Disclaimer: I do not own any of the properties associated with Nintendo, Creatures inc., or GAME FREAK. I now direct your attention to the thirteenth chapter of this fanfiction, which is an installment of considerable significance. In fact:
"You can't miss it."
Maybe the phrase is hyperbole, but it still describes an immensely powerful phenomenon. Some events have a unique power to sweep up everyone's attention, dominating the thoughts and dreams of thousands. They will look forward to the event with seemingly endless anticipation, experience it in a thrilling rush, and look back on it for weeks afterward.
For thousands of people on Poketopia Island, the beginning of the tournament is just such an event.
But, though such a momentous battle is obviously a story well worth the telling, it is not the only important event taking place on the tropical island of Poketopia this June day. For, considering that the phrase "You can't miss it" is not literal, what of the people who, for whatever reason, can miss the battle, must miss it? What could compel them to avoid such a momentous event altogether?
What is it that they cannot miss?
In a quiet hallway, near the entrance to Main Street Colosseum's audience seating, there stands a Trainer.
On a purely visual level, the Trainer is unremarkable. He is a relatively tall boy of around sixteen, with sandy hair and a lanky build, clothed in a bright red T-shirt and dark jeans. The six members of his Pokémon team, released from their Pokeballs for a bit of exercise, crowd the hallway around him.
A massive Arcanine is curled up on the floor, and a Riolu, comically tiny by comparison, lies half-buried in the firebreathing canine's fluffy, rust-colored mane. A Staraptor glares at its own reflection in the polished, shiny wall of the hallway as if the mirror image has dealt it some great personal injury. A Vaporeon slaps its finned tail rhythmically on the floor while a spiky Sandslash bobs to the beat. And a Rotom spirals uncontrollably around them all, like a shooting star bent on mischief.
A typical Trainer, outwardly speaking: the living average of many of the tournament's entrants. But when the majority of those entrants are now crowding the stadium, wholly unwilling to miss even a second of the battle taking place there, his presence in this hallway is highly unusual.
What is happening now that, to him, can't be missed, even for the Poketopia Tournament itself?
"We don't really know what's going to happen now," he reminds the Pokètch on his wrist. "We have our theories, but when it comes to actual facts, there are a lot of unanswered questions. I think we need to meet somewhere so we can talk it all over in person."
"Very well," a female voice responds coolly out of the device, muffled somewhat by the cheering crowds on the speaker's end. "Where and when do you suggest we meet?"
The sandy-haired Trainer surveys the ceiling as if thinking; grins. "If I remember right, there's this really great café kind of near Neon Colosseum. Lunch tomorrow?"
In the blink of an eye the other voice's practical, formal tone vanishes, replaced by the very human tones of reluctance and trepidation. "Come on, can't we just meet on some street corner or something? If we have lunch together at some trendy café"—he can almost see her shuddering—"people are going to think we're…dating."
His grin broadens as he pictures what her face must look like right now; despite the look of disgusted horror that is likely spread across her features, he must confess that it still makes for quite an attractive picture. "I don't mind that if you don't," he tells her.
"You're really annoying," she snaps.
His tone remains content. "Thank you!"
The sandy-haired Trainer lets one second pass, then another, vaguely watching his Arcanine try to break up a fight that has broken out between his Staraptor and Rotom.
A dramatic sigh from the other end of the line. "All right, but if you're going to humiliate me like this, I think it's only fair that you pay."
The Trainer grins anew, not without a hint of relief in his expression. There's a part of him that is actually pretty excited about having lunch with this girl, even if they are only colleagues and the meeting was scheduled for practical reasons.
As usual, though, he lets no excitement leech from his thoughts into his voice. "There, was that so painful?"
The other end of the line goes dead. The silence speaks volumes, but they are all cues too subtle for the sandy-haired Trainer to decipher in his present state.
