"Sienna! Get up!"
As I lay there, stunned and wracked with pain, a wave of water splashed over me, bringing me straight to my senses. As the freezing cold spread through my paralysed limbs, a shot of adrenaline hit me and I scrambled to my feet, my hand reaching straight for my Pokeballs. I threw the first Pokeball my fingers touched upon with as much force as I could muster.
Jasmine's Azumarill, Mizu, was locked in battle with the strange girl's Rapidash, the two Pokemon exchanging blasts of fire and torrents of water so I quickly ordered Indigo in to attack. Indigo executed a Confusion that stalled the Rapidash, catching it off guard and making it neigh and whinny in indignation. This let Jasmine's Azumarill sweep it with a Water Gun. It admittedly wasn't a massively powerful attack in itself, but it did the trick, seeming to damage the fire horse enough to make it cry out in pain.
I expected the strange woman to continue battling, but she raised a Pokeball, recalling the Rapidash. I stood there in disbelief, glancing at Indigo and Jasmine in sheer confusion. What was this woman doing? Why would she just recall her Pokemon, leaving her vulnerable to attack?
"What?" Jasmine asked cockily, a grin spreading across her face as she and Mizu advanced on the girl. "What? You scared now? Hah! What happened to all that self-confidence you had earlier?"
"Jasmine…" I said as warningly as I could.
The girl was backing away slowly, but there was a look of quiet, assured confidence on the woman's face. "I don't need self-confidence."
I saw her smile. My heart sunk.
"You want to know why?"
I realised what was going to happen before it even did. I wanted to scream out "No!" and warn Jasmine somehow but I didn't get the chance. A strong hand suddenly clamped around my mouth, someone hit me across the small of my back, and then another force collided with my lower legs. I fell forward without a sound. I slumped to the ground, winded and still in the arms of whatever captor had me in his clutches. I forced my head up against the hold of my captor just in time to see a shadowy figure approach Jasmine. My heart sunk and I tried to call out, but I couldn't. Moments later, I heard a thud and she crumpled to the ground.
My body was so weak that I couldn't fight against my captor. I could hear someone shouting in a commanding, army general-esque fashion, and then next thing I knew, a strange feeling encompassed me. My body suddenly felt weightless. But I still had feeling in all my limbs, a peculiar tingling, like a mild pins and needles crackling painlessly over them. It felt oddly familiar to when Alakazam had used teleport on me two years ago. I was so confused and scared by the whole proceeding that my thoughts jumbled together and became completely incomprehensible. To add to my panic, all of a sudden, something was thrown over my head and my entire world went black. People were talking above me in hushed voices and my body still felt unresponsive, totally alien to me, like I was merely a conscious floating in midair.
I had no concept of time, so the strange feeling of floating seeming like it went on forever, but at the same time, felt like only a few short minutes had passed. Eventually, I heard someone say "Enough!" and the feeling left me, before I, very literally, came down to the earth with a crash. My entire body stung with pain, but seconds later whatever was on my head was whipped off and my vision returned to me.
It took my eyes a few moments to adjust. Details were hazy at first before my head cleared and I was able to take in my surroundings. The first thing I noticed was that I was lying on a wooden floor, a collection of boxes to my right. It was dark, most of the things around me nothing more than misshapen, darkened blobs. The atmosphere was musty, heavy with dust particles and seemed stagnant, like it was in need of a good gust of fresh air. I wriggled my body experimentally. I could still barely move. I cursed inwardly. Getting up seemed next to impossible right now, so any chance of escape was slim to say the least. I heard a low mumble next to me, but before I could get a chance to look the noise of heeled shoes against the wooden floors distracted me. I glanced upwards, and saw the figures of the girl from earlier and two other men standing next to her. My heart began thudding in my chest. These people… these were the rogue trainers…
"I think you overdid it on the Disable and Psychic attacks," the woman was saying. "Look at that one. She's barely awake. And the Azumarill… that thing won't be waking up for a while."
"I thought that was what you wanted?" a second voice retorted, this one sounding agitated.
"Incapacitate, yes. Knock out senselessly, no." the woman said angrily.
