Pre-chapter A/N; Since everyone is asking for one of these, here's a breakdown of the character names before we get into things
Broly - Kleavor
Quicksilver - Pidgeot (dead)
Kisame - Milotic
Igneel - Charizard
Kenpachi - Tyranitar
Ino - Gardevoir
Snorlax - Snorlax
Tsunade - Clefable
Gai - Hakomo-o
Magnezone - Magnezone
Hashirama- Trevenant
Special thanks to the folks on pa-atreon for making this possible. Now without further ado let's get into it.
Sixty-three days since I began proceedings against the league. A court date still hadn't been chosen. Things like these tended to drag on for a while, and the conference was fast approaching. I had to bite the bullet sooner or later and challenge for my eight badge. Over two months spent chilling in Sabrina's extra room had done a world of good for both me and my pokemon. Three hours of training a day was enough to make sure our skills didn't atrophy and to close out some of the weaknesses I'd noticed during my 48 hours of forced introspection.
Igneel was getting more in touch with the flying part of his nature,m and Kisame had grown even more powerful with time. We barely trained to get her stronger, only trying to refine her control of what power she did have. The problem was that she was literally in the midst of maturation for her species and so was growing by leaps and bounds week over week. Gai was even more spectacular in that. He was the second pseudo-legendary on my team, and he was determined to live up to the name. Kenpachi was older and more trained, but Gai was determined to dethrone him and claim that position at the top of the food chain. Hashirama was finally able to use his new moves closely to how I imagined it. Nothing near the power I'd seen back when I was watching his namesake in the naruto anime, but still far beyond anything I'd actually seen from a grass-type in this world. Magnezone was Magnezone. Snorlax was the one he'd chosen to bother the most these days, so they were often together. The normal type's durability was more than enough to handle the shocks the playful electric type was fond of dishing out on occasion, and Tsunade was always running after them, ready to heal what little damage Magnezone could do. Broly was my ever-present shadow in all things, with Ino becoming a literal shadow for me. Her illusion skills had grown by leaps and bounds, and neither of them had taken well to my captivity. Even now, they were hesitant to let me around other humans who weren't Sabrina.
Speaking of the psychic goddess, she'd been instrumental in the little training I did, and her companionship was probably the only thing keeping me sane these days. Well, her and the internet forums I'd taken to trolling. Donnell Oak was now a well-respected shitposter and internet troll. I posted some vaguely anti-league content to sate my desire for revenge and commented on all the latest pokemon debates. I wasn't there only for the memes though, there was some legitimately useful information that appeared on the forums, but would never see the front page of a newspaper.
An example of that was a new species of pokemon that was supposedly making the rounds of the upper echelons of society. Only one poster had been able to include a picture of the pokemon he spokane off, and when I stared at the Riolu in front of me, I figured out that we were fucked.
The Lucario line was native to Sinnoh. To the best of my knowledge, they could only be found there, so finding them here in Kanto meant that something somewhere had gone wrong. They couldn't be native, or we'd be seeing reports from trainers encountering them in the wild, not from investigative journalists and all-round busybodies catching them with the local millionaire's kid. I had a vague idea of what had likely happened, but I could be fact, I was probably wrong, but that didn't stop the idea from taking root. Giovanni had been outed as the leader of Team Rocket by the League a few weeks ago, and since the attack, we'd heard nothing from the organisation. If I had to bet on what they'd been doing, I'd guess it would be recovering the funds that had been seized from Giovanni's accounts, and there was no quicker way to get money than selling rare pokemon to the people wealthy enough to afford them. That wasn't even all of it. The League had been attacking and cracking down on every rocket base that was findable and they were still yet to retaliate. Everyday, we saw a new story about how a couple dozen rockets or an admin had been arrested in a bse in this or that forest.