Seconds later, the cool serenity of the hallway is interrupted by a sparkling blaze of light as the Trainer recalls most of his team and dashes off for the stadium, his Riolu scampering along in his wake. His rendezvous planned and all of the practical matters taken care of, he is anxious to see the rest of the battle—in fact, he can't miss it.
The Poketopia contestants' village waxes and wanes much like the tides of the ocean that surround it. When no pressing event draws its inhabitants away, it is typically packed to capacity with Trainers, all of them brimming with energy and imparting a chaotic vitality on the small area. But now, with the vast majority off at the Colosseums, the village is almost completely deserted. The only sounds are the pounding of the distant waves and the screeching of Wingull, as though in a dirge for more exciting times.
But the village is not empty. Though it is indeed almost deserted, there is a reason for that "almost."
That reason is sprawled carelessly across the bed in one of the contestants' houses, his muscular arms folded across his chest. He wears large, silver sunglasses that smother his facial expression utterly, rendering his face a mask.
This Trainer is far from eager to appear in public, especially after what happened yesterday. The opening battle of a tournament? He can miss it. He doesn't care as long as he's not the one competing.
Rising slowly into a sitting position, the sheets crumpling under him, the man pulls a Trainer ID card from his pocket. The name on it is not his own, which is precisely the way he likes it.
But ID cards in general make the man uneasy these days. Nominally, he muses, they are used to identify yourself to an organization of some kind, but organizations have a way of changing your identity to fit their own standards. And the man in the shades has had enough of that experience to last him a long time. He is much happier to be an X factor.
This, however, is not the only reason that the man's other ID card now resides in the trash can. His distant attitude is a form of escape, after all. And it's impossible to escape without something or someone to escape from.
Right now, the man's pursuer is personified in the remarkably shiny, black and yellow card buried beneath candy wrappers and an old Poketopia Gazette in the wastebasket. And the man who put it there wants nothing more than for it to remain.
With a groan, he rises from the bed, careful not to strike his left arm against anything—for it is still blackened and painful, recovering from what must have been a nasty burn.
The man doesn't once look at the wastebasket or its black-and-yellow, shiny contents on his way out of the room. Maybe there's something good on TV, he thinks hopefully. He'd hate to miss that.
The coolly shining corridors that form the entrance to Main Street Colosseum reverberate with the clattering footsteps of someone in an extreme rush. Although the sandy-haired Trainer who paced these halls several minutes previously has now found his way back into the stadium proper, it is now apparent that his successor has not been nearly so lucky.
The originator of the footsteps, a blond youth with a panicked expression, dashes into an intersection, skidding several feet on the smooth floor after he stops running. His outfit somehow seems to outshine the dusty light cast by the fixtures overhead, and not without reason: he is clad in purple, and orange, and tie-dye, and several shades of blue, and…well, suffice it to say that he looks as though he had been dipped in a vat of electrified rainbows.
After several seconds of looking wildly around the intersection and muttering a few choice thoughts about the organization of the anterooms, the Trainer's bright green eyes lock on to a closed door on the far wall. A look of immense relief spreading over his face, he sprints over to the door and seizes the handle.
He is rewarded only with a metallic rattling noise and a strong feeling of resistance that, taken together, can only mean that the door is firmly locked.
This setback is sufficient to daunt the blond Trainer for almost a minute, but once that time has elapsed, his characteristic crafty grin has returned: he has a plan. Not for the first time this afternoon, he will enlist the aid of his Pokémon team to help return him to the tournament.
In the space of a moment, the blond Trainer's Probopass is hovering bizarrely in the middle of the intersection. Upon its master's instruction, the chunky, mustachioed Pokémon floats over to the door in a ruthlessly straight line. The three "mini-nose" units that the Pokémon controls, each one like a light blue Nosepass the size of a fist, circle the Probopass' body with increasing speed.
In a sudden, intense burst of magnetic power that makes the blond Trainer's eyes water, the door unlocks and swings open. With a yell of triumph, the Trainer dashes past his Pokémon…
And barely avoids colliding with a vacuum cleaner.
