Asher's Team:
Lago - Rhydon
Sebastian - Nidoking
Selena - Nidoqueen
Seraph - Clefable
Death - Marowak
Colossus - Steelix
Clamps - Gligar
Ivor - Mamoswine
Jet - Flygon
"Sorry kid, the Gym is closed until the next circuit. Why don't you just come back in four months?" I questioned the kid rhetorically, locking up the Viridian Gym as I tried my best to politely tell him to get lost.
Though, he was really testing my patience at this point, and I probably would have straight up told him to beat it if he was any older, but he couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve, so I was just trying my best not to lose my temper as this boy practically demanded that I give him a Gym battle.
"But, last year I didn't manage to get all eight badges. I travelled around the whole region, I don't wanna do that again! Why can't you just battle me now?!"
Pinching my nose, I took a deep breath. It was a common misconception, but you couldn't just challenge Gyms whenever you felt like it, and a badge wouldn't be accepted just because you show it to the pokemon league. In fact, the thing was basically worthless if you weren't registered on the league's database for the trainers taking part in Indigo's Gym circuit. It was that database which gave you permission to take part in a Conference, not a tiny morsel of tin.
Still though, the boy wouldn't leave me alone if I didn't convince him to.
I walked past him, in the direction opposite of the Gym, and began to explain as he followed from behind." A badge means nothing boy. Hell, even if it wasn't off-season, my receptionist isn't even here to register you for a battle. Besides, I'm busy, so can you please just come back in four months?"
The child's reaction surprised me, since he gritted his teeth and stomped on the ground, as though he were throwing a tantrum." No! You're a Gym Leader aren't you?! Your job is to give me a badge! You don't even have to work four months of the year, so stop being lazy and give me MY-"
My patience broke, I turned around and roughly grabbed the kid by the forearm, enough to make him whimper in discomfort, and looked the kid dead in the eyes as I began to tear him apart word by word.
"Listen here, you snotty brat. My job is to defend this city first, and challenge you little shits second. I am not wasting a second of my time on your little challenge. You didn't want to challenge the Gyms again? Too bad. You shouldn't have been so weak last year. This world hates weakness. If you want to be a good trainer, then you should man up."
The boy tried to pull away, but I harshly yanked him closer anyway. He looked scared, I could even see tears forming, but regardless I continued.
"So, I will not battle you today. I will not battle you tomorrow. If I do, then it'll be in four months. Train until then. Only cowards expect results without work. Do you understand?"
A meek nod was my response, and it satisfied me, so I finally released his arm, with him holding it back as though it still hurt.
It was harsh of me, but the boy needed to know that his behaviour just wasn't tolerable. There were people who'd stuff him for talking like that to them, he needed to cut it out.
"Get lost. And don't ever talk to someone like that again, stupid child."
The boy scrambled at my words, running past me with tears beginning to pour out of his eyes, and I let out a sigh of tiredness; it was already seven, and an entire day of just training had me drained.
But, unfortunately, my day wasn't quite done yet.
Okay, they weren't nearly as bad as I thought-
A scream of agony and rage that would make a child cry threatened to pop my eardrums, making me flinch away, and I watched on in morbid curiosity as a Nidoking flailed and desperately tried to break out of it's restraints.
-it was much worse.
"What in god's name is wrong with them?" I couldn't help but blirt those words out. Most of the Nidoking were alright, at least health wise minus the brittle and deformed scales and other body parts, but the one I was looking at simply took my breath away.
Their horn was short and crooked, they had hardly any teeth in their mouth, and their skin seemed to be falling apart and breaking off, blood leaking through the cracks it leaves behind. They looked like they were dying, and I couldn't help but feel my heart ache for the poor guy.
The woman next to me also reacted similarly, but tried to maintain a profession façade as she gave me the diagnosis." We've been trying to figure out what's wrong with them, and from what we can see, all of these Nidoking and queen have recently undergone a massive change of... well we aren't quite sure, but we know that it's caused their bodies cells to become underdeveloped. Their bones are brittle, some of them are deaf and blind, they've also been-"
She was cut off by a deafening roar, followed by snapping and biting at the air, as the Nidoking tried to escape it's restraints.
