John's Team

Tyrant - Slaking

Vordt - Ursaluna

Smough - Snorlax

Klee - Blissey

Port - Mantine

Zephyr - Pidgeot

Klaus - Wyrdeer

Luna - Clefable

Pixel - Porygon-Z

Euphie - Sylveon

Ornstein - Obstagoon

Wraith - H-Zoroark

Winston - Lickilicky (Shiny)

The New Normal – 13-7 – The Attack

The start of the circuit was met with the expected burst of excitement. There was a lot of positive comments from the public about the show matches that we had shown off, and I smiled when I saw many people commenting about just how impressive Vordt was.

Despite my attempts to not get a big head, it still felt nice to see that people rated me to be the strongest amongst the Elite Four. I knew many had previously thought that, but my performance had just cemented that.

Other than our battles, I had heard from Karen about Flint's untimely return, and the fact that he was quickly told to leave by Brock. Truthfully, I had no sympathy for the guy, and I fully agreed with Brock's decision. The man had walked out on his family, so he didn't just get to show up one day and pretend like nothing had happened.

I also heard that Karen had apparently been staying over for the past few nights, making sure that everything was okay. From what she told me, there was still a little bit of tension from Flint's reappearance, but the siblings were mostly handling it well. Karen just wanted to make sure that there weren't any lingering emotions that could possibly fester into something bad.

A little over a day after the start of the Circuit that was spent mostly checking up to make sure that there weren't any glaring faults in this year's Circuit, there was another piece of news that Lance informed me about that I was pleasantly surprised to hear.

"John, just wanted to let you know that the cleanup at Cinnabar Island has been completed. The lava and debris have all been cleaned up." He told me over the phone, "We're in the process of planning the reconstruction now."

"That's great to hear!" I replied.

"Indeed it is, and you're free to come along and contribute any suggestions if you want – the other Elite Four have the same opportunity. Although, would you mind calling up Blaine and asking if he would like to head over and participate in the planning efforts? Even if he is no longer Gym Leader, he still had intimate ties with the city. We feel that he deserves the right to be a part of the upcoming discussions. I'd call, but I think it'd be better if you did so."

"I'll make sure to pass on the message." I nodded.

Which was why I had rung up Blaine, relaying Lance's question to him. Of course, I just received a dismissive scoff from him.

"You know I quit being a Gym Leader because I didn't want to deal with this sort of nonsense again, right?" He stated rhetorically, "I might have spent a lot of time at Cinnabar, but frankly, I don't care about how they're going to rebuild the thing. And I especially don't want to get involved with the discussions – do you know what it's going to be like? A whole bunch of people who think they are more important than they actually are bickering about this and that for hours and hours on end. It's a nightmare, and I want absolutely no part of it."

"…I see, well I'll tell them that you'll be abstaining then." I saw no reason to try to convince him. He seemed pretty firm in his rejection, "You can still come over to Cinnabar if you want though. You helped a lot with the evacuation."

"Bah. I have better things to do with my time… though, now that you called, I do have something to tell you about." He said, "Remember that project I was working on with Volkner that I previously couldn't tell you about? Well I am allowed to reveal it now – since you'll find out about this in the science papers tomorrow – but it's a project involving the Rotoms. Specifically, we found a method to create new forms for it."

"Oh wow!" That was a surprise. Out of all the projects he could have been working on, I didn't think he'd be involved in something involving the Rotom Forms, "You mean, like it would inhabit different machinery?"

"…That's a surprisingly astute guess." He said, a little surprised, "But yes. That's essentially what we did. While Rotom can naturally inhabit all kinds of machinery, they normally cannot exert too much control over it. However, Volkner and I managed to create machines that are specially made for Rotom to inhabit, allowing them to 'change forms' as it were."

"So far, we've created five. An oven, a washing machine, a refrigerator, a fan, and a lawn mower. And their Ghost Type changes appropriately to match its new form to Fire, Water, Ice, Flying, and Grass respectively." He explained, "…Don't ask me why we chose these five. It was Volkner's idea, and I'm pretty sure he just decided based on what was lying around near his house."

That did sound like him. "Does that mean we'll be seeing more Rotom imported to Indigo? And will be seeing other forms in the future?" I asked.

