As I mentioned in Chapter 10 (er... will mention?), I sort of retroactively decided to add in bits of the secondary story as 'Interlude' chapters, to give you an idea of what's happening outside of Mt. Silver. There will be a few more of these Interludes moving forward, but the bulk of the story will still focus on AJ.
Interlude 1
White Gold
Hilda sat alone in the corner booth of one of Goldenrod City's seven-dozen trendy cafes, tuning out the torpid sounds of what passed for the 'not-mainstream' mainstream indie music in Johto these days that pumped endlessly through the speakers overhead. The dark mahogany table was polished so brightly that what little sunlight managed to peek through the authentic bamboo blinds still seemed blinding.
The cafe was nice, she supposed - if a tad eclectic, the design philosophy apparently being 'let's decorate with random things found in the attics of elderly hippies' - but to be honest, cafes weren't really her scene. She liked a strong coffee as much as the next guy, but cafes were for poetry snobs and trendy business men. Her, in her tattered hat and tank top and jean shorts? Not so much.
She'd finished her barley tea about ten minutes ago - not her drink of choice, but hey, when in Johto - and still, the person she was supposed to be meeting hadn't bothered to arrive yet. She'd been forced into making crawly snakes with her straw wrapper for lack of anything better to do. And she wasn't even good at that. Which led to stewing.
On the one hand, his tardiness was super rude. And she still wasn't sure she even wanted to be here - favor or no. Sure, she owed AJ one, and it's not like she was having any luck in Blackthorn anyway, but…
On the other hand, though, the person she was waiting for was a very important kind of guy. She was sure he had ten dozen things he needed to do today and probably couldn't help running late. Not that that made things any less annoying for her. Still…
Maybe she should get a refill on her tea? Did they do free refills in Johto? And maybe they had some kind of… breakfast pastry or something? She wasn't hungry, but it would be a distraction at least.
With a clatter, the front door of the cafe was thrust open with unusual force, making the little decorative beads rattle obnoxiously and drawing the startled attention of every other artsy teen and middle-aged divorcee in the building. There, silhouetted in the doorframe, looking winded and flushed and clearly as though he'd come rushing as quickly as he could, was the person Hilda was waiting for.
Johto's current Grand Champion, nicknamed 'Gold' because of the burnished glint of his eyes - though his real name was just Ethan. Judging from the way everyone was staring - or pulling out their pokegears to snap photos - he'd been immediately recognized, but if he noticed all of the looks he was getting, he didn't seem to care. His amber eyes swept the establishment from back to front until they found her, hunkered over in the corner, trying not to draw attention to herself, and they seemed to light up.
A moment later, he was at her table, sliding into the seat across from her, a polite though somewhat harassed smile on his face.
"Hi. Sorry," he said quickly. "I know I'm late, I just-"
He cut off as the pokegear strapped to his wrist started to ring. A look of annoyance flashed across his face as he examined the caller id on the screen for a moment, then rolled his eyes and muted the call. She thought she heard him mumble "Stuff it, Anthony" under his breath, but that made no sense at all, so she let it slide.
He flicked his golden eyes back up to hers and smiled his easy-going 'Champion' smile at her again.
"Sorry, yeah - I… It's been one of those mornings, you know?"
"Yeah," she said, smiling back politely. "I get it, don't worry. Good to meet you."
"Yeah, you too," he said eagerly, reaching across the table to shake her hand. Very official and important-like. "I was excited to get to meet a former Unovan Champion. And AJ had great things to say about you."
Hilda felt her smile grow a little forced when he mentioned her previous title, but luckily, they were interrupted then by a somewhat star-struck waitress who tripped and stumbled all over herself trying to take Ethan's order. One coffee, two creams, no sugar. And a bagel. He was hungry.
Once the waitress had scurried off, Ethan turned his attention back to her and she felt like she was under a spotlight. She suddenly didn't know whether she should have her elbows on the table or not. Was that rude in Johto? What were they even doing here? Did he pick this place out of convenience, or did he come here regularly? Probably not, given how the waitress acted. Were coffee shops just his kinda vibe?
"Sorry for calling you out like this, out of the blue," he said suddenly, as though reading her mind. "You said you'd been in… Blackthorn, right? Is it cool if I ask what you've been up to? Just sightseeing?"
"Oh, uh… Yeah." That wasn't… technically a lie. She'd been there, and she'd… seen sights. Though she figured if she told him the actual reason she was in Johto, he'd think she'd lost her mind. "Y'know, just… seeing the world. Adventuring. I've been wanting to… see more. Experience more. That sort of thing."
That response had been so vague, it was hardly a response at all, but Ethan didn't seem to mind. He just nodded along politely like that made sense. And maybe it did, in a way, but it was a lie. A convenient lie; one she'd given to her mother and brother and friends after she disappeared. The ones she'd bothered to contact, at least. It seemed to be enough for most people. Most people except for her brother - though of course, as her twin, he'd always been able to see right through her.
"Blackthorn is beautiful this time of year," Ethan said, continuing the conversation instead of lingering on her sudden disappearance, for which she was immensely grateful. "I'm sorry that I pulled you away from it."
"No, it's fine," Hilda said, brushing aside her paper straw snakes, if only because it gave her something to do with her hands. "I was planning on heading over to Ecruteak next anyway. Check out some of the legends about… giant flying pokemon. And, um… the local history. You know."
He nodded again, though something in his eyes seemed to glitter.
"You should talk to Morty, the gym leader, when you get there," he suggested. "He's an expert on the city's history and knows a lot about the towers. He should be able to tell you everything you want to know."
Luckily, she was spared from having to make more smalltalk by the return of the waitress, who handed Ethan his coffee and bagel with visibly trembling hands. He smiled at her gratefully despite the bit of coffee that had spilled on the tabletop. She flushed bright pink and all but dashed away.
