Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.
Pokémon: Sinnoh no Isekai
Chapter One-hundred and two: Riot in Lilycove City, part one
After they both found victory at the Fortree City gym, Dawn and Kenny took off for the next destination in the Hoenn portion of their Gym Challenge tour, that being in Mossdeep City. However, before they would get there, the two reborn trainers would be crossing through Lilycove City first. Dawn and Kenny would be checking things out in Lilycove City anyway, given that it has multiple discussed possible targets that they and Steven Stone believe Team Scorn might be wanting to take aim at.
"They'll most likely go after either the harbor located here," Dawn said as she and Kenny rested both their respective parties of Pokémon and themselves at the local Pokémon Center in Lilycove City, "Because there's a precedent of them using large ships to transport great numbers of their men, meaning they may be tempted to take a big ship they find at the harbor, or the local art museum in order to steal highly valuable works of art to sell to shady collectors in the black market."
"There might also be a chance they'll be interested in something else here in Lilycove City," Kenny replied, "And might use one of the possible targets we had thought of with Steven as cover to distract from their real goal here. Remember their very first act that we know of?"
Dawn would never forget the first time she had ever encountered Team Scorn, back when they were raiding Azalea Town in the Johto region; people thought that Team Scorn was raiding Azalea Town in order to harvest the highly valuable Slowpoke tails from the local Slowpokes who are highly revered by the Azalea Town citizenry. But it turned out that Team Scorn was actually there to steal as many of the apricorn pokéballs that Kurt the pokéball smith makes as possible, a scheme that after the numbers were crunched revealed it would have earned Team Scorn far less income than if they went in for the Slowpoke tails like everyone thought. Team Scorn did get away with half a dozen Slowpoke tails because some enterprising grunts decided on their own to take the opprotunity, but that's beside the point.
Those who stand against Team Scorn can't afford to underestimate those villains, especially since Team Scorn has proven that there's no predicting what they'll try to get up to next. As Dawn and Kenny tried to think of how to go about sniffing out any Team Scorn presence and/or activity in Lilycove City, the Nurse Joy working at the Pokémon came over to the table that they sat at. "Your Pokémon are all perfectly treated from the long trip and are ready to be picked up."
"Well alright," Kenny said as he and Dawn got up to go gather their respective Pokémon from the front counter, "Now we can go looking about Lilycove City to see if any of those Team Scorn jerks are up to any bad guy stuff here."
"Actually, you two were invited to visit the residence of one of the wealthy elite living here in Lilycove City," Nurse Joy said, "Mainly because word got around Lilycove City that you, Sinnoh Champion Dawn, had just got here."
Dawn, although she was surprised by the gesture she had just been told about, wasn't too surprised; as the champion of a region's Pokémon League, Dawn would have some degree of fame. And her reputation has on occasion had reached places before she herself physically got there. "I assume that they want to try to look good in the press by giving a warm welcome to a visiting foreign champion who's looking into Team Scorn activities local to Hoenn," Dawn remarked.
Nurse Joy nodded in confirmation. "The wealthy elite here in Lilycove City only care about looking good in front of others and beefing up their already great wealth. A fair number of lower class citizenry here in Lilycove City aren't all that fond of the wealthy elites who lord over them oppressively." Nurse Joy sighed. "I fear that the current level of discontent among the lower class citizenry here in Lilycove City might grow so great that it'll metaphorically explode, leading to a repeat of the riot that occurred a little over two years ago."
"We... actually heard about that," Dawn said, a look of mild concern on her face, "We heard that a number of wealthy families were wiped out in that rioting."
"And to make things worse, they were the good ones who cared about the lower class," Kenny went on, "At least that's what we were able to gleam. The bad ones all got away with their hides in tact."
Nurse Joy nodded in agreement and confirmation. "The wealthy elite families ought to take cues from those wiped out a few years ago, and they better take those cues fast. Because if they don't, then history will be in danger of repeating itself."
Dawn and Kenny both turned to look at one another. "I don't know about you Kenny," Dawn began, "But I don't think we need the lower class all rising up against the wealthy elite here to give them the royal Kalosian treatment, especially right now while we still need to look into any possible Team Scorn activity here in Lilycove City."
