Journey

Death of Duty

Part 2: Rocket's Rise

Mourning

Death is not the end. — Elite Agatha Shikoku

A pair of rangers arrived less than ten minutes later. They put out the fire, a golduck and a poliwhirl dousing the blaze before it could spark into a forest wide inferno. They'd seen the smoke on patrol, seen the chopper flying west in a hurry. One of them had given chase on the back of his pidgeot, but the masked man had released a scizor that had driven him off. The bastard was gone, leaving us to deal with the mess he'd left behind.

Blue went kind of non responsive for a bit. The rangers couldn't get a word out of him so I explained everything. I gave them as much as I could without mentioning Curie or the woman who had taken her. I couldn't be sure who to trust with that kind of information. I showed them the cubone we had collected, almost thirty pokeballs in all. They balked when I told them, but didn't tell me what to do with them. I was hoping they would know what to do. I certainly didn't.

They'd lost their mother. I didn't know about any of the other marowak, but I had a sinking feeling that none of them had made it onto that chopper. I wasn't going to just release them. That would be a death sentence out here. Without a marowak to lead them, they didn't stand a chance in the wild. And as selfish as it was, I didn't want to let Acolyte go so early. I reasoned to myself that he wasn't ready to lead yet. I knew the selfish truth behind that lie. I just didn't want to lose my newest pokemon.

The rangers had teleported us back to Lavender after that. Blue hadn't been hurt, but I'd taken a serious blow to the head and was still feeling dizzy. They checked us in at the pokemon centre and then disappeared again, leaving me with a contact number in case I remembered anything useful.

The nurse checked our pokemon in and stuck me in the centre's infirmary. It was a slow day in an already sleepy town and I was the only human patient they had. I was basically left alone in a darkened room while Blue left to go visit the Pokemon Tower. He mumbled something about saying goodbye. I couldn't blame him. I didn't think I'd have been in much better shape had it been one of my pokemon.

It was maybe an hour before the pokegear rang. I didn't recognize the number. I picked it up cautiously. "Hello?"

A haggard voice came out of my pokegear. "Is this a Marcus Wright?"

"Yes," I said. "Who is this?"

I heard the sound of rustling and a pained grunt come through the speakers. "Professor Samuel Oak," he said. "I hear you helped my grandson out of a tight spot."

My spine instinctively stiffened upon hearing the name. "Yes, sir."

"Well, I just wanted to thank you personally. I had a contact in the rangers pass this number on to me, and Blue hasn't answered my calls."

My heart sank. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this. He lost a pokemon today. His raticate."

The elder professor sighed and I heard a long pause. "I was afraid of this day," he said. "It is not a happy day to lose a pokemon. How is he managing?"

"I'm not really sure, sir. I was injured in the incident and he left shortly after we arrived in Lavender. He hasn't really said anything about it."

Oak sighed heavily through the phone. "So much like his father, internalizing everything." I heard him mumble under his breath and couldn't make out the words. "Well, in any case, thank you. If there's anything I can do to help you at this time, please let me know."

I sat up a little straighter, an idea popping into my head. Oak was a researcher, studying pokemon behaviours. I had a suspicion he would leap at my idea. "Actually, there might be something you can help me with," I started. "The traffickers we battled against had captured most of a cubone colony. I have twenty-six cubone and one newly evolved marowak in pokeballs. I don't know what to do with them. They won't survive in the wild on their own and…" My voice trailed off and I despised that I couldn't give the professor the whole truth. I couldn't be sure who was listening. "I feel responsible for their safety. The colony had gifted me with a marowak two days before this."

I heard Oak's voice quicken with excitement despite my somber tone. "Cubone are exceedingly rare. I've never had a chance to study them up close." I heard the sounds of papers rustling and then Oak was back. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I have nowhere to house them until they can fend for themselves. It would only be until enough of the cubone evolve and take charge of the group."

