Pre-chapter A/N; Since everyone is asking for one of these, here's a breakdown of the character names before we get into things
Broly - Kleavor
Quicksilver - Pidgeot (dead)
Kisame - Milotic
Igneel - Charizard
Kenpachi - Tyranitar
Ino - Gardevoir
Snorlax - Snorlax
Tsunade - Clefable
Gai - Hakomo-o
Magnezone - Magnezone
Hashirama- Trevenant
Special thanks to the folks on pa-atreon for making this possible. Now without further ado let's get into it.
XXXXX- Donnell Oak
"Let's kick this up a notch, shall we?" I asked my team and Igneel's roar was all the answer I needed. Let's go. Igneel was surrounded by bright blue flames, his firepower being further heightened by the sunny day floating near the ceiling. Gai's power rose too, as he entered what I'd begun to call the first gate. A mixture of belly drum, and dragon dance had his physicality powered up to new heights. When we finally managed to increase the efficiency of the moves and add Clangorous soul to the mix, that would be the second gate. I had no idea what the remaining six would be, but they had to be suitably empowering. My goal was an additional 2x increase in power from each gate.
Ino floated in the air behind me, eyes closed and battling with Mewtwo on the psychic realm. It had scared me when she proposed the idea but she was right in the end. This wasn't the Mewtwo from the anime. He didn't have that kind of awesome power. We could touch him. He could bleed, never for long, but the fact that we were able to do any damage at all was good for my nerves. All we had to do was keep him suitably pressed in the physical realm while Ino did the same on the mental plane. Eventually, he'd slip up and then, we'd pounce.
Kenpachi's tail slammed into the floating pokemon's shield with a clang, and Gai used the opportunity to blur to the other side and begin wailing on the protection. He suddenly banked away from the shield as Igneel fell on it with the force of a sun. The area around them was instantly robbed off all moisture from the passive effect of Igneel's aura. Mewtwo was forced to teleport out of the way, but Hashirama was there to intervene. Ghostly energy surrounded the tree branches that wrapped around the powerful psychic and tried to crush it to death. This time, he couldn't just teleport. He had to expend significant energy to rip the trees crushing him apart. Of course, Broly and Snorlax were there the instant he did it, moving in sync to prevent him from seizing the initiative. Broly's extreme speed allowed him to move ahead of Snorlax, harrying Mewtwo from every corner, not letting the pokemon get a second of rest. Snorlax was slower, lumbering forward at what looked to be snail's pace when compared to Broly's blistering speed. His attacks were no less powerful though, bending the very air around his punches as he lashed out at his adversary with monstrous strength. Broly was the fly buzzing around, and Snorlax was the earthquake waiting to make impact. Yes, I know that analogy made no sense, but bear with me. I'm freaking out here. Igneel swept across the field, forcing Broly and Snorlax to disengage as he landed. Our strategy was simple. Don't let him fight the same opponents for too long, continuously switch things up with no rhyme or reason. It was practically guaranteed to grate on a psychic like Mewtwo. After all, their whole schtick was being able to learn and predict moves on the fly, remaining ahead of their opponents by virtue of sheer brainpower, but when you don't let a psychic think? That's half the battle won already. We just had to convert this into a victory.
I whistled and Igneel flew away, not before triggering an explosion that cracked Mewtwo's protective aura though. Kisame, recognising her cue, crashed down on the Legendary pokemon, with a lake's worth of water surrounding her. The water wrapped around both pokemon, thickening in areas to prevent Mewtwo from simply swimming out. Hashirama had two branches in the water, in a posture similar to Kenpachi's who stretched both his hands into the water prison, both careful not to get caught in the move themselves. Their goal? Circulate so much ghost and dark type energy that Mewtwo couldn't even begin to consider the possibility of teleporting out of the water prison that was to become its grave.
Kisame had kept out of the fight so far, content to conserve her energy, and it showed. Mewtwo was exhausted, she was fresh as a daisy and they were in her element. It wasn't even a fair fight. She took advantage of her bulk to slam into the psychic with powerful tail swipes and body blows. Its shield held, but just barely as it was constantly attacked by instantly appearing water type attacks. Spikes of water shot straight at its shield from all directions at practically every moment. I felt a flash of triumph from Ino's aura and I could tell that she was beginning to gain ground in their mental battle. The combined ghost/dark type energy in the water also had the knockoff effect of weakening its presence in the mental battle. 'Have one move realize multiple effects. When you step forward, accomplish a dozen objectives with that one step' Oak's voice rang out in my head, and for the first time, it brought a genuine smile to my face. He'd probably be pissed when he finds out I failed to capture the bigwigs here, but with Mewtwo dicking around. I couldn't spare a pokemon to secure them and Ino could not spare the energy to keep up her anti-teleportation wards. Besides, my camera was turned on when I went in there. Video evidence of their association with Rocket activity wasn't as solid as an actual arrest, but it would have to suffice.