My head was still swimming with confusing, unbelievable thoughts that I couldn't sort coherently as the trainers above me argued. As my body slowly began working again, I turned my head to the side.
My heart stopped. There was a body there.
It was Jasmine.
"Jazz!" I hissed, panicked, but my voice came out in a hoarse rasp.
She let out a soft murmur, stirred slightly and I managed to relax a little bit. She was alive, thank Arceus, but she looked even more out of it than I was.
"I still don't know why we brought them here." One voice was saying, sounding exacerbated. "We would have been so much better leaving them where we found them."
"These ones are strong. If they can be convinced, they'll be a great asset to us."
I heard a soft whinny at this point and as I weakly turned my head in the direction of it, I saw Indigo kneeling down in front of me. She butted her head into my arm, but my body was still so weak that I couldn't even raise my hand to reassure her that I was okay. I murmured "it's okay," as softly as I could instead, hoping it would be enough to settle her. I entertained the notion of trying to get Indigo to attack, but the sensible part of my brain told me that was a very bad idea. There were three of them that I could see at least and who knows however many more hiding outside of my vision. I knew the girl had Pokemon, so that meant it was likely the other two had Pokemon as well. Even if I could somehow overpower them, I could barely move! So that made escape impossible…
Trying to shake some feeling back into my limbs, I started twitching them. They finally became responsive, but as I pushed myself slowly onto my hands and knees, I suddenly felt force collide with my shoulders again! I cried out in shock as I plummeted forward, smashing my head off the floor. As I lay there stunned, I heard Indigo snort indignantly and whinny. Followed by the unmistakable sound of her trying to attack!
"Indigo, no!" I tried to protest.
But my senses were overridden by the unmistakable noise of a Pokeball opening. Then I heard the shriek of a Pokemon that I didn't recognise. Next thing I knew, a crash echoed throughout the tiny room. I forced my head up, trying to ignore the searing pain, and saw Indigo in a heap, a Pokemon I had never seen before standing over her. The feline Pokemon was long and slender, primarily a vibrant purple in colour, with yellow tipped legs, yellow whiskers and a long, curling tail. The Pokemon was glaring at Indigo, crumpled in a heap, its curled tail swishing back and forth impatiently.
"Indigo!" I rasped.
"Your Pokemon will be fine," the girl's harsh voice sounded above me. My body was still so frustratingly weak that I couldn't get up, and once again, all I could see were the pointed tips of her black stiletto shoes. "So long as she won't try and attack again."
"She…won't…" I wheezed.
"Good." The girl said. "Now how about you tell me why you were sneaking about this late at night? And why you confronted us?"
I had to think about this very very carefully before I dared give an answer. "We were out on a walk," I said evasively.
"A walk?" she said incredulously. "At three in the morning?"
"We couldn't sleep." I said as bluntly as I could. "At least we weren't out robbing Pokemon Marts and attacking Pokemon Centres."
"Shut up," the girl said cruelly, sinking the toe of her stiletto boot into my side, making me cry out in pain. "You might also want to explain what makes you think you and your little friend have the right to take back what we took?"
I coughed viciously, writhing in pain, before demanding "What makes you think you can just steal and loot things that don't belong to you?"
"We're not petty criminals, you know?" the girl said with an almost offhand shrug. "Most of us would like to think we were above stealing."
"Yet, you still did it?"
"You do what you need to do," she said with another shrug. "We're rogue trainers. We're not exactly able to stroll into marts and department stores and buy our things like normal people. We're blacklisted. It's not as if we can blend into the background either," she swept a hand up and down her gothic attire. "We draw attention to ourselves. And drawing attention to ourselves can be dangerous."
"Okay, okay, I can almost understand why you need to steal supplies," I said, mentally kicking myself for saying so. "But Pokemon? You stole Pokemon! You're not Team Rocket, why do you steal Pokemon?"
"Cheap thrill," she said with a shrug. "Like I said, rogue trainers can't risk drawing attention to themselves. We have to hide a lot. And hiding a lot, keeping a low profile means we get bored easily. So, when we reach a big town, we can't resist a little… fun." She said the word almost hungrily, like she relished the very idea.