"My lab has extensive facilities designed for such an occasion, although I'll have to have the enclosure expanded of course. We've never had quite so many specimens at one time.." I could practically hear the man gushing with excitement. "I would be more than happy to oblige you, young man."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever that masked man was, I knew he was connected to the woman who had taken Curie. While I would no doubt hear about it at some point, I didn't want the cubone to be in danger because of me. A former champion turned pokemon researcher was the perfect guardian for the vulnerable cubone.

"They are all freshly captured and likely hostile," I said. "You'll likely have some work on your hands."

"That's what all the assistants are for, my boy." A loud crash echoed through the phone and I heard Oak wince audibly. "My apologies, I have a situation that requires my attention. Thank you for everything you've done, Marcus. I'll send one of my assistants to pick up the pokeballs immediately."

"No, thank you." I replied.

Oak ended the call and I looked cautiously around the room. I swung my legs off the side of my bed, ignoring the spike of pain in my brain and the swell of dizziness it brought on. I had things to do, and concussion be damned, I still had to do them.

I picked up my pokemon from the front desk just as the apprentice teleported in, alakazam standing motionless behind him. He looked haggard and exhausted.

I crossed the room and hefted my pack onto the floor in front of him. It thudded heavily onto the floor and he jumped. "You the professor's assistant?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yes, you would be a mister Wright?"

"Yeah."

He pulled the duffel bag off his shoulder and began to transfer the balls into his bag. "You were with Blue? How is he? We were all so torn up when we heard."

I frowned. "He's down right now, but he'll get back up."

The assistant finished transferring the balls into his bag. He thanked me again before disappearing with a short pop along with the alakazam. I left the centre, ready to leave the sleepy town behind me. I only had one more thing to do.

I found Blue exactly where I expected him to be. He was in the sprawling graveyard that surrounded Pokemon Tower, a small marker and the freshly filled earth the only sign that a pokemon was buried at his feet.

"Hey, kid," I said quietly. "Got a call from your grandfather."

"So did I," he replied curtly. He didn't look up at me, his gaze fixed on the hand-carved marker. "Didn't really feel like talking."

I nodded to myself. "Of course, I get it." I joined him in silence, looking down at the grave. "She was a good raticate," I said. "She'll be missed."

I saw Blue bow his head slightly, caught the tears begin to form at the edges of his eyes. The kid looked down at the grave. "She is missed," he said plainly. "She didn't deserve that, to die fighting that thing."

I stood there, my mind racing. This kid had lost his pokemon because of me, all because I had caught Acolyte. I couldn't help coming back to that again, finding the event that all of this stemmed from sticking in my mind.

"I never got the chance to thank you," he said quickly. "I stole your food and you gave me more without even thinking."

"Trainers help each other," I said without a second thought. "We're on our own out here, just us and our teams against the wilderness." I smirked. "Besides, what kind of person would I be if I let a kid starve to death while I had food?"

He set his eyes on me, that determined glare that I would come to know so well boring into me. "You didn't have to share it," he said. "You didn't have to, but you did."

He reached into his pack, pulling out a small pockmarked stone. "I found this in a cave on Mount Moon. There was a big meteorite underground. It evolved my nidorino when he touched it." He paused as I took the stone, his glare softening. "I want you to take this. I broke it off the meteorite after the evolution, thinking it might be valuable." He shrugged and handed it to me. "Maybe it could help you evolve your nidorino."

I put up my hand, holding the stone back out to him. "I can't take this," I protested. I was the reason his pokemon was dead. I didn't deserve a reward, even if it was as tempting as this. "You might need it."

He shook his head. "Trainers help each other," he said. "You said that yourself. You helped me, I'm helping you." He stepped back, pushing the stone back at me. "If you give that back, I'm throwing it away."

I smiled as best I could. He didn't deserve to have this hanging over his head. He was just a kid. "You sure?" I asked.

He nodded, looking back down at the grave. "She would have wanted me to pay you back," he said solemnly. I saw tears threaten in his eyes and watched him look away. "She was a good pokemon like that."

I put my hand on his shoulder. Blue flinched, but he didn't move my hand nor move away. "I know what you're feeling," I said. "I know that you feel guilty about what happened to Clothos."

"How could you?" he asked coldly.