Hilda studied Ethan while he set to work wiping up the mess and adding his creams to his coffee, and decided that the waitress's reaction had to have been 90 percent just because he was famous. He wasn't bad looking or anything, she supposed, and he was confident and charismatic, which was a plus… and obviously an excellent battler… but he really wasn't Hilda's type at all. She preferred guys who were… gentler. Who didn't hide behind a mask of bravado. Who had long hair and soulful eyes and a smile that…
Ok. Stop that.
Really, though, now that she was examining him up close, he really didn't seem all that 'Champion'-ey. Like, when you think of Champions, you immediately think of Leon and his ridiculous cape, the sheer hype from the cheering crowds, his roaring Charizard. Or Diantha - the lights and the glamor, her undeniable, superhuman grace and poise. Or Cynthia - barrelling through scores of challengers without pause, her wild, maniacal laughter drowned out by the ferocious roar of her Garchomp.
Even Lance had had class before he retired - equal parts refined gentleman and bloodthirsty dragon master. But Ethan? He looked like her next-door neighbor. Or that one guy at school who always brought a skateboard even though he didn't actually know how to skateboard.
Though to be fair - she had hardly looked the part of a Champion either. And neither did AJ, honestly. Maybe it was something you acquired with age? Like facial hair.
"So," Ethan said, then paused to take a bite of his bagel. He chewed for a moment, swallowed, then grinned at her sheepishly. "Sorry. Starving. Anyway - I don't want to keep you forever, I'm sure you're a busy person, so let's get to it. I was hoping you'd be able to tell me a bit about your experience with Team Plasma."
Hilda blinked. Well that came out of left field.
"Um… I mean, I guess. But wouldn't you be better off just contacting Iris? Not that I don't want to help," she clarified quickly, "it's just… wouldn't that have been easier?"
"Yes," Ethan agreed, apparently deciding his bagel was too dry and adding cream cheese. "And I did. But from the sounds of it, you were there in the thick of it, and I guess I was just curious to see if there was anything more you could add. Anything that might help me understand more about what we're dealing with."
"...Dealing with?"
They both stared at one another blankly for a moment before a look of comprehension dawned on Ethan's face.
"Oh. Right. I forgot to explain. Sorry, I-"
His pokegear started to ring again, and she thought she caught the name 'Joey' before he muted it.
"Popular, aren't you?" she asked wryly, and the sudden look of sheer exasperation on his face had her laughing out loud.
"Y'know," he began in a tone that very much implied she was going to be the unwitting outlet for an impromptu rant, "the pokegear first started taking off the year I started my journey. And they had this nifty feature trainers could opt into where, if you had someone's number registered on your pokegear, and you were within the same general vicinity - like in the same city or the same route - you could send out a notice letting other people know you were up for a rematch. And I thought - hey, that's pretty cool! I wanna be the best! I wanna make trainer friends! Let's do it!"
The look he gave her then reminded her of a dead fish.
"If I could go back in time and slap myself, I would."
"Why? That sounds like a pretty cool idea. And you can just opt out if you don't want a rematch."
"Yes, but see, you had to give the other person your phone number for it to work," he said in a long-suffering tone. "Do you have any idea how many people young, naive me exchanged numbers with?"
"Uh…"
"Dozens. Easily. I think the final count had it almost to eighty-seven before I stopped because my phone kept blowing up. Every day - multiple times an hour, phone call after phone call after phone call. And it's gotten so much worse after I became Champion. People come up with nonsense reasons to call me and talk about absolutely nothing for ages just because I'm famous now or whatever-"
"OK, so then… Just block some of them?"
Ethan looked aghast.
"I can't just start ignoring them now that I'm 'famous'," he said, putting finger quotes around the word as though to underplay the fact that he was, in fact, incredibly famous. "That's so rude!"
Hilda laughed again.
"Hey, you're talking to the girl who threw away being the Champion and ghosted all of her friends and family without so much as a status update. I may be the wrong person to be giving you advice about your popularity issues."
For a half-second, she regretted bringing up her disappearance, thinking Ethan would take it as an invitation to ask her about it. To her relief, he instead gave her an amused smile and said around a mouthful of bagel, "Clearly, I'm not as brave as you are."
That got another laugh out of her.
"So anyway," she said, getting the conversation back on track. "What was it you were saying was going on? And why would knowing about the incident with Team Plasma be helpful?"
He took a swig of his coffee to wash the bagel down. Clearly, the cream cheese hadn't helped with the dryness issue.
"Because they're having a bit of a resurgence," he said. "Here, in Johto."
Hilda stiffened. Her vision seemed to tunnel until everything else in the world disappeared except for Ethan.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing serious yet," he clarified quickly, catching on to her tone. "No explicit crimes, no noticeable uptick in pokemon abductions. In fact, they've only really been spotted so far here in Goldenrod and over in Olivine. Mostly just preaching on the street corners - pokemon pacifism and whatever that creed of theirs was."
"A load of Tauros crap is what it was," Hilda spat. "Just a group of con men taking advantage of people and convincing them to release their pokemon, only so they could steal them. All that 'holier than thou' pokemon slavery nonsense was just a scam meant to prey on people's love for their pokemon."
"True," Ethan said, cutting her off. "Though honestly, if all this is is some remnants who want to keep up the preaching but without the crime, I don't really care. I mean, we can't do anything about that anyway. Free speech and all that. But I don't like the idea of a criminal organization jumping ship from another country over to mine. I mean - this wouldn't be the first time an international crime syndicate tried to make a comeback in Johto. Gotta be prepared."
She didn't know what he was referring to with that, but she was one-hundred percent onboard with making sure Team Plasma stayed dead. They'd done enough damage as it was.
