John's Team

Tyrant - Slaking

Vordt - Ursaluna

Smough - Snorlax

Klee - Blissey

Port - Mantine

Zephyr - Pidgeot

Klaus - Wyrdeer

Luna - Clefable

Pixel - Porygon2

Euphie - Sylveon

Ornstein - D-Linoone

Wraith - H-Zoroark

The New Normal – 9-8 – Growing Wrath

I hurried out of stadium and rushed over to the nearby Pokémon Center, immediately finding Sabrina and Janine hovering over protectively over my tearful sister.

Sabrina's eyes immediately snapped to mine as I arrived, "Don't push her." She warned me, and I gave off a stiff nod.

Janine patted Whitney once more on the shoulder before she stood up, walking away with Sabrina and leaving the two of us alone.

I slowly took a seat next to my sister, seeing that her tears had yet to dry. My anger rose, but I held it back.

Now was not the time for it.

"Are you okay?" I asked softly, taking extra care to make sure my anger wasn't audible in my voice.

"…My Pokémon..." She sniffed out, "…They're hurt."

"I'm sure they'll be fine, sister. The Nurse Joys will be able to help them." I reassured her gently, but my eyes shot to the nearest Nurse Joy, as if daring them to refute my statement. They hesitated for a moment, but returned a small nod, with eyes full of sympathy.

"…But if it's okay, could you tell me what happened?" I asked gently.

"…It was a Scizor and a Poliwrath." She revealed after a shared moment of silence, "It was strong. Stronger than me. But that…that's not why I lost."

"He…he said it would just be a friendly match so that we could train up our weaker Pokémon, and I believed him." She continued, sobbing as she did, "It was a 2v2…so I sent out Wigglytuff and Girafarig. I had Wigglytuff distract Scizor and try to wear it down, and Girafarig to blast them at a distance…but Scizor just rushed forwards and smashed…smashed Girafarig into the ground. And then it did the same to Wigglytuff while Poliwrath pinned down my Girafarig."

"I knew immediately I was outmatched, so…so I told him to stop. But…but he didn't listen. He just kept going – and pummelled and smashed both my Pokémon again and again into the ground."

She sniffed, "I screamed for him to stop, and I tried recalling my Pokémon, but he…he still hit them with a Pursuit from Scizor. And my Wigglytuff…she was wailing out in pain. By the time I recalled both of them, they were so hurt. I'd never seen them this injured in my life. It's…I still remember how they were laid out in front of me, broken and in pain."

New tears leaked out of her eyes, "I failed them, John. I shouldn't have taken the fight. The Nurse Joys…they said that they were so hurt that it would take them some time to heal."

"You did not fail them." I said firmly, "I've seen how your Pokémon look at you. You have their full trust and love. You could never fail them, not when you've already done so well for them. And the Nurse Joys didn't say your Pokémon won't be able to heal fully, just that it'd take some time."

"I got careless." She mumbled quietly, "I…I wanted to show you how strong I got after beating Giovanni…I thought I was strong."

"No. You couldn't have known." I immediately replied, not liking the path that she was taking with this conversation even as I filed that titbit of her earning her 8th Gym Badge for later, "And even then, it wasn't your fault. The other trainer, whoever they are, should have known better than to use so much force on a weaker enemy."

"I thought he was just a fan!" Whitney blurted out, the hurt evidence in her voice, "I thought…I thought it was just going to be a fun battle!"

My fists clenched tightly, with my fingernails digging deep into my skin. Despite my urge to ask more about this 'trainer', I had more urgent priorities, "Well it's not your fault for being tricked." I comforted, but I could see that she could not be convinced at the moment.

Deciding I needed to take a different route, I released Klee into the Pokémon Center.

"Bliss? Blissey!" Klee asked curiously as she was released, before making a beeline for Whitney as soon as she saw her tears.

"Blissey! Bliss! Bliss!" Klee quickly wiped off the tears from Whitney's eyes and immediately began mothering her, the concern evident on her face. Whitney just sat there listlessly as she allowed Klee to do her work.

