Orre's Return
By Hollis Pierman
WARNING: This story contains acts of severe violence, abuse/neglect, and frequent use of coarse language. Viewer discretion advised. DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokemon in any way; Nintendo and GAME FREAK own it.
Author's Note: Last part of the tournament, the semifinals and the finals! As I promised at the end of last chapter, this is going to be a long one! Hope you all enjoy it as much as I'm going to! School has been keeping me occupied the last couple of weeks, and I'm happy with the reception that this has gotten. Thanks so much! :D
Chapter 6: Tournament of Fate (PART III): The Interruption
The strange old man had spoken after the quarterfinals were over,
"After a dashing display of some quarterfinal battles, we're finally going to get underway with the semifinals! In the semifinals, I have decided to revert back to single-trainer battles! Each trainer will now send out two pokemon on the field at once, items and substitutions will be disallowed, including moves that force you to switch you out, like Roar and Whirlwind; Baton Pass will also be disallowed from the semifinals. Without any further ado, pay attention to the screen to see the randomized selection of the combatants!"
The pictures of the last four contestants were jumbled up for 15 seconds, and the pictures showed Wes against Rogue Cail, while Sherles was facing off against Chaser Calda. Sherles and Calda were first up on the stadium floor. Sherles' pokemon consisted of an ariados and another pokemon he's never seen before. It was said to have come from, "the greatest region in the world", wherever that may be; might be full of some pompous douchebags. The pokemon has a head with a mohawk, large rounded eyes on either side of its head, and a mouth that's always frowning from the looks of it. It appears to have bits of... fabric, or some sort of material around its neck and lower body, ending in a tail with a crest. A rather large crest at that. The little old man spoke through with much anticipation,
"Oooooohhh! We've got ourselves a little treat here, folks! Looks like the Chief's got a new pokemon! We've got an ariados and scrafty on the field! This is going to be very good!"
Scrafty? It looks interesting. In the P*DA, the pokemon is a Dark/Fighting-type, is very bulky, good at physically attacking the opponent, and has a very large movepool. I secretly sent the information to Sherles through an email. The email sent, he uploaded the information of scrafty to his own P*DA, and the machine scanned the pokemon. It knew the moves Hi-Jump Kick, Bulk Up, Crunch, and Ice Punch. Calda's two pokemon consisted of familiar pokemon to Wes, which was a camerupt and altaria, two pokemon from the Hoenn region. Easy win... Hopefully for Wes and Sherles... Being of an old age, Sherles can still battle (even better when he's motivated enough, and he certainly is, definitely) like no one could guess through his outside appearance. This could get interesting...
"Let the battle... BEGIN!" shouted the old man.
Calda was the first to make her move, and immediately ordered her altaria to use Dragonbreath on Sherles' scrafty. It had swiftly dodged the crackling breath, and Sherles quickly ordered the scrafty to use Ice Punch against altaria, because it was four times as effective against these types of pokemon. The punch makes contact; the altaria flies backwards, as frost spread across its body. As soon as it was enveloped, the pokemon to the ground, frozen in a transparent glacier, motionless; cryogenically preserved, while the ariados attacked the charizard with a jab-type attacked seeped in poison, a move called "Poison Jab", as exclaimed by the old man in the balcony high above Wes' head. The jab made a small gash in charizard's side; the beast shook it off like it was nothing, but cringed over in pain, as the poison seeped through the gash made in charizard's side. The poison had proceeded through its system, dealing damage at a steady rate. It would be over soon in a little bit. The next turn came along, and disaster struck; and by disaster, I mean the altaria had thawed out of the ice thanks to the charizard using flamethrower against it, and after that, the altaria had used Aerial Ace against the ariados, slashing through it, and leaving a giant hole on the left side of its thorax, leaving bodily organs present to the outside world; a lesson in anatomy kids, the thorax is everything in the abdomen of an arthropod. So now you could see an ariados stomach and intestinal system exposed to the elements of the outside. But that didn't matter now, Sherles' believing in the pokemon he was using was all he had, and his determination led to one of the finishing attacks launched by the ariados, an attack I had never seen before known as Cross Poison, which has a tendency to land critical hits more often, and may also poison the foe. Being weakened already from the Ice Punch thrown by scrafty, the Cross Poison did already-considerable damage to the altaria, causing it to be knocked out. The desperate rider called back her rental pokemon, and scolded it for its worthless effort, knowing full-well that all the losers are going to die, if Wes doesn't win this and do something speedy to free them all... it wasn't Wes' fault that they had gotten themselves captured, but it was his fault that he offered himself and the entire town of Pyrite as a tribute just to survive... if only there was someone else out there who was wondering where they all were... Little did everyone in that stadium know, that news of this fiasco, and even the hover car that had carried them had been reported to the local news station by a local professor at the Pokemon HQ Lab, just west of Agate Village. The charizard was the next to attack, and it launched a Heat Wave attack, hitting both scrafty and ariados. It burned through the spider's body and its organs, knocking it unconscious, organs searing and sizzling due to that intense heat. The scrafty was hit pretty hard, but managed to stay on its feet for these last few legs of the match. Sherles was in a pickle; the only two moves that would really do any sort of considerable damage on the charizard would be Crunch and Ice Punch, but the charizard has boosted defenses from training, so Sherles had no other choice but to try a Bulk Up attack. So he ordered his scrafty to Bulk Up, and so it did, gaining considerable muscle mass, and raising its Attack and Defense stats by a stage. The scrafty looked at the Chief, and gave it a look of reassurance, as if saying, "I'm going to dodge this next attack. Just you watch," and the Chief nodded his head, ending his turn. The rider was careful in her choice of moves, and decided to use Air Cutter, a move which has a chance of landing a critical hit more often. Just in the nick of time, the lizard jumps up and out of the way when the attack was supposed to land, and gave the order for the finishing blow, Crunch. The lizard dives toward the dragon and attacks with its mouth wide open, and lands the finishing blow by landing a gash in the dragon's neck, severing its jugular vein. Blood spews all over the arena, and some lands on the audience. There was no need to call the charizard back to its ball, but the shocked rider had done so anyway, before the giant dragon had fallen stone-cold on the stadium floor. The old man spoke with a jolt of fear running down his spine,
"Uhh... We- we have a winner, folks! Let's give a big, warm round of applause to the Chief for his surprisingly well battling skills!" Instead of the booing and more soda cans and popcorn tubs flying at him, he got a steadily rising cheer of applause, even from members of Cipher, for his well-received battle; there was blood and guts, good strategies, and an easy win for the Chief, surprisingly. The audience was happy they got to see the Chief kick some ass once again. But now it was the deciding moment; no matter who won or lost, Wes and all of the citizens of Pyrite were getting out of there, and becoming one step closer to ending the criminal syndicate once again.