She opened her mouth to say sure, she was on board - ask her whatever he wanted. She'd even be willing to stick around and help out. After all, if Plasma was in Johto, then there was a chance that he was as well…
But then the sound of a distant boom sounded out over the drone of the music and the building rattled, and their conversation was forgotten.
Hilda and Ethan exchanged puzzled looks. Outside on the street, she could see a couple pedestrians staring up at the sky, looking concerned.
Ethan glanced at his pokegear as though expecting it to go off, but for once, it remained silent. Instead, he rose to his feet, half-eaten bagel forgotten on the table as he said, slowly, "Forgive me, but I think I… need to go see what that was."
"Yeah," Hilda said, standing up and following him. "I'll come with you."
The other inhabitants of the coffee shop had migrated to the windows, peering curiously outside, Ethan finally forgotten. No one noticed them leave. Hilda didn't even realize that they'd forgotten to pay.
Outside, though the street looked normal enough, Hilda could immediately tell that something was off. There was an… energy in the air, something that prickled at her skin, making the hair raise on her arms. Something was wrong. Yet in spite of that, everything on the street seemed fine.
Ethan glanced around, then strode out onto the empty street, turning in circles.
"I don't see anything off… What could have caused that boom?"
Hilda's eyes landed on the couple she'd seen through the window earlier standing on the sidewalk a few buildings away. They were staring up at the sky, heads together, talking quickly. Hilda stepped out onto the street and turned, following their gazes upward, past the tall row of buildings to the north that were obscuring her view of the skyline..
"Ethan… Ethan, look! Over there!"
There, just to the north, beyond the wall of buildings… A column of black smoke rising high into the air.
Ethan didn't even hesitate. In a flash, he had a pokeball in his hand and was summoning one of his partners - a Fearow - out onto the street. A second later, he was on its back and taking to the skies, leaving her behind.
But not for long. She had her own Golurk out of its ball only seconds after Ethan, and within a few moments, her pokemon had rocketed up into the air, soaring off after him.
She had time for just one random thought - since when had Ethan had a Fearow? She didn't recall hearing about that on his Champion team. Maybe he just used it when he needed to get around? - before they drew close enough to the source of the commotion to see what was going on. Then, all thoughts disappeared from her mind.
A building - a Pokemart, judging by the roof - was on fire. Some sort of accident? But that wasn't the end of it - the streets were overrun with people and pokemon, battling, screaming, launching blasts of fire and bolts of ice in every which direction. It was absolute mayhem.
For a wild moment, she thought she was seeing the start of some kind of riot. Until they drew close enough for her to notice that a majority of the people were wearing the same outfit - gray jumpsuits, with black boots that reached their knees and matching gloves that reached their elbows. Thickly-padded vests protected their chests, lined with pokeballs, and a cowl covered the lower parts of their faces to obscure their identities. On their heads, they wore black berets with white Xs on the front.
And there, pinned to their breasts, plain for all to see, was the sigil of Team Plasma.
"What in the world…?" she breathed, horrified. Hadn't Ethan literally just been saying that they hadn't done anything villainous yet? Well that aged like Moomoo Milk. There was a pretty big gap between preaching your ideology on street corners and open acts of flagrant terrorism.
This was unlike anything she knew of Team Plasma. The villainous organization she knew operated in secret, hiding their nefarious actions behind a veil of professed altruism. They didn't openly attack cities in broad daylight. Had they become radicalized since she'd defeated them? But why?
As they drew in close to the center of the chaos, she could see that most of the Plasma grunts were going unchallenged. Oh, a few of the police had arrived and were trying to battle them, but they were heavily outnumbered, the attack having only just started minutes ago, their backup having presumably not arrived.
There were a few others trying to stop them - an assortment of civilians and random trainers who must have just happened to have been in the area, but their skill levels were clearly wildly varied and they weren't having much success. The rest of the grunts who weren't dealing with their would-be stoppers were instead taking the opportunity to order their pokemon to destroy everything around them.
Windows and storefronts were smashed, trees set ablaze, garbage cans upended and sent rolling down the street, tearing up the asphalt. There didn't seem to be any point to it. It was like they were causing chaos for chaos's sake.
Ethan dove low on his Fearow, straight down towards the middle of the street, landing behind the row of grunts doing battle with the police. The burning pokemart was just across from him, and the roar of the flames burned in his golden eyes.
Snatching a ball from off his belt, he lobbed it into the air and with a flash, his Jolteon took to the field. Electricity arcing between each spiked tuft of hair, it let out a high-pitched growl before darting forward, Agility making it move like a yellow blur, running lightning-fast rings around the attackers, firing off a wave of Pin Missiles.
The attack stung, but not enough to seriously injure. It was enough, however, to make the alarmed attackers move back, to gather them all together in a neat clump at the center of the circle - at which point a single, well-placed Thunderbolt was all that was needed to take them all down at once. Suddenly direction-less, their rampaging pokemon quickly began falling to the police on the other side.
Hilda hit the ground just behind Ethan, jumping off of Golurk's back. She ordered it to enter the flaming Pokemart and make sure there were no people or pokemon trapped inside, and as it phased out of existence, she turned her attention towards the rest of the grunts who were busy terrorizing the remainder of the street, unimpeded by the police.
There were people cowering in a nearby alleyway, one harried Heracross doing its best to protect them from a cruel-looking Garboder who towered over it, spewing out poisonous gas. Just down from them, partially hidden behind a delivery van, an older man was shielding his unconscious Aipom from a huge Scolipede who seemed determined to knock the vehicle over. One particularly brave little girl who had been trying to fight back let out a high-pitched scream as her Ledian was blasted through the window of a record shop by a ferocious Liepard.