The shield cracked, and all my pokemon were suddenly alert. This was when Mewtwo would be at his most dangerous. The water swarmed into its body and Kisame wrapped herself around him, crushing him with her bulk. I could see the life begin to drain out of his body, but that's when things went wrong. The water prison suddenly lost cohesion, shattered. Water swept through the hall, picking up anything not nailed down. Ino came out of her meditation with a gasp and grabbed me before teleporting towards the ceiling and levitating me beside her. The rest of my team found their own way away from the chaos. Kenpachi hurled both Broly and Gai to the viewing balcony. Hashirama stretched branches towards the balcony that he and Snorlax began climbing. Igneel swooped down and picked up Kenpachi in his talons. He showed the effects of gravity training on his strength as he picked up the dense rock type and dropped him off at the balcony.
With the safety of my team taken care off, I swept the hall with my eyes searching for the source of the disturbance. The light towards the center seemed to bend out of the way revealing another Mewtwo.
'Donnell Oak. You have done a good job, but I must take it from here' This Mewtwo's voice tore through my mental shields like they didn't even exist. Fuck. I checked on my team with my aura, trying to see if we had enough juice left to put down super Mewtwo.
'Do not worry. I have not come to fight you. My quarry is one you hold no love for' He said as he stretched out his hand and the Mewtwo we'd been fighting floated up towards him. I kept a careful eye on Kisame, silently telling her not to move yet. She'd blended well with the water and was perfectly placed for a surprise attack.
What I saw next, almost had me barf up my dinner. Mewtwo held his twin(?) by the neck before dragging the screaming pokemon towards his mouth. Its jaw unhinged as it swallowed its counterpart whole. Fuck. Fuck. I've seen some messed up shit in this life, but this took the cake.
'Thank you for weakening this one for me. I owe you' The powerful psychic said before disappearing from my eyes like it had never even been here. Fuck. I guess that answers the question of where the real Mewtwo is. He's hunting down his counterparts and consuming them.
'My Lord?' Ino asked hesitantly in my head, careful to avoid exacerbating my headache. I turned to her with a nod, silently asking her to continue. 'His power grew. When he ate the other one, his power grew. It nearly doubled'. At her words, It was all I could do to resist the urge to slam my head on the nearest wall to knock myself out. Perfect. Just fucking perfect. As if the Rockets having access to multiple Mewtwos wasn't enough, they now had a super Mewtwo who also happened to be a cannibal whose power grew from eating members of its own species. If someone out there was actively trying to make this war unwinnable, they were doing a good job. I turned to the floor as the water began to recede and noted that none of the captured pokemon or their trainers remained. I hadn't been able to focus on securing them thanks to Mewtwo so they'd just fucking left. Good. The mission was a complete and total failure. Oak would not be pleased.
XXXXXXX
"Fascinating" Oak said while stroking his beard and I resisted the urge to tug at that beard. I'd returned to the lab, panicked as fuck and explaining what happened, but all he'd done was watch the video from my bodycam and stroke his beard.
"Pardon me, but this is the exact opposite of fascinating. It's terrifying to say the least. You saw how powerful Mewtwo was, my entire team was barely enough to put it down, and that was because I managed to outplay it. In terms of power, it had every member of my team beat, combined. Super Mewtwo is at least twice that strong, and growing stronger. How exactly is the rockets having access to such a pokemon fascinating?" I asked the old man with a scow across my face. The psychopathic old man had to realise this wasn;t the time for science stuff. This was the time to freak out and come up with some sort of strategy for putting that beast down.
"Don't worry, it's very unlikely the rockets have access to such power" My deadpan look was expertly executed.
"He claimed to have been there since the beginning, yes? He then consumed the Mewtwo you were fighting, yes? I find it highly unlikely that Giovanni would order a pokemon that powerful to do anything other than put you down with extreme prejudice, but it allowed you take down the fight ring, and then killed the Mewtwo you were fighting. If I were in Giovanni's shoes, I'd be focused on preserving the Mewtwo I already have, focusing on quantity not quality. A single 'super Mewtwo' no matter how powerful stands no chance against the league on its own. A group of less powerful but comparable pokemon though? No, this 'super Mewtwo' has gone rogue" He said while still stroking his beard. His words calmed me but I couldn't consider myself completely calm by any stretch of the imagination. After all, who knew what was going through Giovanni's head at this exact moment.
