A/N: I had a very special birthday this December. :")
Twentieth chapter! :O Amazing. Please proceed with caution at this chapter, as there is some blood and mentions of substance abuse, as well as some "Alien" moments and strangeness *cough*. I hope you enjoy. I hope everyone had happy holidays! And a wondrous New Year! :D
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokémon Special. I think these disclaimers are useless.
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Chapter 20: The Hope .
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Crystal was an impatient woman when it came to doing jobs, and it was no small wonder that she had resolved to maneuver herself around the hospital in a wheelchair until she was fully rehabilitated.
In between physical therapy sessions and meal times, the Capturer took the time to watch the movements of her fellow Pokédex Holders from afar. She had seen them struggle, and she was determined to do the same.
Presently she was rubbing her stiff knees while seated in front of the computer, tracking her friends' movements again. It had been regular, almost comforting, to see that she could help them from afar; sending them messages, information, and Pokémon through the Centers she contacted. The fact that she was irreplaceable was comforting.
Now her PokeGear rang up, and she received a weak greeting from Blue.
"Hey, how's it going?"
"Pretty good, all things considered," she breathed. "And you guys?"
"I sent Gold and Diamond away with my Abra to help out with the commotion in Snowpoint. You heard the reports?"
"Yeah, a really intense battle that's been keeping the residents home."
"Exactly. I think Sapphire and Platinum shouldn't stay there a moment longer."
"And Green?"
"He and Silver are in the commotion as we speak. "
Crystal made a small "hmm" of thought. "I guess we can trust them not to go overboard on this, right?"
Saturn decided, all on his own, that he must have smoked something strange this morning.
Not only did he find himself trapped in battle with one of the most deranged people in the world, he was teamed up with the famous Team Magma Admin who betrayed her organization and helped save Hoenn. Whom he met in a coffee shop as he was trying to avoid law enforcement. Whom he (strangely) discovered liked to chew exotic-flavored bubblegum and wore boot cut jeans.
And now, the (irritatingly alive) Pokédex Holders were saving their skins?
Arceus almighty, what was the world coming to? A thorough inspection of his cigarette brands must be made, if not a quick check on whether any pot was rolled in them. He might as well take advantage of the universe's momentary high to save himself.
The young man with the brown hair and the surly face motioned to him, and the Galactic Admin replied with a nod. His eyes slid towards Courtney, who saw this exchange. Her lips angled just so, and took position parallel to Saturn's.
The Ninetales took aim as Toxicroak prepared a fighting stance. Green acquiesced this with a raise of his thin eyebrows, and turned to the teenager beside him.
"Let's go."
Silver's insides clenched when Green's hand grabbed his arm as the two jumped from the airborne Charizard. His senior landed perfectly on the snow when his own legs buckled, and the brunette's strategy was being put into motion while his senses were still a little scrambled. Nonetheless, the redhead yelled out his next move.
Honchkrow blasted forward, shooting a malevolent ring of darkness before angling sharply upward. The attack hit perfectly, and for a vital moment the barrier surrounding the once invincible pair of beings shattered. Mewtwo recoiled from the dark imaginings, and Sird spat at the burningly sharp air.
It was a powerful combination attack: a hot stream of fire propelled even further by air thrust by the Iron Tail and Brick Break attacks. Charizard then flapped its leathery wings, pushing Toxicroak and Ninetales forward to follow up with Poison Jab and Hyper Beam. The impact made a ringing crash upon Sird's protective sphere.
By now the Rocket Beast was very, very different. Her very physical integrity was already warping from the psychic field that surrounded her. Her silhouette even seemed to mimic Mewtwo: the dusty coloring, the thin limbs and hunched back., the glowing eyes. She continued shrieking, commanding the psychic Pokémon to continue. Like a puppet on strings, erratic in movement and almost lifeless in spirit, Mewtwo danced forward. The woman resumed her cackles.
"I will transcend life!"
