Chapter 7
Tom was running through the woods, his lean, yet muscular frame pushing against the wind. All seven of his pokemon were out, running with him. Even alakazam was doing his best, teleporting when he couldn't keep up, or lagged too far behind. Kingdra was last, riding a miniature wave, in a rather unique version of the surf attack. Shadow, however was levitating along, grinning at the other pokemons' predicament, most sweating profusely, straining their leg muscles.
Tom, used to his own pace, glared at shadow. The pokemon was a good fighter; there was no doubt about *that*. But its personality was lacking, to say the least. Shadow was definitely not lacking in discipline, following Tom's instructions well, but it often played rather irritating pranks, such as the episode with the snorlax. its character seemed to be a cross between mischievous and outright frustrating.
Tom sighed, but continued jogging -- which was more like sprinting to the other pokemon. Soon, he returned all the pokemon but shadow, finding them winded and wheezing; fighting for breath. Shadow preferred to stay out of his ultraball, unless it was just before a gym battle.
***
Tom emerged from the canopy of trees, the foliage ending at last.
The view was excellent, to say the least. The pasture was covered with grass, with flowers littering the field here and there. A small cluster of buildings, however, interrupted the view. *The gym... That thing stick out like a sore...* Tom was interrupted by a figure coming out from the gym. *Isn't that...* "ANGUS!!!" Tom was off like a shot, dashing towards his friend.
The figure turned at the yell, and waved, evidently recognising Tom. Now face-to-face, the two trainers grinned. There was a moment of silence, and then at the same instant, both started speaking. "Hi! Wo... You first." "Hi! No; you first."
The two laughed, and Tom spoke. "Well, what's your team?" With an obviously mock evil smile, Angus answered, "Scizor, lanturn, sneasel, xatu, charizard, machamp, golem." The first four bore no surprises, but Tom's eyes widened at the last three, after which he frowned.
"What happened to your eevee?" *Unlike the simulators, people seldom change their teams in real life... Again something that a Pokemon Tech guy won't ever understand...*
Angus smiled. "Well, I sent him back to my sister for a pet."
"You have a sister? I thought you were an orph... Sorry."
"That's alright... Anyway what's *your* line-up?"
"Alakazam, electabuzz, magmar, kingdra, skarmory, rhydon, and... WAH!!! and er... *it*..." Tom gestured at shadow, who had just teleported in, startling the duo.
"Is that a gengar? Looks sort of peculiar if you ask me though..."
"Er... There's a good reason for that... its not a gengar..."
Angus just stared, both at shadow and Tom, until Tom explained.
"Woa! Lisa gave you a new pokemon? She just gave me a Charisific Valley pass, and its one-time only, and I only got one chance to capture a charizard."
"How 'bout a battle?"
"Sure, since we both got seven pokemon, lets make it a full-out battle."
Tom thought back to the trainings. During them, shadow and alakazam, having the best arsenal of ranged attacks, usually fired their attacks at the other pokemon, allowing them to train their evasion and speed. Their roles often reversed, with the other pokemon shooting all sorts of projectiles, and shadow and alakazam doing their best to teleport out of the way of the numerous thundershocks, embers, and the like -- the attacks were all low powered, when used during this kind of training. Also, Tom's own psychic training had come along very well due to shadow and alakazam's continued support and tests.
The two trainers took their places, using part of the plain as a makeshift arena.
"Go!" Two shouts rang out at the same time. The trainers settled down to watch; in an "ideal" battle, where both pokemon were of an extremely high level, the trainers shouldn't be able to keep up with the attacks, let alone give commands. Besides, giving the commands just gives the opponent a chance to know what attack is coming up, and escape or dodge it.
A scizor and an electabuzz appeared, both gazing at one another confidently. Electabuzz didn't hesitate, before unleashing two -- no three thunderbolts at scizor. Scizor, with amazing reaction speed, managed to use double-team a couple of times before the yellow bolts could arc even halfway towards it. With frightening effeciency, it utilised an agility, all five images blazing towards electabuzz, claws raised. The three electric attacks lanced right through three images of scizor, making them fade out. Two "scizors" remained, one real, the other just an image; both still charging towards electabuzz.