Hilda plucked a ball from her belt and lobbed it into the street.
"Goodra! Mud Shot!"
Her massive, gooey beauty hit the asphalt with a gurgling roar, and a frothy wave of mud shot from its mouth, blasting the Garboder back into the side of a building. It slammed into the brick siding in a spray of brown and greenish-purple, the mud mixing with its body's natural toxins, collapsing down onto the sidewalk unconscious in a puddle of filth.
Her pokemon's cry caught the attention of the Scolipede, who turned toward Goodra as though sensing a stronger adversary than a stationary delivery vehicle - only to immediately be blindsided by a fierce Power Whip that slammed the Scolipede into the truck, then rose and crashed down on it again, driving it down onto the pavement where it struggled to rise.
Her Goodra's long, slick antenna lashed out again at the Liepard, but missed as the nimble creature danced backwards, baring its fangs and hissing. A second later, Ethan's Jolteon had alighted upon its back, coming out of nowhere, and dumping thousands of volts of electricity directly into its body. It crumpled to the ground, muscles locked and twitching.
Several of the police officers had advanced at this point, urging the civilians to flee, pursuing the remaining Team Plasma grunts, while the few officers who remained secured the grunts Ethan had taken care of or else congregated in front of the burning Pokemart, calling out water-type pokemon to try to contain the blaze.
Hilda didn't have any water-types on hand, but her Goodra at least knew Water Pulse, so she set her to helping out - only to stop a moment later as her Golurk came stomping out of smokey building interior, carrying an unconscious old woman in one arm and her terrified Hoppip in the other. Its leaves had been badly scorched and it seemed to be unable to fly.
While Golurk set the old woman and her pokemon down, Hilda joined Ethan, the police officers, and her hard-working Goodra at the storefront, watching as their pokemon set to work dousing the flames.
"I can't believe this," Ethan muttered darkly, gazing into the flames. "What on earth would inspire them to do something like this? What was the point?"
"Yeah," Hilda said, thinking back to her confrontations with Team Plasma in the past. "Kinda spits on the whole 'pokemon pacifism' schtick, doesn't it?"
"C-Champion Ethan?!"
Ethan and Hilda turned to find a young police officer approaching them, practically goggling at Ethan, looking positively awestruck.
"S-Sir! Thank you, sir! F-For the assistance, I mean! You were amazing!"
The man looked like he was around Ethan's age. Older than Hilda, at least. Hearing him call Ethan sir was weird.
If Ethan thought the same, he didn't let on.
"What's the status?" he asked, his voice firm and authoritative. "What was the point of this? Do we know what their goal was?"
"S-Sir?" the young officer asked. "Oh, um… I-I'm not really-"
An older officer, a woman in her forties and the one who was clearly taking charge here, shouldered roughly past her younger fellow officer and met Ethan's gaze roughly.
"It isn't just here," she said curtly. "We radioed in for backup as soon as we responded, but there are attacks being levied all over the city, so no one could come. That's why it's taking so long for the firefighters and EMTs to get here. They're busy going everywhere else. Haven't you noticed the sky?"
Ethan stared, then as one he and Hilda stepped back and gazed around at the skyline.
Obfuscated by the towering buildings around them, columns of smoke that she swore hadn't been there before - or had they been but they'd been too focused on the first one they saw to notice? - were now rising in multiple different directions. This wasn't a random attack on this one street - the city itself was seemingly under siege.
A heavy weight seemed to drop into her navel. Today was not going as expected. Not at all.
"If you're going to do something, do it," the officer continued to Ethan. "We've got this handled here."
Ethan nodded curtly, not wasting any time speaking, and for a moment there, in the anger and determination she saw glinting in his eyes, he really did look like a Champion. He moved to pull his Fearow's pokeball off of his belt, but suddenly, as though part of some divine joke, his pokegear began ringing again.
Johto's Champion swore - loudly - and moved as though to rip his pokegear off and hurl it across the street. Then stopped as he examined the caller ID.
A moment later, he'd answered it.
"Whitney?"
"Ethan!" a woman's voice shouted, sounding harried. "The League told me you were in the city! Are you here? Where are you?"
"I'm across town," he said. "About six blocks south of the Magnet Rail station. Listen-"
"That's perfect!" Whitney interrupted. "Listen - I got word from some of my girls who are over on that side of the city. It's the Radio Tower! They're after the Radio Tower - it's Team Rocket all over again!"
Ethan swore again - he really had a mouth on him - but Whitney kept on talking.
"All of these other smaller attacks must just be a diversion. I don't know what they're after this time - it's clearly not some quiet take-over like before, but-"
The sound of a resounding explosion coming through from her side cut her voice off. Hilda and the senior police officer crowded in closer to Ethan to hear better.
"Whitney?" Ethan called out when a few seconds passed without response. "Whitney?! Are you alright? I'm coming over there-!"
"No!" Whitney's voice shouted back, and in the background, Hilda thought she heard the sound of screaming and the furious moo of a Miltank. "We've got this - we're actually making our way to the tower ourselves, but we're too far - I don't think we'll make it! You're closer, so you go! Figure out what they're after and stop them!"
"Whitney-!"
But the call went dead. She'd hung up on him.
For a moment, Ethan looked like he was waging a war with himself. Go to the Radio Tower? Or try to help the gym leader? Columns of smoke were still rising in disparate parts of the city. A lot of people were in need of help. Hilda's eyes bounced from the little girl cradling her unconscious Ledian as she wept, and the old man down on the ground beside his injured Aipom. The people who'd been in the alley had finally escaped, but they were lingering around looking listless and coughing wetly. They'd clearly inhaled some of Garboder's poisonous gas.
First Responders hadn't arrived yet, but how much could Hilda do if she stayed? They were pokemon battlers, not medical experts.