The Rockets had awakened the might of the League's machinery and it wasn't going well for them. The problem was that the league still hadn't calmed anyone down. Sure, they celebrated each victory on the forums, but there was a tension in the air. Like we all waited with held breath for what the Rockets would do next. They'd killed thousands with their opening salvo and no matter what the league did, so long as Giovanni remained out and well, no one would calm down. Even worse than everyone else, I knew exactly what Giovanni had on his side. Mewtwo. A fucking legendary pokemon. There was nothing the league would be able to field to match up with that. Lance has three Dragonites, but I doubted even a dozen at the same level could match up to a legitimate legendary pokemon. That's why I hadn't tossed everything into training with abandon. I did only what I enjoyed and lazed the rest of the day away.
We'd lost. I couldn't beat Giovanni. I wouldn't even try. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Quicksilver's still form. Quicksilver had died because I hadn't had the common sense to just run from the poacher. My misguided belief in my own invulnerability had led me to losing one of my family. That wouldn't happen. I couldn't let it happen again. Not now, not ever.
If all I had to do to keep my pokemon safe was keep my head down and watch as things happened around me, then I'd do it with a smile. Just forty-eight hours without them had almost driven me mad. I couldn't imagine going a whole fucking lifetime with them dead. Lost to my ambition. I'd rather swallow all my dreams. I'm sure I know exactly what you're asking yourself. 'What about Quicksilver? What about revenge?' Trust me I feel the desire, the thirst, the need to hold that poacher's life in my hands. I couldn't do anything about it though. Would I lose the rest of my family chasing after the slim chance of revenge? That was a terrible deal, so for perhaps the first time in either of my lives, I was going to be leaving well enough alone. Of course, it had to be the moment I was reminiscing about the silent two months I'd enjoyed that a complication had to arise.
"Good morning, Oak" I said to him as I strolled into the bedroom Sabrina had set aside for me and found him sitting on one of the chairs with his legs crossed and a cup of tea in his hand.
"Donnell, my boy. It's been a while" I just nodded to his greeting. I couldn't see why he was even bothering now. We both hate small talk.
"What do you want?" I asked with a tired sigh as I walked further into the room and started arranging the laundry that I'd just picked up into my closet. Most of it was just regular clothes. Nothing expensive. I'd been forced to drop out of the Silph sponsorship program when I'd both refused to drop my suit against the league and go back to competitive battling.
"You. Your retirement has come to an end. We'll be leaving now." He said, still sipping his tea like he wasn't actively trying to sabotage everything I'd worked so hard for. I burst out into laughter. This was just so ridiculous. When I finally stopped laughing, I had to try a few times before I could come up with the right words to tell him to fuck off without being too offensive. After all, as a professional freeloader, Oak had been the one bankrolling most of my expenses and I wasn't planning on dipping into the savings from my trainer career anytime soon. He was also the one feeding Snorlax, so if he actually cut me off I'd end up in some serious trouble very quickly.
"I don't think so. I'm enjoying being retired. You were right. I was stupid. Being a pokemon trainer wasn't for me. I'm just not cut out for it."
His smile looked so full of pity that I had to clench my fist to avoid punching him in the face to wipe the look off his. "Your brothers are at home. Both of them. Dontaryon and Daniel. I'll be taking you with me, and the four of us are going to put an end to Giovanni's team rocket."
I had to start laughing again. Has the legendary Samuel Oak actually gone senile. "Dontaryon isn't even a trainer, and is much too busy with his career at Devon to have time for good ol' Kanto. I don't see what you're planning, and I don't really care. I'm done. Good luck."
I said turning back to my clothes before he managed to draw my attention again.
"I found your poacher"
"What?"
"I found him. Months ago, actually. I didn't want to give you the information because I was scared you'd throw your life away in your pursuit of him, but now I see that you managed to do that well enough on your own."
"You found him. You know where he is?" I asked, not caring for whatever he had to say that wasn't a location.
"Team Rocket. He goes by the name Archer."