Electabuzz revealed a sly grin, and unknown to all but himself, erected an invisible reflect, preparing a duo fire punch at the same time. Tom's eyes widened; the two scizors had each charged up *two* hyper beams, one in each claw, while speeding towards electabuzz. The pearl like globules of energy formed swiftly, and speared straight at electabuzz.
The attacks, instead of glancing off the concealed barrier, shattered it completely, turning the defensive cover into a thousand now-visible pieces. The "scizors", seemingly unfazed, nevertheless flinched, as it didn't manage to stop in time, crashing straight into a fiery fist. The image dissipated immediately, but the real scizor, received quadraple damage, and was thrown back by the sheer force hidden in the attack.
The scizor flew back ten metres, all the while frantically trying to regain control. It landed unceremoniously in the grass, but jumped up straight away -- right into the path of a well aimed thunder attack, surrounded by three slower moving rings of voltage, a thunderwave. Both attacks hit, sending scizor back a few more metres. This time, scizor landed on ground, no longer unaffected, but twitching madly, its movements jerky and uncontrolled.
With a partial quick attack, electabuzz crossed the few dozen metres separating the two combatants in a heartbeat, mercilessly throwing fire punches at his paralysed opponent. Angus could only look on horrified, as his favourite pokemon collapsed, no longer convulsing, in a clear faint.
The next pokemon up reacted slowly to its new opponent. The ball of stone gazed at electabuzz calmly, knowing that it had both the advantage of type and being less tired. Electabuzz, however, showed no signs of fatigue, determined not to reveal any weaknesses. With a sudden burst of speed, electabuzz was behind the golem, smashing his fists together in a karate chop imitation. The super effective fighting move did not seemed to affect the golem; it turned around menacingly, slamming its rocky arms into the ground in an impressive earthquake. Merely unbalanced, electabuzz gave golem a duo ice punch, leaving a layer of frost where the contacts were.
The golem, sounding like it was irritated, grabbed electabuzz, leaping up half a metre, giving the startled electabuzz a literally earth-shattering seismic toss, itself landing on electabuzz. With a groan, the strong electric type fainted. In his place, Tom sent out kingdra. The dragon pokemon grinned at her even slower opponent, immediately going for the offensive, summoning a wave to drown it.
The water washed over the golem, but soon drained away, only to reveal a hole. Kingdra, utilising the failed strategy from the ground gym battle, cast a blizzard on herself, and agilitied away. The snowstorm, conjured by the water type, soon cleared, allowing a frozen golem to come into view. A crimson beam retrieved the iced up boulder-like pokemon, and a whale like pokemon materialised in a flash.
The lanturn was nervous in the grass environment, obviously more used to being surrounded by the sea or ocean. Kingdra analysed the situation in a split second, sending out a couple of twisters. The two howling maelstorms of pure dragon energy spun, twisting and turning its way to the other water type. Lanturn, who was, for all intents and purposes immobile on land, could only stand its ground, gushing a hydro pump at the approaching twisters, hoping to slow it down. Unfortunately for Angus, the tempest absorbed the water, integrating the liquid into the attack, and slammed, full force into lanturn. With a colossal effort, lanturn grunted, and raised its head once more, even after the combined force of two mammoth twisters, and its own hydro pump.
With finality, lanturn used its flail attack, thrashing around on the ground, barely affecting kingdra, who was watching the almost embarrassing spectacle some distance away. Unable to bear the pain anymore, lanturn closed its eyes, unconscious.
***
The rest of the fight was closely matched, and only alakazam and charizard were left. Shadow had gone down, loosing to the amazingly fast attacks of sneasel, but ultimately taking it down also with a destiny bond.
The psychic and fire pokemon faced each other, both fresh, yet experienced in battle. The charizard took to the air, unleashing a few dozen small fireballs, going for more widespread damage instead of a concentrated flamethrower. The grass ignited, looking like a small-scale fire storm. With a thought, alakazam put out the blaze, then casually teleported below charizard, swiftly charging up a psychic attack. As the yellowish psychic energy gathered around alakazam, charizard finally found him, and acted to dodge the incoming attack.