"-showing signs of extreme violence. Whilst none of them are dead, and we believe that their conditions will improve overtime... there is more than a little long lasting damage in these pokemon. And, unfortunately, this one isn't the only pokemon we have in critical condition."
I let out a long and tired breath, knowing what I needed to do.
A thought crossed my mind, a vague memory of the pokemon manga, and I had to ask a question. Because, if I was right, then I still had work to do.
"What caused this?" The Nidoking had passed out, from pain or anaesthetics I couldn't say, and I stared at the woman intently, needing an answer.
She stared away for a moment, but answered." We aren't sure for certain, but it wasn't likely a disease or virus of any kind. Most pokemon are immune to disease, their systems simply burn it out of them, and even then it wouldn't have done anything like this. In fact, whatever they have almost seems to be artificial. It affected a large group of them too, it's almost like-"
"Someone did this to them." I voiced my own thoughts, cursing that I couldn't have been ignorant about the situation. It didn't look like I was getting any sleep tonight.
The woman gave me critical look, but just I turned around and started to march away and track down the bastards who forced those pokemon to evolve!
"Sorry for making you get up, but we need to check this out." I apologised to Jet as we flew high in the sky and overlooked the forest below. Though I said that, pokemon can go longer without sleep than people, so he would have been fine.
A grunt was all I got in response as his thin, yet powerful, wings swung by the side and I held onto the saddle I was sitting on, being careful not to fall; even if I was certain he could catch me.
We were flying out in route 22, heading straight west to scout out the area. At the dead of night. We'd been flying for three hours, and it would about eleven by now, so after a day of training I was tired. Heal Pulse might have given me my energy back, but mentally speaking I was done for the day.
Jet was the first pokemon I'd gotten after the incident, so he was the one I'd been training the longest out of my new pokemon, and he was at a similar level to Sebastian, and his flying was surprisingly pro for a Flygon, who usually prefer to stay closer to the ground. Him being a dragon-type made him a bit prideful at times, but not enough to make him arrogant so I didn't mind. A bit of pride was okay, good even.
I frowned at the thought. Back then, my pride was what cost me. I got big-headed, and I thought I could take on the whole damn world. I thought that my metaknowledge, that my insane progress, meant that I was one of the best around. I thought I was the biggest guy around, and in a way I was, but there's always a bigger fish in the sea.
Giovanni was that fish, and me underestimating him was what cost me- no, it would have been one thing if it was just me that paid, it cost me my pokemons lives. Barret, Sonic, Crust. They died because of me. That is the cold hard truth.
Jet suddenly perked up and called out to me." Flygon!"
"What is it?" I questioned him, breaking away from my depressing thoughts, but was answered by him diving downwards, and squinted my eyes to see what got his attention. It was a tent, a rather bif one, hidden by the tall trees and forestry around it.
It was big, the type of tent you'd use at a carnival, and a good amount of people could probably fit in there. It looked like a lair for someone who wanted to set one up quickly and easily.
That was probably it.
Speaking in a hushed tone, I quickly gave my Flygon his instructions." Hey, Jet. Can you bring me down on top of one of those trees? We need to be subtle about this, and you aren't exactly tiny enough for that. Keep hovering above, and try not to draw attention to yourself. If it looks like I'm in trouble, then don't be afraid to jump in."
He grunted in acknowledgement before lowering me down enough for to jump onto one of the taller trees, I clung onto the bark and stabilised myself before sending Jet a thumbs up... only to see that he was already flying upwards.
As I began to climb down the tree, my suspicions were only confirmed when I managed to make out a big red R on the tent's side, and I went still when I spotted a woman below wearing a breton cap and a black uniform. I almost laughed at Team Rocket's lack of subtlety, but held myself back, and began to plan my next move.
There was a little bit of equipment scattered outside the tent, but the huge amount of wires trailing inside told me that the inside probably had more technology than the outside. Even still, what I could see looked expensive.
The tent wasn't very big, but that hardly mattered. An army of regular trainers could come at me and my team would handle them fine, and I doubted grunts were all that much better than average.
But just charging in didn't seem like the right way to go either. If they were the ones who made those Nidoking and queen rampage then they needed to be stopped, and I needed to figure out what they were doing to them.
