You all keep complaining about the lack of HP elements. However I would like to remind everyone that trainers generally start their journey at age TEN. Hogwarts only accepts ELEVEN and TWELVE year olds as first years. Which is why there is a full year before Cinna and the others are taken to Hogwarts. I hope the action in this chapter satisfies you towards some of her magic.
Cinna closed her phone and looked at her brother.
"According to Blue, the only ones who weren't taken were Mom and Scarlet, and that was because they had gone to Celadon for a week. They weren't due back until tomorrow, but I called the hotel they were staying at and explained things to them."
"That's good I guess. Why were they in Celadon?"
"There's a week long sale that happens once a year, and Mom got enough cash to go with a friend. My guess it they went shopping..." shrugged Cinna.
She had gone last year, and their mother generally saved up for the once a year event. Red generally stayed at Blue's house during that time. It was the main reason they even got along...they were both properly terrified of girls in shopping mode...or as Cinna and Scarlet joked, they were properly trained.
They flew to Saffron, Red on his Aerodactyl and Cinna on Ryusuke, who had long since evolved into Dragonite. There they ran into Blue on his Charizard.
"Cinna? Red?"
"Sabrina has kidnapped everyone in town, except Mom and Scarlet who are in Celadon. I called them already and told them what happened, so they're safe," explained Cinna.
Blue thought about the date and grimaced. Like Red, he had the week-long shopping trip marked so that he knew when to avoid the house.
"It's a perfect dome, no way in," said Blue.
"We have two choices. Either we find a way to break it...or we find a way in. I may have an idea about that," said Cinna.
She texted Green and then had Blue call out Psyduck.
"Blue, find the sewers. We're going under," ordered Cinna.
"Wouldn't they have covered it with the barrier?" asked Blue.
"Even if they did, I don't want Team Rocket knowing about my psychic power. They know what you three look like, but I haven't been actively annoying them. We can knock four of the grunts out and steal their outfits," said Cinna.
"I get it. As long as they think we're with them they won't think to harass us."
"Plus it gives Green and I time to do some digging. If we find enough evidence we can bring down Team Rocket for good," said Cinna.
What she left out was that she and Green were going to do a little stealing on the side. Chances were the building wouldn't survive her brother or her using her powers, so might as well save the research.
Blue found an open grate, and to his surprise it wasn't covered by the shield.
Then again it had been half buried and rusted over, so they had ignored it. It had taken the efforts of Ryusuke and Blue's Charizard to break it open.
"Eugh! It stinks in here!" complained Green.
"It's a sewer, what did you expect it to smell like, flowers?" snarked Cinna.
"Why oh why did you have to pick a sewer?" complained Green.
"Keep it up and I won't decide to pair up with you," said Cinna. Blue and Red were behind them (the sewer was big enough to walk through) and avoiding the girls after years of bad experiences.
"Why not pair up with Blue?"
"Because he would keep me from swiping the Silph Co's research and carrying it in my special bag," said Cinna in a whisper.
"I take back all complaints. Come on girl, we have a company to rob!" said Green, her personality taking a one-eighty.
If there was one thing to motivate Green, it was money.
"What do you think they're talking about?"
"My guess? Cinna plans to swipe Silph's research notes while Green robs the place. I could honestly care less so long as they provide the distraction," said Blue.
Red thought about that statement and agreed it was the most likely scenario. Considering the damage they were likely about to do to the building, he wouldn't put it past his sister to 'rescue' their research, being a huge book worm and all.
Once they were out (having Green's Blastoise hitting them with an overpowered water gun attack which got rid of most of the smell) Cinna quickly nabbed two grunts and switched clothes with Green, the boys keeping watch outside.
"Right...girls, we'll cause some chaos while you rescue everyone...no theft until everyone from Pallet and Saffron are freed."
"Deal!" said Green.
She could live with waiting to pilfer rare items if it meant saving the townsfolk.
It took all of ten minutes for Cinnamon to find and rescue the people of Pallet and Saffron, and five for them to find the research floor. From there Green swiped anything that was in the prototype phase while Cinnamon went to work on the computers.
After all the years she had spent editing for Professor Oak in the field, she was an experienced Hacker in her own right. The poor man had the worst luck with passwords, and could never find the book he kept them in without help.
"Success! Come to mama!" said Cinna with glee. She had a small hard drive with a massive amount of space. It was bulky and a total pain to carry around when it was outside the bag, but it made up for it by being able to hold massive amounts of data in times like this.