The officer thumped Ethan on the shoulder.
"You should do as Miss Whitney says," she said, voice not quite an order. "Leave the city to us. If the Radio Tower is really their target, then that's where they'll have their big guns and it's where you'll be needed most. I'll radio dispatch and let them know what Whitney told us. But you should get going."
"I can go help Whitney while you deal with the Radio Tower," Hilda offered, but Ethan shook his head, looking grim.
"She can handle herself. Do you have any idea how many kids her Miltank has made cry? She knows what she's doing."
"Ok," Hilda said slowly, "but these aren't exactly kids we're dealing with here."
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
"From how terrible their battling skills are? They may as well be. Now come on!"
Goldenrod's Radio Tower was one of the largest in the Eastern Hemisphere and serviced pretty much all of Johto, much like how its twin in Celadon handled the Kanto region. The building was absolutely massive in and of itself - a veritable skyscraper reaching approximately forty stories in height - but on top of that, quite literally, stood the tower's radio antenna that extended an additional hundred meters into the air. It was one of those sights that you tended to ignore from ground-level, but if you were higher up, the image of the tall, triangular tower piercing the skyline was a sight to behold.
Right now, more distracting than a giant braided metal tower were the people swarming its base. People in gray jumpsuits with black berets.
Plasma. But why? What interest did they have in a radio antenna? Was their plan to broadcast their pacifist propaganda over the airwaves? Didn't attacking a city to try and pull that off seem a bit… hypocritical? Even for them?
Her first instinct was to swoop down on the roof and start dishing out justice. However, she could see more activity down on the street below, and if they both attacked up top, then the ones below could escape. They'd need to divide up their efforts.
"Leave the top of the building to me," Ethan called out. "I'll take care of whatever's going on, then enter the building from the top."
"Then I'll take the bottom," she said, catching on. "Help the police and enter from the ground. We'll meet up in the middle."
"It's a plan," he said, sounding grim. Then, just before swooping off, he added, "And Hilda? Thanks."
Then he was gone, angling towards the roof of the Radio Tower. Hilda ordered Golurk to descend. No more thoughts. It was go time.
On the street below, she could see two rows of Team Plasma grunts had barricaded the road in front of the Radio Tower, blocking off either side of the street - an easier task than it should have been, considering this was an older part of the city and the roads weren't as broad as they were in some of newer sections.
There were a lot more of them here than there'd been at the previous location - at a rough estimate, she'd say about twenty - which made sense if this was their true target, but still didn't seem like a very large number. Then again, she had to remember there were more up on the roof where Ethan had gone, and who knew how many might be in the building proper?
When she'd battled them in Unova, Team Plasma's numbers had been somewhere in the low hundreds - maybe three or four, in total - but she'd never really needed to confront them in large groups. Or when she did, she either hadn't been alone or else she'd manage to catch them in smaller groups of ones and twos. Not huddled together like this in a chaotic mob. And who was to say how their ranks may have grown, now that they'd apparently tossed aside the altruistic shtick and had turned to outright terrorism?
The grunts were currently oblivious to Hilda swooping in from above, too busy holding off the police, who, though fewer in number than they should have been thanks to the wide-spread chaos in the city, seemed to be slowly making some progress on the east side of the road.
On the west, however, three trainers stood facing off against ten grunts, and they clearly weren't doing well. They were all women; two in their early twenties, one maybe fourteen at most, and from their glamorous appearance and the pokemon they were using - a Wigglytuff, a Dunsparce, and a Sentret - she had to assume these were trainers from Whitney's gym. Perhaps even the ones she'd mentioned to Ethan over the phone.
As she watched, one of Plasma's Raticates fell to a particularly savage Double-Slap from Wigglytuff. At the same time, however, a Croagunk had managed to hit the youngest trainer's Sentret with a Low Kick, sending it crashing into the side of an out-of-commision newspaper stand. As it struggled to rise to heed its trainer's desperate pleas, the Croagunk drew back its hand, revealing it one purple poison-tipped claw, and prepared to strike.
Golurk crashed down on the pavement between the Sentret and the Croagunk with so much force that the asphalt cracked underneath them. The Sentret's trainer screamed, clearly thinking that Hilda's Golurk was another foe, but a moment later, before the Croagunk had time to react, it took a Shadow Punch straight to the face, sending it flying backward into the stunned group of Plasma Grunts.
Hilda hopped off of Golurk's back and took stock of their situation again. Everything looked different from the ground, but it seemed like the Plasma grunts on this side of the street had now turned all of their attention to her.
From the sneers on their faces, none of them recognized her. Good. That meant none of them were smart enough to flee.
"You three, get out of here," she called over her shoulder to the worn-out gym trainers. "I'll handle this."
Plasma was recovering from the shock of her sudden appearance. They were reforming their lines now, getting their pokemon in order. She counted no fewer than twelve pokemon on the street, facing her down; an eclectic mix of everything from Purrloin to Watchog, Swoobat and Gurrdurr. Mostly Unovan pokemon who she was very familiar with, but there were also a few odd ones, like Mightyena, or Rattata, or Murkrow. They'd either had a lot of luck stealing international pokemon, or… No, that's probably exactly what it was. She was more enraged now than ever.
"Um, like… Who are you?" the trainer with the Dunsparce asked while the youngest trainer scooped up her injured Sentret, sniffling.
"I'm with Ethan," she said, pointing upwards towards the top of the Radio Tower. The trainers glanced upwards, where you could barely make out the sight of Ethan atop his Fearow, circling the roof of the building. Jets of flame could occasionally be seen blasting into the sky. He'd called out his Typhlosion, then. Was that a good sign, or a bad one?
"The Champion is here?" the Dunsparce trainer gasped. "Like, no way!"