I looked above and vaguely spotted Jet's outline in the night sky. Flygon had excellent vision, so he could spot me from up there pretty easily.
Looking back down, I waited until the grunt was out of sight. It was time to do a bit of stealth.
Moving with as little noise as possible, I jumped down onto the dirty forest floor and listened carefully for noise. I couldn't focus on just line of sight. Koga once told me that's how people get caught. They focus too intensely on their sight and forget about hearing and their other senses.
Kneeling down, I moved fluidly and swiftly towards what looked like a miniature signal tower that was hooked up to a device with an antennae sticking out of it.
I wasn't a master of stealth and I had no experience with these things, I never even played Metal Gear Solid, but I knew that I needed to stay hidden whilst learning about what was actually going on. I couldn't do that by keeping a distance.
Moving closer to the tent, I vaguely began to hear the voice of two people inside the tent. One of them held, what I guessed was, a glee- no, maybe excitement in a definitely masculine voice.
"Yes! You there, yes you! Round them all up and put them in the chambers! I've finally cracked it, and these ones will be much better test subjects than some common Nidoran!"
I narrowed my eyes, holding back the urge to charge in there and kill whoever that was with my bare hands. It sounded like he was the reason a horde of pokemon attacked my city.
"But, Doctor Namba, sir! The last batch ended up as failures, they were too weak, and if we just do that again won't they-"
The man who he was talking to, Doctor Namba apparently, brushed his words off." Just do your job, grunt. Those were just the testing phase, if we just apply the power of the shadow stone then they'll get the boost in aura reserves they need to stabilise their evolutions. Giovanni will need all the powerful pokemon he can get for what's to come, and as Team Rocket's best scientist I will be the one who aids him in the days to come. So, go on, go get those things ready for me!"
I felt silent rage bubble to the surface as I rose to my feet, unable to let this farce continue as I reached for an ultraball on my bely. I didn't know about everything they were talking about, but I didn't need to.
I was many things, but a bystander wasn't one of them.
I heard footsteps coming from behind me but, abandoning my attempts at stealth, I released my partner to give them a warm welcome.
Dr Namba was many things. Team Rocket's most brilliant scientist- because, no matter what anyone says, he's by far superior to Fuji-, one of Giovanni's most trusted subordinates, and a genius of the generations!
His various accomplishments, varying in strokes of brilliance, are what made Giovanni put him in charge of their incredibly important Project forced evolution.
It had taken him a while, since such a task is testing even for a genius like him, but he'd managed to crack the code to his formula!
He called it 'Evolutionisation Juice'. A brilliant name created by a brilliant man!
Namba couldn't just force his untested formula onto one of Team Rocket's pokemon. He wasn't a monster afterall. So, his solution was to capture and subjugate the local wild pokemon population and use them for his experiments. Problem solved, nobody gets hurt.
Well, nobody that matters, but that's hardly his concern.
Using it wasn't exactly ideal though. A simple injection was all it took to make the pokemon evolve, but the pokemon are always weaker than they would be if they were trained.
Eventually though, after many failures, he found the problem. Aura wasn't exactly the most acknowledged in the scientific community but he, as always, could see what the rest of those babbling buffoons could not.
Aura is what powers pokemon, like how an engine needs fuel to run. A pokemon living without aura is like a car moving without any fuel. It simply won't work. Pokemon can increase their aura reserves naturally as time goes on, and training can accelerate this process, and this increase in power is what enables them to rapidly evolve and gain new power.
In essence, whilst his formula could upgrade the bodies of pokemon, it fell short of empowering their spirits.
His leader came very close to abandoning his project because of this, but Namba couldn't allow that. He scrambled for a solution, and he ended up finding it.
Namba flicked a syringe in his grasp, studying it carefully under his gaze. If a simple man were to examine it, they'd dismiss it as orange dye, but if they were a psychic then they'd be disgusted by the energy being radiated off the substance.
It was energy directly from the shadow stone.
He smirked to himself, only for the moment to be ruined by the struggling pokemon behind him- Gible he believed it was called- that continued to flail around in it's muzzle and restraints.
Rolling his eyes, Namba took the 'Evolutionisation Juice' and mixed it with the energy extracted from the shadow stone. He knew that the energy acted a lot like aura, so he figured that it would empower the pokemon and stabilise their evolution.
