A/N: Welcome back to THE ULTIMATE ELITE, readers! I hope you've been waiting with bated breath. I am pleased to announce that the story is off and running which means ... REGULAR UPDATES! I should have a new chapter up each weekend. However, for this week only, I may have a few chapters up in succession, just to get the ball rolling. And, of course, if the chapter that is coming is big, it will take longer.
Also, before we go further, I'd like to say a note on how I'll be dealing with pronouns for Pokémon. I have done my research on what Pokémon was what gender in the anime, so if they have a specified gender, I will be using the correct, gender-specific pronoun. If they have no specific gender, I will refer to them with it. I hope this is not confusing.
LAST TIME: Our story is given its prelude when Cynthia and a band of high-stakes sleuths are ambushed while investigating the Pokémon Tower.
THIS TIME: We open in South City, where Rafe is beginning the next leg in his Pokémon journey when disaster strikes, leading him to a few uneasy friends, and one certain, but familiar, enemy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon.
Onward!
Rafe
South City wasn't a particularly large city, nor was it a particularly busy city in its more residential areas. If it was not for LaRousse City being just across the water, some say South City would not even be a city at all. Most chalked up the bulk of South City's residents to the credit of the futuristic metropolis on the other side of the bay.
Rafe was going to change all that.
Clang! The final sheet of metal crashed against the underlying beams as the crane set it in place. Two Machokes clambered across the roof, setting down workers that wasted no time in setting rivets into the roof tile.
"There it is," Sid sighed, laughter creeping up his throat.
Rafe couldn't remember hearing Sid breathe since the crane had lifted up the sheet. He had done the same thing for every sheet of metal and every beam they had watched go up on the building that day and for all the days before.
Still, despite being on his last nerve, with Sid's gasping ringing in his head, Rafe couldn't help but find himself breathless as Sid clapped his hands on his shoulders.
"There it is," Sid repeated. "You did it."
Rafe shrugged. "I didn't do it myself."
"Since when are you one to be modest. Trust me, buddy, this place would still be a parking lot if you hadn't opened up your mouth." Sid chuckled, raking his hand through his hair. Even at just twenty-five, Sid already found his hair thinning.
"I guess I might have had something to do with it."
"Yeah, whatever." Sid shook his head, pacing up and down the sidewalk. He craned his head in every direction, anxious to get every available view of the sleek stadium. Sunbeams caught off its corners, lighting up the rounded steel edges. The PokéBall at the center of its roof, was no more than a frame. "I can see it now. It'll light up the whole city. And just wait 'til we're approved to be a part of the league. No one'll be brave enough to challenge us."
"Hey, what's this we crap?" Rafe snapped.
"Come on. Let me have a battle every once and a while," Sid begged. "Blastoise and I barely get any action anymore."
Rafe stuck his chin up in the air and flipped back his hair. "Win a badge like everyone else," he offered. "There's some action for you."
The South City Pokémon Gym would not be one for push-overs. Rafe had vowed that from the moment he had started out to build it. He would not be running one of those childish practice gyms that children went to for some weekend fun and elderly trainers went to for a reminder of the thrill of winning. Those Gyms were not run by real Leaders or inhabited by real trainers. None of the novices behind those walls had even a taste of what real competitive battle meant. Once the head of the Pokémon League approved it, the South City Gym would be the ninth professional Gym of the Hoenn region, the first of its kind. In time, Rafe might find himeself among the Hoenn Elite Four, not as a challenger again, but as an equal.
Asphalt rumbled beneath Sid and Rafe's feet and the glass doors at the front of the Gym slid open with a hiss. In the doorway, blocking most of it, was Red, the muscled head contractor of the project. He was a large man, nearly seven feet tall, Rafe believed, with little neck and a bald head constantly tucked under a hard hat.
Whatever part of the door that wasn't already concealed by Red's monstrous frame was covered by his Conkeldurr and his Machamp, who flanked him.
