Chapter 2
Prospero stepped out of the hotel into the dim light of the early morning, feeling mildly annoyed. Not only had he been forced to tangle with an ancient, strong Parasect, but the stupid girl he had rescued had gone and stepped right up to it, getting a face full of sleep Spores. He had spent all night, when he should have been sleeping, hauling her through the forest to Goldenrod. And she still hadn't woken up by then, so he had had to check her into the Pokémon Center.
Life was so very complicated sometimes.
That was why Prospero tried to avoid it as much as he could. Life in general was fine, but the day-to-day scheduled grind of society was not up his alley. Luckily, thanks to Pokémon training, living a life of travel was a valid option. There were plenty of well-marked routes, Pokémon Centers where anyone could stay for free, as long as they didn't stay more than a week at a time, and perhaps most importantly, plenty of people outside the city life in case he wanted human companionship.
Prospero smiled. It seemed that training was good for something.
He personally had no use for it. Once, he had been a trainer, like so many other little kids. But that was years ago.
Before her.
Prospero touched the single Pokéball that rested on his belt, remembering.
After finding her, he had released his Pokémon. Those of them that hadn't chosen to go into the wild he had given away. He wondered sometimes about their new trainers.
Prospero had never trained again. Not on principle; he simply had no desire for it anymore. But he had found himself unable to give up the life. He had tried, for a while. He had found a desk job and rented an apartment with his winnings from his life as a trainer. But before long, he felt the pull of the road again, the call of those winding routes that stretched on almost forever, the journey that could never end.
Besides, she would surely have driven him mad before long in his office life.
Now he traveled, earning money where he could, hunting with her help when he couldn't. It was a good life, but not a great one. It lacked the burning urgency of training, the sense of a quest and a purpose. Training had a goal, a Holy Grail. The dusty halls of the Elite Four, the top slot of the Archives which read World Champion, the tournaments and victories and fame—these images soared in the minds of trainers, the goal and the reason and the journey all in one. Compared to that, what he did was only so much aimless wandering.
But he could never return to training. That much was for certain. Not when she raged soundlessly at the sight, even the thought of a trainer. Prospero often wished that she would just give it a rest already.
Lighten up, he thought. Yeah, that's what she needs. To just lighten up.
Prospero realized with a start that he had walked right past the Department Store he was looking for. He turned around and went inside. The air conditioning blasted in his face, chilling him immediately. He looked around for the counter where a sign proclaimed that Training-Related Items were sold there. Prospero strode over to it, listening to the click of his boots on the mirror-bright tiles.
As he approached, the redheaded saleslady flashed him a canned smile and asked how she could help him.
"I'd like four Super Potions, three Antidotes, and three Paralyze Heals, please," he told her. His supply was running low.
The woman opened the glass case behind the counter and sorted through it for the requested items. She brought them to the counter. "And would you like any Pokéballs as well?" she asked, holding one up. "We just recently received a shipment of Great Balls…"
At the sight of the ball, her voice filled his head, screaming a barely coherent thought.
the light the trap im caught the light it hurts im caged the cage the light
He forced it down, willing himself to stay in control. "No thanks," he said. "I'm not a trainer."
The saleslady looked pointedly at the single ball on his belt.
Prospero frowned. "It's my brother's," he said. "For protection."
"I see," replied the lady, ringing up his purchases. "That comes to $3700, please." Prospero reached into his pocket for his wallet and counted out the total. He handed it over and took the bag, putting his purchases away in his backpack.
Outside in the early-morning light, Prospero thought about what he wanted to do next. He didn't want to press on with so little sleep; he thought he would stay the night in a hotel and get to sleep very early to make up for last night's slog through the forest. That left the whole day to think of something to do, though.
He wandered through the city as the day brightened, eventually stopping in front of the Goldenrod Tournament Building.
Every large town or city had a tournament center nowadays, sometimes more than one. There was serious money to be made in the training industry, and a large chunk of it came from tourneys. Trainers would place a bet on their team and be randomly paired off against another entrant. They competed in open-air arenas in front of large audiences, who were themselves a huge part of the betting. Trainers could choose to compete in arenas which gave them a disadvantage, like using water Pokémon in an environment suited to fire-types, in order to drive up the odds on their bet. There were one-Pokémon matches, three-Pokémon matches, lone matches, double-or-nothing matches, day-long matches, matches where a trainer faced off against Pokémon owned by the "house" (house matches were extremely popular), and anything else the organizers could dream up. Everyone involved took it very seriously.
