Chapter 12: The Major
"Team Cosmic?"
"Yeah, they've been the ones stealing people's Pokemon. They're dressed like they're in the army, but their uniforms are blue and purple. Their crest looks like a blue badge with three stars, two small and one large, and they are sort of arranged like the letter 'C,'" Lucas described to the lady police officer at Oreburgh City. In Mt. Coronet, Lucas had been ambushed by four Team Cosmic grunts who tried to take his Pokemon. The four criminals got more than they bargained for when Lucas defeated them not with his team, but with his fists. After the incident, Lucas came back to the city to recover at the Pokemon Center. The next morning he came to report who was behind the Pokemon thefts. Now he was at the police station, explaining what had happened, ironically, to the officer who had interrogated him a day earlier, thinking he was the thief.
"And this was in Mt. Coronet? Damn!" the officer swore. She got up from her desk and paced in front of her map of the entire Sinnoh Region, "That means we can't do anything,"
"Why not? You know who did it and you've got proof. What's stopping you from busting on in the mountain and kicking some ass?" Lucas asked angrily.
"The mountain is exactly the problem," the lady cop explained coolly. She had no love for Lucas, a boy she thought was a rude troublemaker but did her best to clarify the situation, "Mt. Coronet is huge, so huge that it divides the continent in half, it's the largest mountain in any of the Pokemon League regions. Even when people stay on the marked, known paths we sometimes have to rescue people who have been lost for months. Not including the unmarked paths or even paths created by Pokemon on the order of their Trainers, it could take years to scour the mountain properly. Basically, as long as Team Cosmic stays in the mountain, there is nothing we can do to stop them. The best we can do is make sure they don't come back to the city and warn people going through Mt. Coronet that Team Cosmic is here,"
Without saying anything Lucas stormed out of the cop's office and left the station. Lucas felt like it was a complete waste of his time. He tried to do the right thing by letting the cops know, even though cops were something he hated just about as much as his brother. Without accomplishing anything and knowing the twisted members of Team Cosmic were still crawling through the mountain, the teen made a decision. He would risk going through the mountain again, and confront any member of the evil organization head on. If the police couldn't stop them, he would.
Lucas headed back towards Mt. Coronet, ready for the nearly three-day-long trek that it would take to get to the next Gym in Hearthome City. Gizmo was curled around his neck, tail hanging over the front of his Trainer's shoulder, taking a nap. The teen admired how calm his Pokemon was being. He assumed his Eevee understood the situation, the danger that he was almost in the night previously, as Pokemon were quite intelligent. But Gizmo trusted Lucas so much that the idea of being stolen couldn't even cross his mind. The human, on the other hand, worried about it tremendously. If Lucas lost Gizmo, or any of his other Pokemon, he didn't know what he'd do.
The cavern was more familiar to Lucas the second time around. More of the sun's natural light illuminated the rocks and crags as he passed through the cave. The artificial light was now only deep in the tunnel, where the sun's rays couldn't touch it. The Trainer tread carefully, checking his Pokevice at each fork to make sure he wouldn't get lost. He was also hyper alert, waiting for the next ambush from a member of Team Cosmic. He doubted the four he beat up were the only ones there.
After several hours of being ambushed by nothing but Zubat, Lucas finally found what he was looking for. A female grunt jumped out from behind a boulder, a Pokeball in her hand, "Hold it Trainer! You better hand all your Pokemon over to me right this second, or I'll tear you apart. Nobody can beat the strength of Team Cosmic, and I don't have patience for weakness,"
Lucas sneered, "I'd say you're more patient that you give yourself credit for, you seem to put up with yourself quite nicely. But you ain't taking anything from me. I'm going to kick your ass with my Pokemon, and if I'm still in a bad mood I'll do to you what I did to your four buddies yesterday,"
"That was you?" the grunt gasped. Her confidence seemed to waver, "Go! Glameow!"
"You've heard of me. Good." Lucas's grin increased, "Go! Franky!"
The massive Gyrados came roaring out of his Pokeball, ready for battle. The grunt seemed even more frightened than before. Lucas was more than pleased with that. He wanted them scared of him. This group would learn one way or another that you don't steal Pokemon—not without consequences from strong Trainers like him. A short exchange of attacks later and Franky was the victor. Glameow was the grunt's only Pokemon and the battle was over. As the grunt threw some money at Lucas' feet and tried to run, he snatched the woman by her wrist.
She looked up him, her eyes wide in terror for her fate. Lucas smiled at her darkly, "You get to walk away without a limp today, but that's only because I want you to go tell whoever's in charge that I'm back, so they better clear out of here and never return,"
He let go of her arm and she ran off as fast as her legs could carry her. The message seemed to work for a little while. For several hours the young man didn't run into anyone. The Zubat attacks were too numerous so Lucas sent Gizmo back to his ball and even caught a new Pokemon, a steel-type called Bronzor. But as the natural light became supplemented by artificial light, and the teen calculated that the day was almost over, he was ambushed yet again. This time two men tried to attack him. In a short double battle with Sparky and Hotrod, Lucas once again came out victorious. This time he gave one of men a black eye. Clearly his warnings weren't working.
Finding a safe spot for the night to rest, Lucas camped out for the night. The next day the teen ran into more grunts, more often. The amount of members informed the Trainer, Team Cosmic was either getting desperate to stop him, or they were planning something else in the mountain. Another set of grunts tried to ambush him physically, and once again the grunts escaped with severe bruises, and one had a dislocated shoulder. The teen had to admire their stupidity, every wave of defeated grunts just brought more grunts and like every Pokemon battle and fist-fight so far, Lucas won every time. However, things started to change in the middle of the afternoon.
Because that's when he appeared.