Despite his size, Red was surprisingly light on his feet, making his way towards the boys with a lively step. Machamp hunkered behind him, his walk proud. The Pokémon's arms swung in wide circles as it walked. The quaking earth was the fault of Conkeldurr, who slammed his concrete pillars into the sidewalk with every tiny step. Red waited for his Pokémon to catch up before speaking, smiling over his shoulder at Conkeldurr. When he arrived, Red patted his head. The Pokémon grunted in reply.
"Like what you're seeing?" Red bellowed, pulling a towel off his shoulders to mop his forehead.
Rafe scanned over the Pokémon Gym, pretending he was just seeing it for the first time. In truth, he had spent every moment he could watching it rise above the ground, sneaking by in the middle of the night, watching from the windows of the shops across the street, sending Sid by on a regular schedule. He had known the Gym at every stage of its life, and he found the sight of it glorious from the first beam to the last sheet of roof metal.
The crane rested lazily in the air over the Gym. The workers had taken a break, hanging their legs over the side. Their Machokes guarded them from behind.
"Honestly," Rafe said, his heart racing at the sight of it, "it looks like hell."
Rafe looked up sheepishly at the giant man, waiting for the look of shock and disgust he was sure to find as his reply. Instead, a rasping came from Red's throat, sounding like a cough at the start, but evolving into a heavy and hearty laugh.
"Yeah, not the prettiest I've ever created," Red admitted. "Not yet, anyway. You've seen the plans, my friend. She won't be looking to shabby when I'm finished. Just you wait and see. I think it might be the most impressive Gym Hoenn has ever had on its fine shores."
Rafe furrowed his eyebrows, glancing up on the building quickly. "But functional, right?" Impressive size and astounding ugliness aside, the Gym looked terribly shabby. Rafe couldn't see more than two or three regulation Pokémon battles raging under its roof before it was falling in on itself.
"It will be," Red promised.
Rafe frowned. His heart sped up again, and not in a good way. He could feel the familiar stress pounding in his brain and tensing his spine. It was the same shiver that had possessed his body for months when the city had withheld his building permits or when the ground had threatened to cave in beneath the Gym. It had been a long eight years.
"How long is it going to take, though?" Rafe questioned, borderline between nervous and impatient. "I need it up and running-"
"As soon as possible," Red finished for him. Suddenly, Rafe was very aware of how many times he had given the same speech to the builder. "I know, kid, but it takes time. I don't want to skimp out on you."
Rafe sighed. He couldn't blame Red for being ambitious and painstakingly meticulous. The man was a master builder. He was the one behind the creation of LaRousse City's Battle Tower. When Rafe met him, he had been coming into port in Hoenn to repair the Tower right after the battle between Deoxys and Rayquaza had rendered it useless. Rafe had been lucky that a Wailord had decided to ram her head into Red's freighter when he came into South City's seaport. Rafe and his Blaziken happened to have been passing in the aftermath. Blaziken welded the hole shut, but Red never set off from the shores again. To repay his debt to Rafe, he chose to stay in South City and build Rafe's new Gym. "I need something new to do, anyway," Red had told him. "That old Tower is washed up. I need something to bite my teeth into."
Red had been filing his teeth in preparation to take a bite for eight years, carefully building a structure that would make for a Gym to put the Battle Tower to shame. He had shown the plans to Rafe in every stage of their development. They were never anything short of magnificent. Towering glass spires, multi-deck battle arenas with changeable terrains, indoor and outdoor training grounds for Pokémon of every type, those promises had kept Rafe's mouth watering through the grueling project.
"I want it up soon," Rafe decided out loud. Red raised and eyebrow, and Sid shook his head. Rafe looked up at the roof of the Gym, and nodded. "As soon as you can, and I mean it. I don't want this dragging on any longer. You have six months."
Rafe waited for some sort of sign that the contractor had at least been listening, a nod or a "Sure thing, kid," but he still just stood on the sidewalk, gaping at Rafe.
