Far ahead, the Team Plasma airship was about to fire its second shot.
"Heh, see that, Yasu? How does it feel to see a young ember going up against such odds? Feel proud of your homeland yet?"
"Shut up," the other half of the duo dismissed his partner's words, but his eyes were still fixated on the lass with fiery red hair. Right beside him was a castform, leisurely floating in the air beside its trainer. They were observing the city from a nearby mountain top and imagine their surprise when they saw a flying airship of all things laying waste to an entire city.
"I wonder if she made us come here because this was within the scope of her predictions?" The large and muscled man known as Aaron Luzel stroked his chin in thought as they continued to observe the current Lavaridge Gym Leader putting up her last fight against the airship. He turned back to his companion.
"Hey, are you really not going to do anything about that?"
"What for?" Yasuhira replied with a scoff, taking a sip of his tea from the flask in his hand and acting like this was none of his business. He could have fooled everyone else but he couldn't fool Aaron. They had been partners for centuries.
"You are really not going to interfere? She's a Hoennian."
"The dragonslaying boy is there. She will be fine," Yasuhira callously dismissed Aaron's words but his gaze had never once left the scene of the battle. Aaron smirked, a certain tea-loving maniac could certainly afford to be more honest with himself.
"She's not going to make it," Aaron decided to continue to poke and push all of his partner's wrong buttons as he continued to narrate the scene in front of them with an exaggerated tone. "Legs frozen, fingers probably suffering from a frostbite, her strongest fighters out of the count, and a flying warship with enough power to compete against legendaries aiming its cannon at her-"
"Can you please shut up?"
"Hey, this is the modern era. Freedom of speech is a thing here!"
Ignoring his childish partner, Yasuhira took a few steps forward to get a better view of the situation. Within the merciless field of ice lies a burning ember, still stubbornly burning bright and strong. So that girl is this generation's Lavaridge Gym Leader? Oshin would be proud.
"My dream? My dream, Yasuhira, is for Hoenn to be a place where our fathers and brothers can grow up not needing to join any army against their will, where our mothers and sisters would not need to worry about being somebody else's property should their clan lose a battle, where our children can live long enough to be able to grow up and learn the taste of alcohol, where our pokemon can live harmoniously alongside us rather than being used as instruments of war."
Are you seeing this, Oshin? Hoenn is in good hands.
"Guard Ever Grande for me in my absence, old friend. I won't be long."
'Liar', Yasuhira bitterly thought to himself, 'I ended up guarding Hoenn for more than five centuries, no thanks to you.'
The airship's cannon fired its second shot. Even then, Yasuhira was calm. He had faced worse before.
"Castform."
The castform beside Yasuhira let out a cry and the entire city fell silent just right before the merciless beam of ice struck the city once more. Aaron whistled in appreciation at the sight because it's not everyday he gets to see his lazy partner actually tapping into a fraction of his power. Where the streets of the city were previously filled with people running for their lives, it's now entirely empty. To be more accurate, the entire city is now an empty city.
On the streets, within the buildings and even the underground shelters; every single living being has been safely transported away by Yasuhira's castform with just one move. That's how powerful a true master of Secret Power can be. Team Plasma had just effectively wasted all of their efforts to freeze an empty city. Aaron can already imagine how hopping mad the leaders of Team Plasma would be if they learnt of this.
"Pfft, you talk so big, and you still ended up saving the girl anyway."
"I blame the dragonslaying boy for his ineptitude to have forced my hand," Yasuhira replied coldly. Just then, people started to seemingly randomly appear at a safe area in the western side of the outskirts of Opelucid City, far away from the danger.
The only exception would be the unconscious red-headed girl with a stubborn streak lying on the ground not too far from them. Her torkoal was barely managing to stand, its body covered in a layer of frost, but still loyally standing guard by its trainer's side to defend her.
Guess Yasuhira is feeling sentimental today.
"Relax, I'm not your enemy," Yasuhira slowly walked up to kneel down beside the unconscious girl in order to get a better look. The girl's torkoal still looked very distrustful, but a light poke from Yasuhira's finger sent it collapsing onto the ground in exhaustion, unable to even stand up again. The torkoal was forcing itself to stand by sheer willpower alone, already so weakened that a single poke of a finger was enough to topple it on its feet. It had long since lost the ability to continue battling with how injured it is.
What a beautiful bond between human and pokemon.
"Aaron."
"I can't hear you~" Aaron obnoxiously replied and was promptly rewarded with a punch to his face from Yasuhira that sent him sprawling to the ground.
"Fine, fine," Aaron eventually conceded and released his lucario, who healed the girl's wounds with a mysterious water type move that they picked up during their stay in a land faraway from the seven regions that made up the PWL. Even torkoal's wounds were starting to heal under its effect.
