The first room that Jovi entered was the reception room. This room appeared completely deserted. There was absolutely nobody around within visible sight. The pokémon healing machine was still active but there was nobody to operate it. It didn't matter at the moment, as her pokémon didn't need that much healing. She would have to remember it just in case the worst happened though. The door leading to where the Mt. Battle challenge took place was open. Jovi was curious as to what the challenge area looked like. She expected it to be spectacular though, but this wasn't a pleasure trip. She began to walk to the entrance. She stopped when she heard a noise though. The noise was a thump coming from behind the reception counter near the door. Jovi immediately figured out that there might be a cipher peon nearby. She drew two poké balls and looked around.
"Come out, whoever you are!" Jovi said sternly. To her surprise, there was a response. It came from the counter where the pokémon healing machine was. It was the nurse lady. She had been hiding behind the counter.
"Who are you?" The lady asked very nervously. Jovi put her poké balls away and walked over to the lady.
"My name's Jovi. I'm from the pokémon HQ lab."
"Jovi? Do you know a lad called Michael?" Jovi's heart skipped a beat when she heard her brother's name.
"He's my brother."
"Where is he?"
"Wish I knew. He's off on a journey."
"Have you come to save us?"
"What's happened?"
"Cipher has attacked. I think they're after Vander."
"Eagun told me that he saw something. They must want to keep him quiet."
"Are you going to save us?"
"I'll do my very best."
"Then allow me to heal your pokémon."
"No you don't!" A voice from behind them said. Jovi turned around and saw a cipher peon behind her. This peon was a male, but still wore the cipher uniform.
"You are not going to stop us lady." The peon scolded.
"Watch me!" Jovi shouted, drawing two poké balls.
"Bring it on. The great Bandon will take you down!" Bandon threw two poké balls towards Jovi. They opened to reveal a mankey and a machop.
"Ekans, pikachu, go!" Jovi threw the poké balls containing ekans and pikachu. When the two came out, they began growling at their opponents. The mankey was intimidated a little but the machop sneered back and got into a fighting position. Jovi soon found out why. The aura catcher responded. The machop was a shadow pokémon. Jovi did expect this, based on the partial list she had found. She knew she had to take it away from Bandon no matter what.
"Pikachu, shadow blitz the mankey!" Jovi instructed. Pikachu responded by charging straight into mankey. The attack found its mark and heavily hurt the mankey, not knocking it out though.
"Mankey, leer attack!" Bandon shouted. Mankey came back by casting a frightening leer at ekans and pikachu. The two shuddered but they seemed to be ok.
"Machop, shadow blitz!" Bandon then instructed. The machop suddenly turned aggressive and charged, directly hitting pikachu. The attack found its mark and caused pikachu to stagger. As it did, a small spark of electricity went from its cheeks and into the machop. It was pikachu's static ability. The machop was suddenly paralysed.
"Ekans, shadow wave!" Jovi instructed. Ekans fired the shadow wave attack at both machop and mankey. The mankey couldn't take the hit and fainted. The machop was still fighting though. It had shrugged off the attack easily. Bandon sighed and recalled his defeated mankey.
"Pikachu, use shadow blitz quickly!" Pikachu quickly charged into the machop. Again, machop shrugged off the attack but was clearly getting exhausted. Jovi began discretely loading her snag machine ready to make the capture.
"Machop, shadow chop!" Bandon shouted. The machop raised its hand. The shadowy aura around the hand intensified. It then jumped at pikachu and chopped heavily. Pikachu was unable to take the hit and fainted on the spot. Jovi immediately figured out. She remembered about the guts ability and realised that machop had it. This explained the sudden rise in power. Plus the attack seemed to score a critical hit. Jovi recalled pikachu with a sigh. The snag machine was now ready. She reached one of her other poké ball like she was going to send out another pokémon.
"Whatever you send out, I'll obliterate it." Bandon proclaimed proudly. Jovi then suddenly threw the poké ball that she had loaded into the snag machine.