"Is there anything else you need?" Rafe asked, urging him to speak again.
Red's eyes snapped back to focus. Machamp and Conkeldurr seemed suddenly on edge, their muscles densing. "There's someone waiting to see you in the Leader's office," Red told him. He nodded towards the roof. "It's on the top floor overlooking the arenas. He said it was urgent." Red's thick legs snapped together and his hand shot to his forehead in a salute. "If that'll be all, I'll get to work, sir."
Red didn't wait for another word before he marched back into the Gym. Machamp followed swiftly behind him, arms swinging and chin stabbing into the air. Conkeldurr waited for a moment, studying Rafe and Sid. Rafe made to move, and the Pokémon huffed and went after his master.
Rafe didn't take an easy breath until he parted ways from Red in the Gym's lobby, not even bothering to check if Sid was still following behind him. Red vanished through the main doors at the center of the lobby that led towards the arenas. Rafe took a side door, made of foggy glass that didn't reveal a speck of what was behind, save a few silhouettes. Rafe input a code to open the door.
The room beyond was bare, though it had the makings of a sitting room. At the center was the metal frame of what would become a glass staircase. The steps were covered with boards where the glass should have been.
"You just get stupider, don't you!" Sid exclaimed as soon as the door was sealed behind them. "That guy has been busting his ass for eight years to build you a Gym, and you have the nerve to-"
"Shut up, Sid," Rafe ordered, flipping his hair out of his face. He mounted the staircase. He could feel it pitch under him when Sid climbed on below him.
"He could walk out any time that he wants to." Sid breathed in huge gasps in between sentences as he pursued Rafe. "He could run back to LaRousse City and be welcomed back as a hero. He's doing you a favor. You can't order around a master like that."
Rafe groaned as he reached the top of the staircase. He keyed in another code to open the door that they came to. It opened onto a catwalk that spanned the length of the unfinished main arena. "How about this, then? I'll take in every report that Red sends to me, and then I'll go over it, decide what has to be done, and then you can go tell him so that you can sugar coat whatever I say. Grow up, Sid! I have no need to prolong this any more."
The arena didn't look like it had even been touched it. Layers had been carved out of the revealed ground. Some metal plates had been placed over them, but others were still just piles of dirt. Supplies were piled where the stands should have been.
"It will never get finished if you piss off Red," Sid warned.
"But if I don't push him, it'll never get done either."
Laughs echoed up to the catwalk from the stadium below. Red had rejoined his workers, who were all seated around a table of plans drinking coffee. Their Pokémon, squads of Gravelers and Machokes, sparred around them. Machamp stood faithful behind Red, but Conkeldurr had wandered away from the group. He made Rafe uneasy. He could have swore the Pokémon was still watching him.
He seemed to find Red and his team doing that more often than he found them working. Their breaks got longer every day, and there were more of them. When they weren't on break, they were studying Red's plans.
The catwalk continued on beyond the thin wall of the stadium. Another leg of the walkways turned off, heading towards the center of the bulding. An odd steel wall had been installed there, floating there. It was connected to nothing and didn't match the rest of the building. Rafe assumed it was temporary.
"Wait out here," Rafe told Sid. It might have just been the attitude Red had left him with, but he didn't get the feeling that whatever was waiting in there for him was going to be that fond of seeing him. He didn't need to have Sid there rambling and asking stupid questions.
This door opened with just a knob, through there were wires jutting out of the wall beside the frame, tied off in waiting. The room was very temporary.
Boxes covered the floor, half of them filled with supplies needed to complete the room, and the other half filled with empty PokéBalls and other battle supplies that Rafe had had the wishful thinking to send over.
Perched atop a box of unassembled bookshelves was the Dragon Master himself, the first Champion and the head of the Pokémon League, Lance. His Dragonite, as always was not far away. The massive dragon had rolled onto its hindquarters and was bouncing restfully, running its claws across its scaly orange hide.