XXXXXXX- THE CHAMPION
A league on the verge of destruction, was this to be my legacy? Years as champion, years of good service, threatening to be overshadowed by the actions of one upstart Gym Leader and a power hungry predecessor. The people were already beginning to whisper about returning Oak to the position. Even members of my staff whispered the same when they thought me out of earshot. They felt the old man would have handled it better, and as I read another report on the vigilante missions he and his sons were carrying out, I found it difficult to refute the statement. After all, dozens of rockets had fallen at their hands while I sat here twiddling my thumbs. Our intelligence did not compare with theirs, which was another point of contention. I had the power of ACE at my back, and Oak was still outplaying me. The vast resources of the League were deployed in rooting out the threat of team rocket and four men in a lab were doing a better job. Yes, I know that of those four men, one was the former champion, and the other an elite level trainer.
Donnell Oak's rise was also another bone of contention between me and some of those who held influence in the league. They blamed me for alienating the 'brightest talent of the decade', as if that was even my fault. ACE was its own beast. Admittedly, a stupid beast, but very much an independent one. I turned away from all that and tried finding something to take my attention for the time being, and that was the moment when the alarm began to ring. Fuck. What were the rockets doing now? I checked my terminal and scowled. An attack on Blackthorne? Surely, Giovanni was not this stupid. Claire was an easily elite-level trainer, and she had nearly a dozen clan elders with pokemon at that level to call upon. Blackthorne was the strongest city in Indigo, and Giovanni had bitten way more than he could ever chew.
I put on my cape and gauntlets before whistling at the League Alakazam stationed for my personal use. I appeared on the roof above the gym and nodded my head at the gym trainers as they all dropped to one knee. I walked towards Claire, as she stood at the edge. "What's the situation, Cousin?" I asked her with a smile, one that she could barely reply with a shaky smile of her own. When I got my hands on the Oak boy, he'd regret what he did in Blackthorne.
"The psychic barriers around the city were tripped, and while I have no idea how they work or if this might be a false positive, I still chose to sound the alarm just in case" She said, and I nodded before turning to the side as I spotted something out of the corner of my eyes.
"What the fuck is that?" I asked as a pokemon I recognised as a Camerupt, but not quite a Camerupt exploded in the centre of the town. The civilians had already been evacuated, so all the move caused was some property damage, and drew the attention of the trainers moving around the city. I prepared the pokeball at my side, but Claire just put a hand on mine.
"Not yet. Look there" She said, pointing to the right and I noticed the flaming butterfly floating in the air above the city. I scolded myself for not noticing it immediately. It shamed me to admit it, but Drake was right, I was too easily distracted.
The clearly bug type pokemon went on a strafing run across the west district of the city, tearing buildings apart with a move I could not recognise from up here. What the fuck is this? At that same moment, to the North of us, there was a bright light and a psychic pokemon of some sort floated above the north end of the city in a lotus position. It tore buildings apart with devastating psychic power, and I could feel my face losing the battle and developing a scowl independent of my intentions to portray a calm facade. But how could I be calm? This is my city. Grandma Jane's bun store was just casually torn apart by that psychic. I could remember all the times Claire and I had run into that store growing up, all the times Grandma had tanned our hides when we decided bothering her Salamence was more fun than helping watch the store. My childhood happened in this city, within these walls. I am the champion, and this is my city. None would dare.
Of course, it was at that moment that a truly massive Steelix took position on the Southern end of the city. Fuck. A four-pronged attack? I started strategizing on ways to attack all the individual prongs of this assault at the same time. Maybe send Charizard after the Steelix and sweep around with Dragonite. Head for the psychic first, and then wrap around to deal with the rest. I looked at Claire from the corner of my eyes. She could deal with the Camerupt. Kingdra should already be completely healed so I couldn't see her having trouble with a fire type of all things. The fire moth could be dealt with by the gym trainers gathered at my back. None of them were especially powerful, but as a unit, they were capable of pressing Claire herself. We could do this, and with ease. Just have to maintain my cool and take this one step at a time. Of course, that's when another wrench had to be tossed into my plan. A dragon, a very powerful one, had taken the field. It was somewhere closeby, and I barely had to do any searching to notice the woman a few rooftops away with what looked like a dragon-shark hybrid at her back. The pokemon looked like it meant business, and from the aura around it, I could tell it was the biggest threat. "I'll deal with one first. Start with the Camerupt and wrap around to the bug when you finish. Have your trainers deal with the Steelix. The elders will handle the psychic." I said to Claire with a whisper, my orders being circulated around the trainers behind us. The elders were best placed to handle the psychic and while they were usually content to not be disturbed, with the city in danger, no dragon could remain docile. It was time for us to remind the world of the strength of Blackthorne.