"Psyche!" Jovi called out as she threw the ball. Before Bandon could react, the ball had hit machop and pulled it inside. Bandon watched in horror while Jovi watched in anticipation as the ball rocked from side to side. Eventually though, the ball locked and teleported to Jovi's storage system. Bandon just ran, dropping 150 in prize money. Jovi picked up this money and recalled her ekans.
"Wow, you're good." The nurse lady said. She had watched the whole battle and was obviously very impressed.
"Thanks." Jovi replied.
"If you're going on ahead, you should let me heal your pokémon. There is a cipher admin here as well."
"Another admin?"
"A lady. I think her name is Claire."
"Ok, any idea of what she uses?"
"No idea. I never saw her pokémon."
"Ok." Jovi handed her poké balls to the nurse lady and she used the healing machine to restore them to full health.
"Good luck." The nurse said as she handed Jovi her poké balls.
"Thanks." Jovi replied. She took the poké balls and ran through the door that lead to the challenge area.
As soon as Jovi saw the platforms where the training took place, she was awestruck. She had heard stories about Mt. Battle but she had never seen the training area until now. She was also a little nervous, as there were on barriers between the edge of the platforms and a very long drop. She couldn't see the propellers underneath the platforms that kept them airborne. She didn't have time to gawk though; she needed to find Vander before anything happened to him, though she had a feeling that she might be too late. Especially since she could see three cipher peons on the platforms. She began to run along the platforms and came across the first cipher peon on zone 3.
"Sorry young girl, training's cancelled for today." The peon said.
"I'm here for some emergency training." Jovi lied. The cipher peon smirked.
"Ok then, allow me, bugging wall Elvis, to give you some special training." Elvis threw two poké balls onto the field. Jovi was rather disappointed at what came out of them, two caterpies. Jovi sighed to herself and drew put two poké balls.
"This won't take long. Plipli, Mimi, go for it!" Jovi said as she threw the poké balls. As soon as the two pokémon came out, they both looked at the caterpies. It did give Jovi an idea though. Perhaps she could take this opportunity to try and teach Mimi spark, just like Plipli could.
"Plipli, use your spark attack!" Jovi instructed. Plipli began to charge up her spark attack.
"Mimi, watch what Plipli does. You can learn something from her." Jovi added. Mimi nodded and watched Plipli use her spark attack against one of the caterpies. The caterpie she hit fainted instantly from the attack.
"Mimi, see if you can do that." Mimi tried to mimic what Plipli had just done. He successfully electrified his body and then charged into the other caterpie. He had successfully performed the spark attack. Like the other caterpie, the one Mimi hit also fainted instantly. Neither of them could withstand Plipli and Mimi's power. Elvis growled and recalled his two caterpies.
"I'm not finished yet. Go metapod!" Elvis shouted, throwing one more poké ball. The metapod that came out just stared at Plipli and Mimi. Jovi thought she heard a grown from the metapod. At first she couldn't believe it, until the aura catcher responded. The metapod was a shadow pokémon.
"Plipli, Mimi, use quick attack both of you!" Jovi instructed. Both pokémon began rushing towards the shadow metapod. Plipli was ahead of Mimi. Just before Plipli made contact though…
"Shadow guard!" Elvis instructed. The metapod's eye glowed black and a shadowy barrier formed in front of the metapod. Plipli just bounced off the barrier. The barrier had faded by the time Mimi had reached the metapod. As a result, Mimi's attack was successful, but it didn't seem to do much damage. Plipli got back to her feet. She seemed unaffected by her impact with the shadowy wall that metapod had produced.
"Plipli, are you ok?" Plipli looked up at Jovi and nodded.
"Metapod, shadow defence!" The metapod's body briefly became shrouded in a stronger shadowy aura but this aura soon faded. The metapod looked as though it had gained a bit of resistance to attacks from its attack. Jovi had figured out that metapod was excellent at defence but couldn't attack. She had also noticed a hole in the defence.
"Plipli, Mimi, use spark both of you." Plipli and Mimi both began charging up their spark attack. Plipli dashed at the metapod first.
