Ch 24: No Man's Land
Scalding Springs ended up being a nice temporary distraction, but at the end of the day, it was a waste of time to linger in there for too long. All that remained before reaching Goldenleaf City was to pass the mysterious area called No Man's Land that the public was banned from entering for unknown reasons. It was so out of the way since Rocky Road and Scalding Springs were death traps for the average trainer, that Marvin was sure that we weren't going to bump into any other trainers on our journey to Goldenleaf. So far, he had been right.
Making our way through the ravine wasn't easy, seeing as there were several aggressive water pokemon that were protective of their territory. I ended up using Tropius to fend off a Swanna, but the Swanna revealed Ice Beam and got a surprise knock out on Tropius. Haunter knocked the Swanna out with a Sludge Bomb to the face, and we continued on.
"I noticed you don't really help out too much against all these attacking pokemon," I commentated. "You taking down notes on how to battle? I charge for lessons." I laughed to show him I was teasing, but by the scowl on Marvin's face, he wasn't enjoying my joke. He'd been in a bit of a sour mood since we set off that morning after camping on the beach at the end of the ravine.
"I figured you'd appreciate someone who actually knows what they're doing fixing all your rookie mistakes, bitch," Marvin Bloom spat back, and a shell of his old personality of the dickhead back in Duggie's Ruins came back to me for a moment, but then he smiled at me and the tension was gone.
The morning sun was still rising, as it was very early, with the sun reflecting off the ocean waters as we walked eastbound through the sandy beach, sometimes squeezing through narrow trenches in the rock formations along the beaches that passerby could easily miss, traveling deeper into the rocky hills along the beach as we journeyed further and further away from the tide and now southbound along the island. Marvin had a keen sense of direction, and he seemed confident that he was going the right way, so I allowed him to lead for a good while, and it was no more than 2 hours of non-stop walking that I demanded we break for a small breakfast since he had been in such a hurry to head to No Man's Land that morning.
Rolling his eyes, Marvin insisted that breaking to eat was stupid, and that we were currently in No Man's Land - to let your guard down for even just a moment could get you killed. Thinking him to be overly paranoid, I bit my tongue and allowed my stomach to rumble in hunger as I agreed with him that we should keep heading south, through No Man's Land, until we hit Goldenleaf.
No Man's Land was even more barren and pathetic than Rocky Road and the north mountains, except in No Man's Land, there wasn't a single pokemon in sight. There seemed to be no life at all, no plantations, just dunes made of rock and dirt. The fact that there weren't even bird pokemon flying in the skies above was worrisome to me for some odd reason.
"I feel like we shouldn't be here," I said, recognizing the hairs on my arms and neck standing straight. "It doesn't feel right."
"Adam, we've come so fucking far from just two kids threatening each other in an old cave. Dude, we're here, in No Man's Land! There has to be something about this place that they want to hide! And I need to find out what it is. So don't be such a bitch, I need you." Marvin pleaded with me in the best way he could, still throwing in an insult in there.
"Marvin, do you even know who they are? Maybe the place is just filled with, like, radioactive waste or something and, uh, have you noticed there's no pokemon living around here?"
"They could all be underground or nocturnal, they might come out late-"
"Dude, no, that's bullshit. There's not even bird pokemon anywhere in sight for miles flying overhead. They know there's no food anywhere in the area. No food, no pokemon. There isn't anything here, Marvin! We have to go!" I started to turn around and begin to make my way back toward the beach. Fuck it. If it meant I had to go backwards and head through the hot springs, the mountains, get back to Wintervale, and then just take the routes directly to get to Goldenleaf, I would do it. But something about No Man's Land was just screaming "deathtrap" to me and every nerve in my body was screaming to leave.
"Adam, ugh, you're fucking everything up!" Marvin shouted, the temples in his forehead bulging as he saw me heading backwards and leaving him. "We have to keep going, don't puss out on me like a little bitch!"
"I'll meet up with you in Goldenleaf, man. Sorry, but this place could have, like, poisoned air or something. I'm sorry, I'm not risking my life just to find some imaginary legendary pokemon that isn't here, Marvin."
"You have to come with me, you little bitch, or I'll fucking kill you!" Marvin screamed at the top of his lungs, making me pause in my step. I turned back to face him.
"Kill me?" I asked, ears cocked. "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you bipolar or something? Multiple personality? Anger disorder? Why do you flip from crazy to cool like nothing? I've had it with your crazy personality, dude. You really are still just that mad abusive trainer who has to hit his pokemon to feel big, aren't you?"