"Champion Lance." The woman greeted me as I landed on the rooftop beside her on Dragonite's back. "I am Cynthia, Champion of Sinnoh. Here in response to your declaration of war" She said, continuing to speak in insanity.
Had I been left with a crazy opponent? Of course, it was almost expected at this point. "What declaration of war?" I asked, choosing to play along with her game while the City defences moved to take care of her fellow attackers.
"Why, your murder of Champion Gerald in breach of the Joint Planetary Accords of course" I just scowled at the crazy woman and sent Dragonite forward. He flew out of his ball with a roar on his lips and crashed right into her own dragon. It just took the attack with a grunt, somehow managing to overcome the force of Dragonite's attack with sheer physicality. Both dragons began to wrestle, tearing the building apart. My opponent just took a rock out of her pocket, and I watched, gobsmacked, as tendrils of darkness rose out of the stone before wrapping around her and lifting her above the crumbling building. Well, this wasn't going to be the walkover I expected.
I turned to the left and noted Claire had reached the Camerupt. Kingdra was firing off attack after attack, but not seeming to be getting anywhere. The elders had come out of the woodwork and surrounded the psychic with their dragons. The thing just danced through the sky, moving from opponent to opponent in a blur of speed and power. I amended my estimation of it instantly, it had to be part fighting type as well, making it a more dangerous opponent.
"Do you truly believe you have the luxury to check up on your fellows?" The woman asked in a tone that bordered on the edge of disdain. I turned back to the battle, and found myself shocked at the situation. Her pokemon was overpowering Dragonite. He wasn't my strongest, no, that honour was held by DRagonite who still remained in his ball, but he was still a fully evolved pseudo-legendary. Even DRagonite could not overwhelm him so easily. This woman's pokemon was something else. "Your pokemon, what is it called?" I asked her with a scowl.
"Oh you seek the name of those about to defeat you? He is Garchomp, the most powerful pokemon in the world"
XXXXXX
"Gary, come on. You'll be late" I said with a scowl on my face as my cousin refused to get out of bed for what seemed like the hundredth time since I'd returned to staying at home full time. As the youngest, and the closest to the little midget in terms of age, I was appointed nanny and caretaker.
While I could have just left the child rearing to Alakazam, I just could not bring myself to do it. I still remembered much of my childhood, or Donnell's childhood, I guess. Without DOntaryon and David around, I would have run mad very quickly. Psychics just weren't cut out for raising human children and Alakazam as a pokemon seemed to give zero fucks for anything that wasn't directly threatening Oak or likely to take that role.
"No" The little munchkin said from under his covers and my scowl turned into a bright smile as I sent Kisame out of her pokeball. Perhaps he sensed what was coming his way because he made to jump out of bed but it was too little too late. Temperature control was one of the more interesting abilities that all water types seemed to share in some form or the other. It was the basis for moves like Scald and Ice beam. Why am I telling you this? Because the water gun that just tossed Gary off his bed was made entirely of freezing cold water. If this wasn't the pokemon world, I'd have been genuinely worried about him getting Hypothermia. Since this was an anime universe, I only smiled, satisfied with myself.
"Donnell" The child shouted in a cute approximation of a war cry and jumped right for me. It was all I could do to prevent Ino from splitting him in twain. She was jumpy these days. Because I'd been so busy preventing him from being cut in half, the little demon was able to slam right into me with no resistance. He might just have been six years old, but momentum was a bitch and I found myself falling to the floor. Thankfully, Ino was able to catch me in her psychic grip and dump both of us on the bed. I wrestled the boy into the bed and began to engage in the most despicable and cruel form of torture. Tickling.
His struggles were futile and pathetic. Nothing he did could get me off him, and I would have been fine with continuing the torture, but we had places to be. "Surrender. Surrender, you little gremlin" I demanded of him, as I intensified my efforts. When he finally gave in to his superior foe, I let him go and ushered him straight to his bathroom. I felt like a den mother as I forced him to brush his teeth twice and dumped him in the bath water when he refused to get in on his own. I had to admit that now that I no longer had to live in the wilderness 24/7, I'd become a bit of a hygiene freak. Two months of living with Sabrina who was similarly inclined had only amplified my tendencies. She was the one to introduce me to pocket sanitizer and a whole host of hygiene products and disinfectants that could fit in the front pockets of jeans. Space expansion tech was useful for a lot more than camping and wilderness survival. Gary got out of the bathroom much quicker than I would have liked, but we were already running late so I couldn't complain.
