Chapter 47: Clash of the Hunters
The desolate, familiar and so very empty wasteland and backdrop of No Man's Land was all the eyes could see from every direction, with nothing but rolling dunes, rocky hills, and dead earth surrounding me and my brother as I came to a realization that something had culminated between us over the years, and today was the day that we were going to hash it out - man to man, pokemon against pokemon. Because there was nowhere to run anymore, and there was no around for miles to help. I was all alone with him, with just the six pokemon on our side to aid us.
Evan's pokemon that he had flown aboard to greet my escape from his base was his trusty flier, the ever-agitated, beady eyed and beak-snapping, three-headed Dodrio that stood tall atop its two long, spindly legs. Stretching from the depths of its brown fur-bristled body, with the fur threateningly sticking up at all ends, each of Dodrio's heads was glaring threateningly at a different threat - one at me, one toward my Emolga who was floating in mid-air glaring right back at the bird unfazed, and the third head eyeballing Gengar who had his attention still focused up in the clouds, looking up at nothing from what I could tell.
"Is it weird that I honestly expected you to still be right where I left you?" Evan asked
in such an eerie, casual, pseudo-friendly manner while still looking down on me from his Dodrio's back as I scrambled up on my feet.
"Is it weird that I expected my own brother to not lock me in a broom closet like some kind of caged pokemon?" I spat back angrily at him, surprising even myself with what I was saying, but if felt instinctive and cathartic and right to let it all out, to let Evan know what a piece of shit I truly thought he was in this rare, honest moment between us with no more pretense of even brotherly love. No more dancing around it. "No, what would be weird is that my psychotic brother has had some kind of competitive, bullshit grudge against me since for as long as I can fuckin' remember. What would be weird is that that same asshole brother basically trained the family's first pet Growlithe to attack and hate me for no reason. What would be weird would him out of nowhere deciding to join up with Team Anonymous and become a full fledged criminal, going out killing trainers and regular people too, stealing and infecting and poisoning so many of the wild pokemon all around Ilragorn. All of that would be a lot weirder, Evan."
"At least I've fucking made something of myself," snapped Evan, letting the veil of pleastantries and false niceness fall to the ground as his true, ugly personality revealed itself. "I'm the leader of the greatest crime syndicate on the island. I worked hard as fuck to get where I am, and I don't regret anything I've done. What the fuck have you done with yourself you fucking loser? Fail to even register for the Ilragorn League on time? Still walking around single and alone because no one cares about you? I offered your bitch ass a golden opportunity to work for me, the best trainer on this island. And you react by breaking out and I'm sure damaging my home base, undoubtedly attacked some of the few remaining loyal members I have left that weren't arrested or killed during Sir's idiotic Invasion of Naporia, and then start berating me with all this ungrateful bullshit, standing up to me like you have the balls to take me on for even a second? You forget how easily I knocked your bitch ass out in the church to get you here in the first place? You think I can't do that again?"
"I wasn't ready for you at the church when you sucker punched me, you forget I had just exhausted all my teams' energy into beating your boss' Buzzwole and Gothitelle?" I couldn't help that my pride had to remind Evan of that important detail.
"And I had the decency to fucking spare your pathetic ass when any other member would've had you killed after all the trouble you've given this organization, and I gave you the option to join me in taking control of Ilragorn, and you spat in my face and damaged my new home and even attacked what remaining personal army I had left inside the base-"
"Evan, Holy Arceus, do you not hear how insane you sound right now? You're acting like not killing your own brother is some great noble shit, get off your fucking high horse, man! You're in the middle of No Man's Land talking about taking over the entire island! You're living and hiding out from the police in an underground criminal-fucking-bunker thing, I don't even know how you guys got that there. You've only been in charge of this Team Anonymous group for like a day and already almost all of its members have either been killed or rounded up by the police during the Invasion of Naporia - what fucking personal army? The few members you do have left hiding out in your base were overwhelmed by just my Emolga and Gengar for Arceus' sake. Evan, you are an amazing fucking pokemon trainer, even though you're a complete asshole. You treat your pokemon like crap, but I cannot deny that your mons are some of the strongest and most consistent I've ever seen and I've seen alot on this island on this journey I've had the past year getting all 8 badges. Evan, you have the capability to become the fucking champion of Ilragorn if you applied yourself! Why are you wasting your potential on this insane conquest that's just going to end up with the Ilgragorn police having to put you and your entire team down, Evan!? For all the bullshit we've done to each other and put each other through, you're still my brother. And I don't want to see you put below the ground."