He was giving a double dose to the dragon struggling in their seat, wanting to see if they'd survive a double evolution. Most of those Nidoran didn't, and the ones who did were hardly battle worthy.
After he was done mixing the solutions, he began to trudge his way over to the sand shark pokemon, a contrastingly kind smile on his face as he pointed the lethally sharp syringe at the Gible. It couldn't have been helped, pokemon have tougher skin than normal, so the syringe needed to be sharp to punch through them.
"Don't struggle too much, you won't feel a thing-"
The ground shook violently as he was thrown off his feet, him crying out of reflex as he fell to the floor and dropped the injection.
He groaned out with pain shocking his hip, but was silence by a roar that went beyond the tent's entrance. He was still for a minute as what sounded like a battle, followed by screams, followed by silence occurred simultaneously. He was stitched to the the floor, scared out of his mind.
The heavy atmosphere weighted down on him, preventing him from talking, but eventually he mustered up his courage.
"If you're here for-"
He was cut off by his own screams of terror when an absolutely titanic Steelix ripped the tent off it's pegs with an Iron Tail, and destroyed expensive equipment in the dozens, and made the air around Namba fly in all directions only to fall as quick as it came, leaving him alone and frozen to the spot as those giant red eyes glared at him with hatred.
As a scientist, he was actually amazed that a Steelix could grow so large. It had to have been twenty five meters tall, easily.
But, as a human being with self preservation, his instinct to run was greater than his want to gape in awe.
Much to his surprise though, a man was perched on top of the behemoth in front of him. One he recognised quite quickly, one of the men on Giovanni's most wanted list.
"Asher Blight." He muttered to himself.
Somehow he heard Namba from where he was stood on the head of his monster since he gained a look of amusement as his pokemon began to lower him down.
"The one and only. I'm assuming that you're doctor Namba, and you'd be the one who sent a horde of savage pokemon my way. Give up and turn yourself in before I feed you to Colossus. He hasn't had dinner tonight."
Namba flinched in fear as he touched down on the floor and walked over to him, cracking his knuckles as he did so." I won't even need a pokemon to beat you up, I'll just do it myself."
The older man whimpered in fear, but that fear soon turned to opportunity when he noticed that the restrained Gible on his table had dropped onto the floor, just an arms length away from him.
Taking note of the syringe to his left, he quickly grabbed it and scampered over to the Gible on his table, praying that his plan would work as he raised the injection on high and brought it down, piercing the dragons skin in a swift stab before pressing down and pumping the contents into the pokemon's veins.
Asher might have punched him right across the face a second later, but it was one second too late. Namba felt his teeth loosen from the blow, his world ringing as those a brick had been smashed against his skull. However, he didn't have to deal with the pain much longer, since a second punch hit his face and unconsciousness claimed him.
Asher was going to strike again, but was immediately drawn away as the Gible let out a harrowing cry of pain as purple and black sparks began to surround the poor pokemon.
They writhed as their eyes glowed amethyst and they began to evolve, or at least what Asher could assume was evolving considering it didn't look natural at all.
The dragon's restraints snapped like rubber bands and they fell to the ground, writhing in agony, before letting out a roar and the darkness turned bright purple before they began to undergo the evolution process. But, it seemed as though the pokemon was trying to resist, as though it was being forced to undergo a torturous process as the light shone so brightly that Asher had to cover his eyes and look away slightly.
The Gible began to change drastically as it grew rapidly, changing shape and size as it went on to form the outline of a Gabite. But, it didn't stop there. The Gabite roared as the evolution was forced onwards and they continued to grow and stretch before it shattered like glass and a thick lilac mist was unleashed from it's body as it emerged.
All was still, Asher feeling nervous as the mist gave way to welcome a new pokemon.
Standing at eight feet tall, a shark-like pokemon stood as still as a statue, only for that serenity to be ruined as it's long tail shifted along the ground.
It's body appeared to be normal, powerful even, but somehow it still managed to unnerve him as it finally let out a breath.
And opened it's soulless golden eyes.
If you enjoyed reading this story and want to read more, then go check out my P atreon at The Magician 565 to see 8 chapters in advanced.