WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
200, PEOPLE, WE REACHED 200! THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH!
*grabs bag of cookies and throws them in the air while doing a little dance*
COOKIES! COOKIES FOR ALL MY FAITHFUL REVIEWERS! WE REACHED MY GOAL! 200 REVIEWS BY CHAPTER TWENTY! YEEEEESSS!
*On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons begins playing*
Amy47101 does not own pokémon. Only Vale.
o.0.o.0.o
The Adventure Saga
Enlightening the Soul
o.0.o.0.o
Vale stood on top of the roof of a random building, staring with eyes wide at the smoking building that was once the Burned Tower. Police were rallying around, trying to calm the growing crowd. Ambulances stood by, treating a few trainers for minor burns and fretting over a blond-haired man while and older man was sobbing beside a younger man in a white cape, though the white-caped man seemed annoyed as he patted the old mans back comfortingly. The fire department had been dispatched, and they were putting out a few flames to avoid further damage to the relic of a building, though it seemed to her that they were just as confused and scrambling for a solution as the residents of the city.
She sighed, closing her eyes as she crossed her legs and rested her chin in her hand. Such a serene town, a place so old-fashioned that it seemed as if time was preserved here itself. She let out a sigh. This place was familiar. It was peaceful, left a warm feeling in her chest.
If this was what home felt like, she liked it. She wanted to stay here, and feel this way, always.
A beeping rang out on her belt. She pressed a button on the device, allowing it to go directly to the piece in her ear.
"Those foolish Rockets." Mask's voice muttered under his breath.
"They're insane." Vale said as she made her way to the ladder that she had climbed up. "What do they expect to gain from blowing up the Burned Tower?"
"They're not insane, just foolish. They are nothing but petty thieves." scoffed Mask. "They were probably trying to draw out the pokémon rumored to be inside the tower, and acted recklessly."
"Or the calculatingly planned this out to cause mass panic and terror."
Mask laughed at that. Vale raised an eyebrow as she landed on the ground
"Are you suggesting they're terrorists?" at this, Mask laughed. "No, Vale. Terrorist require intelligence and diligence. Team Rocket has had neither since Giovanni disappeared." he paused. "And we would have had an even bigger upper hand than we do now if you hadn't have let his son get away..."
"Tch. Silver doesn't even know." Vale said. "You had no intention of telling him."
"He didn't need to know. Silver doesn't even have to be his actual child, just enough of a similarity to make them think he's the child."
"Do you even know if Silver is his kid?"
"... Are you questioning my actions, Vale?" his voice was low and dangerous. Vale swallowed, nearly smacking herself with he foolishness.
"No." she stated. "I'm sorry."
"... Good."
"So what do you even want me to do here that the grunts can't?"
"I wanted us to conduct research on the two towers, but it seems one has just been bombed... Go to the Bell Tower. We've hidden a disguise for you. Even without the disguise, you should get in easily, what with the commotion of the bombing and all..." he trailed off, chuckling. "Seems they've served a good purpose after all."
"What do you want to know that you can't get through research?"
"Just see if you can get to the top floor of the tower."
Vale blinked in confusion at this.
"Okay, then. I'll report back with the results."
o.0.o.0.o
The brown pokémon stared intently at Lyra as she gripped a pokéball tightly in her hand. His, or so Lyra thought, gaze was heavy and serious, though also intrigued. It took a step forward. Eevee leapt away from Silver, growling slightly. At this, the pokémon paused, as if looking amused.
Then it swatted Eevee away with the back of his paw like it was a bug type. Lyra gasped, scrambling to get back to her.
"Return!" she called out as Eevee shakily stood again. Once it was safely in her pokéball, Lyra turned back, only to see the brown pokémon stalking off with Silver over his back.
"H-Hey!" Lyra cried out, crawling as fast as she could after Silver and the brown pokémon. It paused. Lyra scrambled over to it.
"Get on." Silver wheezed out. Lyra nodded scrambling on so that she was laying over the beast, careful to not move Silver to much. With a mighty roar, the pokémon smashed through the debris and brought them into the next floor.
The breathing conditions on this floor weren't much better. While under the debris, it was suffocating, up here, it was from the smoke from the flames. Lyra heard voices of people, men shouting out, asking if anyone else was in the building.