"We're not leaving," said the one with the Wigglytuff, though both she and her pokemon looked absolutely exhausted. "Miss Whitney would never forgive us."
"Then at least stay back," Hilda said, turning back to face Team Plasma. "I don't want you to get caught up in the crossfire."
"Hey, you can't tell us what to-!"
In a flash of light, her Emboar took to the street, beating its two utterly massive fists on the ground and bellowing in rage at the small group in front of him. He was one of the few members of her current team who had battled Team Plasma alongside her back in Unova. He remembered what they'd done, just like she did. And he was pissed.
"Emboar!" she shouted, making sure Team Plasma could hear her. "Flame Charge!"
Her Emboar scuffed his hooves on the asphalt twice, then took off at a dead sprint, its body bent low, thick arms held out to either side to maximize its attack radius as it charged straight forward, bellowing furiously. After the first few crashing steps, flames enveloped its body, creating a veritable flaming meteor that barreled straight into enemy lines with hardly a care.
Some of Plasma's pokemon tried to flee, and some even managed it - but crowded together as they were on the narrow street, many could do little more than brace for impact and were tossed aside like so many bowling pins.
Her Emboar was a whirling dervish. Cloaked in flames, it lashed out with its heavily muscled arms, striking powerful blows, crumpling a Gurrdurr in a single hit, sending a Watchog flying through the windshield of a parked car. In seconds, the enemy line had broken as Team Plasma struggled to rally against the sheer ferocity of her starter pokemon. And across from them, she thought she could see signs of the other line of Plasma grunts finally taking notice, distracted by Hilda's sudden presence, and the police had taken advantage and were pressing forward.
However, this wasn't a clean, League-endorsed battle, the kind that had rules and regulations and either a Ref or the honor system to keep you in line. Plasma wasn't battling for competition, and they didn't care what they had to do to win or who got hurt in the process. Hilda's Emboar may out-match any of them if they went toe-to-toe, but she was still drastically outnumbered, and Team Plasma was not only already replacing their fallen pokemon, but were also calling out more - bringing everything they had to bear against her.
And her Emboar was not infallible. He was sturdy and strong, but he was slow, and large, which made him an easy target. Golbat and Noivern attacked him from above with Air Slash and Gust. Seismitoad used their sticky pads to scale the sides of buildings, out of reach, to pelt him with Mud Shots and Water Guns. She knew her Emboar was tough, but anyone would eventually flag under a hailstorm of ranged attacks.
He wasn't alone, however. Her Golurk blasted forward, nailing the Seismitoad with a powerful Hammer Arm, sending it crashing down onto the decorative bushes below, out of commission. When the enemy Swoobat swooped down to blast Emboar with another Psybeam, Wigglytuff knocked it out of the sky with a fierce Double-Edge. At least one of Whitney's trainers had decided to ignore her order to stay back. She owed her a thanks.
Still, though. Things weren't looking good. Her Emboar may just be tanky enough to endure this long enough for them to win, but it would probably be better if she called out a third pokemon, if only to draw some fire and give Emboar some slight reprieve. Her hand moved to her belt to do just that.
Then, several things happened simultaneously that made everything so much worse.
From across the street, on the side opposite the radio tower, the front door of some nondescript office building burst open and a veritable deluge of people began flooding into the street. For a wild moment, Hilda thought they were reinforcements - though whether for her or Team Plasma, she didn't know. It soon became clear, however, that they were neither.
They were men and women, dressed in crisp business suits, who'd clearly been holed up in their office building looking to avoid the conflict in the street but were now utilizing Hilda's surprise attack to make a break for it. Which put them out in the open where they were in real danger of being caught in the crossfire.
Several of Team Plasma's pokemon - the ones who couldn't fly and were dealing with the brunt of Emboar's aggression - decided to peel away from the vicious monster they couldn't best and instead hone in on these new, easier targets. Both Golurk and Wigglytuff found themselves forced to pull back from aiding Emboar to instead play defense for these idiots as they ran, screaming, down the street.
At the same time, the door to the Radio Tower had burst open as well, and this time, there were reinforcements - but for Team Plasma. Most of them were nobody grunts who were obviously still a problem, but some of them must have been admins or some other, higher level of grunt, because as soon as they exited the building, three new pokemon took to the street who were clearly much stronger than the rabble she'd been tearing through like wet toilet paper. A Machamp, a Scrafty, and a Gothitelle.
And while all of this was happening, an ominous creaking noise split the air, echoing out from somewhere above them. Everyone on the street - Hilda, Team Plasma, Whitney's trainers, the police, the pokemon, the random civilians fleeing the battle - looked up as one and watched in horror as the massive steel antenna atop the radio tower suddenly shuddered and slowly began to tip sideways - toward them.
While Hilda was distracted, Gothitelle struck, lashing out with a powerful wave of Psychic energy that stabbed into Emboar's mind, bringing its rampage to a sudden end as it crashed to the ground, clutching its head and roaring in agony.
Golurk shifted, fading into the shadows, popping up behind Gothitelle, poised to strike, only to be driven back by a powerful Sucker Punch from Scrafty. Before he could recover, he found himself assailed by a series of blows - Beat Up and Foul Play - that seemed to target the chinks in Golurk's armor, driving him to his knees.
Too much was happening at one time for Hilda to react. Above them, the radio antenna toppled sideways, and screams called out from all around her.
And then it stopped. WIth a skull-rending screech, the twisted tower turned, falling sideways - then stopped, some part of its hundred-meter length landing on some other, distant building a couple streets over, and it bounced, rattled ominously, several of the satellite dishes that were attached to it breaking free and raining down like murderous hail. Thankfully, none of them hit anyone, each one shattering on the ground, sending shrapnel flying, inducing more screams.