The sight of my sister – my bright and energetic sister – acting so lifeless and depressed caused something in me to snap.

I was not normally one for anger. But this was an exception that I'd willingly make.

But once again, I took a deep breath, forcefully calming myself down as I reminded myself that now was not the time for anger. My sister, nice as she was, would not be happy if she saw me get angry on her behalf. Even now, despite all the pain she was in, not once had she expressed a single hint of rage at what happened to her.

Fortunately, she had not been completely robbed of her pure innocence. She could recover from this.

"Hey, Whitney, why don't we head out somewhere? Somewhere fun. We haven't hung out together as just brother and sister in some time, right?" I suggested.

"…I want to wait for my Pokémon to heal." She tried to insist, but I shook my head.

"Waiting around here isn't going to change anything. Trust me, your Pokémon will be fine. In fact…" I walked up to a Nurse Joy, who had so far been spectating this situation with a familiar sadness on her face. "Excuse me, would you care to allow my Blissey to help yours with the healing process of my sister's Pokémon? I'll come back soon to collect her."

The Nurse Joy mustered up a small smile, "Of course, Elite John. Please, right this way." She motioned towards Klee to follow after her, and Klee did so after giving Whitney one more reassuring hug and a cheerful "Bliss!".

I took my sister's hand in mine, "Come on, Klee will help take care of your Pokémon. Have you eaten?" She shook her head, "Then let's go get you some food."

"…But my Pokémon might be too hurt to participate in the Conference." She mumbled, but she still walked after me.

I patted her on the head, "Silly sister – don't you trust Klee? She'll heal up your Pokémon in no time. And besides, you have plenty of time to heal before fighting off against the really difficult opponents – I'm sure even with injured Pokémon you'll do fine in the Open Qualifiers."

"And besides, only your Girafarig and Wigglytuff got hurt right? You can still use your other Pokémon. Your Exploud and Miltank will be enough." I tried to comfort.

She remained silent at that. But I could tell some of my words had gotten through to her.

I made sure she was saddled up properly on Port as I continued to try to distract her, "Hey, have I shown you my new project in Cerulean yet?" She looked up to me, a hint of interest flashing through her eyes as she shook her head. I smiled, "Well let's go then! I think you'll like it."

So off we flew towards Cerulean City. During the flight, I made sure to keep up with my small talk to make sure that my sister wasn't alone with her thoughts. As long as she was engaging me in conversation, then she wasn't thinking about what happened.

And it was working. I could feel the sadness slowly leaving her eyes as the bright and energetic energy that she always possessed slowly returned.

I also made sure to send a text to Sabrina, letting her know where we had gone. I also subtly asked if she knew who the trainer was that did this to my sister.

"He didn't introduce himself." Sabrina texted back, "But I only saw the end of their battle. He just walked away, not saying anything else. I would recognize him if I saw him again though." That was frustrating.

"Please keep an eye out for him, and let me know if you see him again. And thanks again for comforting my sister." I wrote.

"We had to. And I will." She texted.

The two of us landed in Cerulean City shortly after. And as we hopped off of Port, Port must have sensed the lingering unhappiness in Whitney's expression because he playfully squirted with a small burst of water.

"HEY!" She squawked, only to be the target of more squirting. Then the target switched to me, but this time, Port let loose with a much greater blast of water – enough to knock me on my feet, soaking wet.

"OI!" I shouted out indignantly, but Port just let out a playful chuckle as he shot me with another torrent of water, turning me into little more than a wet mop.

Whitney giggled at the sight.

After a short round of me being soaked, I returned Port to his Premier Ball and escorted my mostly dry sister to the nearby Cerulean Cave.

I wasn't wearing a disguise, but fortunately, there were luckily no reporters stalking us in sight. After all, most if not all of them were currently occupied with the Indigo Conference and the Open Qualifiers, probably interviewing a whole bunch of hopefuls to find a compelling narrative that they could use in their next headline.

