Chapter 31: further development
Josh:
I turned to Tank and Winona and rubbed my head sheepishly as I say "since we were going to the same city, we should have asked her to teleport us there too" the gym leaders thought it was a good idea and Tank pointed out "that might have been a bit risky for Lace and Nei, if Team Aqua sees them with the other gym leaders then they will find out they're working for the gym leaders and the pokemon association. That would put them in a lot of danger" thinking on it, Tank was right. They're in the middle of Team Aqua and if they suspect them for working with the other gym leader, even Nei's healing power would only by them time from being attacked by high ranking members. We'd need to consider the best possible actions to take, the twins, Brawly and Flannery are out of commission. Though going in an attacking Team Aqua and Magma admins is our better option, but the problem is that we don't know where the base is and if we strike too soon, they'll be able to implement their plan. We have their machine and know what it's for, but we still don't know how that would benefit them, why would they need to soak up radiation? Catching them would delay this plan, assuming that its not in conjunction with the one we're trying to stop right now.
I agreed with Tank and he suggested that some of us go to Lilycove City and ask Brawly and Flannery what happened. Tank suggested "I think me and Josh should go but we'll need to go with gym leaders to help with numbers, in case something bad happens. If Nei was right, Team Aqua's base is in Lilycove City and we'll have six admins and two leaders to deal with at once" Courtney stepped forward and said "I'm going with you then, they're once a group I was a part of and I need to stop how they've grown" it was settled that myself, Tank, Courtney and Norman to go and check on Brawly and Flannery.
We made our way to Lilycove City, passing through route 120 and 121, passing by route 122 where Mount Pyre is, and the location of the orbs were. We traversed the routes in less time than the other gym leaders did when they came down here. Norman asked "Courtney, why did you leave Team Magma in the first place? Was it because your last attempt failed?" me and Tank listened as we travelled. Courtney sighed and answered "Team Magma made me feel like I belonged when it felt like the region was against me, I left when the crimes I did wasn't full filling my dreams and aspirations. I wanted to be a contest master and my dream was always shot down, by rivals or unfair judges. I left to purpose my dreams and now, someone I don't know who calls themselves Courtney wants me dead" we could hear the sincerity to her voice, she wasn't lying and her words had that emotional weight behind them. Norman believed her as much as myself and Tank, he then asked "everyone needs to have a dream to follow to become a better version of themselves. Speaking of, Josh, Tank, what about the both of you?" me and Tank hesitated to answer and Tank was the first to answer "my dreams are to travel and to see the world. Becoming a stronger version of myself as I learn about the world we live in. Nei's dream is obvious" Norman looked to me and Tank confused and asked "obvious how?" Tank continued "she wants to help other people and because of that, she forgot about being a trainer and went straight for poke nurse. She became a poke nurse and travels around to help heal pokemon where she can" Norman asked "what about your friend Lace and Josh?" Tank answered "I can't speak for either of them, you'll need to ask them yourself" when Norman looked my way, I shook my head. I didn't want to talk about what my dreams were or what I aspire to be.
We arrived at the Lilycove pokemon centre and we checked in on the gym leaders, all of them who had been badly hurt recently. Tate and Liza were recovering faster than you'd expect, in a world where receiving this kind of damage, getting medical attention to help heal wounds like this on people wasn't so surprising. But what was surprising is that it'd still take a while to recover but it looks like they'll be up on their feet in about a weeks time. They were sitting up in the medical beds and waved us over, Norman asked "how are you both feeling?" Flannery was the first to answer "besides gutted that we both lost, we're fine now that we've had time to recover. The nurses say we still need to rest though, the twins are doing much better thanks to the advanced medicine" Norman agreed as I and Tank sat in front of the beds. Tank asked "I know you both are recovering from your injuries, could you tell us what happened when you came to interrupt the meeting between the admins?" Brawly nodded and rubbed the back of his head "we got our butts handed to us, but in our defence, we wasn't expecting multiple admins to battle us at the same time from both Team Magma and Team Aqua" being attacked by the two from Team Magma, though Team Aqua's involvement is confusing. They're not working together when the gym leader went to stop it, Josh asked "could you tell us everything that happened before and during the battle you both were involved with? I feel like there's important information there which will prove to be useful when confronting them in the future" Flannery nodded, agreeing that if their defeat, and hospitalisation, would benefit the group to find a weakness to their ranks then she'd wanna help with it. me and Tank listened intently as Flannery told us what happened upon entering Lilycove City.