Eyes gleaming, alakazam completed the psychic charge, and sent it up, and concentrated again. This time however, no attacks came out. Both trainers stared at the scene, confused, which is when something unbelievable happened. High up in the air, charizard began a dive, but abruptly stopped, frozen in place. It was not flapping its wings, somehow still staying in the air. Tom drew in a sharp breath. *Alakazam is mentally keeping charizard in place to receive the attack....* The psychic attack tore right into charizard, eliciting a huge roar of agony from it.
With fire in its eyes, charizard let loose a scorching flamethrower right at alakazam. Still holding charizard in place, alakazam manipulated this attack as well, sending the air currents themselves moving right back at charizard. Charizard gave a final roar, taking the full brunt of the flames, and slumped in midair. Sweating, alakazam dropped charizard. All eyes focused on alakazam, waiting to see if it was a draw. Alakazam stayed up.
Charizard however picked itself up, rushing towards alakazam at an insane speed, low in the air. Struggling even to remain standing, alakazam had no time to teleport away, let alone put up a barrier. Charizard, slamming into alakazam, got back up... alakazam didn't. Tom looked on... hoping... *It can't be... I *can't* lose...*
The two pokemon were returned, the movement almost mechanical on Tom's part. Angus walked over to Tom, who was in a daze. "Hey great battle..." Angus held out his hand, but Tom batted it away. *"DON'T *TOUCH* ME!"* He roared.
With a crazed look in his eyes, Tom ran off at top speed, all the while muttering, "I can't lose, I can't lose..." Angus, wide-eyed, looked at Tom, and said softly, to the air, "Yeah, you're welcome..."
***
Tom had been tearing through the forest for half an hour, when he suddenly slumped down onto the dirt ground, tears streaming from his eyes. He slammed his fists into the ground, screaming, "No!!!". Almost in harmony with the shout, trees around Tom began to tear themselves out of the soil, plucked by an unseen hand. "No!!!" At this second shout, even more plants began to emerge from the earth, almost as if they were trying to get away from Tom.
Tom glared at the ground, on all fours, with a crazed look in his eyes. Abruptly, he closed them, and *wished* that everything would just explode, and *pushed*.
And they did.
***
High above the electric gym's pokecentre, Angus rode on his humongous charizard, looking in the direction that Tom had run off to. "Okay charizard, let's go find our friend." Xatu, gliding alongside the two, squawked. "What?" *Look there.* Xatu pointed with its talons. Angus looked, and very nearly fell off charizard's back in shock.
Some distance away in forest, what seemed like a hurricane was literally exploding out from a certain point, picking and tossing trees like they were toothpicks. *SHIT!* "Xatu! Light screen! All around us!" But the defensive barrier was torn apart, the destructive storm having reached them. The raging winds buffeted the three mercilessly, sending them crashing down to the earth.
***
The morning after, the electric gym, and well as the pokecentre and pokemart were fine, although battered. Angus sat, conversing with his xatu on what exactly happened.
*Two thirds of the forest, now just dirt.*
"Why didn't the pokecentre get word of it sooner? A storm of *that* magnitude surely would have been detected much earlier on." *It would...*
"Huh???"
*It would, if it was natural. This one wasn't. I could *sense* a *presence*, propelling and creating the storm. One that is rather familiar to you.*
"Tom? But that is absurd!" Angus was just greeted by a nod. He shivered uncontrollably.
***
Standing at the epicentre of the destruction, Tom gazing around him in a daze. The anguish, the fury and the despair and yesterday's lose had departed, leaving an emptiness. *First things first... A pokecentre...* In a flash, Tom was outside the electric gym pokecentre, giving all seven of his fainted pokemon to nurse Joy. In his half-awake mode, Tom didn't notice the desolation around him, nor did he register that he had teleported to the pokecentre.
Angus immediately rushed up to Tom, shouting his name. Tom turned his head, slowly, as if it took a lot of effort.
