Pokemon: Radiant Ruby and Shining Sapphire/Separation

Chapter 1

Lives Tainted

_One year later

There was a commotion in the Mauville gym. Panic through the entire facility ran rampant as there was no set response to the scenario presented to them. The Gym secretary sprinted up the steps to find Wattson, the old and short gym leader sitting in a chair, lounging, expecting the arrival of the challenger he heard coming from downstairs.

The secretary exclaimed, "Wattson! What do we do!?"

The old man in the chair gave a hardy laugh and asked, "What do ya mean lass? What's with all the commotion downstairs? A rowdy challenger or what?"

The secretary caught her breath for a few moments before saying, "No no no. This isn't just any challenger. He just came in and said he was here to take the badge. Everyone downstairs is trying to stop him from getting here."

Wattson looked at the girl with a confused stare before saying, "Well that doesn't sound too irregular to me. Sure you just aren't overcharged on something?"

The woman then stomped her foot down before screaming, "No! This challenger… he's…"

She was cut off be a young male voice saying, "I can introduce myself, thank you very much."

Both their attention were then caught by a young boy, no more than 15, walking up the steps to the arena. He was wearing a black jacket and pants with red lining. And on his back he wore a red cape with a letter M embroidered into it with a lava aesthetic. He was accompanied by a yellow and orange humanoid bird-like pokemon. He gave a confident smile and said, "Hey there! I'm Ruby Plake, first admin of Team Magma. I'm here to take your badge."

Wattson looked at the boy for a bit, seemingly to size him up. He asked, "The hell are the likes of Team Magma doing in my gym?"

The boy responded, "Oh no, you seem to misunderstand, which is weird given the fact that I laid it all out for you already. I'm not here on behalf of Team Magma. I'm here because I'm challenging this gym. That being said, here I am challenging you for the badge."

The boy looked to his partner, Combusken, and thought, "Yo, how do I sound? Pretty cool right?"

Combusken responded in his head, "You sound like your playing way too much on intimidation, tone it back just a bit and it'll be way more awesome."

The gym leader stood up out of his chair and gave a small laugh saying, "Well that's pretty interesting. I can't say I've ever been challenged by a terrorist before, let alone the son of another gym leader. How disappointed Norman must be."

Ruby shrugged saying, "Yeah well, I'm not here to impress my old man. Can we get on with this already? I haven't got all day."

Wattson walked over to the wall by his chair and pressed a button to reveal six pokeballs on a small shelf expelling from said wall. He grabbed three pokeballs and started to walk to his position before asking his secretary, "Quick question. How many people has he injured?"

The woman scratched her head as she responded, "That's the weird part. He's battled like any other trainer before him."

The leader nodded and said, "Thanks, that's all I need from you. Wait downstairs and don't call the authorities until I give you the say so."

Ruby asked, "What? Feeling so confident that you won't need them when you're through with me? Check your privilege at the door oldtimer."

The man laughed loudly, "HAHAHA! Oldtimer you say! Now I think you're the one who's in need of a privilege check boy. You'll have to come at me with everything you've got! Come on! Let's have a shocking battle!"

Upon saying this, Wattson threw out his first pokeball to reveal a light green dog like figure with yellow markings.

Ruby put his hand to his hip and said, "Another Electrike. Two of your Co-leaders used them too. Oh well I guess it's fine." He then grabbed a Pokeball from his own belt and threw it out saying, "Alright Linoone, let's show him what we've got!" The ball released a white and white and brown badger like pokemon. Immediately Linoone started to roll around on the ground before assuming a battle stance. Ruby then commanded, "Continuous Quick Attack Linoone, let's see if he has anything up his sleeve we haven't seen before."

Wattson braced for the command to tell his Electrike to dodge, but the attack never came from Ruby's Linoone. After a few moments, he laughed and said, "Looks like someone doesn't have their pokemon in check. Electrike, use Thunderbolt!"

Electrike howled as electricity surrounded it and then fired off in Linoone's direction. Seemingly before the shot happened though, Linoone had already evaded the spot of impact with lightning fast reflexes. Electrike shot again and again, but Linoone seemed to easily predict where the blow would land and preemptively avoided each strike.

Watson then called, "Electrike, switch to…"

Ruby cut him off and said, "Way too late. Linoone, end it." As he said this Wattson noticed that Ruby's pokemon had positioned itself to quickly swing around Electrike and swipe down one the back of its neck, rendering it unconscious.

Combusken thought to Ruby, "That was clean. A strategy coming full circle, and I don't think he's figured it out just yet. Good shit!"