"That's funny, 'cause I feel the exact opposite way about you." There was such a stoic, assured tone to his voice, with no hesitation after I had genuinely tried one last attempt at getting through to him with my words. Though I didn't look, I could see with my peripherals on either side both Emolga and Gengar's body language tense up at Evan's words, both of them clever enough to sense the meaning in them, and for a moment I was truly glad to not be alone, as the talons on Dodrio's feet were looking mighty sharp and was that a tint of dried blood at the tips there?
Evan had thrown and released a pokeball from the back of his belt in record speed, and the red energy rushed out of the ball to formulate a pokemon I had never seen before despite all my readings, and a part of me just knew that Evan had probably gotten this pokemon through some illegal trading operations involving Team Anonymous, because whatever region the snowy white moth pokemon with illuminating, large blue eyes was from - it was one that Ilragorn was way too far away from to ever be able to trade through any normal ways on the island. I didn't hesitate to whip out my pokedex from my back pocket, something I hadn't done in what felt like ages.
"It's a Frosmoth, an ice and bug type originally bred in the Galar region, way the fuck out east where none of the nobodys on this island would ever have access to," Evan confirmed what I was reading as I looked back and forth from the dex to Evan's smirking, ugly grin and back to the flying moth pokemon that was taking in its rocky surroundings with what seemed to be distaste. Rock, afterall, did damage it more than any other typing (fire, too, but none of my pokemon had ever learned a fire move I realized), and rock was all the eyes could see for miles, so it made sense that the Frosmoth would've preferred a different battlefield. But Evan either didn't consider the ice/bug type pokemon's concerns, or didn't care, because his eyes were focused on me the entire time. "Thanks to connections with Team Anonymous, I've been able to have access to Ultra Beasts, Adam, not that I even needed to accept them from Sir when I had the chance. To pokemon from far off regions like Galar that haven't even been taught to the Neanderthals on this trash heap because the school books haven't even updated the pokemon roster yet. This island is behind the times, Adam, and I gave you the opportunity to grow with me and my team as I became the strongest trainer of them all. But you spat in my face, and chose to die with the pathetic band of misfit D-grade pokemon like Tropius and Emolga that this island's offered you and you stupidly accepted."
As if detecting her owner's range of emotions, the Frosmoth's blue eyes with tints of green in there refocused from its unpleasant surroundings to me, a hint of hatred in them as its angelic white, ear-shaped wings fluttered aggressively.
Emolga and Gengar both made motions to levitate their small bodies to hover guard in front of me incase the Frosmoth suddenly attacked, but I stopped them with a lift of my arm.
"Thanks, guys, but I have something else in mind against this thing," I explained, then with a flick of the wrist, opened up the pokeball attached to the front of my belt that revealed Passimian, instantly aware of the seriousness of the situation, his shoulders hunched low and prepared to pounce forward at the unknown icy moth flying in the air above Evan and Dodrio. It felt really comforting to have three longtime, strong pokemon all surrounding me, even against such insurmountable odds like my own rage-fueled brother who seemed to be on the verge of a mental breakdown. My thoughts turned to my parents, who I rarely thought of these days, and I couldn't help but try one last time to reach Evan. "Do Mom and Dad know about this; your newfound career as a crime boss? They're cool with this?"
"They'll never know. No one from that life ever will." Evan's dark, twisted smirl curled up even more, revealing his yellow teeth as he managed to look even more sadistically insane, proudly leaning forward atop his Dodrio.
"Evan-"
"Frosmoth - Hail!" All the pleasantries and any facade of concern or false friendliness faded as Evan ordered the first attack.
Instantaneously, the temperatures dropped from the previously hot and humid weather more reminiscent of a desert to teeth-chattering, nose-dripping, freezing cold temperatures as a hailstorm kicked up, with heavy chunks of snow being whipped in every direction by the strong gusts of wind. Frosmoth became immediately more comfortable and relaxed as the sea of rocky dunes and rolling hills froze up and the blue sky turned a depressing winter gray, from what wasn't obscured by the heavy snowfall slapping my face.
"Passimian!" I had to shout to be heard over the loud hailstorm. Shit, I'd been subjected to a few ice type pokemon using this move before in the past, but never before had I felt such power and force with a single Hailstorm that it almost knocked me to my knees, and I noticed even Gengar and Emolga, both refusing to shiver and come off weak, were both slightly struggling to remain levitating in place with the strong winds threatening to blow them over. "Try to get up close and personal to her, Passimina, as ugly as she is and as much as we don't want to!" I couldn't help adding just to see the ugly scowl on Evan's face take over his smirk.
