8
[4:15 PM. Campion Octavius's Seaside Villa. Cianwood City. Earlier the same day.]
"Who are you?" Octavius said. "What have you done to my wife?"
"I had hoped, sincerely, that you would not be here to see this," Grayson said. He removed his hat. "Though, I'm sure that means very little to an upstanding man like yourself, coming from someone, well, like me. Will you sit?"
Octavius stood.
"As I imagined," Grayson said. "I suppose it can't be helped."
Octavius gripped the ball. "I will not repeat myself again: what have you done with my wife."
"There are many different forces at work here, Master Historian, the present is always in motion, however, I might be inclined to understand if someone so stuck in the past cannot see the oscillations of an ever-changing future."
"I am the Champion of the Pokemon League! You will—"
"No, Master Historian, you will listen. There are many things you need to hear," he said. "It is rude to interrupt someone when they are speaking."
Octavius stood firm.
"The world around us is changing, even you can see it. My mentor believes there to be no place for old men like ourselves in this new world, but I disagree. There will always be a place for powerful men, if they only seize the power for themselves."
"I will not betray my home and country to the ideals of a handful of madmen. Violence on this scale will only beget more violence," Octavius said.
Grayson smiled.
"No, of course not. Not you, not the Master of Stone, the Timekeeper. How will history remember you? Your legacy? Your role in these events? I will leave my mark in stone, in history, in you."
The two old men threw there pokemon simultaneously. Grayson, his Marowak, and Octavius, his Bastiodon. The Marowak moved first; it hurled its club toward the shield pokemon, which bounced uselessly off.
"You see that, Bastiodon? This man is toying with us! Let's show him how a champion fights."
The Bastiodon roared in approval and charged towards the Marowak, each thunderous step left a wooden crater in the floor of his home. The Marowak dodged as the Bastiodan collided with the far wall, breaking a hole overlooking the sea below. The pokemon howled.
"Now it seems it is you who is toying with me, Champion. I expected better from a Master."
The Marowak drove its club into the ground, splitting the salt-stained wood along its seams. Octavius and the Bastiodon rolled out from the gaping hole that now yawned over the cliff wall and into the sea below. "Let us make this a more interesting fight, what do you say, friend? Clearly a pokemon battle between us will not simply be decided by brute force alone. Let us finish this like gentlemen."
Octavius saw an opening, and the Bastiodon seized the chance; weaponless, the Marowak had little in the way of defense as the Bastiodon crashed into hit, pinning it beneath a massive leg.
"Finish the runt and be done with it Bastiodon," Octavius boomed. The sea beneath them grew increasingly violent. Grayson smirked. While his Marowak may have been temporarily, the rage that now fueled Octavius's movements had made him less aware; Marowak's club was still in reach. The skull-adorned pokemon grabbed the club and, finding a patch of skin from its precarious vantage point, drove the sharp end deep into the Bastiodon who howled once again and lifted the pressure from the Marowak.
"Some gentleman you are," Octavius taunted.
"Perhaps."
The Marowak charged the Bastiodon, this time its thick club ignited before it hit the steel wall. The Bastiodon cried out as the flames began to warp its metallic face, throwing the Marowak back into the wall, where it crumpled to the floor. Octavius looked at the twisted face of the Bastiodon, one eye entirely fused shut. The rage grew in his heart, despite his distant master's words. "Finish the fool that has harmed you, old friend," Octavius said. We're done here." The Bastiodon dragged its foreleg against the wood and snorted like a bull, head lowered in a charge.
"A true Champion never forgets his surroundings!" Grayson yelled as a fiery wave from outside caught even the wet wood of the house aflame. Octavius dove for cover, but the Bastiodon was not fast enough. Shielding his face he could see that the Bastiodon had moved in between himself and the wave which originated from the black bird he had seen on his deck. He looked into the Bastiodon's one good eye as the creature writhed in agony. Grayson stood watching, hands folded behind his back as his Honchkrow continued its assault.
"Good bye, old friend. You've given me all the time I need."
The Bastiodon summoned all the energy it could muster. As hot metal dripped to the floor and its face plate began to melt, it nodded back at its master, its friend.