Lance appeared to be a dragon himself, clad in a skin-hugging black and red jumpsuit. When he stood, it rustled, just like a dragon's scales. His black cape hung of his shoulder like a majestic pair of wings, and his red air spikes up into horns on his head. Rafe swallowed hard as Lance came towards him, but the Champion seemed at ease. He smiled and opened up his arms like he was greeting an old friend.
"Rafe!" Lance said as he patted Rafe on the back. "It's great to finally meet you. I've only heard the best about you."
Rafe flipped back his hair, forcing out, "Thank you."
"I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with what you've done here," Lance went on, easing back onto the box. "You're by far not the youngest Gym Leader, but you are definitely one of the most ambitious. To build your own Gym in a city that's never even had one: impressive."
Rafe studied the Champion's face. Beneath his youthful expression and lithe body, Rafe could tell there was something else hiding. The shadows and bags around Lance's eyes were more defined than Rafe had expected. Lance was tense.
"What brings you to visit, Lance?" Rafe asked.
The Champion looked at the floor, laughing quietly to himself. "You like to get to the point, don't you?" Lance observed. His smirk said he was amused, in a condescending sort of way. Rafe kept himself from scowling.
"Honestly, Rafe," he began, taking a long breath, "I'm here to shut you down."
Rafe felt like Dragonite had just driven himself headfirst in his chest. He felt like, after eight years of slowly falling from the roof of the Gym, he had finally hit the bottom of the arena floor. He could see Red pushing dirt in over him, paying no mind to him being underneath.
Not a bit of Rafe was surprised. He had slowly felt this reality creeping up on him for a long time, but he had never expected it to come from Lance.
He opened his mouth to protest, but Lance held up a hand.
"Allow me to explain," he said, sighing heavily. "I'm not necessarily here to shut you down. I'm here to give you an option. Either I close you down, or I take away your badges.
Rafe gritted his teeth. He thought of the badge designs he had sitting in an envelope at home, ready to go to a jeweler to be crafted.
"Why?" was all he managed to hiss.
Lance smiled. He saw how angry Rafe was, though Rafe couldn't tell if Lance sympathized with him or if he was pitying him. "Please, don't blame me for this. It was the decision of the League, not my own. You have to understand that I answer to bunch of other people, and they are all skeptical about having a region with nine Gyms. They … or we, rather, feel that it may not be beneficial to the health of the League and the region as a whole if we allow you to create this. It may create a very unhealthy sense of competition between you and other facilities. We're not trying to target you. We just feel that it may put Pokémon trainers in a bad position if-"
"Can I ask you about the contest system, then?" Rafe asked. His younger sister, Audrey and Kathryn, had taken an interest in Pokémon Contests, so he had learned all about them. "A Coordinator needs five ribbons to qualify for the Grand Festival. They can get those ribbons from any Contest Hall, and I know there are a lot more than five."
Lance's nostrils flared, and his eyes looked impatient. "I don't run Pokémon Contests. I run the Pokémon League, and this is the decision that we've made. If you'd like to argue this, you can go talk to my bosses."
"I'm a trainer. I'm not a politician."
Lance clapped his hands together and stood up. "Then you understand the position that I'm in. I'm not here to negotiate. I'm here to tell you what's been decided."
Rafe's hand flew to his belt, grabbing for Blaziken's PokéBall. If Lance was a trainer, they might as well settle this with a battle. "If you think that-"
CRASH!
The entire building pitched to the side. The office's ceiling creaked, threatening to let the room fall to the arena floor three stories below.
Hiss.
Holes burned into the metals outside the office. The walls around them peeled away from one another. The ceiling rumbled as its support gave out.
Lance moved like he had grown wings. He leapt up from the box and slammed into the Rafe, not touching ground until they both tumbled through the door onto the catwalk.
They would have fallen onto the catwalk if the catwalk was still there.
The cables that had held the walkway aloft had all snapped, leaving the beams of wood that had made the floor to tumble against the floor and snap. Splinters flew up around them as the ground rushed to meet them.