By the time she heard an explosion from the floor above, she had downloaded everything off the Silph company servers. It would be destroyed by the time they left anyway by a misfired attack by Blue.
She even grabbed a few notes that hadn't made it to the server and tossed them in her bag.
When asked why she had stayed so long in there, she would claim that she wanted to be sure that everyone was out.
Red nearly ran into Sabrina halfway through his assault. He didn't want her to attack him using her powers, so he ducked into an alcove and prayed like mad she wouldn't see him. With what seemed like divine intervention from Arceus (Red had no idea who that was, only that Cinna kept referring to him as some sort of god...) she walked right past him, even with his foot sticking out.
He sighed in relief and went back to beating up the Team Rocket members.
Though he did stifle a laugh when he heard the war cry of his sister's fan club. Blue had his hand over his face in annoyance when he heard it.
"Hey Cinna, check it out. Your 'fan club' is here to the rescue!" giggled Green.
"I was wondering if they would make it. Since we knocked out that Mr. Mime it should be easy to get into the city...and I sent out the call to the entire club."
"You called the CFC in?" said Green in surprise.
"Well yeah. They've been helping us out with the info on Team Rocket for months now. Why wouldn't they want in on the final fight?"
"Good point. Where to next?"
"Hang on... I got a text from Red. He said that Sabrina is heading outside to deal with Blue."
"Go rescue your boyfriend," giggled Green.
Cinna decided to go for broke as she shouted "Hey old lady! Your powers must be as pathetic as your bust!"
Sabrina's eyes had a noticeable tick mark, as she sent a psychic blast in Cinna's direction.
"Attention successfully acquired, but now what?" muttered Cinna, dodging blasts.
That was when an idea hit her. She had been trying to make projected illusions to get idiots to leave her alone (she kept getting proposals from boys several years older than her, to her annoyance) so why not try them out?
Cinna braced herself for the psychic blast, then opened her mind all the way.
'I am a leaf in the breeze. A stone in the path of the river. A flame fighting against the gale. All that stands before me is potential, all that lay behind me are the lessons I've learned. This is one that I must face in the here and now,' said Cinna in her mind. It was her mantra that she used when she was trying something difficult. Her eyes opened and they glowed with an internal flame.
Every time she used her powers to their full extent, Red swore that her eyes glowed like flames, or maybe like a ruby light by sunlight.
"Come at me if you dare," said Cinna, "Go Umbra!"
"Umbreon!"
Sabrina opened her shields all the way as well. Unlike Cinna her eyes didn't have that special glow.
"Go Alakazam!"
"Umbra, use Night Tackle!" shouted Cinna.
"Alakazam, Psybeam!"
Umbra dashed to the side and avoided the concentrated psychic blast. He had trained tirelessly with Cinna using her powers so he could withstand such assault. He slammed into Alakazam, and the psychic-type cried out in pain as the dark nature of the attack bashed against it's powers.
While they called out attacks, Sabrina's power clashed against Cinnamon.
"Come to me, my brethren of the rising dawn. Your time is now..." whispered Cinnamon.
Lights gathered around her like a halo. This was the first trick she had come up with...light strikes. Technically they weren't illusions at all, but condensed psychic blasts like a psychic Pokémon who used Psybeam. Unlike Sabrina, Cinna never stopped reading books on psychic energy. Most of her attacks were based off of Pokémon themselves.
"Light striker!"
The balls struck Sabrina, who barely managed to defend herself. She had grown complacent with her skill, a common habit among gym leaders who's only real challenge were new trainers.
"What is that?" demanded Sabrina, recalling her Alakazam and sending out her Hypno. Umbra was barely breathing hard. He was Cinna's best Pokémon when it came to psychic training, as she often used his dark energy to strengthen her own power. As a result, Umbra was stronger than most level fifty Umbreon.
"You gym leaders are all alike. Just because you run a gym, you only do the bare minimum of training. Trainers never truly stop training, now matter how old they are!" said Cinna.
She then used a different 'aria' as she liked to call them.
"Come little children, come from the night. Gather unto me, my blessed stars."
This time she had condensed dark energy, a side effect she believed, from training with Umbra with her own powers. She still wondered if Umbra could use psychic on his own after all the time they spent training with hers.
These balls were pitch black in color, illuminated by a thin silver line. This line actually represented the color of Cinna's psychic energy for some reason.