The energy utensil it held swung forth and ripped at Toxicroak, who dodged and accidentally slammed into Saturn.
"I will destroy death!"
A powerful shock sent Ninetales tumbling backwards. Courtney grunted as the pale fox Pokémon knocked her off her feet.
"Don't you see, you simple-minded idiots? By making myself 'infinite', I will become the only Infinite One of the universe!" Mewtwo flew forward, charging at the winged reptile and catching it off-guard. The two young men dived into the snow as the genetic beast created shockwaves in its wake.
"My plan is to rip open the fabric of reality and destroy Arceus, the Creator-Pokémon. To dethrone that unmoving creature and become ruler of the universe!"
Sird made a grasping motion with her hands, and the two Pokédex Holders gasped as their limbs snapped together and rendered them immobile.
Above them, Charizard and Mewtwo traded blows with each other. Blasts of fire and sonic effects hinted at every attack. A sharp metallic crack cut through every ear, and a shard of the metal encasing the clone Pokémon's face broke off.
The pupil that was revealed shrank back in the shift of lighting. The body swung onward, and steel clashed with dragon scales for a moment. The two wrestled for control and pummeled each other as they plummeted to the ground.
Mewtwo's free eye dripped tears as he recognized Green.
Sapphire was faintly aware that somehow she was ending.
Something was off in that the air bubble that was merely a small part of the hydrous sphere was expanding. Her screams were horribly muted in her prison, and everything was spinning from the delirium-inducing pain.
It felt like her abdomen would shatter apart. Pale hands reached for her stomach, and was met by slightly warmer, more scarlet waves. The tiny shards of blue crystal were still sparkling in the water.
All she saw before darkness curled around her vision was a cloud of red, a ripple of blue, and two softly shining eyes of gold.
And then, a slant of light.
Mars smirked under her breath, her Grunts arrayed in front of her and camouflaged in the snow. By now Jupiter was only a few miles north of their position, dangerously close to the Pokémon League and their target. All it took was one signal, one signal flare that was at the ready the moment most opportune would be found.
She eyed at Sird, and was pleased to see that the barrier surrounding the woman was wearing thin as she floated alone. A lady never forgets a grudge, she remembered, as she gently readied her trigger finger.
"Gotcha."
As the cruel lead marred her perfect flesh, Sird saw the storm of silver-suited men through a bothersome splatter of suspended blood. Her grip over the damned children was broken, and Mewtwo had teleported to her side at the roar of imminent danger. They began spinning, began to prepare themselves for the teleportation.
The one figure holding the gun, with the vindicated smile, would be one of the first to pay.
The big white rock was blank and warm, and Emerald ran his gloved hands over them several times, but couldn't quite get the feel of it. He took off his extensors and felt the rock again. It was dusty under his fingers, but it felt good. The blond boy felt himself getting sleepy from the serenity of his surroundings. He blinked.
"Crap!"
Yellow suddenly appeared in the rock, her face protruding from the stone. Blue shrieked and Emerald stumbled backward.
But it wasn't Yellow at all, but someone very similar. Except that her hair was a glossy green and her skin was impossibly white, and pink pinwheel blossoms embraced her body instead of clothing. She was also glowing with a curious shine, and her feet didn't touch the tender grass under her. She emerged from the stone, like a ghost passing through a wall.
~Peace will soon return, for the Prince of the Seas has been born.~
Emerald was speechless, and Blue gulped hard. The Prince of the Seas? A faint boom in the distance went unnoticed as the spirit continued to speak.
~For the Prince to take his place among the Legendaries, he must reign in his birthplace, in the northern oceans. He must return, one day, to exercise his birthright as given by the Infinite One, Arceus. And I, Shaymin, was charged to speak of this to you through the spirit of one of your comrades.~
The brunette flinched at this, while Emerald's gape rivaled that of a Magikarp. Blue suddenly felt very, very tired.