His exuberance rapidly drains away, and the resulting look of disappointment begins to congeal into horror. Rather than the titanic Colosseum bedecked with giant Pachirisu and Bidoof floats that he'd expected to see, the blond Trainer instead faces a narrow closet filled with cleaning supplies. He suddenly realizes how horribly lost he has been this entire time.
Seeing no other options present themselves, his head pounding with an urgent desire to find his way back to the stadium and "civilization," the Trainer recalls his Probopass, slams the door of the broom closet he's just broken into, and dashes off down a random corridor.
What follows, like so many previous events in this particular Trainer's life, proves to be something of a mixed blessing.
On the bright side, his odyssey of wrong turns is finally at an end, and within the span of a few minutes, the brilliant sunlight of the open stadium floods into the corridor ahead of him, the roar of the crowd growing louder with every step he takes. The downside, unfortunately, is that someone else happens to be walking in the exact opposite direction of the path the blond Trainer is taking, on her way out of the stadium proper. The blond Trainer, who has been characteristically running at top speed, is unable to curb his momentum and crashes right into the other spectator.
Before they have even disentangled from the impact, he is semi-coherently apologizing, talking as quickly as he is able. "Oh-jeez-I'm-so-sorry-I-was-lost-and-totally-wasn't-looking-where-I-was-going-I-can't-believe-I-just-ran-right-into-you FORGIVE ME!"
His earnest despair completely melts the anger of the other, who can't help laughing. "It's okay," she assures him, helping him to his feet. "Come to think of it, I owe you an apology, as well. Aren't you the guy Destructor hit when you were trying to break up the fight at the banquet a few days ago?"
"And you're apologizing for this?" he splutters, shocked. "Seriously, don't even think about it! That was awesome! I totally want to build my own mango cannon now, just to replicate the experience!"
The blond Trainer, needless to say, has achieved his usual effect utterly bamboozling the person with whom he's conversing. The indigo-haired girl before him now fiddles awkwardly with the two large feathers in her hair, seemingly putting off her response for as long as possible.
Eventually, she settles for the most neutral option possible, sticking out a hand in introduction. "Lucianne Delaray."
The blond Trainer lunges forward and shakes the proffered hand with great enthusiasm, doing nothing by halves even now. "Ferk Ramalo," he informs her.
There is a complex look in Lucianne's eyes, an expression far too subtle for the blond-haired Ferk—much more empathetic to Pokémon than he is to his own species—to decipher. "I came out here to just kind of take a break from it all," she tells him, a thoughtful sort of melancholy behind her words, "but"—behind them in the stadium, there is a sudden flash of orange light and the screech of a furious bird—"it sounds like I'd better go back if I don't want to miss the best part of the battle." There is an insistent squeaking noise as her shoe twists against the floor; she fidgets, ill at ease for some reason.
The same cannot, typically, be said of Ferk. "I'd recommend staying in sight of this door," he warns Luce breezily. "It's a total maze in there. I was lost."
Always an actor on the stage of real life, he shoots her a quick glance out of those acid-bright eyes, expecting a reaction of some sort. But Lucianne Delaray is a being of fewer words and a more measured character than he, and she only nods slowly.
A crunching noise echoes up from the colosseum floor, followed by a spike in the volume of the cheering. The sun on the back of Ferk's neck seems to be tingling; he can't bring himself to delay his return to the stadium a moment longer.
"SO, nice meeting you!" he blurts, and is gone. Luce watches him sprint back into the stadium for a moment, then turns away, back to the cool solitude of the corridors.
Ferk Ramalo does not notice, for he is, in a series of resounding clangs, pounding down the steps back to his seat, his signature intense grin spreading across his face. For this is what he had feared he would miss altogether, what the thousands of spectators around him are cheering for. The reason his Shuckle is, even now, still slowly returning from the concession stand, what he inadvertently broke into a broom closet to try to find: a glorious, momentous, unmissable event.
