Special thanks to the folks on pa-atreon for making this possible. Now without further ado let's get into it.
The battle between Kenpachi and the pidgeotto was too short to be notable. The bird gave a valiant effort, but even a thousand brave birds would have no chance of breaching Kenpachi's armour. At the end of the day, It was a battle decided before it even began. The Pidgeotto even evolved into a Pidgeot at the ending stretch of the fight, but it was too little and came far too late.
Kenpachi struck it down from the air with a powerful rock throw and knocked it out with a hyper beam. He turned to look at my opponent, waiting for the next pokemon as if he hadn't just finished a battle. I understood the sentiment, though. To a pokemon as strong as Kenpachi, that battle must felt more like a warmup than an actual fight.
With three of my opponent's pokemon down, he had to make his next choice count, and I had to admit being disappointed when he sent out an Exeggcute. A grass/psychic type against a rock/dark type wasn't a fair type matchup, so this pokemon either had something that made it special, or he was already out of options.
It would be preferable if it was the latter, but some of me hoped it was the former. When the Exeggcute began to try using vine whip to set up a seed drain, I shook my head in disappointment. Oak had pointed out to a younger Donnel when he was younger when they were watching the conference that most trainers tended to focus on one typing that played well to their strengths and ignore the other when it came to dual-type pokemon. It was a bit hypocritical of me to point out here since I did the same thing with many of my pokemon. Still, when the pokemon in question had such a clear weakness as a psychic type, then this overreliance was just stupid.
I had Kenpachi ignore the pokemon's attacks, allowing them to wash over his form before targeting the grass type with a storm of shadow balls. I felt my mouth drop when the grass-type pokemon somehow floated around Kenpachi's attacks before doubling the intensity of its own attacks.
It took me a second to realise I'd been had. The Exeggcute was better at grass-type moves than it had initially shown. The strength of the vine whip it was using almost tripled, and I gritted my teeth as Kenpachi was sent reeling. "Protect", I barked out in irritation. In between one second and the next, the vine whip was bouncing away from a bright green shield before being sent right back at the shield.
I considered my next course of action very carefully. He'd baited me into overextending on that last pass, but we'd managed to avert disaster. Before I could give any orders, Kenpachi decided to take the initiative. He dropped the shield before catching both vines in his claws and ripping them apart.
More shadow balls went flying at the egg pokemon, but a shield of psychic energy managed to avert most of the damage. In that time, Kenpachi used earthquake on the field to destabilise the grass type's footing before sniping it out of consciousness with a hyper beam. I watched with a smile as the trainer across from me returned his pokemon.
I resolved to have some more faith in my pokemon. They'd been battling each other for months, after all. Basic tactics weren't beyond them.
My opponent's next pokemon was a smoochum. I watched with a smile as the funny pokemon appeared on the field and was forced to immediately dodge a shadow ball from Kenpachi. We got a warning for that.
The ice/ghost type put on a terrific effort, but Kenpachi had been battling stronger pokemon even as a pupitar. His evolution made him much stronger and more versatile. The ice type's beams were deflected with protect, and the ghost moves it could call upon were torn apart by Kenpachi's own dark type offerings.
I was surprised when the pokemon attempted to use attract, but even that was of no utility. They were of egg groups that were simply too different for the move to work. Multiple rock throws were what sent the Smoochum into unconsciousness.
My opponent's last pokemon caused whispers to spread among the crowd. An Espeon. Eevee were considered some of the rarest pokemon in indigo, and this was the third one to show up in this tournament.
This was truly a bad matchup for him. Kenpachi was uniquely suited to fuck up most of his team by type advantage alone and strong enough to prevent any of his opponents from overcoming that type advantage.
The Espeon was a magnificent specimen still, larger than most eeveelutions I've seen and more graceful. I didn't understand why he'd saved such a strong pokemon for last until it started running at Kenpachi the moment the battle began.
It was injured. It had a small limp on its right back leg; even though it wasn't exaggerated, it was still easy to see. Kenpachi wasn't too enthused about fighting an injured opponent and tried to end it with a nonchalant earthquake.
Will proved to be as cunning a trainer as any when his Espeon jumped right as Broly triggered his earthquake and let his guard down. I watched in shock as the orange aura of Giga impact appeared around the psychic type as it ran in the air to charge my pokemon.
Kenpachi was caught off guard and could only cross his arms in front of his face for defence. The attack slammed into his midsection, and I saw my pokemon fold over before being sent flying into the arena barriers. He was slumped on the floor for a bit before letting out a groan and beginning to regain his feet. I snapped out his pokeball and returned him before replacing him on the field with Ino.