"With all the mystical legendary Pokémon crap we do, I shouldn't be surprised to see someone just phase out of a fudging rock...hey, wait!"
For the spirit-vision Shaymin was gone, and an eerie rumble of many footsteps crawled into the landscape...footsteps that grew into a crown of silver-uniformed men and women. Emerald's Dusclops and Sudowoodo popped out of their Pokéballs and moved to protect the boy, and Blue kept her Nidoqueen and Wigglytuff close by. She stretched and rubbed the back of her neck, smiling.
"About time we've gotten any action for our part!"
"And we've teleported here, to sneak up on them, you see."
"That sounds fair," Diamond panted faintly as he trotted in a vain attempt to catch up with the much more active Gold. "But judging from the commotion, should we really try to 'sneak up' on...anything?"
Gold merely whistled as the rampaging ruckus became louder. "Our plan is simple, really: teleport here, grab Platinum, Sapphire, and simply bolt. Easy as poffins." The shrieks and bangs ahead did not seem to unnerve him at all. It actually...made him more excited. "Too bad, 'cause I don't know how to make poffins."
Diamond sighed and looked at the shrunken Pokéball with the Abra in it. "Too bad you can't teleport more than two people, huh?" The yellow mouse-faced thing flicked its tail and continued sleeping. "It's a shame Blue kept you under leveled."
"Hush," the amber-eyed fellow shushed. "Over here."
As they crept into the clearing they realized the hellish field they stumbled upon. There were at least fifty people raging in the snow, attacking at the ungodly abomination that floated about, deflecting ammunition and attacks without care. Screaming, roaring, screeching and ricochets made the glorious cacophony that sank Snowpoint into chaos.
The two boys were transfixed at the scene until a squelching sound by their side and a loud gasp broke their concentration.
Platinum was a horrible wreck, wheezing and drenched in freezing water as she emerged from the sea. Her metallic eyes were encircled in pure white, and her body was streaked with dark red. Even in stillness she seemed epileptic, horrid goose bumps raised stark and solid as she shivered violently.
She was gripping hard on her Empoleon's long golden crest with one hand, the rest of her leaning against the Pokémon's dense waterproof feathers. Empoleon had carried them away from the water, onto the snow, to avoid being detected.
What truly shook them was what Platinum's other arm was encircling.
Nestled within her arm was a near-drowned Sapphire, shivering madly and barely breathing. Blood poured from what seemed to be cracks running in her abdomen from where the crystal shards once were. Her eyes were squeezed shut in pain, and her skin was starkly blue-white. Wrapped within the brunette's own embrace was a tiny bubble-like form, with eyes of gold.
The Healer felt her toes and fingertips asleep in her wakening, and she breathed in deeply. The vest fabric in front of her smelled of dust and sweat, and strands of black hair poked her face a little. The scenery was of sprinkled ash and green-grey grasses.
"What's the matter...?"
"...Hurry..." Her faint green eyes adjusted under their lids, remembering how she had synchronized spirits with Shaymin. "Manaphy...is..."
The other boys said nothing, but merely quickened their pace back to the Survival Area.
A great commotion arose when the Battle Frontier's Fight Area entrance received two bloody teenagers on its perfectly polished floors.
They collapsed in a heap, to be joined by another two kids teleporting in the same way. A strangled choke of "help" awakened the stunned staff enough to move the (still dripping) adolescents into a Pokémon Center.
One dark-haired girl in the group was familiar to the staff, and she was the first to speak out.
"Go…call Palmer."
Palmer blew off steam the best way he could in this case: in motion.
He was pacing hollows into the floor of the previously mentioned Pokémon Center, turtleneck having been haggardly pulled on, hair uncombed (as usual), and green coat wrinkled (which was unusual). It worried him a great deal to see mere teenagers going through what seemed to be pure torture.
His attention turned over to the creature in the cold-water tank, and the boy watching it with mild fascination.
"What are the chances of Manaphy surviving this ordeal?"
"...I'd say around 67.5 %."