"How dare you?" I snarled. "You steal Pokemon, you steal peoples' precious friends and for what? A cheap thrill? That's disgusting!"
"That's the way of rogue trainers," the girl snapped, her voice noticeably hardening. "It's not an easy life, you know?"
"You chose it!" I snapped. "You didn't have to be a rogue trainer! Going around in bands, terrorising towns and cities, being hated no matter where you go… is that really what you want?"
"It's better than the alternative!"
My body was finally beginning to listen to me and I was able to push myself very shakily to my feet. This girl had a look of fury on her face and she was an intimidating force, there was no doubt about that, but for some reason I found I wasn't scared of her.
"You can't even battle properly, trade, compete…" I said slowly. "What kind of a life is that? You're not even recognised as a proper Pokemon trainer. What's the point in even training Pokemon if you can't do all those things that Pokemon training is really about?"
"You think you know everything, but you really don't!" The girl suddenly stepped forward, the sound of her high heels making an alarmingly loud clack on the wooden floor. "This is my life! This is the way things are. And I like the way things are!"
"Charlee."
A voice that permeated the tense air made me jump and I twisted around to see another figure standing at the edge of the tiny room. The girl stopped right in her tracks. A look of guilt had taken over her face and her solid and confident stance had turned limp. She looked at me, and then looked back at the figure. "Wh…what?" she asked, glancing away and looking sheepish.
"You're getting yourself wound up. By a stranger, no less."
The sound of heavy approaching footfalls made me feel inexplicably nervous. As the figure came into the light, I realised in horror that it was the man I had seen in the Pokemon Centre. I recognised him instantly by his long shaggy blonde hair, steely grey eyes and powerful square jaw. The air of confidence he carried himself with settled it once again in my mind. Whoever this guy was, he was most definitely the person in charge.
But even though I didn't know who the guy was, at least I now knew the name of the woman. "Charlee…" I thought to myself as I looked the young woman up and down. I breathed a sigh of relief. For one mad moment, I had thought this woman could have been Helene…
Charlee was saying nothing as the young man approached her, slowly, deliberately, as if he was savouring the guilty look that seemed to intensify on her face with every step. He reached out a gloved hand to touch her pale cheek, a thin smile tugging at his lips. "This is the first time I've seen you so… animated… when a stranger questions you. Struck a nerve, did she?"
"No!" Charlee snapped.
The boy's thick eyebrow twitched slightly. "Charlee," he said, winding a lock of her thick blonde hair around his gloved finger. "Don't tell me you're not happy… Not happy here with me…?"
"I am happy," she said, yanking her hair from the boy's fingers. "Don't do that, you know I hate it." She added softly, before turning an accusing eye onto me. "I am happy," she reiterated. "But I would be even happier if that nosy bitch kept out of my business."
The man turned to look at me now. He had a hard stare that instinctively made me flinch just as soon as he looked at. As I watched him intently, I had a sudden thought. I had a strange inkling that I had seen him before…
"Why are they even here?" he asked.
"Well I initially thought they could be valuable assets if we could make them join us." Charlee replied icily, glaring at me. "Now, I'm not so sure."
The man tutted angrily. "What a foolish idea," he said. "They're both too fiery. Do-gooders, to boot. No." he said, with a decisive shake of his head. "It was a bad idea to bring them here. They know who we are now. It's not safe to stay in Violet City anymore."
"But we just got here!" a voice said angrily.
"Does it matter?" the man in charge retorted. "We're not safe in Violet. We're not even safe in Johto anymore, not so long as she knows who and where we are."
I swallowed. This didn't look good...
"So, what do you propose we do?"
The man never got a chance to answer, as Jasmine then began stirring. Everything descended into silence as she began murmuring and shifting slightly. When she finally shook herself into her senses, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and lifted her head. But no sooner had she done so, I saw her eyes bulge in horror.
"Jasmine, stay where you are!" I warned her immediately before she could react. "Don't try anything. We're outnumbered."
I could hear Jasmine muttering something vehemently under her breath, but thankfully she stayed crouched in the same position. She did however look up and glare at the young man and Charlee, looking as if she would dearly love to murder them slowly and in the most violent way possible.
