Nearing the end at last…

Well, sort of. I didn't really expect the story to be so long (although now that I look back, I really should've realized). At almost thirty chapters, I think this story's gotten long enough…but, I've still got way more stuff to deal with – I've only done Kanto, after all! I'm thinking of ending this one and starting a sequel rather than adding ten thousand more chapters to this story. Or not, who knows? I really haven't decided.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: What Shouldn't Have Happened

-

It was chance.

Had he not delayed, had he delayed longer, it would not have happened.

The building had been closed. It was closed often. Had this not been true, or perhaps had it not been so chronically true, or, for that matter, had the resultant complaints not finally been addressed, it would not have been open then with a junior trainer in charge.

This would have been true for only a short period, a short, short window of time, so short that the odds of any one trainer happening to be there then were almost nonexistent.

And had he not heard from others that the building was usually closed, perhaps he would not have delayed, and the window would have been missed. Or had a single phone call not occurred.

It was chance. And perhaps, even if the event, the one that should not have occurred, had been avoided, perhaps, the final end would have resulted. Perhaps it was inevitable, in its own way.

Still, what was preventable and what was not, these are very important. Because amid all the shifting of blame, one thing is agreed upon by all.

What had happened should not have.

-

-

Elliot knocked on the door. After a moment, his mother opened it. She instantly flung her arms around him and enveloped him in a smothering hug.

"It's so good to see you," she said when she released him. "I can't believe how much you've grown!" She ushered him inside.

Merci tramped down the stairs. She was wearing a slightly too-large shirt, the front pulled down severely enough to give it the look of a plunging neckline. She looked as if she had a severe potbelly. A very lumpy, angular one that kept twitching. She giggled. The lump flatted somewhat and a meowth's head appeared at the neckline.

"Merci, you're stretching your shirt," Elliot's mother said.

Merci pulled the meowth out through the neck. "Caniseeyourpokemon?" she said, jumping up and down with the meowth in her arms. He took this calmly, no doubt used to it. "Canicani?"

"In the backyard," their mother said firmly.

Outside, Merci set the fidgeting meowth down as Elliot opened up his pokeballs.

All of them save Prowler looked around. She reacted instantly, sliding herself between Din and the meowth and watching him warily.

Merci looked at the six, her eyes wide. "Wow!" she yelled. "A jigglpuff and a murkrow and a, a, a my-yena!"

"Mightyena," Elliot said.

((Hi!)) the meowth said, his voice tiny and babyish. He purred, running up to Prowler and rubbing against her chest. She didn't react. After a moment the kitten pulled back, looking devastated. He made a mewling whimper.

Blankly, Prowler bent and licked the top of his head. He quieted, rubbing up against her chin.

"I named him Fluffy," Merci said. "Isn't that a great name?"

"Yeah," Elliot said insincerely.

He had the pokemon show off to Merci one by one, the others playing around the backyard. Prowler didn't take part. She butted curtly against Din's side and the mightyena, feeling hurt, took the hint and went elsewhere. She then remained by the meowth, looking oddly resigned, until Elliot's mother told him to come in and eat lunch and they were all recalled.

-

-

"Hi Anthony," Elliot said.

"Hey," Anthony said. "Back for good or is this just a visit?"

"Just a visit."

"Oh...hey, did you see the Pokemon League battles?"

Elliot shook his head. "'Fraid not. I'd left Cerulean when they started, and then I forgot about them in Pewter, so I didn't see the last ones."

"Pewter? So…"

"Yeah, I got the seventh badge." Elliot felt somewhat uncomfortable. "So what have you been doing?"

"Well, back in school, of course. Mom says I should be a doctor, but I don't think so. My sister's been running all over the place with her clefairy – she named the poor thing Stary-dusty – and she's been talking about how she's going to be the bestest trainer ever. Oh – the gastly you gave me's been real fun. It's so weird, you can be touching it one moment and then your hand slides right through! I've been reading up on them in pokemon books." He paused for a moment. "Oh yeah, and I finally got a gamecube. Mom won't let me spend most of the money, but she let me get that."

"Money?" Elliot asked.

"Oh, right, I didn't tell you. Well, I wasn't going to be able to train my pokemon anymore, since I wasn't a trainer, so I sold them. Some other trainer's got them now, I guess."

Elliot had never thought of what he'd do once he stopped training pokemon. "Oh. I never heard about that before."

"Yeah, I guess it's not really a big thing. One of the Nurse Joys mentioned it to me when she heard I was stopping. There's some company or something that buys them to be distributed again. I got a ton of money, enough for almost four gamecubes, so Mom let me get one as long as I put the rest of it in the bank."

-

-

It was two days before Elliot left. He wasn't in any hurry, he thought. After all, the Viridian Gym was probably still closed, so he'd have to wait around there for a while. Remembering again the Officer Jenny and the wall, he tried to go west, but wound up in brambles and hedges and again decided it wasn't worth the effort. He arrived in Viridian shortly, and headed to the Pokemon Center to heal his pokemon.

There, he heard from a trainer that the Viridian Gym was finally reopened, and he rushed there immediately.

He was stopped at the gate by a pair of giant guards, each well over six feet, who informed him a battle was already in progress and he couldn't enter. They told him to come back later.