Ruby thought back with a nod, "Of course. He still thinks Linoone reacted to the shots individually, but he doesn't realize that the reason I had him roll around immediately was so he could feel in his fur where the electricity would strike before ever being sent out. This whole building has a unique charge running through it, so Linoone's fur now has that same current running through it. It'll direct Linoone to the exact spot a strike will happen and allow him to dodge with plenty of time in advance."

Ruby then said aloud, "And with the first K.O. out of the way, I withdraw Linoone and send in Combusken." He held out his pokeball and returned his badger like partner to it. He then laid the ball on the ground as he motioned Combusken to step into the arena, which he did immediately.

Wattson gave a brief sigh of relief, which Ruby caught and said in response, "You're happy I switched early on because you were about to send out Magneton, correct?"

Wattson looked at the boy completely dumbfounded by his knowledge and ability to pick up on his body cues. "And how did you know I had a Magneton at all?"

Ruby sighed saying, "One of your co-leaders said something about it when I beat his Magnemite. Not like it really matters. Come on, send out your next pokemon already."

The old man expelled a laugh full of energy, "You certainly are Norman's kin. You got a bizarre knack for detail just like him. Unfortunately, a delinquent still must be disciplined." He grabbed another pokeball and threw it out saying, "Go Manectric!"

Out from the beam of light came a blue dog with a yellow cone covering its face and rear along with the tops of its front paws. Ruby pulled out his Pokedex and it read aloud:

Manectric

The Discharge Pokemon

Height: 4'11"

Weight: 88.6 lbs

Manectric is constantly discharging electricity through its mane. Storm clouds often appear over its head while battling.

Ruby thought in shock, "So that yellow stuff is fur?"

Combusken responded, "It must be standing up because of the electricity running through it. But enough chat, what's the plan?"

Ruby responded, "Just stick to the plan. It's working perfectly so far after all."

Combusken nodded before staring down his opponent. Manectric growled fiercely before Wattson commanded, "Manectric, use Discharge!"

Combusken saw a black cloud start to form near Manectric's mane and focused his energy to form a protective barrier from the on coming strike (Protect). Then electricity burst from Manectric from all directions, but Combusken had already put up his defences before taking the hit head on and taking no damage.

Ruby then commanded, "Combusken, Bulk Up."

His partner then stanced up and began to flex and prepare his body. A red aura circulated around him and he felt his body become slightly more powerful.

Wattson, trying to take advantage of the situation yelled, "Manectric, Quick Attack while he's charging up!"

Manectric followed orders and sprinted at Combusken with lighting like speed, hitting him square in the gut, pushing him to the wall of the room. However, Combusken just shook his head and continued to focus.

Wattson called out once again, "Now end it with Discharge!"

Ruby sighed saying, "This is kinda becoming sad. Please strategize."

Combusken once again saw the Discharge propelling itself from Manectric's mane, and again blocked the blow with a Protect.

Wattson taunted, "What's sad is that you are relying so much on this defensive strategy! It'll only get you so far to keep blocking you know."

Ruby nodded saying, "Yeah. You're right. I think I'll go on the offensive now." He called out to Combusken, "Hey, Baton Pass!"

His partner then took out a red baton and all of the aura surrounding him was absorbed by it. Combusken then threw it to Ruby, who caught it and allowed the Pokeball that he had withdrawn Linoone in to absorb the baton itself. He then threw out the pokeball once again revealing Linoone, while simultaneously calling Combusken back to his side.

Wattson laughed, "HAHAHA! So what? You've got a bit of an attack and defense boost huh? Not like that will do any good against non physical moves!"

Ruby shook his head and said, "Not quite accurate. You missed another buff Linoone got from the swap. Linoone, Headbutt."

The badger Pokemon then basically vanished from sight and reappeared as it slammed its head into Manectric's side, causing the target to flinch, but not fall. Ruby then said, "Once more, take him down." Again Linoone vanished right before ramming its head into Manectric's side again, this time toppling the Pokemon into unconsciousness.

This clearly surprised Wattson, who looked on in awe at how easily his pokemon was defeated. He asked, "What was that?"

Ruby stated, "I'll tell you if you concede right now. I'd rather avoid a pointless fight where our pokemon could get actually injured, but that might happen if we continue, so what do you say?"

Wattson looked at the last pokeball he had, then back to Ruby before saying, "Alright then, I concede."

Ruby nodded and thanked the gym leader, "Thanks. I'd really rather get going. There's a lot to do after all."

Wattson reached into his pocket and tossed the gym badge over to Ruby and said, "Here's your Dynamo badge. Now explain what I just saw."