I didn't let my smile fade, even as the memory of the tragedy that incited my departure from home came surging back. "I lost my little sister just before I started my journey. It was a persian attack," I said, my voice shaky. It still hurt to think of Margaret, but he needed someone to help him through his loss. "I didn't understand at first. I blamed myself. I blamed my family…" I met his eyes, knowing that he needed to hear what I was saying. "Sometimes there's just nobody to blame. Sometimes, it's just the way things go. They aren't fair or right, or even someone's fault. They just are."

His gaze fell to the dirt. "I could have-"

"You can't dwell on what could have been, or what you could have done differently," I said. "What happened in the past is set in stone now. The only thing left is how you move on." I squeezed his shoulder, his eyes betraying the stoic demeanour he wore. "You're a good trainer, Blue. You're smart and a damn sight more mature than I was at your age. Clothos may be gone, but you can carry on for her."

He nodded and I saw his expression soften for a moment as he regained his composure. Then his hard, sarcastic gaze was back. "What kinda weakling do you think I am?" he asked with a cocky smirk.

I smirked. "That's the attitude I remember." I looked around me, at the rows of graves surrounding us. "What's your plan, kid?"

He shrugged. "Still got Celadon waiting for me."

"I meant right now."

He met my eyes. "Might say goodbye for a little bit." He looked back down at the marker. "I… I got a call to make. I've got a friend that's been through this before." He grimaced. "Thank you, Marcus. I'm sorry you had to see me like this."

I sighed and shook my head. "You don't have to apologize, kid. I gotta get back to Vermilion myself. Still got a match with Surge waiting for me."

He smiled. "Smell ya later then."

I couldn't help the chuckle. Despite the badass team of pokemon and the cocky attitude, Blue was still just a kid. It was easy to forget that. "I'll see you around, Blue."

I left that place, only pausing to look back once. Blue was still standing there, looking down at the marker. A boy in a red training jacket and hat had joined him, both of them staring down at the marker in silence. I turned back, leaving the grieving trainers behind.

I made it partway to Saffron that night. My plan had been to cut through the underground path and head back to Vermillion that way. If all went well, I'd be back in Vermillion before the month was out.

I should have expected her after my run-in with the masked man. I should have been ready. I was watching the fire and picking at the scraps from my meal, fighting off nausea and dizziness as I ate. She emerged from the darkness, the masked trainer towering over both of us at her side.

I shot Luna a look. "Enough," I said as I calmed her down with a scratch behind the ears. "Not today, Luna."

I looked up at the woman with a bored expression. "What do you want?"

"To remind you the terms of our arrangement," she spat.

A loud buzz filled the air and I realized too late that I knew what it was. The scizor hit me from the side, tearing Luna away and knocking me flat in one smooth movement.

My vulpix struggled briefly, spewing a jet of flames that scorched the ground beside our campfire. The scizor knocked her out with one swift blow to the base of her head. It dropped my starter into the dirt unceremoniously and let her lay there motionless.

I clambered to my feet, fists clenched. I returned her to her ball and gritted my teeth for what was coming next. I couldn't fight back, not against her. Not if I wanted Curie back alive. I had to take this with a smile.

"Did you forget what you were supposed to be doing?" She asked. "Did you forget what your only job was?"

"Run the gym challenge," I replied curtly. "Which I was doing."

She shook her head. "No, you were off playing hero halfway across the country. Your battle is in Vermillion, not Lavender."

I shrugged nonchalantly, trying to keep calm. "I needed a third pokemon for Surge. I was hoping to have Curie evolved by now, but without her I needed to catch something new." I glanced at the masked trainer. "Someone decided to track the location of my latest capture and capture a bunch of rare, probably expensive pokemon."

The masked man narrowed his eyes. "That's enough out of you. Release him," he ordered. "Now."

I slowly reached down and lifted Acolyte's ball. He materialized in front of me, bone club held lazily at his side. He saw the masked trainer and let out a feral growl.

"Stand down, Acolyte," I said firmly. I stepped in front of him, pleading with my eyes.