Elliot started to leave, but then remembered he had no way of knowing when the battle would end, and if he came back too late, another trainer might go in. So he sat down on a bench under a tree nearby and waited, boredly examining the amber, leafing through the charred journal, and listening to his pokedex tell him useful things about ground types such as "they are weak against water" and "don't use fire types against them". He might have gotten sick of it and wandered off had he not seen a couple other trainers approach the gym while he waited.

When a trainer finally stepped out the doors Elliot jumped to his feet and ran inside. The doors clanged shut behind him with a sound that might have sounded ominous had he been paying attention.

The gym was massive, with an unusually high ceiling, or perhaps it only seemed that way from the lights. They were located about a third of the way down and were incredibly bright, practically floodlights. They served to illuminate the center of the arena clearly, but seemed to only deepen the shadows above them and in the corners of the building. The other trainer was standing on a raised platform in front of him, so high up that the shine from the lights only reached his chest. From what Elliot could see, he looked like he was an adult, anywhere from his early twenties to late thirties. There was a big metal door under where he was standing, and Elliot wondered what might come out of there.

"The battle will be three on three," the man said, picking a pokeball.

Elliot grabbed Caw's Greatball. He'd decided to start with the murkrow because he figured it'd be best to try a pokemon who was immune to ground attacks first. That way, it was unlikely Caw would get knocked out quick, and he'd be able to see the sort of pokemon that were used.

The other pokeball opened, and the white light formed into a tauros.

"Use swift, Caw!" Elliot ordered. The murkrow beat his wings, sending a flurry of tiny glowing stars at the tauros. It snorted, tossing its head and pawing the ground.

"Ice beam!" the other trainer ordered.

The grey charm in the center of the tauros' forehead glowed, and a beam shot out from between its horns. At the last instant Caw shielded himself with his wings and glowed faintly. When the attack faded he remained in the air, wings beating raggedly.

Caw had only been to this gym a few times. Although the trainer giving the orders was not the one he'd seen before, he knew how hard the battles here were.

The tauros had barely been injured. He wasn't supposed to…But he was certain his trainer wouldn't be able to take down three pokemon with two of his. The persian wouldn't be able to take out three by herself, she'd be lucky to get one, and he doubted any of the others could do as much. Besides, it wasn't easily identified by sight

He focused, remembering the feeling of the attack hitting, and dove at the tauros. He could almost see the trainer's face in his mind – shocked but trying to hide it – as the tauros was smashed backwards, to bang into the metal doors beneath the platform. It struggled to stand back up and failed.

The other trainer recalled it and sent out a donphan. "Rollout!" he ordered, sounding annoyed.

The donphan rolled around on the floor, spinning progressively faster, then launched into the air. Caw, exhausted, was unable to dodge. He was crushed against the wall. His last thought before fainting was one of grim satisfaction.

Elliot thought. Donphan was a normal type like tauros, wasn't it? He picked Howler's pokeball. Probably wasn't the smartest move in a ground-type gym, but he didn't think Din was as strong, and Discord and Sono definitely couldn't fight something like that. "Go!" he yelled. "Flamethrower, Howler!"

The donphan was knocked over by the blast, the rollout attack stopped. It stood up, wincing, and Elliot could see that its right side, where the attack had hit, was blackened. It must have been burned. That was lucky. He glanced at the trainer, expecting a recall.

"Earthquake!" the other trainer shouted.

Uh-oh, Elliot thought as the ground under Howler smashed upward, the hard floor breaking apart. Howler whined, managing to stand back up.

"Now, take down!"

The donphan charged.

"Quick, another flamethrower!"

Howler obeyed, but the attack had only just begun by the time the donphan barreled into him. He collapsed, and Elliot recalled him.

"Go, Prowler!" Elliot ordered. "Use slash!"

She ignored him as usual. She noticed with interest the way the ground was broken apart, and saw the strange pokemon across from her that she didn't recognize. She took a moment to listen, hearing his name.

She could smell something like charred earth and flesh, and saw he was burned on one side. He turned to face her, and she saw he was slow, and made slower by the injury.

"Rock slide!"

He tossed one of the broken flat slabs on the ground at her, surprisingly fast. She just managed to dodge, the stone grazing one back leg. He continued to toss, and she darted around the arena, keeping her distance. Once he had thrown all there was around him, she moved closer again, circling and slashing at his injured side. He let out a cry of pain and tossed her away. She managed to land on her feet, her side aching, then ran at him again, jumping on his back and tearing at him. It took a moment before he managed to wrap his trunk around her foreleg and toss her off.

She stumbled, her leg feeling like it was aflame at the joint. He'd twisted it in the toss. The trainer yelled and then the ground underneath her rose up and hit her. She struggled back to her feet and lunged for the donphan again, this time tearing off the strange leathery flesh protecting his back. She sank her teeth into this space, and then the donphan vanished.

The trainer selected the third pokemon, and threw it. A nidoqueen appeared.

Prowler's eyes widened. She screamed and attacked, leaping onto the poison type and ripping furiously, her hind claws snapping as she dug them into the monster's belly and tore, her teeth in the neck as blood spurted and splattered. When this one turned entirely red and into nothing she fell to the ground and began to struggle to stand. A moment later she vanished as well.

Elliot had won.