"Well done, Marvin, this is far enough. You've done excellent."
The voice that had spoken was not mine, and it was not Marvin's. Since I had not heard a human voice in so long, I was momentarily dazed over the weird feeling of not hearing me or Marvin, and I searched for the source of the compliment.
From behind a large stone resembling an upright Snorlax, a familiar man popped his face around the corner: a man wearing all black and missing his left ear, which he covered with a large bandana wrapped around his head. He had a long, unkempt beard. He looked a mess, as if he'd been scrounging about in the Gord Woods the past few months. It was the bastard who had attacked me and killed half my team back in the Gord.
I stared open mouthed in shock at the sight of this man here. Did he know Marvin? Was this a set up? In all my dreams, picturing the opportunity to be face-to-face with the man who almost killed me again, I thought I would have some amazing line and with a swish of a pokeball, I would reveal Drapion who would decapitate the piece of shit on the spot. But I just stared moronically in horror at the sight of this monster in front of me again, so long after that horrible night that shattered my confidence as a trainer.
"Satisfied?" Marvin asked this disgusting man, as the Anonymous member nodded his head, his eyes locked onto mine. He had the dead stare of someone who had lost their purpose in life. "He confirmed with me that he's the one that attacked your poachers in Exeter."
"I fucking knew it," the man from my nightmares smiled, baring all of his teeth. "I knew you were behind it, but no one believed me. Now I've got the proof."
"Yeah, okay, great, now where's my shit, man?" Marvin snapped at the man. This had been some kind of barter. Marvin had been tasked with bringing me way out here in the middle of nowhere, to bring me directly to the man who had tried to kill me in the Gord. I was fucking terrified. How did he know my name? How did he find me? I didn't know anything about this man but he surely knew everything about me.
"How-how-?" I stammered, trying to process everything happening in front of me but finding it impossible. "How did you find me? How do you know Marvin?"
Marvin Bloom looked at me as if I was the stupidest man on the planet. "Obviously I went to Team Anonymous to buff up my weak ass pokemon. You saw what they were like in the cave. And under their hard training, I got my pokemon to level up and win battles. And that's where I met Snake, and we exchanged stories and we found we got more in common than we thought. I still beat the shit out of all my pokemon, you dumb ass, I haven't changed at all, you've just been too blind to see it."
The Anonymous agent he called Snake spoke: "You have no idea how unlimited Anonymous' resources are. We can literally track you based on your gym progress through hacking their databases, see which town you're in and when. Maybe even track you by your trainer ID when you registered at that hostel in downtown Wintervale? It was just a matter of planting Marvin to bump into you in the lobby. It was all so bafflingly easy, I'm almost embarrassed for you. I just needed to get you way out here so we can kill you in privacy. This time there's no police to save your ass, Adam Hunter."
Things started to become clear in my mind from before: the odd look of hatred Marvin showed toward the champion, Ava, at the Sparring Tent. All Anonymous members would hate Ava, the strongest opposition to them there is on the island. How it had been Marvin's idea to take Rocky Road, how he had tricked me into heading out into this deadzone of the island with the insistence of incredible pokemon living here, and the sudden irritable mood shift today back to the despicable asshole he really was. His intense curiosity when I was telling him about fighting the poachers. Why didn't I see it before? Was I really that dumb?
"You think you can take me, you fucking loser?" I taunted Snake, laughing in the face of the man my Skorupi-turned-Drapion had robbed of a left ear. "You couldn't even beat me with the element of surprise in the middle of the night when I had pokemon like Togepi and Spearow. And your name's Snake. Snake. What kind of stupid ass shit were your parents smoking when they thought of that one? But by all means, Snake, if you're that eager to lose that other ear of yours, I'm happy to make that happen. So bring it on."
Snake simply smiled.
"I could kill you right where you stand with the team I'm using these days," Snake sneered, not the least bit intimidated by my speech. "I got a pokemon from Sir himself. But he's given me strict orders not to spend time on you, he thinks I'm obsessed. I'm not supposed to even be anywhere near you. And if an autopsy report shows that its a pokemon of mine that did the damage to your ravaged body, my boss will have my ass. And I don't want that. So, thankfully, I have your old pal Marvin Bloom here to do that for me."
"If I get what you fucking said you'd have for me, or I'm not doing shit!" Marvin responded like a whiny toddler with a sailor mouth.