"It'll be bad if we have to deal with two major things at once, yeah," Kenny replied, his tone showing he agreed with Dawn. Turning to look at Nurse Joy, Kenny asked, "Where is this wealthy person who invited us to come over?"
"Mrs. Counter has a chauffeur with a limo waiting outside the Pokémon Center right now as we speak," Nurse Joy explained, "You'll be driven over as soon as the both of you are ready to head out."
Dawn was a bit amused by how far ahead this 'Mrs. Counter' person had thought, especially since Dawn was getting vibes that it wouldn't exactly be the wisest idea out there to decline the invitation. With their fully treated Pokémon back in their possession, Dawn and Kenny left the Pokémon Center, met up with the chauffeur outside, got into the limo, and drove off to go see this Mrs. Counter lady.
(FLASHBACK, UNKNOWN LENGTH OF TIME AGO)
"Greninja! Aerial Ace!"
Sasuke had no idea what was going on; he had actually been invited over to Sakura's place one night about a month after they secretly started dating, had fallen asleep in one of the guest rooms, and when he woke up, he found that the Senbon family manor was not only being attacked, but at least part of it was now engulfed in flames. Sasuke also rushed out of the room he was in, and was found by two men who he recognized as persons living in Lilycove City's lower class neighborhood.
They both had a Pokémon each out, and both were Machops. Acting quickly, Sasuke's Greninja swiped at both Machops with Aerial Ace, knocking them out. Sasuke and his Greninja then knocked out one man each, with strikes to the head to knock them cold. Once the two men were knocked out, Sasuke and his Greninja proceeded to make their way downstairs, hearing more noise, smelling more smoke, feeling more heat.
Upon getting about half a dozen steps away from reaching the ground floor, Sasuke and his Greninja saw a lot more rioters, all of them persons he also recognized as those living in the lower class neighborhood in Lilycove City, were attacking members of the servant staff working for Sakura's family. Sasuke also saw Sakura's father was also being under attack. There were too many attackers, and a few of them even had weapons out; those that did not commanded Pokémon. Sasuke didn't know what was going on, or what the lower class was doing.
What he DID know was that his girlfriend and said girlfriend's family and servant staff were in trouble. "Greninja, Double Team!" Sasuke commanded, "Then take out the attacking Pokémon with Waterfall, Night Slash, and Aerial Ace as you see fit!" Greninja ran in, quickly weaving hand signs for stylistic reasons only (it didn't need to do so) before multiple Double Team doppelgangers of Greninja appeared running alongside the real Greninja.
The surprise swarm of Greninjas then jumped up and landed towards all of the attacking Pokémon, with some of the Greninjas using Waterfall by cloaking themselves in harshly surging water before crashing into targets, some using Night Slash by conjuring a black energy knife and slashing at targets with it, and some using Aerial Ace by quickly swiping at targets. All of the attacking Pokémon were taken out in quick order, with the real Greninja jumping back and landing next to Sasuke when it had gotten up from using Waterfall on a Poochyena.
Some of the attacking me turned to see where Sasuke stood on the stairs, right as Sasuke called out his Ninjask and Ninetales because he anticipated a serious fight. "If you all wanna cause some trouble," Sasuke yelled, "Then bring it on!"
...
The chaos of the riot took up so much time, took up so much focus, that by the time the fighting had stopped, Sasuke was surprised to see that it was morning. He and all of his Pokémon made it through the night, although during the fighting he saw it as a rioter went in and ended Sakura's father with a bowie knife to the throat. Sasuke had no idea how he was going to explain it to Sakura that her father, as well as a lot of her family's servant staff, were all killed in the chaos last night, even more so given that he ultimately wasn't able to stop it.
Sasuke was thrown for another loop when he chanced upon the body of Sakura's mother in the manor's library. Even with a cursory glance from where he stood, Sasuke could tell full well that someone had used a Pokémon to attack and kill Sakura's mother; the singed maul marks on the corpse's throat suggested that the Pokémon who had killed Sakura's mother did the deed by using Fire Fang. Now Sasuke had the grim duty to inform his girlfriend that she's technically an orphan now, and he had no idea how this mess could possibly get any worse for him.