"Alright folks," the old man yelled with pure excitement, "it's time for the FINALS!" The crowd cheered louder than a rocker's 500 watt amp and cabinet at full blast. "And for the final match, we have two "heroes" (one is very subjective) on the field tonight. We have Wes, who had single-handedly defeated Evice and Gonzap, with that blasted little girl next to her side... HewasabletosnagalltheshadowpokemonandsaveOrre, yay!" he sighed with regret and disappointment, mainly towards his audience, which consisted of Cipher grunts and admins, most notably Gonzap, who stuck out from the rest of the audience. "But today, one shall leave, and the rest shall not be spared so easily... For the final battle, we have no rules for this; for all I care, it could be a battle to the death! You choose the rules, but I'll choose the prizes..." For this, Wes and Sherles confronted each other, for possibly the last time, and chose the rules in secret. In this secret conversation...
"Alright Wes, the fate of me and Pyrite Town could very well be in your hands. Let's pick the rules wisely and try to get on out of here. What say you to a double battle, with only one substitution allowed for the match. Let's make it so tha- MMFF!" Again, Wes cupped his mouth, and whispered his plan to Sherles.
"Okay Wes... if you really think that'll work..." Wes had something else up his sleeve in case something from the outside interfered. "That can work too! Alright, I'm in." The Chief announced the plan, "Alright, we'll have a single battle featuring only one of our pokemon out on the field, with only one substitution allowed, and items will be allowed to be held on our pokemon. And that's it," Sherles finished.
"Okay then. I have decided, since I'm a nice old man, I will spare you and your town, should you win Sherles, and you shall die as your consolation prize, Wes! However, should you win, Wes, you will be spared, and will be free to roam the region once again, but should you meddle with our plans again, I swear I will see to it that you are completely and utterly obliterated! While Sherles, you and your town will not be spared... so easily... So, do we have an agreement?" asked the short man. Wes and Sherles, regrettably nodded their heads to each other, and replied "Yes."
"Perfect! Battlers, take your positions!"
Wes and Sherles both stood at opposite ends of the stadium, a crowd full of bloodthirsty Cipher grunts and admins waiting to see the battle of a lifetime; Wes, the hero of Orre and savior of the world, versus Chief Sherles, another ordinary Chief of a small town in the region of Orre. At any time, something could happen...
"Let the battle... BEGIN!" said the tiny, old man. However, before the battle could even begin with the trainers even sending out their pokemon, a loud boom was heard, as an explosion blew out the side of the building, vaporizing an entire side of the audience. What silhouette that appeared out of the smoke could this be of? Human? Pokemon? What DID appear was that of both human and pokemon; being that the local police are gone, and the federal police are assholes, the person who took it upon himself to report this had gotten his best pokemon, and blasted the hole in the wall. It was Professor Krane, lead professor at the Pokemon HQ Laboratory who lead the charge, along with his trusty dragonite. A brave man, a dirty blonde head of hair, glasses, green polo and light tan khakis, made only from the finest leather. As he looked toward Wes and Sherles, he said,
"Chief, get you and your citizens out of here! You in the blue coat, come along with me. Let's get your pokemon back." Sherles proceeded opposite from Wes and Krane to free all of the citizens of Pyrite who had lost in this tournament, and were taken away to the torture chamber, to be tortured by the houndoom awaiting their arrival. Krane said while running,
"I'm guessing that you're wondering how I got here! *pant* Well, passing through the desert, I saw a familiar-looking hover car, similar to the one used by Cipher years ago. When I saw the car, I immediately went to Pyrite to get the local law enforcement, but the only person there was literally an attendant for the stadium in the far-end of town. She said that Cipher had kidnapped the Chief and you along with the rest of Pyrite to this place, which is in progress of becoming their Shadow Pokemon Laboratory. You didn't happen to encounter any, did you?" Wes shook his head. "I see... Well then, *pant* let's get your pokemon back and get the hell out of here!" Sounded like a good plan to Wes...
END
Well, I think that this is a good place to end the story! I hope you enjoyed this! In case you guys are wondering why certain things are meant to be capitalized and are actually not, I'll make an addendum and guide of why and how I do this. Thanks, and don't forget to R&R and follow me!