Angus gasped. Tom's eyes, which had been so full of life and vigour the day before, was now hollow, somehow devoid of all the sparkle that Angus was used to seeing in his friend. They talked, or rather Angus talked.
The news report came on, the television brought back to commision by the gym leader. "...Sabrina, the gym leader in Saffron City, claims that yesterday's extraordinarily powerful storm that torn up a large expense of trees, was *not natural*. Stand by for the recorded interview..."
Tom walked outside at this, dragging his feet to the counter first, to pick up his rejuvenated pokemon. Angus followed, not knowing what to do.
***
All fourteen pokemon, and Angus sat around Tom, try to get through to him hoping to register a frown, a smile, a sob even -- anything. They were some distance from the electric gym pokecentre, try to discover how the storm had came about. Finally shadow, with the help of alakazam and xatu, slumped down in defeat. All three psychics had been trying to break past the psychic shield that Tom had somehow projected strong enough to deflect all their efforts to read his mind.
Finally, the three gave it another try, putting all their considerable brainpower together, attacking the same spot. This time, shadow caught a glimpse, just a glimpse, before all three were repelled, physically as well as mentally. The three pokemon were blown quite a few metres back, landing rather ungracefully. Shadow shared what he saw -- a portion of Tom's memory.
***
Tom finally opened up, sharing with alakazam what had happened. Apparently, he had expelled his anger, in a rather *undesirable* fashion. How -- that was what had everyone stumped; everyone, that is, except shadow.
{Tom here, thanks to his anger, has opened up a deep reservoir of power within himself, one so deep that not even I can fathom its limits. I am not sure exactly how he has done it, and I don't particularly want to find out either. Put simply, his emotions have made him much more powerful -- possibly more powerful than he can control. That storm yesterday is just a small fraction of what he can do -- if fully trained.}
Everyone was pale at shadow's explanation. Silence reigned, broken a few minutes later by a ringing. Angus and Tom's pokegear phones were both ringing. Tom and Angus picked theirs up; as the conversation on the line continued, their faces ashen.
A while later, they put down the phones, both stunned beyond belief.
Tom was running through the woods, his lean, yet muscular frame pushing against the wind. All seven of his pokemon were out, running with him. Even alakazam was doing his best, teleporting when he couldn't keep up, or lagged too far behind. Kingdra was last, riding a miniature wave, in a rather unique version of the surf attack. Shadow, however was levitating along, grinning at the other pokemons' predicament, most sweating profusely, straining their leg muscles.
Tom, used to his own pace, glared at shadow. The pokemon was a good fighter; there was no doubt about *that*. But its personality was lacking, to say the least. Shadow was definitely not lacking in discipline, following Tom's instructions well, but it often played rather irritating pranks, such as the episode with the snorlax. its character seemed to be a cross between mischievous and outright frustrating.
Tom sighed, but continued jogging -- which was more like sprinting to the other pokemon. Soon, he returned all the pokemon but shadow, finding them winded and wheezing; fighting for breath. Shadow preferred to stay out of his ultraball, unless it was just before a gym battle.
***
Tom emerged from the canopy of trees, the foliage ending at last.
The view was excellent, to say the least. The pasture was covered with grass, with flowers littering the field here and there. A small cluster of buildings, however, interrupted the view. *The gym... That thing stick out like a sore...* Tom was interrupted by a figure coming out from the gym. *Isn't that...* "ANGUS!!!" Tom was off like a shot, dashing towards his friend.
The figure turned at the yell, and waved, evidently recognising Tom. Now face-to-face, the two trainers grinned. There was a moment of silence, and then at the same instant, both started speaking. "Hi! Wo... You first." "Hi! No; you first."
The two laughed, and Tom spoke. "Well, what's your team?" With an obviously mock evil smile, Angus answered, "Scizor, lanturn, sneasel, xatu, charizard, machamp, golem." The first four bore no surprises, but Tom's eyes widened at the last three, after which he frowned.
"What happened to your eevee?" *Unlike the simulators, people seldom change their teams in real life... Again something that a Pokemon Tech guy won't ever understand...*
Angus smiled. "Well, I sent him back to my sister for a pet."