...And then the universe decided to show Sasuke HOW it could get worse, when he to his heartbreak came across Sakura's corpse, laying on the floor in the kitchen. Bloodied kitchen knives laying on the floor, combined with the stab wounds on his late girlfriend's slender, petite form, told Sasuke that Sakura's assailants used what all they were able to make use of where they had probably chased Sakura to in their pursuit of the geeky looking heiress. The fact that they chased her into the kitchen was probably a boon for them, as the blades they had used were right there.
Sasuke would never forget the sight. Sakura Senbon, her slender form riddled with stab and slash wounds, her cute face with signs of past acne looking tired as her eyes were glassing over, her large round glasses that now hung on by the left ear piece and the right lens was cracked. Sakura's long, dark colored hair that was in a hime style cut was now stained and matted with the rich, warm crimson that once flowed through Sakura herself. But nothing would ever flow through the geeky looking but cute heiress ever again; her assailants had seen to that.
Sasuke hung his heads, his long golden blonde spikes hanging over his face to mask his watering eyes. Sasuke's three Pokémon were with him when they came upon Sakura's body. Greninja and Ninjask wore brooding, grim expressions, while Ninetales looked sad as he beheld what he knew was the dead body of the only human girl he ever came to trust, the only human girl he approved of for his master. Ninetales raised his head up and loosed a mournful howl, sad that the only girl he trusted to be romantically involved with Sasuke was now dead.
Ninetails wasn't the only one to vocalize feelings of sadness; Sasuke also started crying out loud, grief stricken over the death of his girlfriend. Sasuke didn't know who had done this, but he vowed to himself that he would one day find out the identities of all persons responsible for taking the life of his girlfriend, for taking Sakura out from the living world. The grief-stricken teen had no idea how long it would take, but he'll stick to it even if it ended up taking him the rest of his life. He WILL find out who all was responsible for killing Sakura Senbon.
...And do to them what they had done to her.
(FLASHBACK OVER)
Sasuke, now Admin Ninja, was thinking back on that fateful night while he and Goemon waited in Seiko's house in the low income neighborhood in Lilycove City. Ninja and Goemon were wearing plain clothes disguises; all members of Team Scorn that were going to participate in the upcoming riot wore pain clothes disguises, as per Ninja's rule so as to mask Team Scorn's involvement in the riot as much as possible. All that Team Scorn, or the 'Anarchy Party' as Ninja was passing them off as to the unknowing lower class persons, was going to be doing was supplement the forces the low income persons would charge in with as they reenacted history.
Once all was said and done, Team Scorn was going to be pulling out of Lilycove City, mostly so as to shift gears over to their plans for Mossdeep City. Team Scorn only wanted what the end result of the upcoming riot was going to be; they had no interest in looting anything from the wealthy elite, and they would only lead the way for the low income neighborhood persons to the wealthy elite persons, and let the poor give the royal Kalosian treatment to the rich. No one in Team Scorn had any plans to loot from the wealthy, and certainly had no plans to kill any of the wealthy.
Not even Ninja was planning to kill any of the wealthy, mostly because he confirmed that there were only two persons he had to introduce the throats of to his kunai, and neither of those persons were rich.
Over at the manor Dawn and Kenny had been invited to, they were siting in a waiting room talking to their host, Mrs. Bean Counter. She was lovely looking, looked to be about a few years younger than Dawn's mom Johanna, and she had fair skin and a slender body, long light blonde hair, and her outfit was a fancy, long-sleeved teal blue dress with brown shoes that occasionally peaked out from under the hem of her dress. "Sorry to drag you kids out like this," Bean apologized, "But I was hoping to talk to you before any of the less than morally upright persons in Lilycove City's upper crust got to you first."
Kenny regarded Bean with a wry look. "Yes, Dawn and I are aware that there are less than savory persons in Hoenn's one percent who think with their pocketbooks first and foremost in mind. I believe such thinking on their part is at least part of why the riot on you guys a little over two years ago occurred."
Bean, a somber look on her face, nodded in agreement. "...Yes. I agree that my fellow upper crust who like to lord over the lower and working class needs to back off from them, to give them some breathing room and even a hand up."