She was barely on the field for a few seconds before the Espeon's mind gem glowed for a second, and I felt her get sucked into a mental battle. A battle she was losing very quickly.
It got so bad that she had to lean on my mental strength to bolster her own. While on her own, she might not have had the strength to overcome the Espeon, my strength, as little as it was, was enough to overcome the gap.
I watched as the battle went on for a few more minutes before the Espeon slumped into unconsciousness. I smiled at my psychic type, and she smiled back before I returned her to her ball. I couldn't revel in my victory for long because the stadium suddenly exploded around me.
I felt heat on my skin as I was blown backwards. I couldn't even feel what I crashed into as I kept moving. It took a few minutes for me to overcome the dizziness and pain plaguing my mind.
It took me a few more minutes to feel strong enough to open my eyes and look around me. It was all chaos. I saw the stadium falling apart and heard screams of terror from practically everything in my vicinity. I needed someone. Someone from my team.
I could barely move my hand out from under my body, and it took a fierce application of will to force my hand to move to my belt and press the release button on the first pokeball I felt. I watched Magnezone appear on the field with what I'm ashamed to say; I felt only disappointment.
They appeared in red light and looked ready to bolt off to play a prank before realising what was happening around us. They turned back to me and started jabbering in pokespeak. I ignored the antics of the steel type as I tried to get a good look at what was happening.
The stadium was in chaos, and figures in black were swarming in. My confusion was cleared when I saw the emblems on their chests as they got closer to me. A bright R. Team Rocket, of course.
I couldn't see the point of attacking this event at this point, but I still ordered Magnezone to roast anyone who got too close to us. I forced my body to begin moving and found Ino's ball before sending her out of her ball.
I waved away her concern and had her use her senses to get me a clear picture of what was happening in the stadium. She closed her eyes for a few minutes while I sent Broly out of his ball next. Magnezone was quickly returned after I thanked him for his help. He wasn't a battling Pokemon, and there was no need to risk unnecessarily having him out of his ball.
Ino finished searching and sent the information she found straight to my head. Battles were going on across the stadium. The rockets' main force was concentrated at one of the private booths, and they were being fiercely opposed by a whole squad of trainer security. I wasn't a betting man, but there was little I wouldn't stake on the bet that the booth was occupied by Silph's president. So the attack was to get to him.
Why today, though? Wouldn't the finals be a better time to attack? Ino broke through my thoughts to inform me of something else she'd found. Sansa was being attacked. I looked around for her and could barely spot her in a corner of the arena, surrounded by four people dressed in the rocket uniform and another man in white.
I didn't need to give any orders for Ino to teleport me to her side. Whatever the one wearing white had been saying was interrupted by my arrival, and I didn't waste the element of surprise; to be more accurate, my pokemon didn't waste the element of surprise.
Broly blurred across the distance and sent his axe hand. However, the skull of one of the attacking Zubat and Ino used her telekinesis to snatch the rest of the Zubat from the air and slam them into the ground.
The rocket grunts looked at me in shock while the one I suspected of being an admin jumped back and took out a pokeball. I ordered Ino to use her telekinesis to stop him. Still, a dark aura covered him, and her move was ineffective.
The pokemon he sent out sent chills racking through my body. A metagross. My thoughts of him being an admin were confirmed, and I sent both Igneel and Hashirama to join the battle.
While Broly and Ino occupied themselves cutting through the grunts' pokemon like hot knives through butter, I directed Igneel to attack the Metagross.
His flame charge was held at bay by the pseudo-legendary's protect, and Hashirama used sunny day to prepare the field for the strategy I'd come up with.
My ghost type sent multiple shadow balls slamming into the Metagross's protect, and it was forced to teleport out of the way when Igneel managed to crash through the protect. It started charging up a flash canon but was forced to abandon the move to use another protect to deflect Hashirama's enormous solar beam.
I watched the admin across from me pick up another pokeball and send out a fucking Salamence. This had to be a rocket admin, which made me wonder what a rocket admin was doing attacking Sansa. The girl was cowering over the body of her dead Vulpix behind me, so I chose to pay her no mind in the meantime.
I sent out Kenpachi, and he crashed into the Salamence with a roar when he came out of his ball. The two pseudo-legendaries started rolling across the floor, wrestling with each other, and I turned to the battle going on between Igneel, Hashirama and the other pseudo-legendary.
The Metagross was amazing. Its power terrifying, but Hashirama and Igneel provided the right combination of weakness to take it down. It was fending them off for now, but that would end soon. I could already see Hashirama using his control of the environment to herd it to certain places.
