Episode 38
Lake Valor: home to a beautiful lake and ocean side resort, with weekly concerts, great food, and a friendly atmosphere for battling.
Directly north of it: a Route 214, a route that has fallen into great disrepair and chaos over the past couple of years. The small mountainside had crumbled, the grass remained uncut and unruly, and the trainers found there had a distinct smell not found anywhere else in Sinnoh.
Matt, Tyler, and Auren looked at the Route separating them and Veilstone City, the location of Matt's next battle. It was going to be a long walk.
"Does Shade know Sweet Scent by any chance, Matt?" Tyler asked. Matt shook his head, and the trio began their trek.
"I still can't believe my scar was acting up that badly," Matt said as they walked. "I almost forgot I had it."
"I guess that rock just really irritated it," Auren said. "It seems fine now, though."
"You're not the one with something protruding from your chest." Matt said. The Lucario gave his trainer a stare. "Never mind…" Suddenly, Matt heard sounds coming just up the Route. "What's that?"
"Sounds like a battle's going on," Tyler said, trying to locate it.
"Weavile, use Night Slash!" They heard the sound nearing. Matt recognized that voice.
"Rampardos, use Iron Defense!" Another voice shouted, this one a little snottier.
"Terrible strategy," Tyler whispered under his breath as they neared the battlers.
Matt was right. The voice belonged to Gage, one of Matt's opponents in the Hearthome Tournament. The Dark-Type slammed into the Rock-Type, knocking it to the ground. Gage's opponent, an overweight man in his twenties with a neck beard who clearly doesn't shower, recalled it. "Grrr, you win this one! But I've got one more up my sleeve!"
"Bring it on," Gage said. "You don't stand much of a chance anyways."
The man reached into his backpack, grabbing another Pokéball. He spun his arm around a few more times that necessary and threw it out. "Ponyta, go!"
"Weavile, return!" Gage said, recalling his Pokémon. "Go Swampert!" Gage released a large, blue Water-Type similar to Gold's Marshtomp, only larger.
"Hey!" His opponent said. "That's not fair!"
"Tough shit. Swampert, use Muddy Water!"
The Water-Type unleashed a torrent of water towards the small Fire-Type, covering it in boggy waves. It didn't survive one hit. The other trainer got mad. "No! You will not give up on me Ponyta!"
"Accept your loss, dude. Quit living in something that clearly isn't up to par to battle yet."
"Grrr…you win this time you jerk!" The trainer recalled his Ponyta, putting its ball back in his pack and trudging away with hunched shoulders.
"What a dick…" Gage said, turning around. He noticed the three standing there, having watched the battle. "Oh, it's you."
"Nice to see you again, Gage," Matt greeted him.
"I guess," he said. "I'm assuming you'll be entering the Veilstone Tournament?"
"There's a tournament in Veilstone?"
"I'll take that as a yes. Just try not to get in my way of winning this time." Gage turned to leave, headed north towards the city.
"Gage, wait," Matt said, catching up to him.
"What?"
"Don't you want to battle since we're both here?"
"What point would it prove? You got lucky the last time we battled. We know I'd win again."
"Then let me battle you," Tyler said. The two young trainers turned to look at him. "If you think a battle between you and my cousin would be pointless."
Gage rolled his eyes. "Might as well."
"Go, Luxray!" Tyler shouted.
"Go, Meganium," Gage yelled.
The two Pokémon emerged, facing down each other on the rocky terrain. The trainers decided to use two Pokémon each. Tyler didn't know how it was going to go, but he felt like he had something to prove to Gage. Something he knew Matt couldn't.
"Meganium, use Magical Leaf!" The Grass-Type swung its head around, forming glowing leaves out of thin air and firing them at Luxray.
"Run through them and use Crunch!" Tyler yelled. The leaves danced across Luxray, scraping it a bit. The Electric-Type collided with Meganium, chomping down on its side.
"Why would you send your Pokémon through the attack like that?" Gage asked.
"Luxray can take it. Little leaves never bothered him anyway."
"Hm. Meganium, use Reflect!"
Meganium summoned a large screen in front of it. Physical attacks done against it wouldn't be doing as much damage.
"Crunch again, Luxray!" Tyler's Pokémon lunged at Meganium, this attack not doing nearly as much as last time. He clenched his teeth. That reflect put him in a tough spot.