Dawn considered Bean with a scrutinizing gaze. "...You seem to be saying that you, unlike the rest of the one percent living in this neighborhood, aren't oppressive towards the lower and working class persons."
"No, I by no means want to have those of lesser financial status kept under my thumb," Bean readily admitted, "Especially since I know what living on both sides of the conflict being discussed here is like."
The reborn trainers both looked surprised. "What do you mean by that?" Dawn asked.
Gesturing to herself, Bean said, "The truth is that I'm pretty much the only person part of Lilycove City's upper crust who wasn't born into it. I was born into the lower and working class, but caught the eye of my late husband, who was among the generous-hearted wealthy persons who was wrongly killed in the riot here a little over two years ago."
"I'd say that everyone who died in that riot would qualify as having been wrongly killed," Dawn remarked.
"Too true," Bean agreed with a nod of her head.
"Still, you have a unique perspective compared to the other fancy pants rich people who snob with you," Kenny remarked, "You've lived on both sides. That kind of perspective gives you the points of view of both sides, allows you to see the flaws of both sides with the eyes of each other."
Bean nodded in agreement. "Yes. That perspective is part of why my young nephew isn't growing up knowing who I am and where I live."
"Young nephew?" Dawn repeated.
"Yes," Bean answered with a single nod, "The three-year-old son of my older brother Nat. Little Luci, and his name is spelled L-u-c-i. My brother and I, when we were growing up, would often see the rich kids act like pompous, spoiled brats. Nat agrees with me that Luci shouldn't grow up like that, so Luci is growing up in a lower and working class environment like Nat and I were, while Nat teaches Luci important moral and life lessons so that, when we feel he'll be old and or mature enough to not let things go to his head, he'll be brought in on the secret."
Dawn nodded along in understanding. "So you're basically trying to make sure Luci stays humble." Bean nodded in confirmation. "That's a very admirable goal," Dawn went on, "I think that-"
"Mrs. Counter!" Everyone turned to look as a servant staff member came running in as he shouted, cutting Dawn off in the process, "This is terrible!"
Instantly alarmed, everyone stood up from where they were seated. "What's going on?" Bean asked.
"It would seem history is repeating itself," the servant staff member said, "Because loads of persons from the lower class neighborhood just swarmed into the one percent neighborhood, looking to start trouble!"
"Are you kidding me?!" Kenny nearly exclaimed, "Those guys really are trying to go for round two here, aren't they?"
"What are we looking at here?" Dawn asked, her tone and expression equally serious.
The servant staff member looked a bit nervous, swallowed a gulp of breath. "...Mostly looks like the adults. Many have their Pokémon with them, and what few who don't have any Pokémon are carrying blunt instruments."
Sighing, Dawn muttered to herself, "Well it's a good thing that I have Tsukune on hand." Speaking up as she raised her head, Dawn said, "Kenny and I will do what we can to at least make the rioters stand down. We'll use force if necessary, but we hope it won't be."
"Silver lining," Kenny spoke up, "At least this time, we're only dealing with dissatisfied lower and working class persons. They're a far different cry from those jerkwads in Team Scorn that have been trying to make a mess of things ever since we first had the displeasure of having to deal with them back in Azalea Town."
Dawn nodded in agreement with her friend. Although still terrible to deal with, a bunch of dissatisfied lower and working class persons were far different to deal with than the straight up villains that make up Team Scorn. All that the reborn trainer hoped for out of this was to avoid any death here; lives were lost in the first similar riot a little over two years ago, and Dawn would like it if that all was avoided this time around.
...
Chie and Colleen, the pink haired girl and the blonde girl with long hair in a high ponytail, were both laying face down on the floor in the living room of a small house in the lower class neighborhood. Both girls were permanently ended, their throats taken out by a blade. The blade in question was the now bloodied kunai held by Ninja, the Admin in charge of Team Scorn's Kunai Sector.
Standing nearby was Goemon, both he and Ninja still in their plain clothes disguises. "Wow, how lucky are you?" Goemon remarked in a casually amused tone, "Both of the girls you wanted to kill were off to the side where no-one would notice it because they're all distracted with the riot they're doing."