Passimian proceeded to ferociously climb up what had previously been a nearby towering rock formation that resembled a lighthouse but now resembled a massive ice pick pointing to the sky. Passimian used both his hands and feet to climb as the white-and-black blur raced up to the top of the frozen rock formation as the hailstorm whirled powerfully around him, whipping his fur back and forth.
Even as fast as Passimian was rushing to perform his attack, Evan took note and already was taking countermeasures by getting off a second move before Passimian could get close.
"Set up an Aurora Veil!"
As Passimian reached the top of the giant ice pick, about a hundred feet high, the focused Frosmoth wiggled its white antenne slowly, methodically, and a clear coating of a shimmer like glass enveloped itself like a new skin on top of Frosmoth's white fur as a protective coating that I knew from skimming my pokedex in the past boosted its defenses to unkillable levels - a rare but powerful move that of course Evan's pokemon would know.
"Use Quick Attack to get up close fast!" I ordered as Passimian had bounded from the top and was soaring through the sky halfway through my command, descending straight down to the fluttering Frosmoth who was just finishing up putting on her protective coating of an Aurora Veil and seemed to be a mostly easy target.
The boosted speed from using Quick Attack had Passimian fling his body with great fervency into the Frosmoth, and for a moment it looked like Passimian was actually going to make short work of this uniquely typed pokemon when Passimian had managed to get both his arms wrapped around Frostmosth's small skull in a headlock simiilar to a professional wrestler out for blood.
"Blizzard it off!" cried Evan from aboard his Dodrio that definitely did not appreciate the super effective hailstorm going on around it, the thousands of ice chips chipping away at its body each minute, but Dodrio remained mostly standing tall, with a few shivers and a sneeze here or there. "In fact, I want a Blizzard over there!" He gestured dramatically toward the ice tower Passimian had leaped from. "I want a Blizzard over there!" This time he pointed with flare toward a large clearing of absolutely nothing but snow that covered the rocky, barren earth. "I want two fucking Blizzards over there!" Evan now pointed directly at me, and my whole body tensed at the seething hatred in his eyes when he looked at my face, and it was at that moment I knew with certainty that this battle would get extremely bloody. "I want this whole fucking shithole ice cold until fucking Glalie's start sprouting out of the snow! I want that fucking monkey dead first from freezing its little chimpanzee nuts off!"
Despite the Frosmoth having wings which usually indicated to me that it'd be a faster pokemon, I had surmised pretty quickly that my own Passimian definitely outsped it, both naturally and in skill and experience. However, even as fast as Passimian had Quick Attack'd his way into a brief chokehold, even faster was he knocked off and sent flying back into open air as a series of painfully cold waves of snow and sheets of ice sent my fighting mon spiraling through the air as he lost his grip and the force of the Blizzard shot him off, while Frosmoth remained fluttering calmly in place, not even feeling threatened enough by Passimian to attempt to dodge its attacks.
Meanwhile, Frostmoth obeyed Evan's overdramatic orders with no problem, shooting out multiple Blizzards in each spot as instructed - the ice tower went toppling to the ground from the force of one, all the snow on the ground briefly shot up into the air of the clearing creating a beautiful misty snow cloud that any ice type trainer would've appreciated in a different setting, and the fourth and fifth Blizzards that were unmissable during hailstorms were beginning to culminate before our very eyes and knock me to my feet if not for Emolga and Gengar who were both standing at opposing sides of me.
Emolga conjured a powerfully kinetic Thunder from the sky somehow, despite not a cloud in sight as only snow being whipped all around us was all the eye could see, that crashed directly in front of the the three of us just as the two Blizzards would've been knocking me 10 feet in the air and then onto my back, probably breaking a bone or two. And Gengar, that quick-thinking smart son of a bitch, had used a large portion of his own energy to summon a large toxic Sludge Wave from his tiny hands, which collided with the two Blizzards aimed in our direction, aiding the Thunder in stopping the powerful attack before it did serious damage to me. You two really came through, was the last thing I thought before the power and shockwave of the Thunder, two Blizzards, and a Sludge Wave all collapsing in on each other sent me landing on my butt which was not comfortable, but no broken back which was a plus.
"Your letting more than one pokemon in on the battle to aid in dodging a move? Cheating to the very end to escape the inevitable - tsk tsk tsk, so fucking sad and pathetic, Adam, you know that? I'm serious. You should've taken the move like a man, but you want to fight like a little bitch, I can fight like a bitch, too."