Lance twisted and turned through air, wrenching himself from side to side like he was underwater. He grabbed Rafe by the shirt and pulled him close. Kicking his leg, Rafe came around Rafe's back and wrapped his arms around him. Then he whistled, close enough to break Rafe's eardrums.
Dragonite came bursting out of the debris from the office just as the ball of charred metal fell out of the sky. He did a backflip and fell out of the sky like a falcon in the dive. He grabbed Lance by the color and then flew away from the minefield on the floor. Lance's boots swept through a beam of wood, snapping it two.
Sid, Rafe thought suddenly, running out of breath. He had left Sid standing on the catwalk. Biting his lip, he stared down hopelessly at the mangled mess of wood on the floor. If Sid had fallen into that, there was no hope.
CREAK!
The ceiling heaved over them, groaning, tired of staying up. Panels had already fallen from it. Half the sky glared at them, peaceful and blue amidst the flaming steel.
"Get us to the front door!" Rafe shouted over the roar of flames.
Lance looked him in the eye and nodded. Then he turned to Dragonite and said, "Go up."
"WHAT?" Rafe shrieked.
But Dragonite rocketed towards the ceiling. Metal fell in flaming chunks around them, hissing and screaming as it plummeted to the floor. Tongues of fire had crept towards the edge of the collapsing roof, turning their only exit into a circus attraction.
"Turn!" Rafe screamed at Lance. "Turn! Turn! Turn!"
Fire lapped at Rafe's clothes as Dragonite escaped from the roof and burst into the sky. Rafe would never admit it to Lance, but he counted himself lucky to be leaving the building with little more than a charred shirt.
The Gym was more of a disaster than it had been before. Where the roof hadn't collapsed altogether it sloped downward. One of the outer walls stood at a slant, while another threatened to come down completely, pulling up the ground it was attached to. Rafe wasn't sure how many member of the crew had made it out, but those that had had gathered in the street, shouting at each other while their Pokémon menacingly hunkered behind them. Red was no where in sight.
Rafe was going to kill the man. He just knew that this was him. Rafe had gotten angry with him, and Red had destroyed the building. He wasn't sure how, but he knew.
Dragonite swept down to the ground, landing briskly on the sidewalk. As soon as the dragon's feet touched ground, Rafe ripped free of Lance's arms and ran towards the construction workers.
"Where is he?" Rafe thundered.
"Where's who?" one guy snapped, not happy to be interrupted.
"Your boss! Where is he?"
The ground shook behind Rafe, and he spun around.
"He's right here," Red said. "What's wrong, kid?"
Rafe stepped out of the circle of workers, his hand gripping his PokéBalls. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Red looked confused, and that only fed Rafe's rage. Red knew what he had done.
"You destroyed my Gym!"
"You're out of your mind," Red said, brushing past Rafe. He was not going to take that from someone who had just destroyed his Gym. But to make it it worse, Red began to laugh, joking to his friends how the hotshot Gym Leader had lost his mind. Rafe charged for him, drawing Blaziken's PokéBall.
"Rafe!"
Rafe ignored Lance, but when he was just a foot from Red, he found himself petrified.
Two Dragonair had coiled themselves around him, restraining his arms and legs. He tried to break free, but they tugged against him. Lance walked up beside them, brushing one's head. His eyes stayed locked on Rafe, filled with fire.
"This man built the gym for you," Lance whispered fiercely. "No matter you might have done to him, he's not going to destroy his own work." He snapped his fingers, and the Dragonairs let Rafe loose, coiling around Lance's feet. "You can't jump to conclusions like that. If you want to be a Gym Leader, you have to stay calm and judge people justly."
Lance stayed staring at Rafe, like he was testing him, waiting to see if he charged after Red anyway. When he didn't, Lance called the Dragonairs back to their PokéBalls and turned to Red. "I trust that you can handle this situation. Make sure that the building is stable and that no further damage is done to the building. I'm going to have a team sent here to investigate before the end of the week."