"Meganium, use Giga Drain!"
The Grass-Type sucked a ton of energy out of Luxray, weakening it greatly while healing itself. Luxray couldn't handle any more, and fell. Tyler recalled it. "Thanks for the battle, buddy." He only had one more Pokémon, and he wasn't trained as well as he'd like. But he just had to trust in himself. "Pansage, come on out!"
The small Grass-Type faced down the large one, staring up at it.
"Use Poison Powder!" Gage yelled. From the flower around its neck, purple spores appeared, surrounding Pansage and poisoning it.
Great, Tyler thought. He really needed that. "Use Acrobatics!" Though its Reflect was still up, the attack did a lot more damage than either trainer anticipated. Meganium staggered, the damage apparent.
"Giga Drain again!" It sapped some of Pansage's health, but not nearly enough as it did with Luxray.
"Acrobatics one more time, Pansage!" The small monkey leapt into the air, doing a flip and landing with great force on Meganium. The attack knocked it out.
"How did you do that so quickly?" Gage asked, recalling his Pokémon.
"Pansage does a great job when you don't expect him to," Tyler said. "Big attacks can come in small bodies."
"Hm. Lucky hit is more like it." He grabbed another ball form his belt. "Swampert, go!"
The large blue Pokémon Gage used against the man with the odor emerged, staring the small Pansage down.
"Wait, why would you use Swampert against a Grass-Type?"
"Don't you dare say that your puny Pansage is better than my Swampert just because of typing." Gage stared at Tyler with an odd sense of animosity for the comment he made.
Tyler shook it off. "Pansage, use Seed Bomb!"
"Ice Beam!"
While Pansage fired large seeds at the Water-Type, it sent a straight beam of ice towards Pansage, knocking it back and sending shivers through its body. Swampert was hit, but not as drastically.
"Pansage, are you alright?" Tyler shouted.
The Grass-Type turned to its trainer. It wanted to keep battling for Tyler. It had a tiny bit of strength left. But the poisoning took it away. Pansage fell, heartbroken it couldn't continue.
"As I expected," Gage said, recalling his Swampert.
Tyler ran to his Pansage, cradling him. "Pan…?" It looked up at him sadly.
"No, don't be sad, buddy," Tyler told his Pokémon. "You did amazing. Trust me." That left a smile on the Grass-Type's face before Tyler recalled it into the Pokéball.
Gage walked over to Tyler, who stood up. "You've been with your Pokémon a long time, haven't you?" Gage asked him.
"Luxray I've had since I was on a journey," he replied. "But Pansage is a brand new partner. Something tells me you've been with yours for a long time, too."
"How can you tell?" The trainer was taken aback.
"Swampert and Meganium answered to your every move as if they knew how you were thinking."
"Well…they've been with me for a long time, let's leave it at that, alright?"
"Sure, I guess," Tyler said.
"Great battle, guys," Matt said, coming up to them. Gage gave him the cold shoulder.
"I'll see you in the tournament, Matt," he said, starting to head north towards Veilstone.
Matt was about to stop him, when they suddenly heard strange noises. "What the hell is that?"
They turned the direction of the noise, only to see the trainer Gage faced earlier, babbling to himself. Gage shouted to him, "Hey, are you alright?" The man responded with an inhuman roar with foam spurting from his moth and started to charge, running on all fours. "What the fuck is that?!" Gage shouted, grabbing his Pokéball immediately and sending out his Weavile. Matt did the same thing with Raina.
Tyler stared at him, the sun catching something on his ankle. "No way…they're not…"
His words were lost with the other trainers. "Raina, use Water Gun on that guy!"
"Weavile, use Ice Shard!"
The two attacks launched at the man, colliding with him and stopping his momentum. Tyler ran over to him. "Sir, are you alright?"
The man, no longer foaming, opened his eyes. "W-Where am I? What happened? Why am I all wet?"
"You really don't know what happened?" Gage said. "You were charging at us for no reason!"
"Well, maybe you deserved it after that horridness of a battle we had!" The man said. "But I seriously don't remember a thing!" Tyler took a peek at his ankle. Sure enough, the metallic logo of Team Revenant was there. But why? As he took it off, the man yelled, "Hey what the hell are you doing near my fee-woah what's that?"