I gave him privacy to dress himself up. I'd found that giving him independence in certain tasks made him more likely to perform them without much grumbling or delay. Of course, when he came out wearing an exact copy of what I was wearing, I was more than a little bit freaked out. Where the hell did he even get a camo hoodie in his size. This was worrying, and bore need for further investigation. I looked down at his trainers, the same as mine, from the same small scale brand that operated out of Viridian, same colour and lace arrangement, but sized down for his feet. 'Obsessed much?' I silently asked with a raised brow.
Not even noticing my silent question, the little demon walked right up to me and gave me those demonic eyes that had to be outlawed. If I ever became champion, that would be my very first piece of policy. "Walk me to school, Donnell?" He asked, and like with every other thing the midget asked for, I could not bring myself to say no. We were running late already, but I could not bring myself to teleport him to school after he already asked to walk. I grabbed him and placed him on my shoulders so we could make better time to the local school. He was just starting out Primary School with the rest of the children his age, but this was going to be his first time interacting with them.
Like he'd done for his own children, Oak hadn't sent his grandchildren to kindergarten. He considered it a waste of time and had Alakazam teach us instead. Because of that, we'd all shown up to school ahead of our classmates by a fair bit and socially awkward to the extreme. When your only dedicated contact was with a psychic, you tended to develop certain habits. One of which, the total and complete lack of a filter, had gotten me into trouble more than a few times in childhood.
We stepped out of the ranch with Ino and Broly trailing behind us. Ino was with me at all times these days, but Broly seemed to just melt out of the foliage as he sensed us about to leave the bounds of the ranch. All my pokemon roamed freely with the exception of Tsunade, but that was only because she'd just gotten back from the lab. She'd taken a nasty hit in the battle against Mewtwo and while her scales were intact, I'd decided it was better to be safe than sorry.
We walked slowly, taking a longer route. We were already late, and I could already feel that this was going to be a difficult day for the little monster. "Donnell, what is school like?" He asked in a voice so tiny I might have missed it if I wasn't being enhanced by aura into something not quite fully human.
"It's interesting. You'll meet lots of kids. Different people from different places, all willing to play with you. You'll have lots of fun" I felt terrible for lying to the boy, but there was no need to scare him with the truth. I'd made exactly zero friends in my time in school, and the same was true for Dontaryon, David and Daniella. Oak kids just had bad luck in school. I hoped it was because Oak was still the Champion so the kids had treated us differently because of that, but something told me his retirement was not going to matter much. After all, it's not like he was any less famous, or any less relevant in Pallet Town. Oak was Pallet Town, and the rest of the town knew it. His taxes paid for practically everything.
"Will I have friends?" He asked in an even tinier voice and I knew that this was what was really bothering him. Something had been off in his morning rituals. He'd been even more clingy than usual. I guess I could see why he'd be anxious.
"You'll have friends if any of them are worthy of you. Remember who you are Gary, you're special. Anyone who doesn't see that is an idiot, and not worth being friends with in the first place. Besides, aren't Ino, Broly and I, your friends?" I asked with a hearty laugh. Was I contributing to the attitude issues we got to see in the anime? Maybe. Did I care? Hell no. This is my kid brother, and I'll be damned if I didn't do my best to protect him from what I knew would be coming his way. Spending time with him reminded me of what was truly important. I wasn't just fighting Team Rocket for my pride and vengeance. I was fighting for his future.
When we finally arrived at the school's entrance, I saw a small missile that had been heading towards me get picked up by Ino's telekinesis. I looked into the boy's brown eyes, and felt recognition rush through me.
"Let him down, Ino" I said out loud, for the children's benefit. "And you, young one. You have to watch where you're running" I said to the abashed protagonist.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm late. I overslept." Sir? What the fuck? How old did I look?
"It's fine. Gary here is also late" I said, gesturing to the demon on my shoulders. " I'm Donnell. What's your name?" I asked the boy.
"Ash Ketchum, future pokemon master, at your service." I just smiled at his exuberance before letting the squirming Gary down from my shoulder. They stared at each other before making their own introductions. I just smiled as I watched the two protagonists hit it off. I'd be damned if anything happened to these boys on my watch.
A/N; That's not a typo with Lance's Dragonite's name though. Lance's character refers to them all as Dragonite, but I have the alpha spelled as DRagonite to differentiate. If you have a better idea for achieving that goal, please don't hesitate to drop it in a comment. Just a bit of friendly fluff to close down the chapter
Thanks for reading. We have the next Seven chapters up on the pa-treon page. I'm finally back. You can join up over there to read 'em. Same username as up here. The link's on my profile.