Though she wasn't a very mathematically inclined person, Mimi Darius had to admit that the life of a successful Pokémon Trainer involved many calculations. How best to train a Pokémon and unlock its full potential, many of the complex nuances of battle strategy, even the ultimate impact of a super-effective blow – really, it was amazing how much of it resulted from the subtle machinations of countless numbers and variables.
What Mimi was calculating now were the odds.
She didn't like them.
It wasn't that she doubted her Fearow, Amu, in the slightest – the Beak Pokémon, adept at both contests and battles, was an old and faithful member of her team. Still, against Nick's Blaziken … well, she still didn't love those odds.
As a Blaziken, Colonel was part fighting-type and, as such, vulnerable to Amu's many flying-type moves. But with that crazy Flame Charge move in play, increasing Colonel's speed repeatedly, whether she'd have a chance to use those moves was suddenly uncertain.
Ordinarily, this might not have been a problem for Mimi, but none of Celestic Town's blistering summers had prepared her for a truly sweltering July day in Poketopia. How am I even supposed to think? She silently demanded of the climate in general.
That was when a very Mimi-esque inspiration hit her: Well, maybe I'm not supposed to think at all!
Like her old friend Maecenas, Mimi possessed a highly impulsive spirit, tending to rely on instinct just as much as she did on strategy in most battles. Since calculating who would move first this time was next to impossible, she mused, perhaps this was the perfect time to throw caution to the winds.
I hope this works, said a smaller, more worried part of Mimi's mind, and she tugged nervously at the hem of her jean jacket. Her resolve was not too deeply shaken, however, and it was the work of a moment to call out to her Pokémon.
"Drill Peck, Amu!"
Her golden-feathered Fearow had been flapping stationarily in the air as its Trainer pondered, exchanging a continuing parade of "I'm cooler than you" looks with its opponent, Colonel. Despite this sedentary state of affairs, Amu whipped into action within moments of Mimi's command, diving at top speed towards the enemy Blaziken. About halfway through its trajectory, the Pokémon's needle-sharp beak began to glow with barely suppressed energy.
Unfortunately for Mimi Darius, the sizzling crunch that sliced through the summer air as the two avians collided was not the sound of a Drill Peck successfully connecting. She quickly became aware of two key truths even without the clues her senses provided her: the sight of her beloved Pokémon crashing violently to the stadium floor, the sound of a pained screech being drowned by a raspy roar of victory, the bitter smell of burning feathers, the insistent, prickling itch of nervous sweat at her temples, the sour taste of sudden fear.
The truths were these:
-Colonel's move had been both a Blaze Kick and a critical hit, and
-This was serious trouble.
Okay, calm down, Mimi, she admonished herself tensely, realizing that her pounding heart threatened to run away with her altogether. We can survive this!
The sole option she could take to rescue her Fearow was obvious to her. But even that was fraught with uncertainty, and the chances were still good that Amu would be brought down by a flaming Blaziken before it had the chance to act.
It was all down to this moment. Mimi drew a shaky breath, crossed her fingers.
"Amu, use Roost!"
But to her dismay, instead of settling onto the stadium floor to heal from its considerable injuries, her Pokémon immediately stretched its powerful wings and soared into the air.
Mimi's heart pounded as she watched the golden-feathered shape recede further and further into the summer air; her mind was struggling under a flood of powerlessness and fear. As far as she could remember, her Pokémon had never disobeyed a direct order from her before. Had something in her command been so unreasonable that Amu couldn't bear to follow it?
Weariness and injury evident in its movements, Amu continued to climb until it was several hundred feet above the stadium floor – precisely, in fact on a level with the Pachirisu and Bidoof floats that loomed over the colosseum. Amu made an ungainly landing on the Bidoof's nose and settled in, tucking in its wings as a powerful healing process kicked off within its body.
