Lumiose City, Seconds After Clemont's Machine Malfunctioned...
Clemont had ducked the moment he knew the system was going to blow.
Thankfully Bonnie was on a lower floor, he thought. He heard the sound of glass breaking and then felt the heat released by the machine a second later.
All of a sudden, the room had turned dark as the lighting had gone off, but there was a hole in the ceiling now which meant that a small amount of sunlight managed to get in.
Clemont took a moment to inspect himself. Thankfully, he was unharmed.
"Professor?" Clemont said as he looked for Professor Sycamore. "Oh there you are- ah! Geez!"
Clemont saw that Professor Sycamore hadn't exactly been as lucky as he had been and had been pelted with glass shards. He was bleeding, Clemont didn't think it was very serious but then again he wasn't exactly an expert in such matters.
Clemont rushed to the intercom before he found that it wasn't working and sighed; then he released his Emolga and Magneton. Part of Sycamore's suit was metallic, so Magneton was able to lift him as soon as Clemont made sure to tie the suit around Professor Sycamore tightly before he got on his Emolga and descended to the base of the tower when he realized that the elevator also wasn't working.
Once outside, Clemont rushed Professor Sycamore to the hospital. He noticed that a lot of people seemed worried and were pointing here and there, but he was far too preoccupied to give them much attention.
What he did notice was that there was something wrong with the hospital.
"Oh, Leader Clemont," one of the nurses said to him. "The power just went off everywhere- do you know what's happening?"
"Oh dear," Clemont said. The machine must've let out a strong electromagnetic pulse and killed the power in a large area within Lumiose City. It would be easy enough to put it back on, but they'd probably need his help. "Don't you have a backup generator?"
"Yes, but that's all been diverted to the ICU," the nurse said.
"Well, I'll try hooking up my Ampharos to the wiring then," Clemont said. "I'm sure that'll give it enough juice to work for some time. But please, you need to look at the professor here. He's not waking up."
"You're right, we'll rush him to the casualty," the nurse said.
Clemont fiddled with his thumbs before he realized he should have probably been doing something to help get the power back up online after he managed to hook up Ampharos to the hospital's generator. He didn't want to leave Professor Sycamore like that, but then again, he wasn't helping much just by standing there. And there was going to be real chaos if the power didn't come back up soon.
As Clemont rushed outside the hospital he couldn't help but feel like he was forgetting something… something important. He shook his head and told him that if it was important, he probably wouldn't have forgotten about it.
And it was then that it hit him that he had just left Bonnie alone in Lumiose Tower, and that nothing in there was working and so she'd probably be scared out of her wits.
"Wait up Bonnie- I'm coming!" Clemont shouted and ran as fast as he could towards the Lumiose City gym.
Once Clemont managed to extract Bonnie from the gym and profusely apologized for forgetting about her, he went to correct the city's power supply and got it back up, following which he went to check up on how Professor Sycamore was doing.
Clemont saw that the Professor was awake now.
"Hello there," Professor Sycamore said, a bit woozy from whatever medication they had put him on. "They finally managed to get all the glass out of me. They say I have a concussion so they've gone to get a CT scan done so until then I'll be here for monitoring apparently. Where are Brock and Misty?"
"I can't find them," Clemont said. "I checked the tower completely. They aren't there. I think the machine took them and sent them away."
Professor Sycamore frowned. "Then where are they?"
"The machine would've sent them to Galea, or at least tried too," Clemont said, his voice breaking. "Only… I'm not sure it would've worked and I'm not sure if they would've landed there safely even if they did."
"Well, I'm sure they'll be alright," Professor Sycamore said.
"It's just- it's just that I have no idea why it all happened," Clemont sobbed. "The machine shouldn't have done that by itself." He didn't talk further as he didn't want to worry Professor Sycamore any more.
It had been a whole month since that incident, and Clemont still hadn't been able to find a trace of Brock or Misty.
As expected, the incident regarding Lumiose City Tower had been breaking news and now there was a Pokemon League investigation into the whole matter.
Once the League officials found out that Clemont had somehow messed up yet again- they had never really forgiven him for the Clembot incident- they had decided to suspend him from his post as Gym Leader for the time being until they decided what to do with him.
"After all, if Mr. Clemont apparently would prefer fiddling with technology rather than perform his duties as a gym leader- if I'm not mistaken, he once tried to get a robot to do them since it didn't give him enough 'free time' to invent- he should just invent, and give the job of gym leader to someone else," the chairman of the committee looking into the incident had told him.