Igneel was undoubtedly waiting to hit with a devasting fire-type move the moment they managed to immobilise it for longer than a few seconds. The Salamence was doing a good job of matching with Kenpachi in their physical scrap, but there was little it could do to gain an advantage.
Its claws raked across Kenpachi's body with little effect, while Kenpachi never hesitated to punish it with devastating punches whenever he could get the leverage. I could see the moment the Salamence decided that close combat wasn't going to cut it for this situation, and I ensured Kenpachi was ready.
The Salamence managed to disengage from my Tyranitar and fly a few feet into the air. It didn't get far because Kenpachi was able to send out a couple of shadow balls that hit the moment it took off the ground. It didn't come crashing down like I'd hoped and just remained hovering there, a little dazed by the attack but otherwise unaffected.
I used the pokeball next to me and sent Kisame out to the field. I'd normally keep her in reserve, but I doubted the Rocket admin had any stronger pokemon than these ones, and I didn't want to expose Kenpachi to unnecessary risk. The scars from Quicksilver's loss still ran deep in my psyche. I saw him fall from the sky every other night.
"Long-range support", I ordered Kisame, and she performed excellently as her barrage of hydro pumps and ice beams helped keep both enemy pseudo-legendaries on the backfoot.
It was only a matter of time before we overcame them, and I was proved right when Hashirama managed to connect with the Metagross with a devastating wood hammer. Igneel's blast burn slammed into its dazed form a few seconds later, and I smiled as when the smoke cleared, it showed an unconscious pokemon.
The Rocket admin tried to open another pokeball, but Ino had already finished her battles and appeared behind him with one hand on either side of his head. Whatever had been keeping him shielded from Ino's influence couldn't do it when she was so close, and he fell unconscious a second later.
The salamence's pokeball came floating over to me, and I returned it to save my team the stress of knocking it out. It was already injured and probably only had a few good attacks left in it.
I also returned the metagross to its ball and looked around at the situation in the stadium. The rockets were already retreating, and I saw a group of them running out of the stadium with a man I could recognise as the president of Silph over one's shoulder. I wondered why they didn't think of teleporting out as I returned my pokemon to their balls and prepared Ino to help me chase after them.
She teleported us in front of the exit they were planning on using and used her telekinesis to lift them all up into the air and retrieve the president. She was about to knock them all out when one of them, an admin if his attire was any indication, managed to break out and send out a massive Machoke.
Ino knocked out the rest of the grunts and appeared right behind the Machoke in the same instant. She sent a dazzling gleam that hit it right between its shoulder blade. It went flying right past me, and she followed. A moon blast crashed into the pokemon before it could even recover, and two psybeams followed suit. It had managed to use a protect to save it from the last two moves since Ino had taken a few seconds to charge up. The protect was shattered, though, and Ino appeared right behind the pokemon again. It was ready, and turned around almost instantly when she disappeared from his sight.
She must have been expecting it since she instantly teleported again to what was once the space in front of it; I watched as she stretched out a hand and touched its back before forcefully teleporting it away. When she returned, she looked exhausted but was still able to knock out the admin as he approached me threateningly. I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned around and saw the Silph president looking at me with wide, shocked eyes.
XXXX
The attack led to the cancellation of the tournament. Even though I'd managed to prevent the rocket from achieving its primary goal, they were still able to steal dozens of pokemon and kill dozens more. Only one trainer had lost their life, and the media took great pains to ensure the public knew it was an accident.
Having a terrorist agency like the Rockets around was bad enough; finding that they were willing to break the most sacred combat laws would cause mass panic. Not like anyone was being terribly calm right now, but things could be worse. Much worse.
I took a deep breath and pressed the number for the top floor on the elevator. The president of Silph had requested this meeting through an intermediary a day ago, and I accepted with virtually no hesitation. When I'd rescued him yesterday, I'd done it with the full knowledge that there would probably be some reward offered for the act.
I wasn't a good enough person to risk the lives of my pokemon for no reason. At least, I liked to tell myself that. What I did for Sansa during the attack was only to prevent Team Rocket from getting their hands on an Arcanine. With a few days to think, I'd come to the conclusion that Sansa had been purposefully targeted, and I was even beginning to suspect that the commentator that goaded her during our battle had done it for the sole reason of making her reveal that trump card. The elevator let out a chime and opened.