"Relax, Marv, I got her," Snake replied with a grin, and he retreated back behind the boulder. When he emerged back out into the open, he tossed a teenaged girl that was tied with thick rope and gagged with duct tape around her mouth onto the rocky floor. She had been beaten, with bruises marked around her forehead and gashes along her cheeks, but I recognized the brown boots and pretty face anywhere: it was Eliza, who I had last seen in the Peltagrow Pokemon Center. What was her role in all this?
"Eliza?" I asked dubiously.
"How the fuck you know my girlfriend?" Marvin reeled at me, looking furious.
It was like a lightbulb went click in my head. How Eliza had been so reluctant to join me in my journey when I invited her. She had "followed a boy" as she had said to Nurse Joy in the Poke Class. Who would have ever guessed her boyfriend was the abusive jerk Marvin who not only took his aggression out on his pokemon, but also had to have took it out on her? Had I somehow known, somehow sensed this broken spirit about her from all my encounters with her? Did that dream I'd had of her mean anything? She must have been running away from him, and now Snake had tracked her down and brought her back to the psychotic Marvin. These two guys were a match made in heaven.
"Eliza's made it pretty clear to me many times that you're an ex, but that doesn't matter. What the fuck is wrong with you psychos?" I looked back and forth between Snake and Marvin, who continued to glare at me with revulsion. "How far are you freaks willing to go with this Team Anonymous shit? I've turned a blind eye to it until now just because I've got my own problems and I'm not trying to tussle with any gangs. But if you're going to start hurting people like her-" I pointed, outraged, at the unconscious Eliza, who had a fresh busted lip. "-to get what you want, then I can't just stand here and watch."
"Well, good thing you won't have to," answered Snake. "Marvin, kill him and his whole team. I don't want you holding anything back, this is a remarkably lucky trainer who has skirted by long enough on his good fortune."
Marvin turned his attention to me, and I focused my attention right back on him as he faced me in in a battling position, revealing the three pokeballs along his belt. It then occurred to me why Marvin had been so interested in always watching me battle and never helping in all my tussles with the wild pokemon along our ventures. He wanted to scout my battle style, see my full roster of pokemon, their movesets, their synergy and how they worked with me. And he was smart because the only pokemon I knew of his was that powerful Haxorus. And no wonder his Haxorus was so standoffish to me. He was still treating it awfully despite telling me otherwise, and the Haxorus had become a jaded, bitter powerhouse that had lost the innocence it had once had as Axew. Beaten out of it by Marvin's fists and boots.
Snake shuffled off to watch from the sidelines, remaining by the massive boulder and stroking his beard, never removing his eyes from me. I felt gross just feeling his gaze on me, as if a part of him was rubbing off on me just from his look. So this would be a battle to the death. Marvin was going to fight me with everything he had in order to take home his prized possession: the girlfriend who got away.
Knowing I had the advantage with four pokemon, I then recalled that my Tropius had been knocked out by that stupid Swanna earlier (another example of this asshole just watching and letting my mons do all the work), but I had never had the chance to revive him. Now it left me no choice but to duel 3v3 style with Marvin, just like in the gyms. Except if I lost, not only was that the end of me, but also the end of Eliza.
"Let's do this, bitch, I ain't got all day," Marvin taunted, grabbing his first pokeball from his belt.
"Marvin," I said, surprised at the stunned hurt in my voice, though reaching for my own pokeball all the same. "Why did you do it, man? I trusted you. You were my friend, Marvin."
"Nobody is anybody's friend," Marvin spat, releasing a red energy from his pokeball that was slowly forming into a solid, feminine shape.
"I was yours, you fucking prick," I responded, choosing Haunter to hover beside me loyally, with Haunter pulling his lower lip over his entire face in a bizarre attempt to mock Marvin.
"Well just goes to show you what good friends are," Marvin replied with a chuckle as a Jynx materialized beside him, a plump purple pokemon with long corn-yellow hair and a red dress made of rich texture.
"Marvin!" Snake snapped at him from a distance. "Do not let your guard down, not even for a second! I want this brat dead!"
The realness of the situation settled in as a strong breeze coasted through the air, the sun still casting its bright glow despite such a somber moment of betrayal and confusion. But I knew what I had to do.
"Haunter, Hypnosis!"
"Jynx, Lovely Kiss!"
And just like that, the battle that would only end with one of us falling dead to the rocky floor of No Man's Land began.