So we weren't harassed by any untimely reporters, which was really good because I did NOT have the patience to deal with them at the moment. After a short walk, we arrived at the entrance of Cerulean Cave, where a large construction site was setting up for its redesigning.

A foreman came down as soon as he saw me, "Elite John, it's a pleasure to see you today. Is there anything I can help with?"

"I'm just showing my sister around. But I would prefer not to be interrupted today." I stated politely, but with a firm look in my eye. The man took the hint.

"Understood. I'll pass it around." He wished me a good day and backed off. What a good man.

Whitney and I walked closer to get a better look at the construction efforts, with my sister occasionally asking me a few questions about what they were doing.

"The original entrance to the Cerulean Cave was too inconspicuous." I replied, as we stared at the construction work that was being done on the entrance, "It really just blended in with the surroundings a bit too much, and you could barely see it from a distance. So we decided to try to build the entrance up a bit – make it look more appealing and inviting."

"So more people come visit?" Whitney asked.

"That's part of the reason." I nodded, "But we're trying to sell this as an experience for strong and ace trainers, partially because of how powerful the Pokémon inside are. So the appearance of the cave has to LOOK the part of an Ace-level challenge."

"…Do you think my friends and I could visit here?" She tilted her head at me.

"…Maybe give it some time." I said after thinking it over, "The Pokémon inside are really quite strong, and I'm not exactly comfortable with letting you into such a dangerous area just yet. Not until your Pokémon are a bit stronger."

"On that note, it's why we're planning to set up a testing area to ensure that whoever goes in has the necessary strength to hold their own inside there." I continued, "Of course, we'll be doing our best to ensure the experience inside never gets too dangerous, but we must ensure that each person that comes in at least has a certain level of strength."

"When do you think I can reach that, bro?" She asked, turning her no-longer puffy eyes towards me.

I reached down to pat her on the head, "You'll get there eventually. You've already done so well getting all 8 Gym Badges you know? I'm already so very proud of you for that."

I was about to pull my hand back, but then my sister pulled me into a tight hug, "Thank you, John. I…I'll get stronger, so I don't lose to someone like that ever again." She mumbled into my shoulder, but I didn't feel my shoulder turning wet.

"It's okay to lose." I replied with a gentle smile, realizing she had stopped crying. "You don't have to win every match that you fight."

"And don't forget – you can always call me for help if you need it." I said softly, "I'll always come running as soon as I can."

"Thank you." Was all my sister needed to say, before her head drooped and I felt her relaxing in my arms. She must have been tired from everything that had happened today.

So I picked her up with both arms, carefully positioning her as I lifted her onto my back. Then, with my free arm, I released Klaus and had him carry the both of us home, where I gently nestled my sister back into her room, allowing her to take a well-deserved rest.

Seeing her sleeping soundly drew a relieved breath from me – and I took a photo of it to send to Sabrina, reassuring her that Whitney was doing fine.

But as soon as I shut the door to Whitney's room, my face dropped the calm and gentle smile that I had plastered on for my sister.

The wrath that I had suppressed bubbled up to the surface. How dare someone do this to my sister?!

I stomped down to the living room, glad that my parents weren't home. They deserved to know what happened, but not right now.

Not when my sister remained unavenged.

But the first step was finding out who this man was. Sabrina provided me with a general description of his appearance, but nothing that was described about him seemed at all familiar to me. He just seemed to be a plain, generic young man. The only really unique feature about him was his greying hair, despite his youthful looks. After a few more questions to Sabrina, she confirmed that she saw him withdrawing his Poliwrath and Scizor just as Whitney recounted. But that didn't really give me anything to work off.

More importantly, Sabrina had briefly sensed the malice and anger that the man seemed to radiate, but she said that none of it felt directed to my sister. Frow how Sabrina described it from the brief glimpse she had, it felt that the man was just venting his anger at Whitney, but she was not the target for his malice.

I suspected that meant that his actions against Whitney was meant to serve a greater purpose. However, considering Whitney's connections and the fact that the man had left Janine and Sabrina alone, I began to suspect that his real target was me.