"Hey! It's you!"
Prospero recognized the voice of the girl he had encountered in the forest last night. Groaning softly, he turned around.
The girl was standing there, waving cheerfully at him. Prospero sized her up. She had long black hair tied in a single braid down her back, and clear blue eyes. She was short, and looked to be in her early teens. Her face was oval-shaped, with a small nose and mouth. She was wearing the current "hip" style: lots of bright colors with a black "trim". She had a white shirt and bright green pants, with black shoes, socks, and backpack, and an unzipped black vest over the shirt. She looked energetic, athletic, and, Prospero thought, quite a bit less helpless and weak now that she wasn't sobbing in terror or dead unconscious.
Three Pokéballs were clamped to her belt.
"My name's Tess Richards," she said. "I just wanted to thank you for helping me out last night."
"No problem," he answered.
She waited for him to say something else. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to, she asked, "What's your name?"
"Oh—Prospero," he said.
"Where are you headed?" she persisted.
Prospero sighed under his breath. This girl certainly didn't give up. "Ecruteak, I guess. After that, I don't really—"
"Great!" she interrupted. "Me too! We can go together!"
"What? No," said Prospero, confused. "Not happening."
Tess looked hurt. "Why not?"
Oh boy, thought Prospero. Isn't that a hell of a question. Aloud he said "You're too young and inexperienced. You'll get hurt, or at the very least slow me down."
Now the hurt expression changed to one of anger. "Oh yeah? I'll bet I'm a better trainer than you! You only have one Pokémon. Come on, I'll challenge you! If I win, I come!"
Prospero rolled his eyes. That was one thing he definitely did not miss about training: the way trainers settled a dispute through a battle. It was as if the fact that your Pokémon could beat up theirs made you morally superior.
"Sorry," he said, though he was not. "I'm not a trainer."
"Don't give me that," she said. "You have a trainer belt, a training backpack, and a Pokéball. You're even dressed for traveling!"
Prospero sighed. He knew that everything about him marked him a trainer, but why couldn't she take his word for it? Well, there was one way he could get rid of her. It wouldn't be pleasant, but it would be better than her tagging along after him.
"How about this," he said. "I know you won't believe that I'm not a trainer. So what do you say to me versus your team. If I can beat them all, you stop pestering me. If one of them can defeat me, you come along. Deal?"
Tess paused, thinking about it. She remembered how he had beaten the Parasect last night. It had seemed monstrous then, but in the light of day, she thought it might be a lot less menacing. And one guy against three Pokémon?
"Deal," she said finally. "Let's sign up. I won't go too hard; I don't want any of my Pokémon to hurt you too badly."
What a coincidence, thought Prospero. I was just thinking that I wouldn't want to hurt them.
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"Ladies and Gentlemen!" the announcer' voice boomed out over the stands. "Today, we have a very special challenge! Mister Prospero Tori will be taking on the entire team of Miss Tess Richards—without using any Pokémon!"
The crowd fell dead silent. Tess, waiting for the steel doors to open and reveal their arena, thought the people watching had probably never seen anything like this before. They probably wouldn't know what to make of it.
Not, Tess admitted to herself, that I know what to make of it either. She was trying to reconcile her fear of seriously harming her rescuer with the thrill of a challenge. This guy was clearly a fighter, and if he thought he could take on three Pokémon, well, there must be something special about him.
Who could resist a challenge like that? Certainly not Tess Richards.
She felt her competitive nature rising as always before a contest. She had only battled about fifteen trainers so far, but she boasted a fairly impressive win/loss record. She had only been defeated four times, three of them by seasoned trainers looking for easy training for their Pokémon. Tess thought of herself as a pretty fair battler.
She gripped a Pokéball in her left hand. She had her battling strategy all worked out. First off, she would use Zubat to try to gauge her opponent's strength, and maybe even find a weakness to exploit later in the fight. Depending on how he fought Zubat, and how long it took him to do it, she would decide which of her other two Pokémon to use next. She didn't think he'd be able to take out two, but if he did she would use her last Pokémon to try and outlast him and wear him down.