"You have a sister? I thought you were an orph... Sorry."
"That's alright... Anyway what's *your* line-up?"
"Alakazam, electabuzz, magmar, kingdra, skarmory, rhydon, and... WAH!!! and er... *it*..." Tom gestured at shadow, who had just teleported in, startling the duo.
"Is that a gengar? Looks sort of peculiar if you ask me though..."
"Er... There's a good reason for that... its not a gengar..."
Angus just stared, both at shadow and Tom, until Tom explained.
"Woa! Lisa gave you a new pokemon? She just gave me a Charisific Valley pass, and its one-time only, and I only got one chance to capture a charizard."
"How 'bout a battle?"
"Sure, since we both got seven pokemon, lets make it a full-out battle."
Tom thought back to the trainings. During them, shadow and alakazam, having the best arsenal of ranged attacks, usually fired their attacks at the other pokemon, allowing them to train their evasion and speed. Their roles often reversed, with the other pokemon shooting all sorts of projectiles, and shadow and alakazam doing their best to teleport out of the way of the numerous thundershocks, embers, and the like -- the attacks were all low powered, when used during this kind of training. Also, Tom's own psychic training had come along very well due to shadow and alakazam's continued support and tests.
The two trainers took their places, using part of the plain as a makeshift arena.
"Go!" Two shouts rang out at the same time. The trainers settled down to watch; in an "ideal" battle, where both pokemon were of an extremely high level, the trainers shouldn't be able to keep up with the attacks, let alone give commands. Besides, giving the commands just gives the opponent a chance to know what attack is coming up, and escape or dodge it.
A scizor and an electabuzz appeared, both gazing at one another confidently. Electabuzz didn't hesitate, before unleashing two -- no three thunderbolts at scizor. Scizor, with amazing reaction speed, managed to use double-team a couple of times before the yellow bolts could arc even halfway towards it. With frightening effeciency, it utilised an agility, all five images blazing towards electabuzz, claws raised. The three electric attacks lanced right through three images of scizor, making them fade out. Two "scizors" remained, one real, the other just an image; both still charging towards electabuzz.
Electabuzz revealed a sly grin, and unknown to all but himself, erected an invisible reflect, preparing a duo fire punch at the same time. Tom's eyes widened; the two scizors had each charged up *two* hyper beams, one in each claw, while speeding towards electabuzz. The pearl like globules of energy formed swiftly, and speared straight at electabuzz.
The attacks, instead of glancing off the concealed barrier, shattered it completely, turning the defensive cover into a thousand now-visible pieces. The "scizors", seemingly unfazed, nevertheless flinched, as it didn't manage to stop in time, crashing straight into a fiery fist. The image dissipated immediately, but the real scizor, received quadraple damage, and was thrown back by the sheer force hidden in the attack.
The scizor flew back ten metres, all the while frantically trying to regain control. It landed unceremoniously in the grass, but jumped up straight away -- right into the path of a well aimed thunder attack, surrounded by three slower moving rings of voltage, a thunderwave. Both attacks hit, sending scizor back a few more metres. This time, scizor landed on ground, no longer unaffected, but twitching madly, its movements jerky and uncontrolled.
With a partial quick attack, electabuzz crossed the few dozen metres separating the two combatants in a heartbeat, mercilessly throwing fire punches at his paralysed opponent. Angus could only look on horrified, as his favourite pokemon collapsed, no longer convulsing, in a clear faint.
The next pokemon up reacted slowly to its new opponent. The ball of stone gazed at electabuzz calmly, knowing that it had both the advantage of type and being less tired. Electabuzz, however, showed no signs of fatigue, determined not to reveal any weaknesses. With a sudden burst of speed, electabuzz was behind the golem, smashing his fists together in a karate chop imitation. The super effective fighting move did not seemed to affect the golem; it turned around menacingly, slamming its rocky arms into the ground in an impressive earthquake. Merely unbalanced, electabuzz gave golem a duo ice punch, leaving a layer of frost where the contacts were.