I turned to face him fully then. I could see the fucker's game clear as day. "Get out" I said, leaving the room to him. I wouldn't be manipulated into returning to the life that I'd abandoned for good reason. He wasn't going to goad me into returning to the lifestyle that might just see me losing the family I'd built for myself. Giovanni and Mewtwo were dangerous. Daniel had had an entire ACE team with him, and he was the only survivor. He didn't even have a team left beyond Metagross. He lost everything, and Oak thought I was going to be risking suffering similarly. Fucking insane.
XXXXXX
I ignored the displacement of air, knowing exactly who it was. Ino would not have allowed anyone else teleport so closely to me, and the fact that they still kept their head confirmed my thoughts as Broly allowed them pass and take a seat next to me on the cliff edge.
"I love you" She said as she sat and I just barely stopped myself from falling off the cliff in shock.
"What?"
"I love you. At least, I love the man you used to be. That man had purpose, something I had always lacked. That's what drew me to you the first time we met. That purpose. That drive. And now it is gone"
I didn't give her a glance as she spoke. Of course she was trying to convince me to return.
"I do not care about you being a trainer" I focused and tossed her out of my mind.
"What did I say about reading minds, Sabrina"
"I just cannot help myself, Donnel, and do not change the subject. WHether trainer or not, you need purpose. If you do not seek to be the best trainer in the world, seek to be the best baker, instead."
"None of that interests me, Sabrina. I'm fine just the way I am."
"Are you? Your purpose was not the only thing that drew me to you, Donnell. Your honesty too. When you read minds like I do, you see that everyone lies. What they think is always different from what they say or do. They lie to themselves, or to others, but you lied to no one. You thought it and you did it. Now, you have lost that too."
I didn't reply her and she just got up and teleported away. Good. Another loss.
'They speak truth, Master' Ino's voice rang in my mind and I turned to her with betrayal filling every part of my being.
'None of that, Master. We will stand with you no matter what you choose but the rest of the team and I have spoken. We know why you stopped striving and are warmed by your worry, but just as you want to take care of us, we want to take care of you too.'
"What are you saying?" I asked her out loud.
'I'm saying we want to fight.' She levitated the pokeballs off my belt, and the rest of the team appeared around us. I ignored the tears building in my eyes, as I turned to all of them, one by one, seeing them standing together in a show of solidarity.
"The first thing you'll need to do is get your eight badge," Oak said, beginning to outline his plan.
"What?"
"Your eight badge, I have a lot of power from the league as the pokemon professor, but the only way I can make you a full and complete lab trainer is if you have all eight badges. You need to be a lab trainer to rely on the league's resources in this war and to have access to the best supplies"
"No one ever cared about that before" I said, in dispute to his claim.
"That was before you decided to sue the entire league in such a public manner while we're in the middle of a national security crisis. To put it crassly, you've pissed off so many people that everything you do is being observed and poured over with a fine toothed comb."
I nodded in agreement, understanding his point. The league spies probably thought I didn't notice, but Ino had been able to figure out that over seven of Sabrina's gym staff were sending information about me to the league. I hadn't cared because I was doing nothing wrong, but now, that scrutiny was going to become problematic.
"I see. I'll head to Goldenrod right away"
"No. Not Goldenrod. You challenged the league. You need to show and portray strength. Either Mahogany or Blackthorn. They're the toughest gyms in Indigo with Blaine, Giovanni and Surge gone. Besides, you need to prove yourself to me. You want me to take you with me to root out team rocket, then challenge Claire Blackthorn to the gauntlet and win."
"Weren't you the one who came to me with this opportunity?" I asked sarcastically, but he'd already turned back to his computer, silently telling me to get the fuck out of there. Might as well make my Blackthorn right now. There was no need to delay things any further, since I felt ready. I hadn't battled anyone who wasn't named Sabrina in months, but I felt ready all the same. My team was raring to go, and I had a good feeling about this. When it comes to pokemon, feelings are everything.
