A/N:
Jedi Master Krye: Thanks, I had to wrack my brain for a way to make Chris be able to handle foes who were beyond his power level, without inserting a legendary. This seemed the most logical way. And feel free to start yelling if you think they get to be too 'mary sue', or overpowered. I take my reviewers seriously.
MevilH: Only the moves that the pokemon know will change. They get all their learned ones, practically all the TM moves, and possibly egg moves / move tutor moves. But... they don't get a power boost. So if they use a higher-level attack (learned move) than they are, the attack drains them FAR more than normal. As for the 'virus thing', I got that all the time too. I use Firefox, I just messed with some options until it stopped blocking chapters, or saying they didn't exist. I think doesn't like you if you block cookies. But I don't know for you, I'm no super-guru. Or even a tech guru.
ShadoWalker: Thanks for that. I wondered how to get the legendaries in the story, but not showing up too often, using him was the best way. And Cloudburst is modeled after Ash's Pikachu, but with a lot more age / wisdom.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Decided Path, Crumbling Barriers:
Sanja looked back at the pokemon center that HAD been their hangout for the last week. Chris had somehow stretched the preserved food enough to last them.
Though she'd had a LOT of problems. She'd had to literally channel ghosts sometimes to block them from attacking everyone. Heck, she'd even had to ask Mathrara to help her, and the rest of her pokemon team as well.
And she didn't like that fox anymore than Kani did. He kept on trying to get…
Chris sighed. "Well, I'm out of ideas now. The Rockets have bases in every city a trainer can go to, so where to?"
Sanja looked from the center to him, then narrowed her eyes. "Let's just get out of town first, before the mediums…"
Chris mentally scanned for the mediums (they had a hate for psychics, so their minds were easy to detect, though hard to penetrate). So far, they'd stayed stuck up in the tower. "Huh. They haven't moved, so far as I can tell. Still sulking in the tower, after the last time you told them off."
Sanja snorted. The 'last time she'd told them off', she'd literally attacked them with fists, while her pokemon blasted theirs. And even before it had come to that, she'd used more profanity than Chris heard in a week – and he LIVED in the slums. "They're damn well staying away. The next step is I destroy the part of my mind that handles medium powers."
Chris shuddered. "Uh… save that for a last resort. That's right next to the part of your mind that allows psychic control. You blast one part of your mind… other parts go crazy."
Sanja gave him a glare, and he grinned weakly. She finally said, "well then… it's either Fuchsia, or Vermillion…"
Chris shrugged. "Either works. I could use another badge, and both of 'em have a Rocket base to nuke."
Chris nearly flinched at the look of madness / sheer joy in her expression. "Well then, I say we go to Fuchsia. It's further away, but…"
"Psychic types get an advantage there, because of type… and their leader also happens to be the gym leader there, and he killed off the original leaders, though people don't know that." Chris shrugged, then started onto the road towards that city. If they changed their minds, they could go to Vermillion via the main road anyway.
(I still can't believe that the idiotic ninja thinks he can get away with it…)
Chris chuckled softly – he'd gotten the codenames of the LEADERS of the branches of the Rocket organization from that Admin's mind. He also knew it would be useless to finger them, they were too well protected by good reputations. Though he couldn't get the leader of Team Rocket's code name … or where he was. "Tssalyo? Dunno. You'd think that being a gym leader's prodigy and successor would be good enough, but people never can be content with power… well, mostly. Al's an exception, I'm one… hopefully…"
Anekiro shook his head. (Chris, you're special. You were born under a sign, destined, whatever. It's not your nature to abuse power, heck, I've yet to see you even attempt or try to abuse it.)
Mathrara added quickly (though if it were me…)
Kani somehow kicked him, and said disgustedly (you'd never get the power, fox.)
Mathrara snorted. (Hey, you forgot me in your little 'power upgrade' thing.)
Chris looked at Mathrara in surprise. "She did? I wonder why? Maybe you pissed her off one too many times, and now she's prepared to kick your ass from here to kingdom come with her new attacks?"
Sanja, who had been walking alongside them, smiled viciously. "Kani girl, go ahead and kick his ass. He's tried to get under my metaphorical skirt too many times."
Kani laughed, and the two of them (Kani and Sanja) turned to the helpless Vulpix. He might have Faint Attack, but Kani could teleport… and it was against most pokemon's nature to attack humans. They could do it (there wasn't any biological resistance from attacking a human) – but for what would they kill someone? The meat was crap, the only reason to kill a human would be to prove a point.
Chris frowned at that last bit of information, then filed it away to be used later. He reached for a bag on non-existent popcorn, and watched the slaughter.
Jake glared at his Houndoom. "If you're wrong, this means your death."
His Houndoom hung his head, then growled softly, pointing at the two humans. Jake's eyes widened at the sight of HIS Bayleef – finally, he'd get it back.
Now to attack.
Teskara stiffened, and turned to her new… friend. "Chris? Uh… I'm smelling something familiar."
Chris stiffened, then his eyes narrowed. "You sure are. Your former 'owner' is back, and he wants you back."
Teskara whimpered, and hid behind Chris. She didn't notice that the brawl between Sanja, Kani, and Mathrara had ended the moment she had said she smelled something.
Chris looked directly at the trees where he felt a dark void. Jake had a ghost and dark type, and sometimes the traits of dark type pokemon affect the trainer (or jackass trainer, in his case), and they develop an immunity to psychic attacks… to a degree.
"Come out Jake. I know you're after Teskara, and guess what? You're not getting her."
Sanja said murderously "you got that right, he interrupted a good fight. Everyone, GROUP ATTACK!"
Sanja threw all her pokeballs out. Her Lapras began to float on nothing, then his mouth filled with water. Sanja's other pokemon began to charge up their attacks as well.
Jake gulped. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea – he was outnumbered, and all that freakish girl's pokemon looked pissed.
Then the attacks hit him, and it didn't matter anymore.
Sanja smiled in satisfaction as she saw a limp form go flying away at over a hundred miles an hour. "Good riddance."
Chris gave her a sheepish look, then said carefully "Uh, Sanja? You know he's going to land in the middle of a lake… you didn't kill him."
Sanja glared at him. Her eyes were burning, and there was a red light in them as well. "YOU DID THAT?"
He shook his head. "Nope. I just know he's landing in the middle of a lake, surrounded by pissed off Gyarados. They might kill him, but I don't blame them. He's… quite the nasty one. Teskara's still dealing with the scars he gave her."
Sanja smiled grimly. She'd WANTED for her pokemon to kill him, but she'd take sending him into a pit of pissed off water-dragons. Chris didn't look all that upset either, for all his usual bleeding-heart nonsense that he sometimes spouted. Not all that often, but sometimes. "Fine. I'll take that."
Chris started to laugh, and managed to weakly say "You know, you really have several sides to yourself…"
Sanja glared at him, then laughed. He was kinda cute, in a weird sort of way.