"Night Striker!"
Sabrina cried out in pure pain as the dark energy ripped through her meager defenses with ease. Hypno, distracted by his master's cry, was blindsided by Umbra who took him out.
"Umbra, return! Go, Ryusuke!"
The Dragonite roared and prepared to fight any Pokémon that Sabrina threw out. He had been with Cinna the longest, and was well used to psychic energy. No words were spoken between Ryusuke and Cinna, because they had a borderline telekinetic bond and all he needed was the slightest nudge to attack. Sabrina tossed out a new Pokémon...a Kadabra. The same one she usually had nearby.
Sabrina used one last attack on Cinnamon, her energy nearly spent under the younger and far more powerful psychic. If she survived this without being lobotomized by the opposing energy, she would not make the same mistake she had today.
"Cinna! Officer Jenny is rounding up the others! Knock her out and let's go!" shouted Blue from his Charizard.
"Kadabra, Teleport!" shouted Sabrina. She grabbed onto her Pokémon, not noticing her official gym leader badge had fallen off in all the commotion by Cinna's attack.
Blue growled. He couldn't believe Sabrina got away... so had Koga, but Sabrina would now have a grudge against Cinna for this fight.
"Cinna, you alright?"
"Fine, but I think our teams could use a few days off after this," said Cinna.
It had taken a week for the aftermath of the Saffron attack to settle down. Everyone from Pallet Town was freed, Oak was busy planning something to deal with the Green situation (she had stolen his Squirtle), and Delia had returned from Celadon with Scarlet.
"Only a month until the League...I need to get ready..." said Cinna.
And to that end she decided to let Red train on his own and focus on badges. She won four in quick succession, mostly from other accredited gyms in Kanto.
Unlike the big Eight, which were the most popular, there were at least ten minor gyms that also allowed you to qualify for the League. The hardest part was actually finding them.
Anyone who went this route usually learned to tell the difference between a real and a fake 'Pokémon League Seal of Authenticity' pretty damn fast. It also helped when you had a book with the names of all the recognized Gym Leaders, whether they were a minor one or not.
"Let's see...I have a fighting-type gym that's an up and comer next..."
"Did you say and up-and-coming fighting gym? I can help you find that!" said a body-builder with an actual smile.
"Name and occupation, or I blast you," said Cinnamon tiredly.
"Name's Rick, and I run this gym you're looking for."
"Let's see...Ah, here it is. According to the official Pokémon League Gym Leader's guidebook, a new gym can only be recognized as an 'official' one to earn badges if they can prove that they've got the requirements."
"Yeah...I'm trying to match them, but it's not easy," said Rick sheepishly.
"Tell you what...if you can hold your own against me with my weaker Pokémon, then I'll see what I can do to make you a real gym. Fair?"
"Deal!"
"Go, Kabutops!"
The scythed Pokémon was very impressive. Rick almost felt intimidated by it.
"Go, Machamp!"
"Impressive. Clearly you've trained it well!" said Cinna giving his Machamp a very thorough looking over.
"Thank you! I put all my Pokémon through the same strength training I put myself to!" said Rick proudly.
"Most fighting-type trainers tend to be body-builders and martial artists. Me, well I prefer... Gymnastics!" said Cinna, doing a double flip onto her Kabutops, standing on it's head with one hand.
"Wow!"
"Having long legs can be a hassle...if you don't try to correct it early," said Cinna with a smile.
Cinna battled Rick, and was mildly impressed.
"I'll admit, your Pokémon are good, your tactics are decent, and you are building the correct facilities. All you actually need is a proper sponsor."
"What do you mean?"
"All Pokémon Gyms are sponsored, either privately or publicly in the case of the larger ones that most people go to. That's why gym leaders are so respected, they bring prestige and cash into the economy of whatever town they're in."
"But the nearest town is five miles away!"
"Which is why you would have to go to the private sector instead. Once you clear a decent enough road, you might get more visitors. My advice would be to go to Kanto-region companies affiliated with the Pokémon Institute and offer to act as go between for a research facility. That will help you get the Pokémon League's approval faster," lectured Cinna.
Rick was writing this down.
"Any suggestions on who to approach first?"
"Avoid Silph Co. About two weeks ago there was a battle at their corperate headquarters, so chances are they would be more interested in restructuring the building than sponsoring a new gym that hasn't been fully built yet," said Cinna.
She left feeling like she had helped someone out, which improved her mood greatly.