The golem, sounding like it was irritated, grabbed electabuzz, leaping up half a metre, giving the startled electabuzz a literally earth-shattering seismic toss, itself landing on electabuzz. With a groan, the strong electric type fainted. In his place, Tom sent out kingdra. The dragon pokemon grinned at her even slower opponent, immediately going for the offensive, summoning a wave to drown it.
The water washed over the golem, but soon drained away, only to reveal a hole. Kingdra, utilising the failed strategy from the ground gym battle, cast a blizzard on herself, and agilitied away. The snowstorm, conjured by the water type, soon cleared, allowing a frozen golem to come into view. A crimson beam retrieved the iced up boulder-like pokemon, and a whale like pokemon materialised in a flash.
The lanturn was nervous in the grass environment, obviously more used to being surrounded by the sea or ocean. Kingdra analysed the situation in a split second, sending out a couple of twisters. The two howling maelstorms of pure dragon energy spun, twisting and turning its way to the other water type. Lanturn, who was, for all intents and purposes immobile on land, could only stand its ground, gushing a hydro pump at the approaching twisters, hoping to slow it down. Unfortunately for Angus, the tempest absorbed the water, integrating the liquid into the attack, and slammed, full force into lanturn. With a colossal effort, lanturn grunted, and raised its head once more, even after the combined force of two mammoth twisters, and its own hydro pump.
With finality, lanturn used its flail attack, thrashing around on the ground, barely affecting kingdra, who was watching the almost embarrassing spectacle some distance away. Unable to bear the pain anymore, lanturn closed its eyes, unconscious.
***
The rest of the fight was closely matched, and only alakazam and charizard were left. Shadow had gone down, loosing to the amazingly fast attacks of sneasel, but ultimately taking it down also with a destiny bond.
The psychic and fire pokemon faced each other, both fresh, yet experienced in battle. The charizard took to the air, unleashing a few dozen small fireballs, going for more widespread damage instead of a concentrated flamethrower. The grass ignited, looking like a small-scale fire storm. With a thought, alakazam put out the blaze, then casually teleported below charizard, swiftly charging up a psychic attack. As the yellowish psychic energy gathered around alakazam, charizard finally found him, and acted to dodge the incoming attack.
Eyes gleaming, alakazam completed the psychic charge, and sent it up, and concentrated again. This time however, no attacks came out. Both trainers stared at the scene, confused, which is when something unbelievable happened. High up in the air, charizard began a dive, but abruptly stopped, frozen in place. It was not flapping its wings, somehow still staying in the air. Tom drew in a sharp breath. *Alakazam is mentally keeping charizard in place to receive the attack....* The psychic attack tore right into charizard, eliciting a huge roar of agony from it.
With fire in its eyes, charizard let loose a scorching flamethrower right at alakazam. Still holding charizard in place, alakazam manipulated this attack as well, sending the air currents themselves moving right back at charizard. Charizard gave a final roar, taking the full brunt of the flames, and slumped in midair. Sweating, alakazam dropped charizard. All eyes focused on alakazam, waiting to see if it was a draw. Alakazam stayed up.
Charizard however picked itself up, rushing towards alakazam at an insane speed, low in the air. Struggling even to remain standing, alakazam had no time to teleport away, let alone put up a barrier. Charizard, slamming into alakazam, got back up... alakazam didn't. Tom looked on... hoping... *It can't be... I *can't* lose...*
The two pokemon were returned, the movement almost mechanical on Tom's part. Angus walked over to Tom, who was in a daze. "Hey great battle..." Angus held out his hand, but Tom batted it away. *"DON'T *TOUCH* ME!"* He roared.
With a crazed look in his eyes, Tom ran off at top speed, all the while muttering, "I can't lose, I can't lose..." Angus, wide-eyed, looked at Tom, and said softly, to the air, "Yeah, you're welcome..."
***
Tom had been tearing through the forest for half an hour, when he suddenly slumped down onto the dirt ground, tears streaming from his eyes. He slammed his fists into the ground, screaming, "No!!!". Almost in harmony with the shout, trees around Tom began to tear themselves out of the soil, plucked by an unseen hand. "No!!!" At this second shout, even more plants began to emerge from the earth, almost as if they were trying to get away from Tom.