Though Lucas had won against every challenge brought against him, the battles were beginning to take a toll. The constant fighting was wearing him down physically, and his Pokemon medicines were running out faster than he had anticipated. He still had almost an entire day to go before he could get to the next Pokemon Center. Though his plan was to defeat Team Cosmic by himself, since the police couldn't do anything, he was beginning to think that maybe his best strategy was to avoid anyone else. The message was sent: Team Cosmic would not be able to do anything they wanted unchallenged. Now Lucas had to worry about his Pokemon, and do his best to protect them.
Intentions and reality have an annoying tendency to not mesh up and when Lucas turned left at a fork, he ran straight into the hornet's nest.
"There he is!"
"That's the guy!"
"I'll need stitches because of that bastard!"
All the grunts that Lucas had defeated, about twenty-four of them, were now standing around a single man. In addition to the grunts there were tables full of Pokeballs, maps, charts and boxes all arranged the lengths of the large cavern. Without meaning to, Lucas had stumbled onto Team Cosmic's base of operations. The man the grunts had been complaining to stepped forward. He was clearly their leader, his outfit looked more like a dress uniform than the grunts' fatigues. Black dress shoes, dark blue slacks, white shirt and blue tie, white gloves, all finished off with a neat, blue overcoat and trimmed with lilac. Over his heart was the Team Cosmic crest, while a second crest appeared on his officer's cap, the bill shadowing his eyes and obscuring his face.
"So you're the troublemaker who's been interfering with our plans," his voice was very deep, and he sounded very amused, "I must say I'm relieved that at least you're not just some ten-year old brat,"
"I take it you're the prick who's in charge of all these losers," Lucas remarked. Though he tried to come off as nonchalant, he was slightly concerned at how outnumbered he was.
"Yes, I am in charge of this operation. I am second-in-command of Team Cosmic, Major Mathias," the major took off his hat to reveal his face. Lucas was quite surprised by his appearance. He was clearly older than Lucas but still looked very young, he had dark purple hair and aqua green eyes. He had a thin, sculpted nose, high cheekbones and full lips. Honestly, he looked like a model out of a fashion magazine, but there was something about the way he smiled that made Lucas' skin crawl unpleasantly.
"You've been stealing Pokemon from innocent people. You even tried to take mine. I'm here to stop you," Lucas continued bravely.
"Oh, we don't want your Pokemon now that we know what you have. What use is an Eevee as leveled up as yours that hasn't evolved yet?" Mathias' smile widened, reminding Lucas of a snake about to strike, "Stealing Pokemon is only a side cause of our operation here. Our main goal is something that sleeps in this mountain. With it, Team Cosmic will create a new world order where we, the strong, will rule and all weak, useless Pokemon will be permanently eliminated.,"
"Eliminated?" Lucas remembered what his attackers last night said about ridding the world of weakness, but never bothered to make any kind of connection to it besides mindless propaganda. Now the teen realized what was meant by those stupid words. He felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on his body. He felt sick, queasy. Lucas loved almost all Pokemon. He thought even the creatures people considered weak and annoying like Magikarp and Pidgey had something special and wonderful about them and the idea that a group had horrific an ambition as to destroy certain Pokemon sent a flood of rage Lucas had never felt before. White-hot anger blinded him. He ran towards Mathias, his fist hurtled towards the smug man's face, "You bastard!"
Lucas had never seen a person move so fast. Mathias caught Lucas' fist with his right hand and twisted the teen's arm so hard behind his back that if he had used any more force on his arm, it would snap. The young man was at his enemy's mercy now, something that made Lucas feel both incredibly angry and foolish for allowing himself to get caught. Mathias brought his face close to the pierced boy's, his malevolent smile sending a shudder down the teen's back, "I like your spirit. So what's your name?"
"Screw you! That's my name!" Lucas snarled, as he tried to figure out how to get out of the man's grip.
"People shouldn't make proposals they don't intend to follow through on," Mathias remarked casually, his breath hitting Lucas' ear. The younger man could feel his face flush involuntarily. The major slid his hand into the teen's left vest pocket, causing the younger man to shudder as he pulled out his Trainer ID, "So your name is Lucas. Says here you're from Cherrygrove City in Johto. Looks like you're a long way from home,"
"Get off of me, you old creeper!" Lucas finally barked as the major slid the card suggestively back into his pocket. With his steel-toed boot, he drove his foot into the kneecap of his assailant, causing the other man to buckle and finally release his grip. The teen jerked away and leapt back, well out of the major's reach.
"Old? I'm only twenty-seven," Mathias huffed indignantly as he nursed his throbbing knee. The grunts moved forward to defend their leader but he motioned them to stay back, "You have useless Pokemon, but you, yourself, is strong. We could use someone like you in Team Cosmic,"
"You're still a creeper. And you are old to me, I'm only sixteen, you pedo. And there is no way in hell that would I ever join a group that talks about destroying Pokemon," Lucas growled.
"What can I say, you're younger than you look. But it's stupid to turn me down. When all is said and down Team Cosmic will achieve its goals, and it's important to be on the right side. Join us, join me and I can guarantee you'll get everything you deserve," Mathias said coolly as he finally straightened up.
"No thanks," Lucas said darkly.
Mathias pulled out a Pokeball and looked like would attack. The other grunts got ready for their leader's orders. But the major appeared to change his mind and put the ball back into his coat. He turned to his subordinates, "Our interests lie elsewhere, we will be going deeper into the mountain," he then turned to Lucas, "You can have these Pokemon on the tables, they're of no use to us. All of them are weak. We will meet again, Lucas, and next time I hope you change your mind about joining us. I find you desirable in more ways than one,"
With that, the Team Cosmic second-in-command motioned for his troops to move out. When they left Lucas pulled out his Pokevice and called the Oreburgh Police Department to let them know that the stolen Pokemon had been found.