"Something that should have been gone two weeks ago," Tyler said, nodding to Matt.
"What are you two going on about?" Gage asked.
Matt turned to Gage. "For the past two months, my cousin and I have been hunting down an evil organization. They do…strange things to other people's Pokémon. I'm not really sure how it works. For a while, they had commanded the powers of Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina, until Tyler, Auren, and I freed them a couple weeks ago."
"Auren?"
"Pleasure to meet you," The Lucario said, surprising Gage.
"How did he…?"
"Not the issue right now," Matt continued. "We thought they had disbanded after that, but this is the anklet is what they've been using to tag whatever Pokémon they've changed." He turned to the smelly man. "Are your Pokémon alright?"
"How the hell should I know, they're in their Pokéballs?"
"Let them you, you insolent being!" Tyler shouted, losing his temper.
"Geez, fine." The man released his two Pokémon, Rampardos and Ponyta, both of them stared at the group, hate in their eyes.
"Auren, hurry, use Dark Pulse!" Matt shouted. Right away, Auren concentrated his energy, emitting a circle of dark energy at the two deranged Pokémon. "Raina, use Water Gun!" His Floatzel shot a stream of water at the Ponyta, splashing onto Rampardos.
"Night Slash!" Gage yelled. The combination of the three attacks knocked out the man's Pokémon, much to his protest. His whining at this point went unnoticed by the others, who were more focused on the anklets that covered the legs of the Pokémon.
Tyler turned to the man. "What do you remember last before you blacked out?"
"A couple guys came up to me around those trees back there, why?"
"They're here," Matt said. "And whatever it is they're doing, it's getting worse."
Whatever they're doing, it's being done to people now.
The trainers decided to get to Veilstone as quickly as they could. They wanted to get as far away from their doing as possible. "I just don't understand," Tyler said as they were walking around the city. "What more can they do without the legendaries?"
"Who are these guys anyway?" Gage asked. "The guys you're talking about?"
"They go by the name Team Revenant," Tyler said. Gage stopped in his tracks. "What's wrong?"
Before Gage could respond, the sound of a megaphone turned on was heard across the city. "Greetings citizens of Veilstone," a voice said. Matt and Tyler immediately knew who the voice was. "Please, gather around your beloved gym to hear of the tale of Team Revenant!"
Knowing it was bad, Matt, Tyler, and Auren ran to the gym, leaving Gage behind. The young man stood still, not following the others.
The trio arrived at the gym, as Rogers and a few other cloaked members of Team Revenant stood. Rogers spoke into the megaphone. "If you know of us, you know of the terror we have caused. Your police force can do nothing to stop us; for if they try to strike, we will simply disappear into the shadows, as true phantoms do. And we shall reappear and strike when you least expect it.
"You may have heard of our demise a mere few weeks ago. I'm here to say that it was only a minor setback. Matt, I know you're out there in the crowd. What you did was brave, but we already have all of the energy we need from the Legendary Pokémon to control time, space, and the dimensions to our desire."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Someone from the crowd yelled.
"Now that we have this control, the Dimensions will become ours to control. You see, our new Dimension Balls allow us to build our Pokémon army. Soon, we will be unstoppable."
"I've heard that all before," The same man shouted. "You're full of bull shit!"
Rogers sighed. "Watchog, teach this man our lesson," he said, throwing out one of his Pokéballs. His Normal-Type emerged, screeching at the townspeople. It then lunged at the man, biting deep into his neck. The crowd began to disperse, screaming in terror.
The man began to undergo changes, his muscles bulging in odd places, his skin becoming a deathly color and his voice becoming a horrid screech. Whatever Rogers was trying to prove with that stunt, he did.
"You know what we have to do, right Auren?" Matt said.
Auren nodded, quickly using Dark Pulse to attack the man. Before the man could do much damage at all to others, he was instantly snapped out of the zombie-like state. Matt turned from the man to where Rogers was standing, but the evil mastermind was nowhere to be found.
Tyler started to comfort the man, making sure he was alright from Watchog's bite and Auren's attack. Matt stood in place, watching the crowd of people panic around him. Team Revenant may have been working in the shadows, but they have come out for something far greater than Matt was prepared for.