He hefted his club with both hands and looked at me furiously. He wanted to fight.

"Please, Acolyte," I begged. "Please don't.

He lowered the club slightly but still kept it in a ready position. I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed I had some measure of control over my newest pokemon.

The masked man scowled and looked my marowak up and down. "So this is what we missed out on?" he asked. He sighed and his fists tightened. "Woulda been a damn good return on the colony. Return him," he ordered. "What about the cubone?"

The woman stifled a laugh as I returned Acolyte to his ball. I was completely alone at their mercy. "He handed them off this morning. They're out of our reach now. Probably already safely at Oak's lab."

The masked man shook his head. "Now, that sounds like it was a poor choice."

I balled up my fists as righteous anger swelled up inside me. "No, tracking a trainer's capture location was a poor choice." I stepped forward, indignant as I could be. "They aren't yours, to be caught and sold to the highest bidder like they're barely even animals. The cubone were intelligent. They had their own society. You don't get to take that away."

The man said nothing, but exhaled slightly through his nose. My eyes widened and I knew I had made a mistake.

"I didn't give Oak anything on you," I said quickly. I stepped back, fear swelling in my chest. "Or the Rangers. Nobody knows a-."

The masked trainer's fist slammed into my chest, driving the wind from my lungs. A second fist into my gut doubled me over and made my vision swim. I felt a third blow into my ribs and grunted as I dropped to my knees.

He lifted me off the ground with one arm, meaty hand wrapping around my throat. I felt him squeeze, felt myself panic as I tried and failed to draw a breath.

"That's not the point," he spat in my face. He tossed me to the ground and crossed his arms. "You interfered with our operations and cost us the cubone colony. The organization is after my head for this. You're lucky I'm not cracking your happiny's ball as we speak." He glanced back at the woman with a look of disgust. "Someone has a bleeding heart and doesn't think that's earned yet." He turned back to look at me and scowled. "If it were up to me, you would already be dead."

"Fortunately, that decision is not yours." The woman stepped forward, speaking with more force than I had expected. "He's not your mark, Vicious."

He backed off, but kept his cold gaze on me. "Bah, this is why I don't work with other divisions. You're all a bunch of softhearted shits. No spine when it comes time to put the screws to your mark"

The woman ignored him and stepped closer to me. "Let me put it in very simple terms. Your battle with Surge is in the morning." Her voice dropped low and she leaned in close. She produced a pokeball from one pocket and held it out to me. "You will win that battle," she said. "Or you will never see this ball again."

I took Curie's ball and curled my hand around it. I couldn't let that happen. "Not to ruin the plan," I started, my voice hoarse and my throat aching. "But how am I supposed to get to Vermillion by the morning?"

She smirked and looked back at the masked man. "We have our ways."

Their way turned out to include a white knuckle helicopter ride just over the tops of the trees. We roared over the trees, low enough to stay off of any ground based radar. I worried that we might be seen by an aerial patrol, but none crossed our path that night.

I had Curie asleep on my lap the entire ride. She passed out barely even ten minutes off the ground. I spent the entire ride staring daggers at the masked trainer, my free hand gently caressing the back of Curie's head. It passed by far too quickly.

We touched down in a clearing just north of Vermillion. I returned Curie to her ball and handed it over when ordered. It crushed me to do it, but I didn't have a choice. Like it or not, Curie and I were only alive because they needed us for something, something big. Otherwise, why blackmail a Silph trainer? I would play along for now, until the moment was right. Then I would find my way out.

The helicopter roared back into the night, leaving me completely alone in the small clearing. I relaxed my fists and looked down at the small, round, white rock in my hand. Curie's rock. She had dropped it in my lap and it didn't return to her ball with her. I made a silent promise to myself, that I'd get her back, give her back the silly little rock in my hand.

With a grunt and a sigh of exhaustion, I made my way to Vermillion. My legs felt like they were dragging through a snow drift and my head was groggy but I powered through the pain. I reached the gates of Vermillion before the sun rose. The rangers waved me through after checking my ID, something that I hadn't remembered when I first arrived. I chalked that up to entering the city during an active emergency.