"She will be alright now," Aaron stated and Yasuhira acknowledged with a nod of his head. Yasuhira's sharp eyes had managed to catch a glimpse of what happened in the short moment before Secret Power took effect. Despite having her fingers frozen to the point where they were almost unusable, the girl had still managed to force herself to recall her pokemon back into their pokeballs for their safety through sheer determination at the very last moment. Torkoal remained outside simply because she wasn't fast enough to recall it back into its pokeball. She really loves her pokemon.
This generation of Hoenn's Pillars looks promising, especially the up and coming new Champion, Steven Stone. A member of the Stone family… It sure brings back fond memories.
Yasuhira stood up and straightened his back. The airship hovering high above Opelucid City was still indiscriminately firing its shots to destroy the city now that there's nobody left to stop them. This is no longer his problem since the only reason which he was here for is now safe and sound.
"Leaving already?"
"What else are you staying here for? Waiting for the troublesome dragonslaying boy to come and find us?" Yasuhira scoffed as he slowly made his way down from the mountain top. The girl will be fine, she still has a charizard that is still battle-ready within her pokeball, not to mention that Aaron's lucario had personally healed her wounds. She will be right as rain in a matter of minutes.
He took a glance back at the flying airship, then back at the girl. Memories from a time long past flashed past as the blurry visage of a man who once wielded the power of flames and fought alongside him during the warring era slowly became clearer within his mind. The man who commanded the flames, the Protector of Lilycove, and evildoers' worst punisher that purifies the sins of their homeland with unrelenting fire by his side.
That girl does remind me of you, Barnett.
For all he knows that girl might even be his descendent but that's unlikely, the Geist Family had officially gone extinct just a few decades earlier. Now only three of the original families are left; the Draconids, the Stones, and the Veras. It eases his mind a little that these families are still diligently fulfilling their duties to the region as per the wishes of their ancestors.
"I know I can leave Ever Grande to you, Yasuhira! Hah, I may be the Champion, but you might as well be Ever Grande's hero!"
Yasuhira released a near unnoticeable scoff of disagreement at that memory. Hero… There are no heroes in this world, only losers.
The Uncrowned Hero of Ever Grande… What a mocking and stupid title it is.
She expected to be in heaven, hell, or just not able to open her eyes ever again.
"C-Charlie…?"
Her torkoal excitedly nudged its head at her, the joy at seeing its trainer alright evident from its body language. Flannery slowly sat up and observed her body. She's no longer in pain, the frostbite that she felt had disappeared entirely. She felt… okay. Even Charlie, who was supposed to be injured, looked as if it never suffered a scratch.
What on earth happened?
She soon came to the conclusion that somebody must have saved her. She quickly stood up on her feet but spotted nobody around her as far as she could see. Her last memories were of her trying to recall her pokemon at the very last second before she blacked out from the intense cold. She's supposed to be in the middle of Opelucid City but she now somehow found herself at the top of a nearby mountain just outside it.
Just who on earth saved her? Why?
She looked back at the city. The airship was starting to take its leave. The entire city was now almost entirely covered in ice with gigantic icebergs jutting out from various parts of the city. Her heart dropped when she realised what this would have meant. The innocent people…
She calmed down a little when she noticed that somehow, she could not spot anyone being frozen in ice. It's truly a miracle that nobody was killed by that second blast.
Or was it truly a miracle?
She had no answers so she decided not to dwell on that question any longer. She called out her charizard once more. The city and its people seemed to be safe, at least for now. Looker can take charge of the situation there. However, she still needs to verify the safety of the girl which she views as her own little sister, her boyfriend's little sister.
She flew back in the direction of the hideout which they were originally supposed to raid with her charizard's help. Now, the entire place had collapsed and what's left of it was simply rubble. She panicked for a moment when she thought that the girl might have been buried underneath the wreckage until she spotted the violent waves of shifting sands up ahead.
That's definitely Velda's tyranitar.
She regrouped with Velda's pokemon easily enough, who were all on a rampage trying to make a break for it and forcefully carve a way out of Opelucid City through another Team Plasma army who had probably just arrived after their airship had finished laying waste to the city. Flannery immediately released her remaining pokemon who could still do battle as her charizard flew her down to reunite with an unconscious Velda who was being safely held in her pangoro's arms.
"Vel, Vel!" Flannery easily took over the girl from the pangoro's arms. Velda still felt so light, but what scares Flannery more was how eerily cold the girl's body seemed to be. Was it the ice?
"C'mon, please wake up, this is not funny. Oh please," Flannery muttered under her breath as she lightly shook Velda in an attempt to wake her up. It did not work. She's so cold to the touch and Flannery would have thought that she might already be dead if it wasn't for the slow rise and fall of Velda's chest which indicated that she's still breathing.
"Serene! Come here!" Flannery called her flareon over. Her flareon understood her intentions immediately, instantly trying to use its body heat to warm Velda up. But when Velda's body remained chilling to the touch Flannery started to realise that something was off. Her low body temperature didn't seem to be a result of the large field of ice created by the Team Plasma airship.