I walked into an office much larger than any I'd ever found myself in. I was surprised to note that there was no secretary or receptionist's desk. The entire floor was his office, and what an office it was. Larger than any office had any right to be. It looked more like a playroom in some parts than an office. There was a billiards table, a large television, and even a basketball hoop and golf hole, which also surprised me. Sports like basketball and golf weren't anywhere as popular as they'd been in my old world. Here, they still existed but were more niche things. In a world where pokemon battling was the only sport that mattered, all the others were rounding errors.
I saw him at a desk at the far end of the office, and he waved me over excitedly. As I got closer, I was forced to amend my position. Calling it a desk was a disservice. It was longer than I was, tall and wide enough for me to sleep on. I wasn't surprised to note that only a small portion of the desk seemed to actually be in use. It was just big, defying reasonable scale for some reason alien to me.
"Good morning, Sir" I decided to start things off. I couldn't just skip the pleasantries with someone as powerful and rumoured to be mercurial as Silph could be. Pissing him off would be catastrophic to my plans.
"Ahh. Good morning, Mr. Oak. Welcome, welcome, take a seat," He said while pointing out one of the seats in front of me.
"I'm sure you know why I called you here today."
"To thank me, I presume", I replied with a smile. I was going to be polite, but I was still proud of how my pokemon had conducted themselves.
"Yes, yes, to thank you. Also to get to know you. To know what kind of man would risk his own life to save mine. I've seen footage of the attack. I wasn't the only person you saved, was I?"
I just replied to his rhetorical question with a smile. I hadn't saved either of them out of the goodness of my heart. Even when I did the actions, the thought of my reward wasn't far out of my mind. I was nowhere near selfless enough to do something like that without expecting anything in return. The only question was, what was it going to be? What would I be getting from this man?
"A true hero, I'd call you. This isn't a comic though. Here, heroes get rewarded. What reward do you desire. Ask me anything, absolutely anything and it'll be yours to keep."
I swallowed the smile that threatened to break across my face. "No. No. Sir. I did it for no reward. Your thanks are enough. I couldn't ask you for anything else." This was a calculated risk. I had the feeling that anything I could think to ask for would be nothing compared to what he could give me of his own volition. That's why I was going to leave it up to him. Acting like I didn't want a reward should make him more likely to want to reward me.
"Nonsense, my boy. I know you didn't do it for any rewards but I'd feel bad to have you do so much for me and not even repay it in the smallest of ways, you know? Ok let's do this instead. The tournament has been cancelled as you well know. The only problem with that is that the rewards had already been procured so to prevent them from going to waste, we'll give them to you instead. My analysts tell me you were a favourite to win the tournament either way. Not just that though, I'll also add a pokemon that Silph recently came in contact with. Our scientists have finished all the studying they could do on it in a lab so having someone with a lab experience training the pokemon would surely be a boon to our efforts," He said with a pondering look on his face.
"Thank you very much, sir. Not to seem ungrateful but I don't think I have the space for two new pokemon; I'd dread rotating my team around on such short notice." Here, I wasn't even lying. I wanted new pokemon but appreciated the ones in my team even more than I did any others. Even Magnezone, which I'd previously been planning on sending back to the ranch, had begun growing on me.
"Ahh. Your carry limit. Such a pesky thing. I'd never ask you to rotate your team to include two new additions just like that. Consider it upgraded."
"Thank you so much, Mr. President. This means so much to me." I injected as much gratitude as I could into my tone. He'd given me more than I'd ever have been able to ask for.
We spent the rest of the meeting discussing curious pokemon. He was a well-travelled man, and I was surprised to note that he'd almost become a pokemon professor. He had lots of questions about Broly, and he'd already given me so much today that I couldn't find it in me to refuse not to answer his questions.
I gave him the same bullshit about his evolution that I'd fed Oak, but I also confirmed he was an evolution of Scyther and that he was dual rock and bug. Most of the conversation centred around his use of extreme speed and how I'd managed to teach it to him; he'd even asked if I was willing to have Broly record the move into a TM but considering that he'd end up forgetting the move if he did so, my refusal wasn't surprising.
We kept talking till we heard a soft chime from the speakers around the room. He told me it symbolised the end of the meeting and wished me luck with my journey before I left the office and went down to the reception to pick up my rewards. I checked my Pokedex on the way out and noted that the money had already been transferred to my account with a smile.
The receptionist called me over the moment I got to the lobby, and she led me out of there into a room inside the building.
"Mr Oak, welcome to Silph. You're now a silph trainer with all the duties, responsibilities and privileges that position guarantees," She said in a stiff tone that had me nodding along in boredom,
She reached into a briefcase and passed me two ultra balls that were already occupied. I clipped them to my belt, put the black credit card she gave me in front of my Pokedex and scanned it to add to my trainer ID, and then I slipped both of them into my pocket.