I wracked my brain to think of anyone who could have a personal vendetta against me. But I hit a roadblock. The people that I had pissed off the most – and who would have an actual reason to target me – were the criminals that I had ravaged all the way to Sinnoh. But that didn't match – a criminal wouldn't have been satisfied with just hurting my sister's Pokémon. He would have pushed a lot further than that.

But that left me stumped. No one came to mind. And my frustration only grew.

However, before the frustration could take a hold of me, my phone rang. I was tempted not to answer it, but then I relented when I saw it was Karen.

"Hello?" I picked up, trying to not let my anger be audible.

"Tell me what's wrong." Karen all but demanded, "Agatha saw the look on your face when you walked out of the meeting – and she told me that she's never seen you as angry as you looked then."

"Don't you have a battle to fight? I thought your Open Qualifier matches were today." I asked, trying to deflect.

"Don't try to change the topic; you know I've already beaten them. It's why I could only call now." She stated, "Now, tell me what's wrong."

I sighed, "It's about Whitney…" I then began to give her a thorough explanation of everything that happened.

"Oh." Was all that Karen uttered after my finished my explanation.

"I see. So someone targeted sweet Whitney to get to you?" She asked, her tone completely blank. But I could tell that was underneath the façade of calm was a volcano of anger that was threatening to erupt. I knew she treated Whitney as the younger sister she never had, so she cared about her as much as I did.

"That's my best guess." I confirmed.

"Do you know what this person looks like?" She asked, and I gave her a quick rundown of the man's appearance, and the Pokémon he was seen with.

"…One moment. I'll call you right back." She said before abruptly hanging up.

I blinked; staring blankly at my phone. Did Karen figure something out?

I didn't have to wait long for Karen, because she called me back a few moments later. "Can you call up Sabrina for me? I'd like to confirm something with her."

I complied, and the three of us, and Janine, fell into a conference call.

Karen started us off, "Sabrina, Janine, can you give me a description of the man's clothes. How tall was he? I want every detail."

Sabrina nodded, "He was about John's height. Seems like he was in his early twenties, or around that. Looked young, but he was wearing a long-sleeved grey dress shirt that matched his hair. No glasses, but he had a nice-looking watch on his wrist."

"Did he look like this?" Karen asked, putting a picture that she had recently printed to the screen. My eyes went wide – I knew who this was!

"Yes. He does." Sabrina confirmed, with Janine nodding in agreement. "Who is he?"

"Shin." Karen answered before I could.

"Who's that?" Janine asked confusedly, but I saw the recognition in Sabrina's eyes.

"I'm not surprised you don't know – he fell into obscurity after his loss to John in the finals of last year's Indigo Conference." Karen explained, "But before that, he was THE trainer that many in Johto thought was going to win the Indigo Conference and take the whole thing home. In fact, he was slated to become the next member of the Elite Four, until his loss against John."

"I had to study him a lot in the past, because Agatha had plans for him." Karen continued, "Those plans have all since faded away, but I could recognize that greying hair from anywhere. So when you mentioned that one specific characteristic, my mind instantly went to him."

Karen's words took some time to register in my mind. I had forgotten about Shin. He had just been the final challenge for me to defeat during my run through of the Indigo Conference, and I hadn't heard hide nor hair of him since.

If he hadn't done what he did, then I MIGHT have felt bad for robbing him from his chance to make it big and join the Elite Four. After all, I remembered him not being such a bad guy when I first met him.

But now, those positive feelings have all died a swift death. Only leaving my vengeful anger.

"Shin…" I growled, "So was he the one to hurt Whitney?"

"He was." Sabrina confirmed, and I closed my eyes as I took a deep breath. I finally had my target.

"…Thank you, you two. Feel free to visit our house if you want to speak to Whitney. I'll speak to you both later." I said to them after a moment before ending the call with them, leaving me with Karen.

"…Do you want me to come over?" She asked.

"If you want. I need to think, but you can come to say hi to Whitney. I'm sure she'd appreciate it." I replied.

"I will be." She nodded, "See you soon."