"Shadow guard!" Metapod created another shadowy barrier in front of itself.
"Plipli stop!" At Jovi's instruction, Plipli stopped right in front of the shadowy barrier. All the electricity around her dissipated. The barrier then suddenly disappeared, just before Mimi arrived. As a result, Mimi's spark attack made contact, did heavy damage and paralysed the metapod.
"No! You found the hole in the defence!" Elvis shouted. Jovi quickly loaded the snag machine while she had an opening.
"You're mine!" Jovi threw the converted poké ball as soon as it was ready. The ball found its mark and pulled metapod inside. Elvis couldn't speak. All he could do was watch. Eventually though, metapod was captures ad the poké ball teleported to Jovi's storage system. Elvis just fled, dropping 70 in prize money. Jovi knelt down and petted Plipli and Mimi.
"Both of you were fantastic. And congratulations Mimi for learning spark. Now we need to go on." Jovi recalled her pokémon, picked up the prize money and continued up the platforms.
The next cipher peon was on the 6th zone. This admin was also a male. Jovi could really see no difference between the male cipher peons because of the uniforms. Jovi approached the peon cautiously and readied two poké balls, knowing that she would have to fight him. The peon noticed Jovi and looked directly at her.
"What was Elvis doing? Do I have to do everything for him?" the peon said.
"Just let me through and it will be much easier for both of us." Jovi said sternly. The peon then noticed the snag machine on Jovi's arm.
"Hey, you're the kid who's taking the fight to Cipher. This is perfect. I will defeat you here and now. Fall to the toxic bug Bruce!" Bruce then threw two poké balls towards Jovi. When they opened, Jovi was, again, disappointed. This time it was two weedles. Jovi sighed and threw the poké balls she had gotten ready.
"Ekans, jigglypuff, do it!" The poké balls that Jovi threw opened to reveal ekans and jigglypuff. Both the pokémon growled aggressively at the two weedles.
"Jigglypuff, shadow song!" Jovi instructed. Jigglypuff sang its dark song, sending both weedles to sleep.
"Uh-oh." Bruce mumbled.
"Ekans, shadow wave!" Ekans fired its shadow wave attack at both the weedles. This attack was too strong for them to take and they fainted instantly. Bruce groaned and recalled his two weedles. He then took out another poké ball.
"Kakuna, get them!" Bruce shouted. The Kakuna that came out stayed motionless, but it seemed to be able to growl at ekans and jigglypuff. Jovi's aura catcher reacted when it came out. The Kakuna was a shadow pokémon. Jovi suspected that it would have similar attacks to the shadow metapod. She wasn't about to let it use those attacks though.
"Jigglypuff, shadow song!" Jigglypuff sang its dark song and sent Kakuna to sleep immediately. But since Kakuna was a shadow pokémon, it would be resistant to ekans' shadow wave attack.
"Ekans, have you regained any attacks yet?" Jovi asked. Ekans responded by slithering up to Kakuna. Once it reached the Kakuna, it wrapped its body around it. Jovi immediately recognised the attack.
"Bind, nice. It will do." Jovi thought to herself.
"Stop that!" Bruce shouted.
"No way. Jigglypuff, shadow blitz!" Jigglypuff charged at Kakuna, avoiding ekans' body, and collided with Kakuna. This did little damage and it was still sleeping. Jovi decided to take a gamble and began loading the snag machine. As soon as it was ready, she prepared to throw the converted ball.
"What you are doing is wrong. Why can't you see that?" Jovi asked before throwing the ball. Ekans leapt away from Kakuna before the ball hit. Bruce looked stunned when Kakuna was dragged inside the poké ball. Jovi waited with anticipation and prayed that Kakuna was weak enough. To Jovi's relief, the poké ball locked and teleported away. Bruce fled, dropping 70 in prize money. Jovi recalled her pokémon, picked up the prize money and raced onwards.
A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating this. I had other commitments and writer's block. I still haven't abandoned it but don't expect a quick finish.