"We are!" Lyra exclaimed before going into a fit of coughs. The pokémon grunted something, then kneeled down. Lyra limped off, then gently tried to lift Silver off. She took his good arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, beginning to limp while dragging him behind towards the voices. The pokémon barked something, then rammed a hole in the wall. Lyra looked over her shoulder at the new way of escape, then limped out, practically collapsing on the ground.
"Oh Arceus," she thought. "The air... the air is so clean... Oh Arceus..."
"We've got survivors!" someone yelled.
"Those are the kids we saw fall!"
"Holy Ho-oh, get an ambulance!"
Lyra felt someone lifting her up and putting something over her mouth. Suddenly, breathing became even easier than before. She gulped in breaths, when something suddenly made the blood in her veins run cold.
"He's not breathing!"
o.0.o.0.o
"Huh..." Vale muttered as she reached her hand up. Her disguise consisted of the traditional dress for a priestess, a white jacket with long, loose sleeves, red cords going through the end and loose red hakama, along with socks and sandals. Around her middle was a red obi tied neatly in the front. She had pulled her long black hair back into a low ponytail and tied it with a white ribbon, as well as brown contacts over her blue eyes. Her normal clothes, mask, and headpiece were gone, meaning that Mask couldn't contact her at all.
Though the scars on her face were showing, she hardly felt embarrassed or ashamed by it at all. Without the mask, without the constant threat of him looming over her, she felt free, like she could fly and no one could stop her. Along with the feeling of being at 'home' she was positively drunk on euphoria. Though it was hard to hide her true joy, she could not help but have a small smile on her face as she walked past monks, climbing up ladder after ladder until she got to the top.
Now she was at the top floor, standing just feet from the last ladder to the top, but something was blocking her. Some sort of force-field that shocked her slightly whenever she brought her hand up to it. Not enough to hurt, but enough to tell her she wasn't going any further.
She held up her hand towards the forcefield, the electricity making small little static lighting bolts across her palm, as if attracted to her skin.
"Strange."
"How very strange indeed." Vale flinched from the elderly voice, though kept her composure and turned towards it. She saw an elderly monk sitting cross-legged, wise eyes staring at her. Recognizing him as her superior, she bowed respectfully. "Come here, child." Vale swallowed, then rose from her bow and walked over to him, kneeling down in front of him and tucking her legs to the side. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen." his eyes widened slightly at that, then he chuckled.
"And here I thought you were twenty. Why would you become a priestess so young, child?"
"Ah, my father..." she trailed off, averting her gaze as she raised a hand to her scars. "Was abusive. I knew he wouldn't find me here if I ran off." She closed her eyes. "Selfish, I know."
"I am glad you have found a light in your darkness." he paused as she opened her eyes. "What a rare type of person you are. Have you noticed the forcefield around the ladder?"
"Yes. It seems I can not get past it."
"I can not move from this point."
"What? That's preposterous, I was but a few feet from the ladder..." she trailed off as the elderly monk reached a hand up, a similar static being attracted to his hand as it had to her hand before.
"See now, child? A very similar field surrounds this whole tower and the surrounding area's of the tower. Most can get through, but most cannot get up to the second floor. Immediately upon joining the priesthood, it is the ultimate goal to reach that ladder, to be granted the right to climb to Ho-oh's resting place. I am nearly ninety, my dear girl, and I've been meditating my whole life. Only now have I been able to reach this point, a little over a week ago. Yet you, my dear girl, are but seventeen, someone who recently joined the priesthood, and yet the ladder was at your fingertips. Why is that, I suppose?"
Vale glanced at him, taking in the situation. He was staring at her, though not with anger or jealousy, but rather, a curious look on his face. Like she was a rare, difficult puzzle that he couldn't quite solve.
"I haven't the slightest idea." she stated.
"Take those things out of your eyes." he ordered. Vale snapped her head up this.
"W-Why?"
"Is it vanity or cowardliness? Why hide your eyes?"