"ANCIENT POWER!"
The Bastiodon gave a last mighty roar as the very cliff the house was perched on began to rise and split. The villa splintered. Grayson moved to shield his face as a massive plank struck him in the chest and he was thrown from the cliff into the water. Octavius smiled as he felt the floor fall out from underneath him. Before hit hit the water, he threw a pokeball into the sea. He landed safely on the back of his Armaldo. It began to rain—slowly at first, the gradually increasing until the rain was sideway. Massive thunderbolts struck the ocean. He closed his eyes and let the rain wash over him.
He woke in the Pokemon Center. Santiago stood vigil at his bedside, hands on his blade. Octavius felt his eyes flutter, adjusting to the light. "I told you it was a trap," Santiago said.
"And very rarely are you wrong, my friend. But it was necessary to spring the trap."
"I trust you knew what you were doing."
The storm raged outside. With every thunder crack, the Pokemon Center's lights flickered. "The people are in a panic," Santiago said.
"How long was I out?"
"I pulled you from your Armaldo about an hour ago."
The mightiest thunderclap yet rocked the island. The entire Pokemon Center rocked and the lights shut off. Nurses and doctors panicked. Octavius sat up in bed, ignoring the sharp pain in his back. "That one hit the Center. Santiago, check on the staff."
"Master—"
"GO."
Santiago, paused, bowed then left the room. Octavius struggled to his feet. Reaching for the two pokeballs at his bedside, he clipped them to his belt and left the hospital.
The storm was a furious hurricane. The cold sea wind bit at Octavius's skin. A dark figure stood at the shore line.
"OUR FIGHT IS NOT FINISHED, CHAMPION."
Through the storm, Octavius could see the shadow of the man he had fought in his home. He was missing or had discarded his shirts and jackets and a deep red gash ran across his chest. There was hate in his eyes.
"I've beaten you, what more fight do you want?"
"I command this storm! Come, Champion, our destiny awaits! History will remember this battle!"
He seemingly guided a massive thunderbolt straight at the old man, but it went wide and struck the Pokemon Center. Octavius could see his trick; a Heliolisk was channeling the electricity from the storm. In this rain, he seemed invincible, but, as Octavius remembered from the soft voice of Sobi years ago:
Invincible was just a word.
Octavius called his massive Tyrantum. It stood menacingly and howled back at the storm.
"Excellent!" He tossed another lightning bolt at the Tyrantum which shrugged it off. "Let us end this! Let us punctuate this battle in the annals of all time!"
Octavius leapt onto the dinosaurs back. "Charge, Tyrantum!"
The Tyrantum bellowed and muscled through bolt after bolt, all the while Grayson cackled with primordial glee. A lightning bolt, the strongest yet, stuck Grayson, the Heliolisk on his back grinning in sadistic glee. Grayson guided the bolt at the Tyrantum. In a flash, the bolt left his hand and Grayon leapt out ahead into the path of the bolt, taking the full brunt and letting his Tyrantum charge forward. Grayson looked confused for a second as the energy dissipated and the smoldering body fell to the sand. He turned just in time to see the dinosaur open it's flaming jaws. He was a millisecond too late to get completely away as the steeltrap jaws cut through the bone and muscle of his arm like a soft cake. Grayson heard the wet crack before the massive wave of pain over took him. The Tyrantum roared in triumph, throwing the severed limb into the ocean.
Grayson cried out in agonizing torture as he tried in vain to stop the bleeding. His torso had caught on fire and the red flames kissed his chest leaving maroon burns like a weed across his body. The flames had cauterized the wound, and Grayson forced himself from going into shock. Suddenly he felt the train wreck of a tail strike him in the chest as he felt himself tossed like a doll out to sea. Everything went black before he hit the water.
Octavius struggled to open his eyes. Ever molecule of his body screamed in protest. He was alive, resting on the white sand of Cianwood as the storm above him began to pass; the torrential downpour relegating itself to a peaceful mist. He reached into his pocket to check his watch.
Cracked.
He clutched the watch to his breast and began to cry.