"I've already got one of the oven forms myself." He smirked, "An Electric/Fire Type will undoubtedly be a powerful addition to my team. But to answer your question, yes. We do plan on introducing more Rotom to the wider world. Just like with your Porygon, we feel that there's a ton of untapped potential with Rotom, and we're looking forward to seeing how that'll progress."

"As for other new forms… we're looking into it." He continued, "We started on battling forms first because we thought that they would be the most marketable. After all, there is nothing more interesting than a new powerful Pokémon, especially one that's able to change forms in-between battles. I suspect that a well-trained Rotom could make use of its different forms for different battles."

"However, we'll probably be looking to research alternate ways where Rotom could be used – its ability to possess various electronic machinery has tons of potential." He finished, "But that will probably be a side project for us."

Yes, like being used in the Pokédex, for example. I was about to bring up that suggestion to Blaine, but held back when I realised that I didn't even know if the current iteration of the Pokédex was even compatible with Rotom. Even though a Rotom Dex would eventually be created in the far future, that was likely with a much more advanced version of the Pokédex, so I didn't want to suggest it only for the current technology to make that infeasible.

Therefore, I held my tongue and instead just congratulated him for his achievement again.

That did lead me to a different topic though, "So… if you've finished most of your work on Rotom, does that mean your time is freed up for other projects? If so, then I actually have an idea that I want to discuss with our old group."

"Oh?" His interest was piqued, "Do tell."

"It's to do with TMs." I explained, relaying one of my old ideas, "Now that the circuit is starting up, I thought that it might be good if we could research a way to make TMs reusable in some way—"

"Let me cut you off right there." Blaine was quick to interrupt me, "I understand your noble intentions, but you are not the only one to have thought of this. I will tell you now, as a scientist who has unfortunately had to deal with business interests, such an idea will never be allowed. I don't care if you're a super successful Elite Four member, you will suffer heavy pushback if you even dare try to suggest this."

I frowned, but he wasn't done yet, "Or in other words, your idea is workable in theory, but not in practice. Having TMs be reusable would completely undermine the suppliers of TMs, and they will do everything they can to stop it. Knowing your reputation, you might be able to weather the blows, but Shelly, myself, and Volkner? It'd be much more difficult for us, and it just wouldn't be worth stepping on so many toes."

"…Okay then, let's shelf that idea indefinitely." Blaine made a good point; it was probably better not to ruffle any feathers. But I still let out a sigh, "…That's frustrating. I was really hoping that this would be something we could work together towards."

"Nah, it was certainly a good idea, and it's not your fault that its probably not feasible – it's the fault of the greedy businessmen." Blaine waved me off, "And anyways, I more than appreciate the thought… actually, if you have spare time, maybe sometime in the next few days or so since I'm not free today, could you come over? I'm writing up a bit of an autobiography, and I'd like your input on a few areas."

"You're writing up an autobiography?" I asked curiously, "Since when did you get started on something like that? And yes, I'd be happy to help."

"I just thought that I'm getting on in years, and I've lived a very varied life – I might as well document everything and add it to my legend. It's going to be one part autobiography and one part trainer tips. Even though I might be 'retired', I want to prove that the world that I once blazed very bright! Ha! And since you were a part of that, I wanted your statements. Of course, the others will be included too. If it all goes well, I'd be able to use this to help with my application to become a Professor."

"That's fine." I nodded, "That will be certainly be interesting to read."

Unfortunately, a phone call from Lance quickly pushed back those plans, as he sent out an emergency call to the entire Elite Four. He was fully serious.

"All of you, never mind your previous plans. There's been urgent news from Sinnoh. The Lakes have just been bombed."

(Proton POV)

The thing about having access to Pokémon was that it made you able to hide in places that no one would typically expect. Coupled with the fact that the region of Sinnoh was far larger than what the Sinnoh police could feasibly patrol, even with all of their best efforts, he was confident that it was impossible for the Sinnoh League to find them. There were simply too many places to hide in, especially with the help of Pokémon.

If the situation still wasn't so dire, he would have found the struggles of the League to be amusing. In their position, it must have been like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

However, now he found himself in a position which caused his inner doubts, which he had thought to be settled, to resurface. They were on their way to Lake Verity, packed with enough bombs to blow the entire Lake sky high, and he was one of the two people leading this operation.