"Igneel, I'll need you to get ready for a long flight" I said to my fire dragon as I took him out of his ball and he growled at the insinuation that he wasn't ever-ready. "Sorry, buddy. Let's grab some supplies and get going"
XXXXXX
The worst part about leaving Silph was the money. I'd been able to stay at five star hotels whenever I pleased, but now, I was forced to make do with the pokemon centre's accommodations. They weren't shabby, and after two nights in the wild, I was more than pleased with them, but they just didn't match up to the luxury I'd allowed myself to get acclimated to. Even worse was the fact that I couldn't involve myself with Silph any further. Oak had struck a deal with Devon to secure my brother's services, and one of the terms was to cease our family's 'affiliation with Silph'. If they'd known that Silph had dropped me like a hot plate then they'd probably have had different conditions.
Enough thinking though, it was time. I'd booked my appointment with the gym leader before I'd even left the lab so all I had to do was show up on time. I'd also publicised my intention on the pokenet forums I frequented to make sure this got the attention I needed it to. If I was going back into pokemon training, then I might as well continue to head towards my goal of becoming champion. The narrative around me in the mainstream media was broadly negative. They spoke of how I was just another spoiled rich kid living on my father's generosity, using his pokemon and lacking any skill of my own. Hopefully, trouncing who was widely regarded as the strongest gym leader in Indigo would go a long way in silencing my naysayers. It might make them dig their heels even deeper, but that was just a risk I had to take.
"Mr. Oak, follow me. You chose the gauntlet, yes?" The receptionist asked as I walked in and gave her my name. I nodded as I followed her to a separate hallway.
The gauntlet, the hardest gym challenge one could ever undertake. THere were three ways to earn a gym badge. The first was obviously to challenge the gym leader to a single one-on-one battle. It was the most popular challenge these days. The second method was to train under the gym for a year. It was more commonly used in the older times, when pokemon training was more expensive, and gym leaders did not keep pokemon for the various gym badge levels and always fought with their strongest teams. THe third method was the gauntlet. More commonly used to actually claim a gym for a leader. The provision that a trainer who beats a gym in the gauntlet would take over that gym has been struck out of the league constitution, but the gauntlet still offered a few advantages. One, it was more financial compensation. Each gym challenge was worth some money, but a gauntlet was worth as much as ten times more than a regular challenge. The second advantage was in terms of alternate rewards. Every gym offered a different reward to each trainer who undertook and defeated the gauntlet.
Of all the rewards, the one from the blackthorn gym was the most desirable. A dratini. The first evolutionary stage of Kanto's most famous pseudo-legendary was up for grabs. With the rewards so attractive, then why don't more people attempt it? I hear you ask yourself. The answer to that is simple. It's fucking hard. You only got to use seven pokemon, chosen ahead of time, and were forced to face two gym trainers in three-on-three battles before facing the gym leader in a six-on-six. It wasn't for the weak of mind or pokemon, and claimed more than its fair share of pokemon lives every year.
"Are you ready?" THe gym trainer in front of me asked with a smirk on his face, and I just nodded. Waiting to see what he had for me. "I'll release first," he offered with a condescending smirk, forfeiting the coin toss.
His Shelgon took the field with a commanding weight. Of course he was confident. A mid-stage pseudo-legendary was easily around the same level as most final stage pokemon out there. I racked my head to think of which of my pokemon would be most well placed to deal with this pokemon and sweep the rest of the team. Magnezone, Tsunade and Hashirama were ruled out since I hadn't included them in my selection. Magnezone and Hashirama weren't even with me, right now. My carry limit had been bumped back to eight once Silph had dropped me so they weren't even able to come. Ino would be well placed to sweep a team of dragon types with her fairy type moves, but Claire was probably watching this with a keen eye, and there was no need to warn her of what was coming. I needed a pokemon that could breach the Shelgon's armour with ease and still go on to deal with other pokemon.