"You won't get away with this, you know?" she snarled. "Sooner or later our friends will realise we're missing and will come looking for us!"
"Oh yeah? Please! Your little friends won't even get the chance!" Charlee spat.
"Charlee, Charlee, please. Temper." The man said, putting his hand up, silencing Charlee instantly. He then slowly turned back to look at us. "On the contrary, we've already gotten away with this. We're leaving. Right now. And you won't stop us."
"You watch me!" Jasmine suddenly cried, jumping to her feet and grabbing a Pokeball.
"Jasmine! Don't!" I cried out in panic.
But before she could even do anything, before I could even react and try and stop her, a trainer behind Charlee and the other man suddenly let out a call. "Liepard!"
The purple feline Pokemon that had attacked Indigo suddenly leapt to attention, darting straight in front of Jasmine, growling viciously. Jasmine stopped straight in her tracks, shrieking in fright.
The other trainers were laughing as Jasmine backed off hastily. Charlee in particular seemed to be taking glee in Jasmine's fright and began taunting her.
"I told you that wasn't a good idea!"
"Shut up, you little bitch!" Jasmine spat, as the Liepard advanced on her, growling throatily.
"You watch your mouth!" Charlee spat.
"Hey, hey," the young man intercepted smoothly, flicking a stray strand of his shaggy blonde hair from his face. "There's no need to get so angered, Charlee."
Charlee glared at the young man. "You're one to talk!"
A dangerous look suddenly spread across the young man's face. His lips curled into a deep set frown and his eyes flashed with something that frightened me to my very core. "Enough." He said icily.
Charlee grumbled slightly, looking viciously annoyed at being scolded, but she said nothing. However the look of badly concealed thunder on her face however was more revealing than anything she could have said.
The young man took a step forward towards Jasmine and I, and I instinctively flinched away. He stopped, a smug smile spreading over his face as he noticed this. My rage burned. The sheer delight on his face made my skin crawl with repulsion. I didn't like this guy. I hadn't liked him from the moment I saw him, but now, I just hated him, pure and simple. I wanted to punch him on his smug square jaw. His cold, steely grey eyes touched on me and once again I felt my fists ache with the desire to forget everything I knew about Pokemon battling and just take this guy down with my bare hands.
I hated this man. I just wish I knew why.
And why I had the strangest suspicion that I had seen him before…
"Well, we have a problem now. What are we gonna do with them?" Charlee suddenly asked, jerking her head in our direction.
"Easy." The man said with a shrug, pulling a Pokeball, patterned with strange intricate dark purple and black markings. "We take them out, leave no trace we were here, get out and get back underground."
"Underground?" Charlee said indignantly. "No…" she said, shaking her head. "No! No! No!" she cried, punctuating every 'no' with a vicious stamp of her foot. "I do not want to go underground again!"
The man said nothing.
"Are you listening to me? I said I didn't want to go underground again!"
He still remained silent.
"Hey! Will! Are you listening to me?"
At that point, with just that one little word, it was like the world fell apart.
"Will?"
My stomach suddenly twisted violently and my heart plummeted. All of a sudden it was making sense. I knew there had to have been a reason that that man made my skin crawl just to merely look at him, and here it was.
"Will…" I said slowly. "Not… not Will Brennan…?"
The place suddenly descended into silence. No-one spoke. But the open-mouthed gawping expression touching on Charlee's face and the faces of the others told me I had it right on the money. For a moment, I didn't know what to do. I stood there, completely and utterly in disbelief. This didn't feel real. Part of me didn't want it to be real.
And then my rage began burning. I understood. I understood now. Without even knowing it, I had been staring at the very man who used to own Meloi. The very man who had beaten my poor Pokemon, my best friend, to within an inch of her life.
I raised my head slowly to fixate myself solely on Will. "Answer me! You're Will Brennan, aren't you?"
"How does she know…?" I could hear Charlee say in a panicked voice. "Dammit, Will! I thought we were keeping a lower profile! Keeping out of the news, keeping out of the public eye… How has she heard of you?"