"... Cowardliness, I suppose." she muttered. It wasn't a complete lie. She truly was afraid of what Mask would do if she didn't wear the contacts. Regardless, she pulled out a contact case. She then reached up an expertly popped one contact out, then the other, placing them in their respective spots in the case. "I am hiding, after all." She blinked a bit, then looked up at him.
"Ice blue." he commented. "That's not common in Johto."
"I'm aware."
"With black hair and pale skin." Vale didn't respond to that. "You're very pretty. Shame you became a priestess. You could've made a young man very, very happy." her face went red as she bowed her head.
"You're a monk." she muttered. "And that's not even required to be a priestess anymore."
"I'm aware." he echoed her from earlier. "And I meant that with no ill intentions." He smiled a little. "Keep safe on your journey."
"Yes." she nodded, standing up then bowing respectfully. "Thank you, um..."
"Head Monk Tengoku, my dear girl."
"Your parents chose the correct name." Vale said. "It means heavenly, right?"
"Something along those lines." he waved his hand dismissively. "May I ask yours?"
Vale paused for a moment. The smiled a little.
"I'm Vale."
"Ah, a name with two meanings." the monk grinned. "Were you named after the term for a valley with a stream or named after the term for farewell?"
"Not many people are aware that the word vale has two meanings." Vale sighed. "I'm sure that the intended meaning when the name was given to me was 'farewell'."
"Why do you think that?"
"Personally, I'm not sure why my father named me that. But I do know I've said farewell to a lot of people... a lot of important people. Maybe," she mused. "He had known that?" she smiled, turning to him. "Again, I haven't the slightest idea. But this is farewell, I suppose."
"Do visit again sometime, Vale." Tengoku smiled. "It get's lonely being on top."
"Oh, Tengoku," she thought as she made her way towards the ladder, beginning the climb down. "If you only knew how lonely it truly is."
o.0.o.0.o
Silver had been awake for a few minutes, though he decided for himself to not actually open his eyes. His memory was hazy. He was trying to figure out what happened. He remembered an explosion, his ears popping, someone yelling, falling...
Pain. A lot of pain. This was where his memory went hazy. He couldn't remember what happened before or after that. Flits and flashes of memories, in and out of consciousness, someone crying. A huge memory gap, then he hit the ground. Eyes were burning, lungs were burning... Then nothing.
There was an incessant beeping though. That's what woke him up. His head hurt and he was thirsty. And that damned beeping was helping...!
Grunting, he opened his eyes and hissed at the bright light around him. Blinking, he glanced about. Arceus, his eyes felt dry. He reached up to rub the dryness away, when a shot of pain went up one arm and a prick in the other. Suddenly, the beeping go louder and faster, and he let out a string of curses, then a round of coughs. Something on his face jerked sideways as he tried to move without pain shooting through his nervous system.
"Silver! Silver, sweetie, it's okay! Calm down, it's okay!" he snapped his head as a nurse walked in wearing pink scrubs. He calmed down primarily because, somehow, this woman knew his name. He heard a gasp, and strained to look over the nurses shoulder as she fussed over him.
"Silver! You're awake!" Lyra dumped the drink she had in her hand and limped over. The nurse glanced at her disapprovingly, but said nothing. He glanced at her. She was dressed in her normal outfit, hair tied in pigtails, though lacking her hat, her bag, and her shoe and sock on one foot. Said foot was wrapped in bandages.
"What...?" he muttered, moving his gaze back to the nurse as Lyra leaned over the hospital bed, smiling a smile almost as bright and blinding as the lights when he first woke up.
"You pulled your IV out, sweetie." the nurse said, coming back with a new, clean needle and changing it out with the old one. She then took his arm that wasn't in complete agony, and pricked it back in. She then gently moved his other arm down, though it didn't stop the hiss of pain that escaped his lips. "Your elbow popped out of place, and there's a few fractures in your arm. There's also smoke inhalation, but your carbon dioxide levels are back to normal, we managed to clear that out." Silver noticed the sling his arm was in. "But we're going to keep the oxygen mask on you until we're sure you can breath easily enough on your own."
"So I can't eat or drink anything?" he rasped out.
"Unfortunately not, sweetie." the nurse said with a smile. "Maybe tomorrow or earlier, but as of now, not."
"I'm thirsty." Silver muttered as the nurse walked out.