Tom glared at the ground, on all fours, with a crazed look in his eyes. Abruptly, he closed them, and *wished* that everything would just explode, and *pushed*.
And they did.
***
High above the electric gym's pokecentre, Angus rode on his humongous charizard, looking in the direction that Tom had run off to. "Okay charizard, let's go find our friend." Xatu, gliding alongside the two, squawked. "What?" *Look there.* Xatu pointed with its talons. Angus looked, and very nearly fell off charizard's back in shock.
Some distance away in forest, what seemed like a hurricane was literally exploding out from a certain point, picking and tossing trees like they were toothpicks. *SHIT!* "Xatu! Light screen! All around us!" But the defensive barrier was torn apart, the destructive storm having reached them. The raging winds buffeted the three mercilessly, sending them crashing down to the earth.
***
The morning after, the electric gym, and well as the pokecentre and pokemart were fine, although battered. Angus sat, conversing with his xatu on what exactly happened.
*Two thirds of the forest, now just dirt.*
"Why didn't the pokecentre get word of it sooner? A storm of *that* magnitude surely would have been detected much earlier on." *It would...*
"Huh???"
*It would, if it was natural. This one wasn't. I could *sense* a *presence*, propelling and creating the storm. One that is rather familiar to you.*
"Tom? But that is absurd!" Angus was just greeted by a nod. He shivered uncontrollably.
***
Standing at the epicentre of the destruction, Tom gazing around him in a daze. The anguish, the fury and the despair and yesterday's lose had departed, leaving an emptiness. *First things first... A pokecentre...* In a flash, Tom was outside the electric gym pokecentre, giving all seven of his fainted pokemon to nurse Joy. In his half-awake mode, Tom didn't notice the desolation around him, nor did he register that he had teleported to the pokecentre.
Angus immediately rushed up to Tom, shouting his name. Tom turned his head, slowly, as if it took a lot of effort.
Angus gasped. Tom's eyes, which had been so full of life and vigour the day before, was now hollow, somehow devoid of all the sparkle that Angus was used to seeing in his friend. They talked, or rather Angus talked.
The news report came on, the television brought back to commision by the gym leader. "...Sabrina, the gym leader in Saffron City, claims that yesterday's extraordinarily powerful storm that torn up a large expense of trees, was *not natural*. Stand by for the recorded interview..."
Tom walked outside at this, dragging his feet to the counter first, to pick up his rejuvenated pokemon. Angus followed, not knowing what to do.
***
All fourteen pokemon, and Angus sat around Tom, try to get through to him hoping to register a frown, a smile, a sob even -- anything. They were some distance from the electric gym pokecentre, try to discover how the storm had came about. Finally shadow, with the help of alakazam and xatu, slumped down in defeat. All three psychics had been trying to break past the psychic shield that Tom had somehow projected strong enough to deflect all their efforts to read his mind.
Finally, the three gave it another try, putting all their considerable brainpower together, attacking the same spot. This time, shadow caught a glimpse, just a glimpse, before all three were repelled, physically as well as mentally. The three pokemon were blown quite a few metres back, landing rather ungracefully. Shadow shared what he saw -- a portion of Tom's memory.
***
Tom finally opened up, sharing with alakazam what had happened. Apparently, he had expelled his anger, in a rather *undesirable* fashion. How -- that was what had everyone stumped; everyone, that is, except shadow.
{Tom here, thanks to his anger, has opened up a deep reservoir of power within himself, one so deep that not even I can fathom its limits. I am not sure exactly how he has done it, and I don't particularly want to find out either. Put simply, his emotions have made him much more powerful -- possibly more powerful than he can control. That storm yesterday is just a small fraction of what he can do -- if fully trained.}
Everyone was pale at shadow's explanation. Silence reigned, broken a few minutes later by a ringing. Angus and Tom's pokegear phones were both ringing. Tom and Angus picked theirs up; as the conversation on the line continued, their faces ashen.
A while later, they put down the phones, both stunned beyond belief.