"Don't flatter yourselves, I haven't heard of him." I snapped, before looking back at Will. "Will! My name is Sienna Volbeda! And I'm a trainer from Pallet Town."
"Pallet Town…" he murmured.
"Isn't that where you're from?" Charlee asked slowly.
"Indeed," Will said with a nod. "So, tell me, Sienna Volbeda from Pallet Town… why don't you tell me how exactly it is you came to know about me?"
I opened my mouth, ready to spill out the entire story, but instead, my hand was instinctively drawn to my Pokemon belt. As my fingers touched the familiar cool metal of the familiar Pokeball, I seized it, unhooking it in one fluent movement. "Why don't I let this do the explaining?"
I threw it forward with as much force as I could muster. The Pokeball exploded in a burst of white light and Meloi came flying out. For a moment, nothing happened as she shook herself into her senses. However, a few seconds later, it was like a bomb went off. There was an explosion of electricity that shook the entire of the tiny building and then Meloi began growling. Deep, throaty, antagonised growling were coupled with crackling bolts of electricity and as she approached Will Brennan, she seemed so scary and intimidating that even I was a little frightened.
I stood by her side, placed a hand on her paw and shushed her. She quietened and calmed down, dispelling the bolts of electricity after a little encouragement. But even when she stilled, I could sense her anger, a dominating force, crackling and spitting like the very electricity she manipulated. I looked up at Will Brennan once again, trying to accurately read his facial expressions. Currently, he had a blank face.
I growled to myself. He still didn't know. He still hadn't realised.
"Will Brennan… I want you to meet Meloi, my Ampharos."
"An impressive specimen, I'll admit." He said. "Looks like it could be quite powerful too. But I fail to see what his has to do with me."
"You will." I said, fixing my eyes firmly on him. "I got Meloi as a Mareep two years ago from Professor Oak. A frightened, angry little Mareep who had been abandoned and been trainer-less for years. You want to know why? Because that little Mareep had been horribly abused by its trainer! So much so that she attacked anyone who even came near her! She was so bad that no-one wanted to take her on!"
Will Brennan was saying nothing.
"Believe me, it was difficult gaining her trust. She was disobedient, yes! She didn't trust easily. She made my life a living hell when I got her! But I stuck with it! I persevered! And you know what? She got better! And we became friends! You know why? Cos I gave her a chance and didn't give up on her! Unlike her previous trainer..."
Will Brennan was still silent, but there was a distinctly uncomfortable look on his face now.
"Will Brennan… this is Meloi. My Ampharos. And she's also the Pokemon you abandoned. The Pokemon you beat to within an inch of her life because you didn't like her attitude!" My hands were fiercely clenched and Meloi had begun growling again, electricity crackling in the air around us like the static from a thunderstorm. "How dare you? How dare you beat and abuse an innocent Pokemon? How dare you give up on her and just toss her aside like she was nothing? You'll pay for this, Will Brennan, you will pay for this!"
I stepped forward, but all of a sudden, Will held up his hand. He spoke coldly. "And how do you intend to make me 'pay' for this? What will you do? Inflict all the pain on me that I gave to that little Mareep? What good will that do? Surely by doing that, you'll be just as much in the wrong as I was?"
"You're not even sorry, are you?" I demanded.
"Did I say that?" he said icily. "All I'm saying is that your logic is backwards. You want to make me pay for what I did to that Mareep? You want to inflict all the pain on me that I did on her? Well what will that make you? By your own logic, that makes you no better than me."
I flinched. "Wha—?"
"Sienna, don't listen to him," I heard Jasmine say. "He's just trying to get in your head!"
"Mind games or not, look at the facts." Will said stonily. "There are two of you. And six Pokemon each, right?"
I found myself nodding.
"Well, there are six rogue trainers here, seven including me. And we don't carry six Pokemon. We carry seven, eight, even nine. So what, that's…? On average… fifty six Pokemon against your… what…? Twelve?"
I grimaced, wanting to scream in frustration. As much as I hated to admit it, Will was right. There was no way Jasmine and I could even hope to stand against these people. My fists clenched tightly and rage began bubbling madly. It wasn't fair! This wasn't fair at all! Beside me, Meloi was still growling viciously, electricity crashing around her, but I had no choice but to tell her to stop. She growled, looking highly affronted, but I repeated my instruction and she eventually calmed down. She was still glaring at Will however.