Mimi, a huge smile suddenly evident on her face, resisted the impulse to cheer. Amu had listened to her, after all – it had just found a way to use Roost and evade Colonel's clutches at the same time. And unlike the previous instance of one of her Pokémon being balanced above a massive drop, this time Nick's Blaziken was wholly unable to clamber up and intervene.
Nick, having evidently made the same assumption, squinted futilely up at the distant shape of Amu, then shot Mimi an extremely grumpy look. Colonel burst completely into flames out of sheer frustration, causing a nearby spectator's bag of popcorn to explode out of his hands as the unpopped kernels all burst simultaneously.
Mimi could barely even see Amu at its present altitude. The Fearow appeared as only a golden-brown smudge on the behemoth Bidoof's nose, but prior experience allowed her to guess how Amu looked: Peaceful and rejuvenated, newfound health coursing through its veins, relaxed as though the battle were a thousand miles away.
As the seconds stretched on, though, Mimi began to feel slightly uneasy. Some instinctive part of her mind was insisting that all was not well, that her success was going to come at a price…
The realization came to her in a second. Her stomach lurched, and her green eyes painted a picture of helpless agony.
It was a trap, a beautiful, deadly trap, and she had no one to blame for it but herself. Using Roost came with a downside – by tucking in its wings and beginning the recovery process, a Pokémon temporarily surrendered its flying type.
Normally, that wasn't a problem. But Amu had to act in this turn, or risk being disqualified from the match all together. And right now, it was stuck nine hundred feet above the stadium, with no way to fly down.
"Amu!" Mimi called, her voice faltering, then fell silent. She was far from certain that her Pokémon could even hear her, and besides, she had no idea what instructions she should be giving. It seemed that her only two options were losing the round by default, or … well, she didn't like to think what would happen if Amu let go.
Which was why she remained frozen to the spot, paralyzed by shock, as her Fearow unclenched its talons from the float and went into free fall.
The Beak Pokémon tucked its wings in close to its body, minimizing air resistance. Pure principles of motion did the rest, acceleration of 9.8 meters per second squared due to gravity, until Amu was a golden blur, plummeting at blistering speeds toward a stadium floor it must surely reach in seconds.
Then, in a sudden blur of motion, Amu's wings snapped open to their full extent, turning the end of the Pokémon's fall into a controlled, still blazingly fast swoop.
Colonel never even had time to look up.
The next thing anyone knew, the mighty Blaziken was sprawled unconscious on the stadium floor, knocked out by the sheer force of the impact. Above its crumpled form, Amu, its powers of flight now restored, flapped around and around in triumphant little circles, giving the occasional warbling crow of utter self-satisfaction.
A second before Mimi had been completely frozen; now, she couldn't stop her whole body from shaking. She simply could not believe what a risky move her Pokémon had taken, still less that it had actually worked.
Part of her wanted to jump up and down in excitement. After all, had it not been for Amu's quick thinking she would have lost the round by default; she had been miles away from coming up with any sort of plan herself. But on the other hand, she was uncomfortably aware of just how much had depended on the grounding effects of Roost wearing off in mid-fall. Was any victory impressive or necessary enough to be worth that danger?
You don't really have time to worry about that right now, Mimi admonished herself. It already happened and everything turned out okay, so be grateful and just go with it!
Mimi half-listened to the announcer's booming statements, uneasily telling herself that she'd have strong words with Amu later. She began to feel pretty good about her chances – Amu was still fairly healthy, after all, and the Pokémon she held in reserve could handle anything Nick cared to dish out.
Her heart pounding with excitement, Mimi fixed her eyes squarely on her opponent, waiting for his next move.
A rattled-looking Nick Brooks produced his final PokeBall and hurled it out onto the battlefield. "Nimbus!" he called in a strained voice.