He turned to Rafe, and his face changed to stone. "Stay out of the mess until it is made stable. Don't point any more fingers until the investigation is done." He looked away for a second, and when he looked back, he smiled softly. Rafe still didn't like his smile. It was soaked with pity. "I'm going to go see the League and get this fixed as soon as I can."
Lance called his Dragonite to his side. He threw an arm over the Pokémon's shoulder, and, with a gust through the dragon's wings, they took off into the skies. Rafe watched them go until they were no more than a smudge in the sky disappearing over the horizon.
Rafe turned to Red, hoping that the grief in his eyes would be enough of an apology. "Let's try to keep this place from collapsing any further."
Red nodded. He didn't seem to eager to speak. Somewhere inside him, beneath all his panic and fury, Rafe had to feel bad for Red. He knew what he was going through. They had both lost something important, something that they had put a lot of time and heart into.
The front door was still mostly intact. Amidst a sea of metal torn and covered with soot, the door, melted at the edges, was a beacon. It could be fixed.
The door slid open, chattering in its frame. One of Red's workers came out, dressed in hard hat and followed by a Machop. He held a bundle of old rags in his arms like a baby. Rafe and Red stepped towards the Gym together to speak with him.
"We found this at the center of the crash," he explained. "It was buried at the middle of the crater. We're not sure how, but we think it fell out of the sky and ..." His voice faltered. He gestured to the Gym to finish his thought.
Rafe stuck out his hands, and the worker gladly deposited the bundle into his arms. Rafe started pulling the tattered rags apart.
"Um, s-sir," the worker stammered. He reached for the bundle, and then pulled back his hands. "Before you do that, um … I should probably tell you that-"
Rafe didn't know what to think once he had the bundle open. Sitting in the middle of the grease-stained cloth, covered in ash so black it masked the natural color, was a Pokémon Egg. It was still smoking. Falling out of the sky must have taken its toll, but the Egg was still intact. But that didn't explain anything. How could a Pokémon Egg destroy an entire Gym?
"May I?" Red asked.
Nodding, Rafe handed him the Egg.
EEEEEAARRRUUUAAAAAAAA!
The Gym groaned once more, its loudest of all. Rafe turned, but before he could even tell himself to run, the entire front wall, dressed in a cloak of flames, was falling towards him.
"Run!" he cried.
Everyone in front of the Gym made a break for it. If that thing came down, it would cover the whole street.
But as Rafe and Red stepped onto the asphalt, a drop of water fell on Rafe's forehead.
The Gym's wall had stopped. It was leaning much further than should be possible, but a stream of water that had connected with the center of the flames held it up.
Rafe followed the water back to a Starmie that stood a block down, pumping the blast into the wall. It must have been strong to control the whole wall from that far away.
The fire spread, eating up more of the wall, but Starmie knew how to react. It followed the flames as they spread. The metal cracked when the fire disappeared. It crumbled and fell to the street, mostly turning to dust before it could reach the bottom. Once the fire was out, Starmie stopped pumping and the wall fell harmlessly to the ground.
Starmie was called back into a PokéBall.
The girl holding it did not look happy to be there. She marched towards the Gym, singling Rafe out as the one to confront. Her round face was scrunched in anger and her red hair bounced on top of her hair.
"What do you want?" Rafe asked. He was done dealing with angry people. He had enough anger of his own to deal with.
"That," the girl said, pointing to the Egg in Red's arms.
Rafe looked between the Egg and her, hoping she was kidding. "Fat chance," he replied. "Who even are you?"
"Misty," the Gym Leader announced proudly. "And that Egg is mine."
Is the suspense building? Boy, I hope so, because I'm ready to go off and running! Keep checking for updates! If you like where it's going, PLEASE REVIEW!
NEXT TIME: Professor Oak visits an old friend in a time of crisis, leading to an unexpected meeting of many Pokémon World greats.
WickedHope