Unfortunately, he was not the only one in charge. Cyrus had saddled him with one of his personal fanatics, the red-haired bitch named Mars. She was there nominally to 'share command' with him, but he knew the true reason that she was coming along was to make sure that he didn't dare think about cutting loose and running during such a critical moment.

Cyrus was unpleasantly paranoid about it. If things really went south, then Proton wouldn't hesitate to ditch his 'ally', but he knew if he tried anything then Mars would not hesitate to end him. Sure, he would overpower the bitch, but the grunts would definitely not take his side.

So in reality, he knew that he had made his choice, and that it was too late to back out now – no matter how much he realised he underestimated the dangers of this plan.

They were tasked with luring out and capturing the Lake Guardians, and Cyrus' plan to do so was not with cunning or strategy, but with pure violent brutality. After all, what kind of Guardian would they be if they failed to protect the wild Pokémon that they were meant to guard? Hence the bombs.

They would be striking at all three Lakes simultaneously.

Don't get him wrong – Proton enjoyed that part of the plan, just not the dangers that accompanied it. The chance of capture was extremely high, and hence why Cyrus had only chosen to rely on the trained grunts that they had spent the last months refining for this very moment.

Nevertheless, their return to Sinnoh proper was done with much care to avoid the ongoing patrols, with them all donning disguises as to conceal their intentions. Some grunts were even 'sacrificed' and sent to different parts of Sinnoh to cause a distraction, committing various petty crimes which managed to attract the attention of the Sinnoh police and made it easier for them to sneak into their respective Lakes.

Once they arrived at Lake Verity, they immediately saw the patrolling Jennys who were tasked with guarding the Lake. But that was expected, and the time for subtlety was already over. With a barked command, the swarm of grunts charged towards their surprised foe.

To their credit, the Jennys valiantly tried to hold their ground, but their numbers were just too much for them, and they rapidly overwhelmed the Jennys with their superior numbers and the element of surprise.

But that was just the easy fight. Before they were taken down, the Jennys had shouted into their radios for reinforcements, and they knew they were about to have the entire League suddenly descend on their heads. Hopefully the other teams had already struck their Lakes as well, or else they were in serious trouble.

"Set the bombs." He ordered, "Quickly!"

"Secure the perimeter!" Mars also barked out, "We need as much advance warning as possible! Get the capture machine ready for when the Lake Guardian makes their appearance!"

That capture machine was one of the things that those eggheads had spent all this time working on. If the bombs were there to force the Lake Guardians to appear, then the capture machine was their way of shutting them up and suppress them.

He wouldn't even pretend to understand how it all worked, but at least those eggheads had the presence of mind to make sure the thing was resilient enough so that it wouldn't break as they hauled it to the Lakes.

"BOMBS ARE SET!" One of the grunts shouted out.

"CANALAVE AND JUBILIFE CITY ARE A HIVE OF ACTIVITY!" Another yelled, "WE HAVE INCOMING!"

He nodded, mentally counting down the minutes before the first group of reinforcements would arrive. Meanwhile, their entire group retreated into the caves to protect themselves from the resulting explosion. As soon as they did, Mars instantly detonated the bombs without any hesitation.

BOOOOOOM!

The powerful explosion caused the entire cave to shake violently and rumble as Proton was nearly knocked off his feet from the resulting shockwave. He could hear the loud cacophony of pained cries and wails from all those Pokémon that were likely injured or killed by the explosion.

Those bombs were absolutely no joke.

And just as they hoped, the collective screams of pain from all those Pokémon that they had just blown up had become too much for the Legendary to bear. The sound of a mournful cry echoed throughout the cave before a blinding flash of light appeared in the centre of the cave, signalling the arrival of their elusive objective.

Mesprit had been lured out. But instead of being angry, the so-called Being of Emotion was stumbling around in a pathetic daze, barely putting up any kind of fight.

Proton suspected that it might have been an unintended consequence from all that destruction and death that they had just caused. If Mesprit, as the Lake Guardian, had been psychically linked to some way to all of the nearby Pokémon, then it might have received a very painful dose of psychic feedback after their explosion.

That didn't stop the scoff from leaving his mouth. Was this supposed to be a 'Legendary'?

Well, whatever the case, he wasn't going to complain. It just made their job easier. He barked out new orders to quickly capture Mesprit into the capture machine, knowing that they likely had seconds until the authorities arrived.