I let out a small smile despite myself, "Thank you. Talk to you later."

I hung up the call and began pacing around the room, I tried to figure out what Shin wanted from me. Why would he go after Whitney? His victory over her meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. Was he doing this only to rile me up? But why do so?

What was his plan?

I collapsed onto the sofa and went through my phone, browsing through anything that I could find of him. And just like Karen had said, he really was quite the big deal before he ended up losing against me. I remembered that too – just like me, he was the perfect underdog rags to riches story, apparently having come from a lowly middle class background with no ties to any Gym Leaders or Elite Four member.

But I had the exact same story, and my victory over him knocked him out of the public spotlight. There was nothing on him ever since.

Was this why he was coming after me? Out of some misplaced jealousy that festered and transformed the rather pleasant young man that I knew to do something that could brutalize a young child's Pokémon to get his revenge?

My rage grew just thinking about it. My sister had to suffer for something as inane as this?

But then my browsing was interrupted as my phone rang again, and I blinked as I saw Karen was calling again. "Hello? What's the matter?"

"John, turn on the TV and watch the news." She said immediately, and I curiously moved to do so.

And my anger flared up as I was suddenly met with the person that I had just been thinking of this whole time. Shin was there, standing in the open, apparently giving an interview to some reporters.

"…And you think you can show how much you have improved over the past year?" He was asked.

"Yes. I can." Shin replied with a smile that I couldn't help but think looked fake, "I'm not sure if John would accept such a fight, with how busy he is as a member of the Elite Four, but surely he could have time for his old rival back in the Indigo Conference? And plus, I think a fight between us would be just the thing to encourage and inspire the new generation. Show them what it's like to fight at a really high level, and a show match between us would be a great way to start off the Indigo Conference. I'm sure others would agree."

"You seem very confident about your chances this time around." A reporter observed, "No wonder you asked us for this interview."

"Well of course. I've pushed myself really hard ever since the previous Conference, and I've not had the commitments and distractions that John no doubt had to deal with as an Elite Four. And everyone knows that's he been slipping since his disappointing draw against that trainer from Sinnoh. So I'm sure that I'll be able to put on a much stronger showing than last year – maybe even surpass him entirely." Shin responded, that kind smile of his never leaving his face.

I already wanted to punch him.

"And from all of John's many achievements, I don't think he'll turn down a battle like this. After all, everyone knows his strength as a trainer is waning, and I'm sure he'll be looking for another opportunity to prove his strength. No Elite Four could dare be seen as weak, after all."

"So do you think you could actually win against him?" Another questioned.

"Definitely. If you don't mind me saying this, but I think John's reputation is slightly overblown due to his actions against the criminals. It was praiseworthy, but criminals aren't known as the strongest." Shin stated, "He's not fought a serious, proven opponent since his victory over Drake, but that was quite some time ago and had no stakes involved. Bruno wasn't even an Elite Four. If anything, I think I'm about to give him a little bit of a wakeup call. And even if he does lose, it's not like he'll lose his position in the Elite Four because of it. At most he'll just have some egg on his face."

"Those are some fighting words! Such confidence from you, even though John won a decisive victory against you last time!" A reporter chuckled, and in that one moment I saw a small crack appear in Shin's kindly and magnanimous façade.

"Yes…well, it won't happen again. This time things will be different." He said, before turning to face the camera, "And John – if you're watching this. Please don't disappoint me. We can just have a little FRIENDLY challenge! There doesn't need to be any stakes between us. I really do hope you accept."

"…So he's thrown down the gauntlet, what are you going to do now?" Karen asked me. I knew it was all a bait; he had targeted Whitney to get me to accept this fight. But…

"I will accept, of course." I replied immediately, standing up from my table as I switched off the TV. "After all, he's been kind enough to inviteme to a match. Who would I be to refuse such a welcoming gesture?"

Indeed, Shin – this time, things WILL be different.

A.N. And John finds his target. Shin's riling things up, throwing down the gauntlet against John. But has he bitten off more than he could chew? Hope you enjoyed this.

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