But the antenna itself seemed to be staying put for now. Despite the majority of its length dangling into the open air, drooping down toward the street below, bending under its own weight, it didn't fall. Some of its supports must still be attached to the roof. Though how much longer they had, she didn't know. Either Plasma was actively trying to bring it down, or else the battle with Ethan had become especially destructive. Regardless, it was doubtful that it could support its own weight for long. They needed to end this and get off the street, ASAP.
When she glanced back at the battle, the Machamp had seized the vehicle that her Emboar had knocked that Watchog through earlier and had hefted it over its head. With a roar, it stepped forward and hurled it - not at a pokemon or even at Hilda, but at the office workers who were trying to flee.
She barely had time to scream "Golurk!" and throw her arm up over her face, as though that was somehow going to help her - but then Golurk was there, phasing away from the Scrafty and materializing directly in front of them.
The sedan crashed into him, and he just barely managed to catch it, but not without being pushed back several steps and nearly being knocked over. It let out a low, pained groan and slowly lowered the wrecked vehicle to the ground. She could see his armored plating was cracked and badly damaged, the ethereal glow in his eyes dimming. He was done.
But Machamp wasn't. When she looked to see where it had gone, she found that it was standing over her Emboar, who was still on the ground, writhing in pain from Gothitelle's psychic attack. The Machamp linked the fingers of its four hands together and landed a powerful double-blow on the back of Emboar's head, knocking him out.
Hilda hissed, recalling him and her Golurk before they could take any more damage, and sending out her Goodra again. This wasn't good, she thought. Two of her pokemon were down and she was wildly outnumbered - and on top of that, trying to protect these civilians was getting in the way of her actually battling at her hardest. Not to mention that if she went all out, she'd likely kill someone and destroy the city around her. And who knew how long they had before the antenna above them gave in under its own weight and broke, sending fragments raining down on top of them?
But she couldn't run. If Team Plasma thought they could make a comeback in another country, she was going to stop them. Just like she did before.
She plucked two more balls off of her belt and summoned nearly the remainder of her team to the field - Eelektross and Gardevoir.
The truth was, most of the pokemon she had with her were ones she'd found and begun training after her disappearance. Other than Emboar and the last pokemon who she hadn't pulled out yet, none of the others had been there when they'd challenged Unova's League, and while they were coming along nicely, none of them were really as strong as her A-Team. But they'd get there. Today would be another test.
Hilda made sure she made the first move. Her Goodra let out a powerful Hydro Pump, aimed directly at Gothitelle, who threw up a Light Screen in an attempt to weaken the blow.
At the same time, Plasma's Scrafty leaped clear over the jet of water, twisting its powerful legs through the air, aiming straight for Gardevoir - only before Hilda could call out an attack to catch Scrafty while its pants were down, Wigglytuff jumped forward, readying what might have been a Play Rough - only to be caught instead as Scrafty quickly changed targets mid-air and swapped out the High Jump Kick it was readying for a Reversal that ended with him slamming Wigglytuff down onto the road, the pink balloon pokemon letting out an agonized squeal.
One of the Plasma grunts let out a bark of laughter.
"It's a good thing we listened to the boss and brought all of these fighting types along," he joked to his companion.
Because Whitney was the Gym Leader here and she used normal-type pokemon. That made sense. Maybe Team Plasma had gotten just a bit smarter since they'd last fought.
But not smart enough. While they were distracted with their victory over Wigglytuff, Gardevoir fired a quick Psybeam at Machamp, more to keep it at bay than any actual attempt to hit it, and her Eelektross hopped up, straight into the jet of water that Goodra was still firing at Gothitelle.
Her pokemon let the current carry him forward, straight at the unsuspecting Gothitelle, still focused on its Light Screen, which Eelektross burst straight through, sinking his fangs into her torso with a powerful Crunch, knocking her to the floor and pinning her down. A second later, with the two of them doused with water, he let loose a powerful Discharge that caught not only Gothitelle, but all of the surrounding Plasma grunts and pokemon in the blast, rendering them unconscious.
Machamp tried to seize this chance to charge Goodra, but Gardevoir was there to protect its team mate, firing off a Dazzling Gleam that had Machamp leaping backwards, four arms shielding his face from the burning light. Scrafty tried to take advantage of Gardevoir's distraction, leaping high into the air again, but this time he was caught by Goodra's Power Whip. Her long tentacle wrapped around Scrafty's midsection, whipping him through the air, before finally releasing, sending him flying through a window on the third floor of the Radio Tower.
Oops. Clearly, Goodra needed some more training before she could reliably battle in urban settings. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to pay for that.
The other Plasma Grunts were still there, still battling, but the police had managed to close much of the distance on the other side of the street and were nearly upon them, providing the distraction Hilda needed to deal with the real threats. At the same time, most of the civilians had either escaped or else were smart enough to know not to run into the street in the middle of an open battlefield. The Dunsparce trainer was trying to back Hilda up by dealing with what grunts remained on their side, and the oldest of the three had recalled her Wigglytuff and was now using a Pidgeotto, who sent powerful whirlwinds at any grunt who tried to run past her.
Now down to just Machamp, Hilda brought all of her might to bear. She needed to finish this, leave the rest to the police, and enter the Radio Tower to find who was in charge. And also get off the street before that blasted antenna fell.
Goodra let out a burst of Mud Shot, which missed as the Machamp darted nimbly forward, heading not toward her team, but instead toward a lamppost which it seized in all four hands and, with a quick grunt, tore free from the ground, hefting it in its arms like a baseball bat.
It took one step and swung, forcing Goodra to duck to avoid the blow - then froze as Gardevoir seized it with its psychic power, holding it in place. Then came her Eelektross, sliding across the mud that Goodra had left splattered across the road, leaping up onto Machamp's imobile body, and with one powerful bite, its Thunder Fang brought Machamp to its knees. Or it did once Gardevoir released her psychic hold.