They needed to move fast.

(Flint POV)

He had been hanging out with Volkner at Sunyshore when he received the call to action. He had never heard their new Champion being this concerned or nervous since she had first ascended to the position.

But once they heard that the Lakes were under attack, the both of them immediately dropped everything and rushed over to Sunyshore on their respective mounts, while they frantically exchanged information with the Sinnoh police to receive updates on the situation. Their established patrols around the respective Lakes had already been under attack and had most likely gone down, meaning that they had minutes at best until the terrorists managed to enact their plan.

Oh how he wished his Staraptor would just fly faster.

The worst part about everything is that everyone was still confused about what their goals were. Why attack the Lakes? There was nothing there aside from the Lake Guardians, but everyone knew that they wouldn't show themselves if they didn't want to. If there were there for the Guardians, then they must know that their actions would prove futile.

"I don't know either…" Volkner muttered aloud as Flint relayed his thoughts to him, "Even our best scientists couldn't figure anything out, so why would they be able to—"

The rest of his words were cut off as a deafening explosion echoed into the sky. But just as the first explosion petered out, more explosions quickly followed behind it. Even from as high up as they were, they could see the resulting smoke cloud that pillared up into the sky coming from all three of the Lakes.

The two of them shared a horrified look at the implications of the detonations.

"REPORT!" Their radio buzzed to life as Cynthia's voice could be heard.

"Multiple explosions reported from all Lakes." A frazzled Jenny stated, "Current damage unknown, most of our teams are still arriving."

"Volkner and I are landing first at Lake Valor in under a minute." He said into the radio, "Jennys can follow up behind us."

"No, we need to go as a group—"

"We don't have time!" He cut the Jenny off, "The explosions mean that the terrorists are carrying out their plan right now. We can't waste time playing it safe! Just join Volkner and I as soon as possible."

He didn't allow for any disagreement, and the Jenny eventually gave in and said that that the first teams from Pastoria would arrive a minute or so behind them.

The two of them arrived at Lake Valor far too late. The once beautiful Lake had been completely devastated by the explosions, with Magikarp and all other sort of Water Pokémon lying helplessly on the ground. They had been decimated by the bombs, and none had been spared.

Even much of the water from the lake itself had been displaced as the ground was now littered with huge craters, causing the nearby area to be flooded with massive puddles. There were also multiple unconscious Jennys lying around next to their equally fainted Pokémon; they must have been taken down and overwhelmed by the grunts' superior numbers.

The once peaceful and serene Lake now looked like the destroyed remains of a battlefield… with all the horror and suffering that entailed.

He unconsciously grit his teeth as he took in the cruel destruction around them. What kind of sick fuck does something like this on purpose?! What kind of lowlife would terrorise a peaceful Lake for no reason whatsoever?! The Pokémon didn't deserve this!

Despite his growing rage, he took a deep breath and centred himself, channelling the boiling rage that he felt into pure focus and resolve.

These scum were not going to get away with this.

But he didn't have time to think about that as attacks started flying out of the forest around them, as the terrorists that were hiding in the trees began to show themselves. At the same time, more scum began running out of the cave in the centre of the Lake and joined their comrades in suppressing them.

Yet with practice honed from years of experience, he and Volkner stood side-by-side as they released their Pokémon, who instantly surrounded the two of them to prevent any stray attacks from hitting them.

Without needing to communicate with each other, the two of them already knew what they needed to do.

"Thunderbolt the trees! Flush them out!"

"Flamethrower those near the caves! Force them back!"

Volkner's Electric types immediately began a thunderous barrage against the criminals hiding in the trees. Lightning bolts rained down from above in a demonstration of Volkner's vengeful wrath, and each bolt struck down with enough power to snap entire trees in half. The terrorists' screams echoed throughout the forest as many of them desperately dived for cover to avoid being electrocuted.

The grunts' Pokémon had tried to throw up Protect shields in hopes that they could weather the storm, to no avail. Volkner's unending barrage of attacks quickly overwhelmed and broke through those shields, and the grunts were rapidly learning of the horror that they had just unleashed upon themselves.

It was the same lesson that his Fire types were currently teaching the lot in front of him. Their Skuntank and Toxicroaks were becoming very aware of the pain of being immolated, as a tide of searing flames incinerated their positions. Their Dark and Poison type attacks literally melted in the face of his flames, and many grunts and their Pokémon decided to flee and dive into the water instead of risk being scorched alive.