Another factor is at play here and Flannery has no idea what it is. She needs to get Velda to a doctor immediately. She could never face her boyfriend again if anything were to happen to Velda under her watch.
But first, she has to get rid of the blasted Team Plasma members who were in their way. Her patience is at its end, she's feeling angry today.
"Sarah! Go Mega!" She shouted for her charizard as she took out her Key Stone once more. The Hoenn League had loaned her another Mega Stone for this operation for extra insurance and she's glad that she took up on that offer. Now, she needs the power of her Charizard Y to obliterate their enemies as soon as she can.
Charizard Y emerged from the rainbow glow covering it with a vicious roar, the gloomy grey clouds covering the city earlier parting to allow the sun's rays to shine down upon the city once again as its Drought ability activated at full blast. In this weather, her fire types are able to fight at an even greater power.
"Melt the ice, burn them down! Inferno!"
The flames roared and engulfed their enemies with prejudice, cremating the evil which had frozen the city in their greed. She was unable to protect the city and would have died if it wasn't for the interference of an unknown benefactor, but she would be damned if she couldn't even protect her boyfriend's little sister.
"Rapidash, give me a ride!" Flannery called for Velda's rapidash who very cooperatively lent her its aid. Flannery easily climbed up onto its back with a jump, still hugging Velda protectively close to her chest. Taking on this Plasma army is child's play to her even with only four pokemon left now that she does not have to worry about protecting an entire city but instead, making a run for it.
She's a Gym Leader.
"Leave the fighting to Sarah! She will cover our backs! Everyone else, charge through! Tyranitar, Hyper Beam!"
Thankfully, Velda's tyranitar was not picky in who it was taking orders from at that moment, probably because it understood that its trainer's well-being was now its first priority. Tyranitar's Hyper Beam succeeded in clearing a way forward to allow them to break through the large horde of Team Plasma army. Anything that it missed out could easily be dealt with by Flannery's pokemon. Her Charizard Y excels at large scale combat where the powers of its flames can spread without limits.
With a final Blast Burn, Flannery's Charizard Y was able to decimate the entire Team Plasma army on its own once it did not have to worry about accidentally injuring its allies from collateral damage. Flannery halted the influence of Mega Evolution thereafter, knowing that this is a forbidden power that shouldn't be used for long and especially so when she had already used it a second time today.
"This is Flannery, Velda is down. I'm taking her out of the battlefield," Flannery spoke into her comms, not even caring if anybody heard her or not. She's speaking into her comms for formality's sake at this point because after all, she still has her Champion to rely on if there's any fallout that resulted from her sudden retreat. Hoenn is not obliged to be so heavily invested into solving Unova's problems at the cost of their own interests.
Her close relationship with the girl aside, Velda is the heiress of her family, one of the two remaining members of her generation. A riot from Hoenn's citizens is the least of Unova's worries if word gets out that Velda had come to harm on Unova's soil due to how respected the Vera family is in Hoenn.
If only Velda is aware of just how significant her status is as the heiress of her family, maybe she wouldn't be taking so many risks when she had no need to.
Velda's body temperature seemed to only drop further even when the surrounding ice around them was starting to melt from her fire type's power. Flannery's worry and anxiety grew the colder Velda's body felt. Just what on earth had happened to her in the short amount of time they were separated? Just what is the cause of the abnormal change to Velda's body temperature?
"I'm going to get Vance to ground you if you don't wake up. You know your siscon brother is capable of doing something ridiculous like that when it comes to you," Flannery pleaded, hoping that the girl can hear her as she continues to command her pokemon and Velda's as they make a swift run out of Opelucid. She quickly called for the Vera Family's butler stationed at Unova through the assistance of Velda's porygon-z once she's sure that they were safe.
"Sebastian, is your claydol able to teleport to Opelucid?... Right, I will send you my coordinates shortly. Please hurry, Vel isn't looking too good and she needs immediate medical treatment."
Flannery kept praying for the safety of the girl in her arms as she waited for Sebastian to pick them up. She shouldn't have agreed to let Velda work independently away from her sights, it was a mistake to begin with. This could have been avoided if she insisted for Velda to stick by her side for the entirety of this operation or be stationed somewhere safer.
She will never forgive herself if anything happens to her.
Character and pokemon list:
Velda Vera, Age: 14, Female, Pokemon Trainer, Member of the International Police
Pokemon on hand:
1) Rapidash (Flamel), male
2) Swampert (Bigblue), male
3) Banette (Dolly), female
4) Flygon (Snap), male
5) Absol (Kelsa), female
6) Charizard (Toothless), male
7) Cradily (Lily), female
8) Espeon (Rena), female
9) Pachirisu (Fuzzy), male
10) Tyranitar (Kratos), male
11) Clefairy (Joy), female
12) Nidoqueen (Ness), female
13) Pangoro (Hulk), male
14) Porygon-Z (Jarvis), genderless
15) Scizor (Archer), male
16) Lapras (Chill), female
17) Gengar (Wacky), male