She passed along the empty pokeballs I'd won, which I'd have little use for in the coming months.
"We've already sent the orientation package for Silph trainers to your email. I've taken the liberty of setting your first health checkup for tomorrow. I'm sure that won't be a problem." I nodded at the unasked question and picked up the backpack containing the pokeballs.
I put it on and left the Silph building after thanking her for her help. My first destination? My hotel room.
XXXX
I was relaxing on a bed far softer than the one I'd spent the last few weeks sleeping on. I looked around my new room with a smile on my face. Money was no longer an issue with the Silph credit card on my belt. There were a few things the company would be opposed to me spending their funds on.
Silph trainers had the essentially unlimited resources of Silph at their back. Quite a few of them had managed to use these resources to make it to the finals of the conference, but no sponsored trainers had won the competition so far. Pokemon purists took it as proof that anyone who accepted battling as a business or way to make money could never be successful in the field.
The failed trainers had quickly been shuffled out of the Silph program and were rarely heard of again. I knew this, though, I knew the risks, but failure wasn't an option for me. Silph was going to back my ascension with their training resources, health care and money. I was going to pay them back by winning the damned thing with their logo on my chest.
Did I feel like a bit of a sellout when I looked at the clothes that would now be my daily attire? Yes. But feelings like that disappeared when I looked around the room I was in now and noted that all my friends could be out of their pokeballs simply because the room was that good.
Besides, the clothes were comfortable. I'd tried the jumpsuit on a few minutes after unpacking, and it felt good. It wasn't the competition attire, though; that one was more elaborate. This was a simple green and silver jumpsuit for use on everyday occasions.
I played with the pokeballs the receptionist had given me. I'd wondered what pokemon were inside each pokeball, and a quick look at my Pokedex answered my questions. One of the pokemon wasn't on the Pokedex's database, but that was a matter for later.
Tonight was just me and the family I'd built enjoying the fruits of our labour. Tonight was all about driving home the fact that hard work had rewards, and we'd worked harder than anyone else, hadn't we?
XXXX
I stood outside the Silph building, considering my next moves. I could either take a teleport to Cinnabar or make my way there on a trek through the region. While the later option wasn't something I was looking forward to, the two unopened pokeballs on my belt weighed heavily enough on me that I ended up making my way to the department store to get some bug spray.
Since I was travelling by land, there was no need to save Giovanni for last. Blaine would get that honour instead. I didn't have to buy any survival gear or food since Silph had given me the very best of their pokemon and trainer rations. They even had their own Snorlax packages, which I was incredibly grateful for.
Snorlax had told me the league's fare was filling but tasted like cardboard.
A/N; Thanks for reading. We're done with chapter 34 on the pa-atreon page. Feel free to join me there if you can. Same username as up here. The link's on my profile.
Prepare for trouble and make it double, lol. I hope the battle with the Machoke wasn't too quick, but Ino had literally too many advantages for it to be anything resembling a fair fight.
Name; Donnell Oak
Age; 15
Hometown; Pallet
Next of Kin; Samuel Oak
Account balance; 17000 Pokedollars
Pokemon.
· Kleavor (Nickname; Broly)- Male. Bug/Rock type
Moves; Signal beam, agility, fury cutter, quick attack, slash, swords dance, protect, stone axe, ancient power, hyper beam, extreme speed and rock throw.
· Milotic (Nickname; Kisame)- Female. Water type.
Moves; Brine, ice beam, hydro pump, dragon breath, dragon pulse, water gun, protect, recover, hyper beam, iron tail, blizzard, and bubble beam.
· Charizard (Nickname; Igneel)- Male. Fire-type.
Moves; Ember, dragon breath, scratch, bite, growl, metal claw, flame thrower, protect, sunny day, solar beam, hyper beam, swift, blast burn and dragon rush.
· Tyranitar (Nickname; Kenpachi)- Male. Rock/Ground type.
Moves; Tackle, rock throw, bite, crunch, bide, shadow ball, leer, hyper beam and protect.
· Gardevoir (Nickname; Ino)- Female. Psychic/Fairy type.
Moves; Teleport, psybeam, psychic, confusion, hypnosis, dazzling gleam, draining kiss, moon blast, and recover.
Trevenant (Nickname; Hashirama)- Male. Ghost/Grass type.
Moves; Sunny day, solar beam, protect, hyper beam, wood hammer, shadow claw, and destiny bond.
Snorlax (Nickname; Nil)- Male. Normal type
Moves; Mega punch, belly drum, hyper beam, protect, sleep talk, rest, earthquake, and snore.