Yet that proved to be a foolish decision. In their desperate attempt to run away from the flames by diving into the water, they had just left themselves completely exposed to the powerful Thunderbolts from Volkner's Pokémon. That sense of relief that they must have had swiftly turned to pain as the waters were painfully electrocuted by another barrage of Thunderbolts.

Normally, he would be worried about collateral damage. But he didn't have it in himself to care. These scum deserved it after all that they had done.

However, despite their quick takedown of the grunts, they knew that this was merely the team that was sent to distract them. They could tell that there was a lot of activity coming from inside the cave, meaning that more of them was still inside.

But right on time, a swarm of shadows suddenly descended from above, revealing the group of Jennys that were sent to reinforce them.

He skipped over the greetings and went straight for what was important, "Most of them are still in the cave, but there are probably a few stragglers hiding in the nearby forest that might try to ambush you. Split up or don't, Volkner and I are going in."

Without waiting for a response, the two of them rushed into the cave with their Pokémon. Most of the Jennys followed behind him, but he saw a few head to the trees out of the corner of his eye.

He stepped into the cave to find a shocking sight. His eyes immediately locked onto the fallen figure near the far end of the cave. It was Azelf, one of the three Lake Guardians. Yet it was captured, trapped within a strange machine that looked like it was causing it considerable pain, as demonstrated by Azelf's muffled cries of anguish.

Many thoughts were running through Flint's head. Why did Azelf show up? Did it show up because it wanted to try to protect the Pokémon from the devastation? Was that the terrorists' plan? And more importantly, what did they intend to do with Azelf?

His eyes moved to the machine that they had captured Azelf with. He realized that if they had come prepared with a specialised capture device just to imprison Azelf, then they must be doing the same at the other Lakes as well.

However, Volkner's enraged voice broke him out of his thoughts, "Release the Lake Guardian!" His friend ordered, "Or you will be destroyed."

"Heh. We knew that coming in." A large looking man that was dressed like a pirate scoffed mockingly at his friend's words, "We know that you won't spare us. But we aren't about to let you stop us. There's too much at stake for that."

"Saturn! Get out of here!" Another man, this time a scientist-looking guy with rimmed glasses, barked at a man with weird blue hair, "We'll cover your retreat!"

The man, Saturn, who had already been doing that, simply nodded and instantly placed one of the remaining explosives on the far wall, trying to break open a hole to escape from. Flint immediately wanted to rush forwards to stop him from fleeing with the Lake Guardian, but he was held back by Volkner, who reminded him that they were currently surrounded and outnumbered by madmen.

Seeing Flint be held back, the pirate-looking man in front of him smiled unrepentantly, "Sorry, but it looks like you're going to have fight through us first. Matt! To me!"

"Courtney! Tabitha! It's time for us to fight!" His scientist-looking companion joined in on the rallying cry, "Men! Today is the day that we take down an Elite Four! Don't hold anything back!"

The loud cheers of support that he got might have unnerved some people, but not Flint. Instead of wasting time with words, both he and Volkner simply ordered their Pokémon to attack.

And thus, the battle began.

A.N. This attack was a long time coming. As I have mentioned before, I wanted to keep the plot and plans of Team Galactic to be familiar to the canon timeline. The bombs are a huge part of canon, and I felt that it was appropriate that such brute-force violence was used by them to 'summon' the Lake Guardians.

As for the power of the Lake Guardians themselves, I struggled a lot with figuring out just how powerful they were. Yet, in canon, they really don't show off any kind of power in the slightest and are simply captured by Team Galactic with what seems like hardly a fight. Therefore, I decided to justify that with a reason here, showing how the bombs had crippled them due to the psychic feedback they felt from all of the pain and deaths that had just occurred. But while the Lake Guardians aren't going to be able to show off what it means to be a 'Legendary', I can assure you that you'll be able to witness that later on.

And now, it's going to be one of the first showdowns. Maxie and Archie their subordinates vs Flint and Volkner the backup Jennys. I know this was quite the ambitious chapter, so I hope you enjoyed it!

And to anyone who wants to support me, please check out my p atreon at CartecTNN where you can read 8 advanced chapters! Thanks to those who have supported me already!