Ninja nodded in grim agreement. "Yeah. From what Katou's assistant Felecia got on the matter, Chie and Colleen were hired by some guy named Nat to babysit his young son Luci."
Jerking a thumb over the back of his shoulder, Goemon remarked, "That would explain the little dude that I found sleeping in one of the bedrooms." Gesturing to the two bodies on the floor, Goemon said, "So what do we do with them?"
Ninja took out some body bags from the backpack he wore over his back. "Load them up," Ninja said, then help me carry them to the car we got waiting in the alleyway between the rows of houses in this neighborhood. We'll dump them in the waters of Route 121, just north of Route 122 and Mt. Pyre, sometime at night when there's as few persons about as possible to chance upon us."
"Heh," Goemon remarked, "Not even letting them get a proper send off, huh?"
"They killed Sakura," Ninja swore, "They deserve no-" The head of Team Scorn's Kunai Sector stopped short when he noticed something on the right wrist of the late Chie. It was a bracelet, one that Ninja recognized; it was a golden bronze chain bracelet, and there was a thin plate with chains attached to the ends, one per end, and the other ends of those chains had the ring and lock clip respectively to lock the bracelet around the wrist. There were also bits of turquoise inlaid into the thin plate.
Ninja scowled as he recognized that bracelet. "...That bitch Chie stole Sakura's bracelet," Ninja practically snarled, "The one that I had custom made as a gift for Sakura since her birthday occurred about a week after she and I started going out."
"Didn't you say that Sakura gave you a Fire Stone on that very day as well?" Goemon asked while Ninja knelt down to loot the bracelet he recognized from Chie's corpse, "The very Fire Stone you used to evolve your then Vulpix into the Ninetales that he is today?"
Ninja nodded once in the affirmative as he stood up, now holding the bracelet that he went through great trouble to get for Sakura as a gift; aside from having some of Chie's blood on it, there was nothing off about it. Ninja pocketed the bracelet. "...Well, let's get the girls packed," Ninja said grimly, feeling moderately better now that he not only had avenged the death of his late girlfriend, but also got back the first and only gift he had ever been able to give her.
Ninja, with Goemon helping him, were able to clean their mess up as much as they could; they weren't caught in their act because everyone was getting distracted by the riot occurring in Lilycove City's upper crust neighborhood, so they loaded the two full body bags into the trunk of the car that they had waiting. Those body bags would eventually be dumped in the very waters that were previously mentioned, and wouldn't be found and recovered until very shortly after a certain trio makes their way over to the Alola region.
But that's not here nor there. What's going on here is that Ninja and Goemon, after getting their business with the girls they knew before joining up with Team Scorn squared away, would make their way over to the upper crust neighborhood to help out the rioters as much as they and the rest of the 'Anarchy Party' (just a bunch of Team Scorn members in plain clothes disguises) could before they decided to pull out. They had much bigger fish to fry once they were done with their business there in Lilycove City, and said fish fry was part of why they had their eyes on hitting up Mossdeep City.
Ninja would be going to said fish fry happy, knowing that now his late girlfriend could rest easy.
END, CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND TWO
Author's notes;
This is actually mostly re-written, as the original form of this chapter not only was more than fifteen-hundred words longer than this version, but contained a lot of upper class vs. lower class conflict that I'm pretty sure I got wrong, as I lack knowledge of the depths of such ways. I basically dumbed things in this and the next chapter down to be easier for me to work with, as well as help get Dawn and Kenny to Mossdeep City a lot quicker after the business in Lilycove City was finished. Anyway, the conflict will continue into the next chapter, so don't turn that dial.
Dawn's Pokémon: (on hand) Chi-Chi (female Infernape), Souji (male Rampardos), Zatch (male Hariyama; shiny), Tsukune (Palkia), Luna (female Luxray), Germany (male Garchomp)
Kenny's Pokémon: (one hand) Shallot (male Glaceon), Juan (male Pikachu; Libre), Android 21 (female Weavile; shiny), Godzilla (male Tyranitar), Sophie (female Lileep), Priestess (female Liligant; Hisuian; alpha)