"Like it's not cheating and cheap and illegal to fire off two Blizzards at a trainer during a battle! How have you become this fucking stupid and delusional, Evan!? You were always an asshole, but really, calling me cheap when you're battling like a fucking coward!? Fuck you!" I screamed with a rage and passion in my voice I didn't know I had as I climbed to my feet and dusted the snow off myself, so angry on the inside and red in the face with anger that the snow and cold all around me felt hot. In my anger, I'd completely forgotten about Passimian for a minute as me and Evan and even Frosmoth had all been focusing on the massive attack and the screaming at each other.
A lone, apple-sized chunk of rock that Passimian must have buried out from under some snow came flying out from somewhere underneath the hovering Frosmoth. Passimians excellently thrown and timed Smack Down hit the ice/bug Galar pokemon right in the left wing for 4x super effective damage which is always devastating for the attackee, if not instantly OHKOing them for the most part.
Frosmoth landed with a soft poof in a soft patch of snow about 50 feet in front of Evan and Dodrio, who watched on with sour faces as their comrade seemed to be on the losing side for a moment. Any other time, a pokemon as strong as my Passimian throwing out a move that effective against a mon, it'd be down on the ground. But the Aurora Veil Frosmoth covered itself with had protected it enough to at least take the hit but not be down for the count. Shit.
Now being grounded due to Smack Down's effect, Passimian now had much easier access to getting off his physical hits on Frosmoth.
"Ugh, throw off Hurricanes!" Evan said in a slightly unconfident voice that was unlike his usual cocky and overbearing barks and orders. And for being a super effective flying type move against a fighting type mon, I would think Evan've been more keen to use this move earlier in order to get massive damage off. But I quickly realized why he'd preferred to spam Blizzards.
Frosmoth remained in place, out in the open propped in the snow after crash landing with a left wing that had completely broken off, and one antenne heavily bent to the side, probably damaging her aim and flying ability. She was still conscious, thought, and was doing the best she could firing off uncontrollable, unsturdy Hurricanes amongst the Hailstorm on top of its shaky accuracy in general, and Passimian was making short work tiring the bug out just hobbling in circles, dodging Hurricanes, around the bug over and over like children playing PsyDuck-PsyDuck-ZanGoose in elementary school.
The hailstorm soon ended naturally as it always did. The sheening, gleam of reflection of light emanating off of the Frosmoth that was her protective and useful Aurora Veil soon faded with it. And Passimian reacted immediately by racing up to the injured bug mon with a Quick Attack to zoom him so that my monkey was standing directly above the bug mon, looking up at the monkey with fear in her eyes for the first time. Passimian raised both his arms over his head, which had managed to get a hold of a new chunk of rock from under the snow while dodging her easily-avoidable Hurricanes. This chunk of rock more resembled the size of a watermelon. And Passimian did not drop, but he thrust that rock right on top of the Frosmoth, of which the rock had enough weight and girth to immediately crush her body, killing her and leaving the last vision Evan and us all had of her was her one remaining wing pokemon out of a rock, now crippled and crushed, and green blood oozing out from around the bottom edges of the rock, popping in the clean white snow. Passimian had instantly killed the Frosmoth out of retaliation for it trying to harm me with Blizzards, if I were to guess why he'd been so brutal as to kill the thing.
I immediately turned to Evan to see his reaction, and sure enough, he was already watching me with a completely calm, passive expression on his face - but his eyes, in his eyes you could see the loathing and the want to hurt me and my pokemon. Arceus All Mighty, why did he hate me so bad? He started this shit. Maybe there was still a chance to deescalate this whole situation before it reached a point where we couldn't return. I had to lie to myself.
"Evan, look, I don't want to-"
"We're finishing this battle, Adam," Evan said as a wicked smile of excitement that had saliva pooling out of one side of his lips came on, and he would never notice. His Dodrio stomped its foot into the calm snow several times in approval. "And it's not finished until one of us, and our entire pokemon team, is fucking dead."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I know this took forever to come out, and it's not even that long, but the truth is I have constantly been at war over Evan's final six pokemon for his team - there was always going to be Dodrio, Mr. Mime, and Mega Steelix as they all serve the story as Evan's pawns in perfect ways albeit their typing, their aesthetics, their movepools, and the general demeanor that come with the pokemon as they all seem like perfect bad-guy pokemon to me. But with the inclusion of Generation 8 pokemon coming around the corner, I postponed the battle for several long months in order to allow me to really have the most fun I can having the final battle of Evan vs Adam, and now that includes me having three Generation 8 pokemon on Evan's team to use since they're so fresh and fun and keep my story just a little bit more modern in the coming ages as it reaches its end.
The grand finale is near.