Ruby caught the badge and looked at it for a brief moment. It was a circular badge with two small lines sprouting from opposite ends. It was also split yellow and light blue down the middle, the same color scheme as Manectric. He put it in his pocket and said, "Speed Boost."

Wattson's eyes shot open as he asked, "Wait a minute. You're saying that your Combusken has the hidden ability of his species? That's like one in a million chance!"

Ruby nodded saying, "Well, he's a one in a million kind of pokemon after all. Anyway, the longer Combusken stays in battle, the faster he becomes, which is why I stalled a bit with Protect. After a minute of combat, Combusken's speed roughly triples. Then I moved this speed buff along with the attack and defense buff from Bulk Up over to Linoone, which would've steamrolled any pokemon that got in its way solely because of it's speed alone." The boy then extended his hand with Linoone's pokeball in it outwards, returning the pokemon to its living quarters.

Wattson then put his hands on his hips and began to chuckle. Soon the chuckle became a laugh, which then became a roar. "You got some spirit kild! I like you! How the hell did a kid like you get wrapped up with Team Magma? You're not evil, and with a brain like your's, if you were evil, you'd've already taken over Hoenn."

Ruby nodded saying, "Yeah maybe, but I need Team Magma to accomplish something. Until I have, i'll just take my chances with them. I only really trust Maxie in their ranks anyway. All the grunts just do as they please, which pisses me off, but I can't really stop them."

Wattson asked, "You introduced yourself as first admin. Doesn't that mean you're in charge of your own regiment?"

Ruby sighed and explained, "The title is just a formality. I asked Maxie if I could have it just so the grunts didn't believe that I was among their own ranks. Instead of a leadership role, it's more of a way to keep away the riff raff."

Wattson laughed again saying, "Well I'll be damned! What is this objective of yours anyway? Better be serious for you to tarnish your family name like you have been."

Ruby nodded and responded, "Yeah it is serious, but I'm not at liberty to tell you my goal. For now at least, I'd like to keep up my appearance as a Team Magma Admin for as long as I can. I'd like to ask you to keep any concept of me having ulterior motives to yourself for now please."

Wattson laughed once again and threw up the peace sign with his fingers and said, "Secret's safe with me Ruby! That being said, I'd get out of town as fast as you can. I'm still going to have to call the cops on you, but I'll give you a little head start on the house."

Ruby smiled and waved at the old man gym leader before turning around and walking down the stairs, being followed immediately by his partner.

Combusken thought to Ruby, "Well that went pretty well, don't you think. It was exponentially easier than when we fought Brawly a year ago."

Ruby responded, "Honestly, yeah. That was a pretty clean win. We should probably head back to HQ for a bit to lay low. We caused quite the scene today, wouldn't you say?"

The two briefly laughed as they walked by the frightened faces of the co-leaders that they had previously beaten. Once they had exited the gym, they were once again greeted with the mall scenery of Maulville. A sea of stores went on in every direction. The boy and his pokemon then started to maneuver their way to the north exit, but were caught off guard by a small commotion that grew louder as they approached.

There was a young, green haired boy in and light blue suit arguing with an older man. It didn't take long for Ruby to react solely out of surprise, "Wait, Wally?!"

The boy stopped his rambling and turned to face Ruby. His eyes widened as he expressed, "By Arceus, it's Ruby! It's been over a year! How have you been?"

Ruby gave the boy a smile and said, "I'm alright. But more importantly, how are you? You look much better than the last time I saw you."

Wally was about to respond, but the man that he was arguing with, pulled the boy back saying, "You stay the hell away from my nephew."

This prompted Wally to finally notice the outfit that Ruby was wearing. "Ruby… no…"

Ruby saw the dramatic shift in tone from the boy's voice and sighed, "Yeah, you're seeing it right. I'm First Admin, Ruby Plake, at your service."

Wally, in denial, asked, "There's no way that's true, right Ruby? This is just some kind of joke… right?"

Ruby took a deep breath in before deciding to break off the conversation, "Guess I'll be seeing you around. There's bound to be a few people looking for me already." Both he and Combusken started to walk away.

Wally called from behind him, "I don't know what led to this, but I'll save you from it! I'll become that strong!"

Ruby smiled and thought, "I hope you will. Just keep getting better Wally." After he though this, he and his partner successfully fled Maulville to Route 111. They continued north past the entrance to the desert region and appeared in a valley or red rock and volcanic ash. Ruby looked up to see Mt. Chimney towering over him. "Well, that was a pretty short lived trip. A couple hours and we already got ourselves another gym badge."