News that Professor Sycamore believed in Galea's existence and other tales of Galea rapidly spread across the whole world, with several people concluding that he was a genius and far many more believing he was crazy.
Clemont rubbed his eyes- the guilt of two Gym Leader's disappearance continuously haunted him. Not to mention that the electromagnetic pulse from his machine had wiped out all the data from any device that was within a ten-mile radius of the machine. Lots of people had complained to him that they had lost their family photos, or movies, or things they had saved up, and many things like televisions were still not working properly. It was estimated that the whole incident had caused several billion Pokedollars' worth of damage.
But setting aside the money, it was Brock and Misty's fate which weighed heavily on him. Ash had had lots of friends- and Brock and Misty had several too and Clemont had received several anonymous messages asking him just who he thought it was to risk people's lives with his machinery. Few people said anything in support of Clemont nowadays, they were limited to his father, Bonnie, and Professor Sycamore mostly.
As such Clemont was doing what most people did when they were disappointed in life and felt broke- he was flipping through the channels on his television screen while eating food that was in no way good for him, in this case an entire tub of chocolate ice cream. Nothing good was on, so he settled on watching the news.
"… and in a very strange turn of events, it seems like a group of twelve dozen Darumaka have vanished from a small Pokemon League daycare for fostering them," a reporter said. "The owners claim that they just went up and vanished suddenly, though League officials are still investigating the matter. This is only the latest in a series of reports of Trainers reporting that Pokemon have suddenly vanished. Some experts opine that there is some sort of super Pokemon thief traveling about. If your Pokemon have also disappeared mysteriously, please report the matter to the Pokemon League." The screen shifted to another reporter.
"And in weather, strange weather patterns have been noticed all over Kalos lately. A rare triple rainbow was seen over Vaniville Town and strange cosmic phenomenon have been seen in the sky."
Clemont suddenly got a call from Professor Sycamore and muted the television. The Professor had recovered a few weeks ago and was back on his feet trying to figure out more things regarding Galea. "Yes Professor?"
"Clemont, you've got to see this," Sycamore said. "We've been looking for real proof that Galea exists, and they're have been strange sightings off the coast of Kanto. People are saying that they've seen an island reappear and disappear off the shore. Sailors aren't even going out anymore. Professor Oak is also here. How fast can you reach Kanto?"
"Give me a few hours," Clemont said and then left a note for Bonnie telling her where he was going before he took his Pokemon, wiped the ice cream off his face, combed his hair, and left for a ferry that would take him to Kanto.
Unfortunately, he was disappointed as it turned out that all ferries to Kanto had been cancelled due to some reason and the next one would take a whole week to come.
"But I need to get to Kanto, quick," Clemont said. "You don't understand, I'm a gym leader and there's something that I need to get done-"
"I'm sorry sir," the receptionist said. "But your privileges as a gym leader have currently been suspended by the League. If you still had them we may have been able to arrange for something, but in our current circumstances we can't do anything. We regret the inconvenience caused."
Clemont stormed out of the place. He had barely taken five steps when he heard a huge roar and a giant shadow suddenly enveloped him.
"Whoa!" Clemont said as he saw the Pokemon that had descended besides him. It was a huge Charizard- and a very well-trained one at that judging from its appearance.
The Charizard sniffed Clemont before it seemed to make a noise of approval.
Weird, Clemont thought. Did the Charizard smell something on Clemont that reminded him of something… or someone? Then, he realized just who he was talking to.
"You're Ash's Charizard, aren't you?" Clemont asked.
The Pokemon nodded.
"It's great that you're here," Clemont said. "You see, I think Ash disappeared somewhere off of Kanto, and I can't get there in time with the ferries not working. Do you mind if I hop on for a ride?"
The Charizard didn't say anything, but did stoop a bit so it would be easier for Clemont to get on.
Clemont had a lot of questions- namely on why Ash's Charizard had run away from wherever it was being trained, and just why it had decided to come to him, but he guessed it was best not to look a gift Charizard in the mouth so he decided to keep his questions for later.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I'll be honest here, I was going to start Selena's arc, and I remembered how all of the arcs have lasted nine chapters up till now. Vanessa's arc was supposed to be a deviation from that- but I didn't want to go ahead and give her fewer chapters than any other Gym Leader of Galea, so I added this in-between.
Selena's arc will be far longer than nine chapters- it will be the longest arc actually, I promise, and the majority of questions you've had up till now will be resolved. As such I can't wait to finally write it.
Also, someone did want Ash's Charizard to come- and he will play a role in future events, if only much later on.