It took Mimi a second to spot his actual Pokémon – it was smaller than the little burst of light that had heralded its appearance. Nick's Castform bobbed in the air and let out a throbbing, alien cry of joy, fixing its beady eyes on the blue skies above the stadium.
Mimi had never battled an actual Castform before, but she'd heard about what they could do. She was pretty certain that this development spelled bad news for her valorous Fearow, and studied the tiny gray creature for some time, unsure of what to do.
A pre-emptive strike is probably best, she concluded. Just take it right out before it starts messing with the weather …
"Drill Peck!" she commanded, her fists clenched so tightly that her nails were digging into her palms.
"Icy Wind," Nick countered smoothly.
Mimi groaned, her heart sinking, but it was too late. With a resonant whooshing sound, Nimbus expelled a cyclone of frosty air straight towards the oncoming Fearow. Amu saw the attack coming and tried desperately to evade it, but moments later it was caught up in the chilly vortex and hurled roughly to the ground.
Though Icy Wind wasn't in itself a terribly powerful attack, Amy had already suffered an immense beating, and Mimi could instantly tell that this was the end. Sure enough, her Pokémon remained inert and unconscious, a little lump of brownish feathers on the stadium floor that gave no hint of the hero of a few minutes before.
Despite her increasingly dire circumstances and still-pounding heart, Mimi couldn't suppress a grin as she recalled her fallen Fearow. They sure didn't start me off with an easy battle, did they? she reflected. Just the way I like it! … still, let's get that stupid gray blob out of the way right now. I did not come here all the way from Celestic Town to get knocked out in the very first battle …
She didn't hesitate for a second in making her final selection. Staring at the PokeBall in her hand for a second, she silently wished its inhabitant good luck, then flung the destined sphere into the arena, excitement flooding her being. This is it. One of us is going to walk away from this as the winner … the other one's going to be watching the rest of the tournament.
The last two Pokemon sizing each other up, the two Trainers, one a slim, intense girl with silver hair, the other a lanky youth with melancholy eyes. The announcer, his avuncular proclamations thundering through the stadium. The thousands in the stands.
For this single moment, their many thoughts become one.
I don't want to miss a second of this.
1: Media: Novum (formerly MediaMessiah)
2: Silverfeather: …I'm just totally spacing on the correct username, sorry. If I remember, I'll add you in.
3: Brown: Cyberwolf101
4: Ramalo: SilentlySnowing
5: Delaray: Kyuuketsuki Fang
6: Brooks: SupremeKimchi
7: Darius: PokemonJoe1
And I was going to just leave it at that, to keep things all mysterious, but it's been too long. Good to be back in the fanfic world! Hope you're all well and whatnot, and that you enjoyed the chapter (which was something of an artistic departure, I know).
Though it's been a while since my last post, I've been anything but inactive. Behind the scenes, this story finally has proper villains (that's right people, I was MAKING ALL OF THIS UP AS I WENT ALONG, but now there's a plan), which were hinted at in some of this chapter's opening scenes. Don't worry, things will stay tantalizingly mysterious for a while yet…but as always, stay tuned!
I've also published my third story, a Star Trek/Star Wars crossover called There Is Another. For those of you whose cup of tea this is, please do check it out, as I'm entirely new to crossovers (my beta-reading page still says I don't like them, I think, heh.) I'm writing There Is Another with Aberolingarn, a good friend of mine who currently has massive writers' block, but my next chapter is all written so I'll publish that next. Expect it this coming week, unless the Dark Side interferes…
Other than that, there's my theatrical and musical endeavours, a review series I'm developing (which may or may not see the light of day by this summer), and countless other facets of my fascinating life! Nonetheless, writing is still paramount, so expect to see something new soon.
Oh, and I'm sorry for ending the battle on a cliffhanger AGAIN, but I didn't want to make you wait any longer for this chapter (I've gotten a fair amount of praise for my battle scenes in the reviews, but they are absurdly hard to write, I can tell you).
Cheers!
Maecenas out.