"Good," Will said coldly as I told Meloi to step down. "I'm glad you see how futile that operation would be." He suddenly began stepping forward, slowly, each step careful and deliberate. "Now I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. I'm going to knock you, and your Pokemon out. It'll be as painless as possible. And then, we're going to leave. And you'll never see us again. Got it?"
"Knock us out?" Jasmine asked shrilly.
"Yes. And by the time you wake up, we'll be long gone." Will said with a short smile.
"No…" I thought. "No, no, no, no, no! I've waited too long for this opportunity! I can't let him just get away from me!"
Will knocked a Pokeball from his belt and tossed it into the air, revealing a Pokemon that looked nothing more than a swirling purple vortex with a green zigzag mouth and green eyes. It looked truly malevolent and macabre, oozing an aura of sheer nastiness. It was almost nightmarish and I found myself flinching away from it.
"Spiritomb…?" Charlee said, shooting Will a glare. "I would've thought you'd be doing this with more of a… bang. As is your usual fashion."
"I don't want to attract needless attention." Will said coolly.
Charlee grimaced, but didn't say anything. I could barely focus on what was going on anymore. My whole body was trembling and shaking violently and I could barely stay still, hot anger coursing through my veins.
"Spiritomb…"
"No…"
"Use Hypnosis—"
"No…!"
"On those girls!"
"NO!" I suddenly screamed out. "Meloi, Thunder Wave!"
Meloi snapped into action straight away, letting loose a torrent of weak bolts of blue electricity that burst out, trapping Will, Charlee, the Spiritomb and the Liepard in its tracks. But no sooner had Meloi executed the attack, the other trainers that had been surrounding us suddenly swooped in, and I found myself restrained within seconds, in the arms of a massively brutish young man. I fought uselessly, heard Meloi's screams of pain, and I whipped my head up just in time to see a furious Will Brennan limping towards me.
As I stared at him, my mind swam with horrible thoughts. This was him. This was the man who had done those horrible things to Meloi. My poor Meloi, who had had no way to defend herself. All of a sudden, something snapped. I tried once more to break free, wanting nothing more than to throw myself bodily at Will Brennan, but the grip of the brutish trainer held me back. I flailed uselessly, completely restrained. I felt hot tears prick at my eyes before they burst out, rolling down my face. Before I knew what I was doing, I was screaming.
"I'll battle you, Will Brennan! Right here and now, I'll battle you! God help me, I'll prove you wrong! I'll prove to you Meloi was worth more than you thought she was! And … and I'll make you pay… Goddammit, I will make you pay… I'll make you pay…"
My body was growing weak from my outburst. My knees were shaking and I felt my whole body trembling. My breath came in short sharp gasps and I found myself staring at the floor. My body felt like it simply wanted to give up and slump down.
A voice punctuated my hazy consciousness. "You'll… battle… me?"
I raised my head slowly, feeling more angry tears form. At the same time, I felt a shock of renewed determination. I bit back my tears. "Yes." I said softly. Then again, louder. "Yes! Yes, I will battle you!"
"But you said it yourself, rogue trainers aren't meant to battle."
"I don't care. I'll still battle you."
Will Brennan folded his arms. "You know that we aren't limited to carrying just six Pokemon?"
"I know!"
"You know this, but you still want to battle me?"
"Yes!"
"Why?" he demanded.
"Are you deaf?" I screamed, my agitation finally growing too much for me. "I want to prove to you that you made a mistake abandoning Meloi."
"That's it?"
I trembled. "Yeah. That's it."
"That's a very selfish reason to want to battle me."
"I know that too…" I said, inclining my head, feeling the tears rolling down my cheeks again. I couldn't even free my hand to wipe my face. "But I don't care."
"You're not seriously considering this, Will?" Charlee sneered from nearby. "It's a stupid vendetta battle. It means nothing."
But the look on Will's face was clear that he was considering it. He turned his steely eyes on the people restraining me. "Let her go." He ordered.
