongest pokémon and could most likely make quick work of this guy. Unfortunately, she was currently under a bed, too sick to fight, and Kirby wouldn't have made her. Thinking about it, he smiled a little. 'Maybe Mattle was right,' he thought to himself, 'Maybe Es' really did predict the future and see all of this coming.'
Returning his focus to the man in front of him, he asked in a defeated tone, "So, what now?" He figured that the man would just spout more of his commander's grand plans or something. What came was something that he was not ready for.
"Now, you die!" he replied sternly and coldly, facing his palm to the sky as the light reappeared in the sky.
Kirby was completely taken aback by this. He heard Mattle gasp behind him, obviously just as surprised. He knew that Raikou didn't like humans, but he hadn't expected him to go that far. There was nothing that he could do, though. Running wouldn't exactly be enough to avoid a bolt of lightning, and an attack, either from one of his pokémon or himself, wouldn't do anything more than anger the man further. As such, he just stood there and closed his eyes, waiting to be struck down.
It never came, though. He felt Mattle run past him, so he opened his eyes to see what was going on. What he saw was yet another unexpected sight. Mattle was running towards the man, and her arms were flaming. Raikou was momentarily stunned by the sight. He obviously hadn't expected this, either. As Mattle launched the fiery attack towards the man, he came out of it and released the lightning from the clouds. His target was no longer Kirby, however; it was Mattle.
The blast of fire hit Raikou squarely in the chest. It caused him to be pushed back to the end of the deck with enough force to flip him over the railing and fall down into the stormy sea below.
At that same moment, the lightning struck Mattle. It only lasted for a fraction of a second, but when it dissipated, Mattle collapsed limply into a heap on the deck.
Kirby quickly ran over to her, worried. Checking her pulse, he found, to his relief, that she was still alive. He sighed, thankful that she was mostly okay. Luckily, Raikou hadn't had enough time to charge the lightning up to lethal level. The young trainer did cringe slightly at the sight of her arms, which were badly burned.
It was then that he remembered Aile. Looking over to the younger girl, he was shocked to see that the wave was no longer visible on the horizon. He then noticed that Aile was swaying back and forth. Realizing that she was about to fall, he got up and ran over to her as fast as he could.
Arriving just in time, Kirby managed to catch her as she fell back, and he lowered her to the ground slowly. Looking into her eyes, he could have sworn that they were glowing dark red. As they faded back to their normal sea blue color, though, Kirby figured that he was just imagining things.
These thoughts were cut short, however, when Aile started to speak. "Kirby…" she began slowly, "I'm sorry… I… I had to…" Her voice was quiet and seemed strained, but the words were still understandable to Kirby.
The boy smiled in an attempt to comfort her. "It's okay, Aile," he told her. "Everything is fine now. Don't worry." Though he was doing his best to comfort Aile, Kirby was holding back his true feelings. After all, Mattle had been pretty badly hurt, and he didn't know what was going on with Aile. The silver-haired girl certainly didn't look too good, right now.
Aile, oblivious to all of Kirby's true thoughts, just smiled back and nodded. "Everything is fine…" she repeated before closing her eyes and going limp.