"I was too." Lyra smiled. "They took me off it a couple days ago, though-"
"Days?" he asked.
"Hm? Yeah, the bombing was about three days ago. You were asleep the whole time." he grunted, trying to move a bit. "You were pretty messed up, Silver. I came out with nothing but minor bruises and cuts and a sprained ankle..." she laughed. "Of course, they kept me on the oxygen machine as well, but I was up and moving in a few days."
"Hn." Silver muttered. As she pulled up a chair and sat next to him.
"You stopped breathing, you know." Silver snapped her attention to that. "They were already hauling me into the ambulance, but I heard someone shout "He's not breathing!". Then I passed out." she paused, putting on a shaky smile. "I woke up a few hours later, and that's all that was on my mind. He's not breathing, he's not breathing, he's not breathing. And I didn't know where you were. Some detectives came in. They wanted to ask questions. I asked them where you were. They wouldn't tell me. No one would tell me what was wrong with you, where you were, or if you were okay. Every time I tried to ask, they asked me more questions about what I witnessed in the tower, if I saw anyone, if I noticed anything odd, and so on." she closed her eyes, tears beginning to form. "No one would tell me what was going on. I just wanted to know if you were alive, and no one would tell me!"
"Stop crying." Silver muttered, looking away with a huff. "You look like shit when you cry." Lyra paused, then smiled lightly.
"You said that before." she said, wiping the back of her hand against her face. Silver glanced at her, slightly surprised. She blinked. "Back in the tower. When we found you!"
"We?"
"Yep! Me and Eevee. Though I'm embarrassed to admit it," her cheeks went slightly red as she rubbed the back of her neck. "I kinda had an emotional breakdown and started sobbing. And then you said that." she smiled lightly. "It made me calm down so I could focus. Don't you remember?"
No, no he didn't. He looked down, hoping the oxygen mask hid the red that he knew was filtering onto his cheeks.
"Miss Kotone? We heard he was awake." Silver glanced up and saw a young woman around sixteen years old. She had long, wavy dark brown hair that fell to her hips and fair skin. Uneven bangs fell across her forehead, hair framing her face with side bangs. Her attired somewhat confused him. She wore a black blazer with white lining the lapels, the sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, over a white T-shirt. She had a sky blue tie tied loosely around her neck, a belt of the same color around her gray shorts with fringed edges. Thigh high black socks were under knee-high gray boots with sky blue laces, and on her head was a set of blue goggles on a gray strap, acting as if a headband, though not holding her hair back.
"Oh! Yeah, he is!" Lyra said, waving her over. "Silver, this is Sara Knight, one of the detectives who were questioning me." Silver glanced at her, an eyebrow raised.
"You're a detective?" Sara jutted out a hip and placed her hand on it, winking.
"Nope, but something akin to that. My mentor is a real detective, though." she turned, smiling. "Speak of the devil."
Silver tilted his head as a man came through, wearing a dark brown suite under a light brown trench coat. The redhead raised an eyebrow as he walked across the room.
"Hello. My name is-" he paused mid sentence. "Ah, no, I shall tell you my code name. You may call me Looker. This young lady over here is Agent Blitz-"
"Honestly, Looker, they already know my name, so why bother?" Sara waved her hand dismissively. Looker shot her a look, then sighed. She turned and smiled back at Silver. "How are you feeling?"
"Thirsty and hungry." he stated bluntly. The girl chuckled.
"As expected. So, we should probably tell you that we're here on separate investigations." Sara smiled.
"I am here to investigate the reappearance of Team Rocket." Looker said. "The police force is still looking for Giovanni, but as of yet, we believe that they have reformed on their own."
"And what about you?" Silver asked, glancing at Sara. She tilted her head to the side and grinned.
"Does the name Vale ring a bell with either of you?"
o.0.o.0.o
I was seriously contemplating on adding Sara in, but I figured, well, she was going to make an appearance in the ORAS arc, but she was so much MORE than a worker at the Soda Pop shop, so I figured, let's spice up the plot a tiny bit more than it already is. XD
And if you don't like my OCs, I'm sorry. You should expect Vale and Sara throughout the rest of the series though.
Amy47101 signing off! ^.^