"Good work, team!" she shouted, relieved. That had been harder than she'd hoped, but battling in the actual Radio Tower should be easier - less room in an office building for her team to get overwhelmed by numbers. Things were looking up.
And then she found herself literally looking up as the ominous creaking from above suddenly intensified, the antenna seemingly no longer able to support its own weight horizontally, stretched across two buildings. Something snapped with the sound of tortured metal, and the distant half of the antenna that she couldn't see tore free and fell on some other street with a horrifying crashing sound, like a box of pots and pans being spilled down a staircase - only about a thousand times more deadly.
The bottom-half of the antenna, the last remaining twenty meters or so which had still been attached to the Radio Tower by a couple of supports, suddenly freed of the burden that had landed on the distant roof, now swung down toward them, dangling over their street like a murderous pendulum, the metal supports bending, the creaking growing louder and louder.
And then they broke, and what remained of the base of the antenna began to fall, directly on top of them.
Everyone screamed - the grunts, the police, Whitney's trainers, the pokemon - everyone.
Everyone but Hilda.
She hadn't wanted to do this, but at this point, she had no choice.
Seizing the last ball on her belt, she whipped it forward and summoned her last pokemon - not a secret, since the world had seen her use it when she'd challenged the League in Unova, but still not something she liked to pull out willy-nilly. Still, desperate times…
In a burst of light, Reshiram appeared.
It didn't wait for command. A powerful light glowing from its jet-engine-like tail, Reshiram let out a fearsome roar and took to the sky in a blast that left a powerful gust of wind in its wake, literally rocketing upward at blinding speeds until it collided with the toppling antenna.
The dragon seized the falling tower in its claws, slowing the fall. For a moment, it almost seemed like the weight of the construct would be too much for even it - but then the light on its tail grew even brighter, expelling a gout of flame as it strengthened, and slowly, slowly, their descent began to even out.
That didn't stop bits of metal shrapnel and machinery to break free from the antenna and rain down on them - but Gardevoir threw up a Reflect screen, a veritable umbrella of psychic energy to shield them from the falling debris. Hilda recalled Goodra and Eelektross, giving more room for the police and Whitney's trainers to gather around her under the shield. Even some of the Plasma grunts joined them, though most were trying to flee. There would be time to pursue - time to clean out the Radio Tower proper - once this antenna situation was dealt with.
Then someone exited the Radio Tower, and their eyes met.
He was an older man, squat and dour-faced with terrible posture and a balding head of what may have once been lilac hair but was now too gray to really tell. He wore a lab coat and an unusual pair of round, orange-tinted sunglasses.
She didn't know him. But from the contingent of Plasma grunts who followed behind him, standing at attention, he was clearly someone important. Maybe even the guy in charge?
He examined her for a moment through those orange-tinted lenses, then glanced upward at Reshiram as it slowly lowered the fallen antenna to the ground, and smiled crookedly.
"So," he said, his voice dry like brittle leaves. "I see you did not abandon your legend when you fled from being the Champion of Unova. Perhaps you are not a complete fool after all."
Hilda scowled, reaching for her belt to call back her Goodra, but more bits of metal tore free from the antenna above, shattering atop Gardevoir's psychic shield. It wasn't safe yet.
"Those idiots," the man said, glancing back up at the antenna. "Did the fools think we needed the actual structure? Or are they simply incapable of controlling themselves? No matter - we got what we needed."
He pulled a pokeball out of his pocket and summoned a rather lackadaisical looking Slowking onto the street.
"Wait," Hilda shouted, desperate to buy time. If they escaped now, how would they know what they were after? Gardevoir was putting everything she had into the shield, she didn't have anything to spare to grab them. "Who are you? What were you doing here?!"
The man eyed her again shrewdly, then glanced one more time up at the antenna. No, not at the antenna - at Reshiram.
"You can call me Charon," he said. "And don't you worry. So long as you have that, you'll be seeing us again."
Hilda reached for her belt again, deciding to risk it - but it was too late. In a purple flash, the Slowking teleported Charon and his group away. Notably leaving the other grunts behind.
With a hulking crash, Reshiram landed on the street, dropping the remains of the Radio Antenna with an ear-splitting clatter. Overhead, she could see Ethan swooping down towards them.
The battle around them had seemingly ended. The police were rounding up the last of the grunts who hadn't escaped. It was over. They had won.
And yet… Somehow, as she surveyed the chaos left behind, it didn't really feel that way at all.
This was just the beginning.
I figured I'd take a second to answer a couple of questions here that some people may have:
Why do I have Ethan and Hilda as main characters in the Interludes, and will we see others?
As I mentioned before, this story was originally planned years ago, before X and Y came out. It was also before B2/W2. Ethan and Hilda were among the 'newest' protagonists for the games that had been released at the time, which is part of why they got so much attention in my initial draft. Also - I just really like them. We will see other characters from other games, yes, but don't expect too much past Black and White - they'll be referenced, sometimes, but not a whole lot.
The events of B/W seem to be canon here, but what about the events of B2/W2? Are they referenced?
As you may have noticed, Hilda seems surprised at how Plasma has changed, yet I described their outfits the same way they are in B2/W2. Since the 2nd games hadn't come out yet, the events of that game were not taken into consideration when planning the original draft of this story, and I ultimately decided that this story would take place before the events of B2/W2. That is, some of what happens on B2/W2 will happen, but greatly changed. It's more like I'm repurposing some of the events as I see fit. B/W happened, B2/W2 is changed.
Let me know if you have questions on anything else! I'll answer if they're not spoilers.
Keep it Zesty!