"Thorton!"
"I call it as I see it," the pale young man huffed, his sharp eyes angled as always. His genius must come with a touch of insanity, for the hand holding the blue analyzer twitched a little. The pointy face looks over to the blond man with the faint wrinkles.
"You know I am rarely wrong, Palmer. Your son and his friends ought to hurry." The little bubbly baby gurgled in the water, eyes wide and curious. It flapped a little towards Thorton's face, prompting a vague cough-chuckle.
At that moment the nurses wheeled in Sapphire, effectively unconscious. "She's lost a lot of blood," the candy floss-haired nurse panted. "A Pokémon Center doesn't have a blood bank. We're going to need a transfusion within the hour, or she'll destabilize fast."
Her colleagues moved quickly, fixing the sheets and measuring her blood pressure and hooking up the IV drip.
"Do we have any donors?"
"There are two, from her group: Red and Ruby."
"Dear child, I'm afraid I'm a tad nervous of your style."
For Dahlia was shimmying about awhile ago, the baubles glittering in her long black hair while her Togekiss dispersed the crowd with balls of shining blue aura. She made quick work of the Galactic rampage, although it was quite unfortunate that a good number had escaped.
Her golden heels did not hinder her spinning ability, and she finished her short routine with a flourish. Her voice sing-songed in the noise:
"Let chance do what it does~ No need to worry, things will go as they will. Nothing against my destiny will come about, that is certain.~"
More than half of the Galactic group that was present was already contained within the rock barrier that Bertha's Pokémon had created. Several of the Grunts were working at breaking the stone pillars, she noticed.
"Oh, we can't have that, can we?" Bertha rode upon Hippowdon's curved sand-back serenely. The red-eyed monster she so calmly petted bellowed, sending a controlled tremor under their toes. A good number of the Grunts were forced to their knees.
Dahlia looked at the bruised Silver and Green and sighed tremulously. "Oh, but it seems that even chance bests the best of us,~" she simpered and winked at the two. Her happy-go-lucky ways went on to shock the both of them when she had danced into the crowd of Grunts in abandon and promptly decimated terrain within a good five-foot radius of her perpetually shifting dance floor.
The Viridian City Gym Leader had a sudden, affectionately irritating urge to mutter "noisy woman" at her brash attitude. He looked over to Silver, who was quiet and out of breath, and clapped a bracing hand to his fellow's shoulder.
"Hey, you'll be ok?"
Silver nodded, and blew out a tired breath. "It's cold." He looked on at the dark-skinned Frontier Brain, who was now looking out at the dark water. "So Gold and Diamond...got the girls out alright..."
"Hmm," came the murmur of confirmation. They were a quiet pair.
Bertha's brown eyes suddenly turned a shade colder, and her normally sweet smile tightened as her gaze fell upon the barely-there shadow of the Snowpoint Temple.
"Look who we have here..."
A man came forth from the trees, in deep black clothes, and looked at the powerful company with an urgent gleam in his grey eyes.
Pearl's Poketch rang.
"…Daddy?"
In spite of the situation Red snorted, and Ruby smirked. Pearl made a strangled noise, and listened intently. The rapid-fire conversation was only heard with many exclamations:
"Oh, yeah.!..we're okay...yeah, they're with me...what? No way! But...ahrgh! Ok, we'll be there!"
He pressed the buttons with unnecessary force and swore sharply.
"Sounds bad," Red remarked mildly. "What happened?"
"Gold and Dia got The Lady and Sapphire out of Snowpoint with Manaphy at the Fight Area."
"Oh, that's good."
"Also," and here he looked at Ruby with worried eyes and a grim expression, "your lady-friend's lost a lot of blood. It looked pretty bad, I gather."
Ruby paled, and his face was so absolutely stricken that the orange-eyed youth corrected himself.