"Gai, let's do this." The crowd hushed as the majestic kommo-o took shape before their eyes. He'd taken to training with gusto, and even when I wasn't doing any official training with the team, I'd catch him lifting gravity weights in Viridian's training room or practising his moves to increase his efficiency and power. He was ready for this, and more importantly, he wanted it. I could feel it in his aura. He wanted this.
The referee started the battle and he zoomed forwards with an outstretched fist. The game was on. Gai covered the field in a blur, easily matching the best of what Quicksilver had been able to put up in a straight line without any enhancements. The slow moving Shelgon didn't get the opportunity to carry out or attempt a defence before a punch crashed into it. It was sent flying backwards, making its way to the wall, but Gai was well ahead of it. A well-angled kick sent it upwards and he cupped his fingers, prepared to deliver the coup de grace. When his barrage of focus blasts hit the shell pokemon, it found its armour to be less than useful, and it crashed to the ground unconscious.
"What? What was that? How did you do that?" My opponent was awe-struck and I couldn't deny feeling some measure of pleasure at his misfortune. After all, he'd been so sure of himself at the beginning, and now what I suspected to be his ace was out of the battle without even getting to land a single hit. His next pokemon was a powerful-looking Raichu. Nothing like Surge's Raichu, I assured myself. While Surge's had been a mass of muscle and strength, this one looked flimsy in comparison.
It moved backwards once the referee started the battle, increasing the distance between he and Gai, and preparing a thunderbolt. I almost laughed as I saw Gai race past the thunderbolt, getting to his own target before the thunderbolt could even reach where he'd been seconds earlier. Gai was fast, and he used that speed in decking the Raichu on the head to faze it, and then knocking it out with a swipe of his tail and a bash with his durable forearms.
My opponent's third pokemon, a Meganium, was even less useful when it came to achieving anything against Gai. A single flamethrower made it cower behind a boulder, and Gai had whittled out the defence with focus blasts before taking out his opponent with an impressive hyper beam. The battle was over, but I left Gai on the field to allow him rest up a bit from the move he just used. The pokeball would place him in time-dilation, so it was best for him to just rest outside on the field. The league rules weren't clear on if this was allowed or not, and I'd seen challengers compelled to return their pokemon in a few situations like this, but this referee didn't seem to care so that was fine by me.
The next gym trainer took the position with little fanfare and sent out her first pokemon with no words passing between us. Simple and sweet, just like I liked things. She loved silence, but her Charizard seemed to be the exact opposite. It roared and screamed its existence to the heavens. I ignored it with months of expertise training pokemon like Igneel and Kenpachi. Speaking of Igneel, he'd be mighty pissed if he found that we'd fought a charizard without him. He had an unhealthy obsession with members of his species.
"I will be forfeiting this pokemon from this round," I told the referee as I returned Gai, whispering reassurances to him all the while before sending out Igneel. He wasted no time in assuming an aggressive posture once he noticed the pokemon in front of him. He roared, silently willing the other to cede to his greater power but my opponent's Charizard only roared back. Only my iron hold on his aura stopped him from charging at his opponent right then and there. Don't get me wrong, he could have broken my hold in an instance, but that would have hurt me, and he wasn't so far gone that he would consider hurting me to be a reasonable price to pay.
Once the referee's flag went down, and all restraint I had on him was let go, he covered the space between he and his opponent like a bat out of hell. They crashed into each other and began to wrestle. I didn't even bother giving orders. He'd just ignore them as far gone as he was in the euphoria of combat. Luckily, I didn't need to watch the dragons growl and nip at each other for long. Igneel disabled his opponent with ease. He slipped under his opponent's attempt to wrap him in a bear hug, punched it in the face, swept at its feet with his tail, and started to systematically disable the dragon in front of him.
Eventually, the battle, if I could even call it that, ended with Igneel's teeth around his opponent's neck. He growled, commanding his opponent to surrender, but the opposing Charizard continued to struggle against his grip, trying to fight its way out of its situation. Igneel started to bite down, making good on his threat, but we found ourselves gripping empty air. Our opponent was looking down with her outstretched pokeball with a placid look on her face.