Combusken thought back, "Yes well the badge doesn't really mean anything. We just used that as a test to see how far we've come."

Ruby nodded and responded, "And I'm happy with the result. It feels like a year of training has paid off. It's about time we start our search. Maxie should allow us to do this under the premise of carrying out "missions", so this should go rather smoothly."

The boy and his partner then entered the south entrance to the volcano and walked until they reached a dead end. Ruby dug through his uniform and pulled out an ID card. He swiped it over what appeared to be a rock wall, but as he did, the wall lit up a light blue color and revealed a steel lined hallway with Team Magma banners hanging from the walls all the way down. Ruby and his partner walked down said hall and at the end a door opened to reveal a room full of scientists and Team Magma Grunts scattered around on computers. There was a gigantic screen in the back that projected a thermal map of the entire Hoenn region. This was there to monitor the activity of Mt. Chimney, but also to keep an eye on people's movements, or more specifically, a group of people's movements since it wasn't accurate enough to track individuals.

Instead of making a scene down the middle, Ruby and Combusken took an immediate right down another steel coated hallway. Once he reached the end of this hall, he held his ID over some sort of scanner, which reacted by opening a door to his bedroom. There were two beds, one for him and the other for his partner. This has been his residence for roughly the past year and yet it was still nearly completely barren. The only furniture other than the beds was a projector screen in the middle of the room that could be used to project strategies and mock battles.

Ruby then groaned as he threw himself onto his bed and stretched out. He leaned over and tapped the projector table, which brought up a message icon. He opened the message, which read:

"First Admin of Team Magma,

I have some urgent news I must discuss with you regarding Team Aqua. Their activity has died down as of late, but evidence shows that they will probably be making a large scale move again within the week. Our teams' 'alliance' has been waning as of late as well, I would like to check up on the status of Team Magma as well as their willingness to cooperate with Team Skystorm until the elimination of Team Aqua. If at all possible, I would like to meet up with you at Meteor Falls two days from now. As always, do not respond to this message.

Emerald Draconid"

Ruby gave a small chuckle at how serious Emerald had to make this letter sound because he knew it would automatically be forwarded to Maxie. Ruby sighed, "And here I thought we'd get a little bit of a break. You have some pretty shit timing Emerald." The boy then tapped another button on the projector screen, which started a call.

Before long, a mature male voice picked up the phone, "I can only guess this is about the message from Emerald."

Ruby confirmed, "You bet, but the thing is, I need the go ahead from you boss man. The team will get suspicious if I just wander off on my own."

Maxie responded, "Indeed they would. I'm assuming you don't have any additional information on this meeting, correct."

Ruby explained, "I'm in the dark as much as you this time. But this does sound rather urgent. I haven't gotten a message from Emerald in months, let alone one telling me shit's about to go down."

Maxie acknowledge, "This message did indeed sound rather important. But as you know, your freedoms in this Team do have their limitations. I can't have you going out on your own for this mission. I'll be sending you with a small group of grunts. See to it that they aren't killed, but also that they don't learn of our alliance with Skystorm. I'd rather not have word spreading around that we are in league with them. It would be a most unfortunate impact on team morale."

Ruby nodded, regardless of the fact that Maxie couldn't actually see him, "Alright. Assemble a squad for me and we will start off at ten tomorrow. Thank you for the opportunity."

Maxie didn't respond and the transmission ended abruptly. Combusken thought to Ruby, "What a charmer."

Ruby laughed and said, "Yeah, well among the grunts he has the charisma of a Arceus himself. Say what you will about his analytical sense to literally everything, to the idiots in the ranks of this team, his callus natured is his most admired quality."

Coumbusken chirped and said, "Better keep your opinions about the grunts in your thoughts. If they heard you, they'd try to kill us."

The boy laid back in his bed before responding, "Not like any of them could even if they tried. Unlike most of those spineless simpletons, I've seen some shit, and done even more." Ruby was of course referring to the tragedy of the Slateport Contest Hall that happened roughly a year ago. Since then however, the only times he has done harm to others is when he finds Team Aqua members that don't respond to his questions. Seeing them triggers a form of bloodlust in the boy that he never knew existed until recently.

Ruby then rolled over in his bed and snapped. The lights dimmed in reaction to the reverberating sound and the boy pulled up his sheets saying, "Well, I say we call it a day. We got ourselves a gym badge and we have our plan for tomorrow. Might as well get some sleep.

Combusken agreed with a slight nod before laying in his own bed. The two were quickly overtaken by sleep's embrace.