"Well, she's not dying yet. But it's pretty damn close-"
Then and there Ruby was gone, somehow spirited away upon the back of a black-haired wolf and leaving the other two in the dust. Pearl watched as the white cap was going, going, and gone to the fading shout of, "I'm going on ahead!..."
To the Battler's surprise, a smile crept upon the corner of the blond's mouth. "I think I'm very motivational, nowadays, don't you think?" His eyes twinkled, and secretly Red thought this was a small-scale revenge for the 'Daddy' laugh.
Red groaned, and attempted to at least get to the Pokémon Center in the Survival Area by nightfall. "Be careful with what you say around the guy, I think you might have given him an aneurysm!"
Giovanni found it very strange indeed.
He was in a private room, where various Gym Leaders, Elite Four members, Frontier Brains were staying to hear him plead his case. All were aware of his dealings, and being stuck in the same room with them was like strapping a Delcatty in a cage full of rabid blind Raticates. All it took was one move out of place and they would be all over him. Probably to inflict non-metaphorical wounds.
However Silver was there, and he was glad to see that his son did not regard him with a sense of absolute hatred. In fact, his son looked at him with a conflict of emotions: relief, curiosity, fear, anger, bitterness, regret, hope, even love. The hardened man's heart could not stay invulnerable for long, hence the long search for his kidnapped son.
The head nurse, a woman with dark corkscrew pigtails, came to the room with a grave face. Two other nurses accompanied her, one with familiar candy-pink twists and the other with soft blue curls. They spoke among themselves before talking to the company arrayed before them.
"Miss Birch's condition is worsening. The type O transfusion must be made immediately. Her companion Miss Berlitz is in danger of hypothermia as well."
Worried babble rippled around, and the Rocket Leader (former Rocket Leader, he reminded himself) watched. He saw the grey-haired woman whom he recognized as a relative of the Ghost-master Agatha mumble to the woman with the red suit and the shades perched atop her head. A faintly aloof-looking girl watched with marked disinterest, mainly because the bespectacled servant with her seemed to do most of the conferencing with the others.
Giovanni even saw his successor to the Viridian City Gym being consulted by whom he assumed to be the Rock-type Gym Leader of the region. The young man seemed quite confident, phlegmatic in demeanor and quite intelligent.
Silver was listening to their conversation intently, and it made sense to Giovanni why this Green was given the position of Gym Leader, seeing that his son looked up to him.
His tired voice surprised the whole room, even Giovanni himself.
"I can offer...my blood. It is type O as well."
All eyes noted the man in the dark clothes and carefully hidden bandages, and Giovanni's peripheral vision noted his red-haired son whispering something to the people in the room, along with a nod. The space between his eyebrows creased a little in a sudden burst of hoping affection.
He trusts me...
"I'm afraid we can't get your blood, sir. In your present condition..."
"I would think..." he coughed, "that my life is of not much consequence anymore."
"…All lives are equal, sir," the head nurse said quietly. "Of that much us caregivers are certain…You are in no shape to be offering your own blood."
"I am a man of...many sins," Giovanni strained in his rough voice. "And I feel burdened...since passing the threshold of old age. I think I can do more good...in saving a young life than by...preserving my old self."
His steely irises glistened with a sudden emotion, and he covered this vulnerability with his eyelids. The slight rattle in his exhalation alarmed the room. "Regardless...I want to give my blood."
The light glaze over his eyes reminded the company that people, given time, were capable of change. The man that once headed the most powerful organization of the Kanto region stood up, slowly and surely. Not one trainer in the room could move to restrain the will that was still powering this dignified man. The door shut, and Giovanni was gone.
Silver's fingers gripped at the armrest of the couch and his eyes did not drip tears.
The tiny sea-angel examined the world carefully, bright yellow irises tracking the curious creature yonder. Instinctively the Pokémon felt a bond with this strange pale land-thing, a special feeling of caring. He tried calling to it, but his garbled babyish gurgle couldn't be heard. The creature, Manaphy thought, was sleeping.
Mama.
TBC...