"What?" I heard one of the men restraining me say in outrage.
"I said, let her go." He repeated, his voice stony.
I felt their grips slowly slacken and then I was released.
"Move away from her."
The trainers stepped away obediently.
"Will, you can't be serious!" Charlee suddenly intercepted, furious. "This is ridiculous! Whatever happened to getting away? If we hang around here any longer we'll get caught! Why are you doing this?"
"Call it a curiosity." Will said with a shrug. He then looked down at Meloi, who had been tackled to the ground by the Liepard. His eyes then touched on the figures of Mizu and Indigo, who were also still injured. I then saw him stare at Jasmine. "Give the Pokemon medicine. The Ampharos, the Girafarig and the Azumarill."
"What?" I said, my eyebrows creasing.
"It wouldn't be a battle if your Pokemon weren't at their best, would it?" He asked, as the trainers reluctantly did as they were told, spraying the three injured Pokemon with what looked like Super Potion.
"Why are you healing her Pokemon?" Charlee demanded as Mizu was healed.
"Evening the playing fields," Will said coolly, before turning to her. "I was thinking, since you seem to care so much about this issue that you would assist me in battling. And that you," he turned looking at Jasmine. "…would assist your friend."
"Gladly!" Jasmine said, clenching her fist.
"Will, this has nothing to do with me." Charlee said bluntly. "Why would I help out when it's clearly you she has the issue with?"
"Oh, I don't know." Will said with an airy shrug. "They say two heads are better than one, after all."
"Don't give me that."
"Well you're the one who seems so keen to get this over with and make our escape. Surely you'd like to assist to make this go as smoothly and quickly as possible?"
"I didn't agree to this," I growled. "I wanted to battle you, Will!"
"And you will battle me." He said icily. "But you have to understand, Charlee and I battle together. A package deal. You don't get one without the other."
"And would you believe that's probably the most romantic thing he's ever said to me…" Charlee pitched in darkly.
I grimaced. I could feel the anger again, but I forcefully pushed it back down. There was no point in letting the anger cloud my judgement. It was obvious Will wasn't going to battle without Charlee. I wasn't exactly pleased about this, of course. I wanted a one-on-one battle with Will, not a stupid double battle with Charlee sticking her nose in. But I had Jasmine here with me. If I let her deal with Charlee, I could still get to Will…
"Jasmine," I said slowly. "You leave Will to me, alright? Do whatever the hell you want to Charlee, but leave Will to me."
"Sienna…" Jasmine said warningly. "You need to calm down. You're not thinking straight."
I knew what Jasmine was saying was true, but I didn't want to listen to her. I brushed her off. "I'm fine, Jasmine. Just focus on Charlee."
"I still say this is a stupid idea," Charlee said, taking out another Pokeball. "It's a vendetta battle, that's all it is. We should just get out of here. Cut our losses and get out of here."
"Enough, Charlee." Will said sternly. "Like I said, I'm intrigued. If this girl really wants to prove that I was wrong in abandoning that useless Mareep, let her. We both know we're superior trainers."
I was hit by another wave of anger. "I think you'll find we're the superior trainers!" I cried, as Meloi growled and Indigo snorted in agreement. I held up another Pokeball. "You better watch yourself, Will Brennan! I'm going to prove you wrong! Just you wait and see!"
And as I threw my first Pokeball forward, the burning rage encompassed me once more, fuelling an already blazing fire and cementing an already iron will. I was going to do this! I was going to make Will Brennan pay for what he did to my Meloi.
He would pay for what he did to my Pokemon.
No matter what.
Author's Note
Hi guys :P
Sorry for the long wait, unfortunately my internet access is now completely gone, so I have to rely on a friend to update for me.
I don't really have much to say for this chapter apart from it's had so much editing and re-doing it's nothing like it originally was.
Thanks to my lovely reviewers Sunbean, Sniper Mudkip, WildCroconaw, WarriorSwift, ArchXDeath, Shadow Serenity 57, The Neverending Meep, Shadow of Eckhart and TwewyReaperGirl.
So, thanks for reading! And I promise I won't dawdle too much with the next one.
Until next time!