The doors slid open and Tess strode out into the arena, to applause from the stands. She blinked.
Tess had agreed to let Prospero pick the arena, since he was at a disadvantage, having to fight a whole team of Pokémon. She had been prepared for baking heat and a flaming arena, a giant pool, or even an icy cave.
But she had not been expecting something that looked like a child's jungle gym.
The arena was a mass of ladders, cables, and twisting steel pipes. She could barely see through it to observe her opponent as he entered the other side of the arena to thunderous applause. He walked to the center of the arena and crouched into a fighting stance. Tess sized him up.
He had ash-blonde hair that looked a little long for a guy, and he was dressed in a black cloth jumpsuit. His face was pale and angular, almost predatory in a way. He was tall and rather thin, and not very muscular. Certainly nothing to suggest he was capable of battling three Pokémon by himself.
At his waist, he still carried that single Pokéball, attached to his clothes by a short, fine chain.
"I'm ready," he declared. The crowd burst into applause. They were wild for this man who thought he could defeat Pokémon. They wanted to see him fight. But even more, they wanted to see him defeated, his blood spilling onto the arena floor.
Don't be so morbid, Tess chided herself. Still, it was a feeling she couldn't shake, standing here in a pit fighting arena.
"Then so am I," she said, pressing the catch on Zubat's ball and tossing it into the maze of pipes.
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Prospero watched the ball hit the floor, and snapped his eyes shut to avoid being blinded by the flash. Even as he opened them again, he heard the girl calling out orders. "Zubat! Astonish!"
He saw the bat Pokémon flying towards him so fast he could barely register it. He flung himself to the side, but the Zubat still managed to clip him on the ribcage, spinning him around and backward.
"Zubat, Bite!" he heard her call out. He had seen this strategy before: overwhelm the opponent with a rapid series of attacks. But Prospero wasn't going down that easily. He swung his foot in an arc above him, not bothering to try to stand up; the Zubat would just knock him down again. He felt his foot catch the Zubat on its side as it flew in for the attack.
"Astonish!"
Prospero flipped to his feet in time to backhand the Bat Pokémon to one side, inches from his face. It spun through the air for a moment, quickly stabilizing itself with a fluttering of its wings.
He crouched into his fighting stance again, watching the sightless Pokémon hovering a few feet away. Tess didn't try calling out another attack. She knew as well as Prospero did that the advantage of surprise had been lost. She considered her next move.
Abruplty, Tess yelled, "Zubat! Supersonic!"
The bat opened its mouth to emit the awful noise that disoriented and unbalanced anything unlucky enough to get the full blast of it. But Prospero did not intend for that to happen. He clamped his hands over his ears as tightly as he could.
Apparently, that was what Tess had been waiting for. He faintly heard her order another Astonish attack.
He moved his hands just a hair too slowly to knock the Zubat aside again, and it slammed into him, its body erupting in light for an instant as it did so. Prospero was too startled to respond as Tess said, "Zubat, Leech Life!"
Prospero felt a slight puncture, but no pain, as the Zubat's four sharp fangs sank into the back of his neck. Bad idea, he thought grimly as he whipped his hands behind his head and grabbed the Zubat around its middle. The Bat Pokémon struggled and bit as he pulled it off of him, but he ignored it. Wrestling the flailing creature to the arena floor, he held it pinned there for one…two…
"Three seconds!" boomed the announcer's voice. "Mr. Tori has just defeated Ms. Richard's first Pokémon, by pinning!"
Prospero stood, panting slightly, as Tess recalled the Zubat. The Zubat was more difficult than he'd expected. Not that he had thought this would be easy. It was getting harder every second as she hissed inside his mind. She was a warrior born, and her blood was up. He couldn't release her, he knew that. Not with so many around to be terrified.
It certainly was tempting, though. She could have defeated the Zubat in about fifteen seconds, and without panting like he was either.
Tess pressed the button on her next Pokéball, and as his next opponent leapt out to meet him, she clawed at the prison of his brain, screaming for release.