I saw nothing but red. That kill had been ours. Rightfully earned. It was ours, and she stole it. When she sent out a Gengar next, I almost smiled at the thought of the cruelty. "Flamethrower," I spat out, too incensed to bother commanding with aura. Igneel, similarly pissed off, belched out a veritable sea of flames that forced the Gengar to fly higher into the air to avoid the flames that Igneel coated the arena in. "Fireball barrage" I commanded next, and he did exactly that. Massive blue balls of flame covered the sky as he sent them flying at his opponent the moment that formed. It was staying ahead of the onslaught but only barely, and as I heard my opponent suddenly scream in shock and command her pokemon to run, I figured that our trap had been spotted, so we might as well begin. All the fireballs Igneel had fired had remained floating in the air and suddenly all converged on the Gengar.
It tried to link up with Igneel using destiny bond, but Igneel used crunch on himself to disrupt the ghost-type energy before it could fully form. The Gengar had wasted its last few seconds, so the attacks made contact without any resistance. In an explosion brilliant enough to activate the shields covering both the trainers and the audience, the Gengar was blown to smithereens. THe brutality must have been shocking, but no one was devastated. After all, it was a ghost type. It would reform in a few weeks at the most.
Her next pokemon, a Seadra, was seafood from the moment it took its place on the field. THey'd denied us our kill, after all. And it was that thought that had me returning to my senses. I snapped the tendril of aura that I was using to connect my thoughts to Igneel as I noticed how the dragon type had been influencing my thoughts with his rage. Fuck. Fuck, fuck. That was bad. Of course something like this would happen. I'd gone weeks without battling. Never connecting with my pokemon while they had the adrenaline of battle flowing through them after I'd gone a whole year where I'd done so for every day. I'd been a fool to think there wouldn't have been consequences.
WIth distance, I saw exactly how cruel what we'd done to the Gengar had been. We'd had a legion of ways to disable the ghost, but we'd chosen to go about it in the most brutal manner possible. If that's what dragon rage was, I had a newfound respect for Igneel and his attempts to resist it. THe battle hadn't waited for me to get my bearings, and Seadra's probing water gun and crashed against Igneel without him attempting a defence. He'd also been left shocked by the cutting off of our aura bond, admittedly for different reasons. I doubt he saw anything wrong with the Gengar's fate. He probably even saw it as justice of some sort. He'd been denied one kill and so had taken another. Enough thinking though, the water gun had been an annoyance, but if that had been a hydropump, we'd have been in real trouble.
"Fly" I said, commanding him to take to the skies, leaving the range of the Seadra's influence and waiting to take advantage of his three-dimensional manoeuvrability. The Seadra stopped firing, and we waited a few seconds before I gave my next command. "Fire ace" I said, and watched him envelope himself in the spinning flames of a flame wheel before swooping down with the speed of an aerial ace. The Seadra's hasty hydro pump evaporated against the heat of his shield and they made contact with a devastating crash. He didn't stop there though, remaining on the Seadra and tearing at its body with his claws. This time, when my opponent returned her pokemon, I felt relieved.
"And now Donnell Oak has taken out the second gym trainer with a single pokemon. In what some might call a brutal display of might, he's shown exactly why he feels he's ready to come here for a gauntlet challenge. Normally, at this point, the challenger would have lost at least three pokemon, but Donnell's team is untouched. Let's see how Claire handles this."
A/N; I wonder how you feel about our MC's short lived retirement. Thanks for reading. We just started chapter 51 on the pa-atreon page. Yup, the next seven chapters are readily available. Feel free to join me there if you feel like supporting my work. Same username as up here. The link's on my profile. Since some people have been asking, I'm also much more active there. I'm always hesitant to say anything here lest I accidentally spoil anything. I'm considering starting a discord server to fix this. Would you join one?