I pulled out my pokegear and plugged it in once I reached the pokemon centre. I still had a few hours until sign in for my match, so after checking my pokemon in for some last minute emergency care, I flipped over to the phone feature. I had twelve missed calls and several texts from Gemma overnight.

I hit dial before I read the text. It rang once. "You sneaky little novice bastard," she said as the line picked up. "How the hell did you catch a cubone?"

I couldn't help the effortless smile that came to my face. I may have been in pain, but Gemma's enthusiasm was infectious. "Luck and persistence," I replied. "He's a fierce one too. Not a fan of Pride though. I swear I have to separate them at the end of every sparring session. He's already evolved into a marowak."

"Surge won't stand a chance against him," she said in a giddy tone. "His teams are mostly energy based attackers. The only real threat you'll face is his raichu, maybe his magneton but Luna counters that pretty well." She paused for a moment. "How did you even get a match? I thought you were still hiking up the coast another week at least."

I hesitated for a moment too long. "I… uhhhh… caught a teleport from Lavender. Something opened up for me and with Acolyte evolving so quickly I figured we were ready."

"You definitely are," she continued, missing my slight hesitation. "He walls basically anything Surge can throw at him. He always runs raichu-magneton as his core for intermediate matches, but the third always plays to your weaknesses." She paused for a half-moment. "What are they?" She asked.

"You'd know better than me," I said.

"No, I haven't seen Pride or Luna in over a month. Acolyte is completely new to me. I have no clue what their synergy is like, nor what their weaknesses would be."

I thought for a long moment. "Stopping power. We don't have the strength to brute force our way through a battle. We have to win with strategy more than strength."

I could practically hear the laugh in her voice. "Good luck, then. He's gonna bring his biggest glass cannon and try to blitz you down." She paused a moment. "He has speed on his side, with the exception of maybe Luna. He won't give you any time to set up. You'll be in for a fight from the opening moments of the battle."

I nodded. I missed Gemma, her sage advice and battle tips. It wasn't her fault that I couldn't tell her about Curie. "Thanks, Gemma."

She stopped talking. "No problem, novice."

"How's Saffron treating you?" I asked. "Still bored?"

There was a long pause, with both of us remaining silent. "Things are pretty bad," she finally said. "There was an attack the day after that guy came after us. They hit Silph headquarters in broad daylight and incited a riot in the markets. They put the city on lockdown. Nobody in or out of their homes. The streets are clear every day now. It's almost creepy to look down at what should be the busiest street in Kanto and see not a single person."

I sucked in a breath. It had to be connected to the masked trainer and the woman. I was beginning to suspect that there was a much larger conspiracy going on than I had originally thought. The woman likely worked with whoever was threatening Silph, and Vicious was from an entirely different division of their organization.

"You alright?" she asked. "You seem a little off today."

"I've been up all night. Couldn't sleep and…" I trailed off, unsure of what to say. I knew I was likely being listened to. "I… I watched a friend lose a pokemon yesterday." She didn't say anything so I continued. "I watched it happen and it was my fault. I led us into the situation. I was just trying to help some wild pokemon. I escalated the situation and his pokemon paid the price."

She was silent for a moment. "You didn't do it, you know. You didn't kill the pokemon yourself."

"I might as well have," I replied. "It was my fault. He wouldn't have been there if I hadn't led him into it."

She sighed. "Look, Marcus. You might be naïve but you aren't an asshole. Don't treat yourself like one. You tried to help some wild pokemon. It's not your fault that something bad happened."

I smiled. Maybe I couldn't tell Gemma what happened. But it was nice to talk to her all the same. She cared. Sometimes that's all you needed.

I was waiting at the doors of the gym when the receptionist arrived. She gave me a weak smile and unlocked the doors. She took my name down and disappeared into the back to flip on the lights.

The rows of lights flipped on one by one. The room was bare, save for the reception desk. It was large enough for my whole team and another dozen more pokemon. It was large enough to stage a battle in. I briefly thought that perhaps the battle would take place in here, but I cast the idea away as absurd.

A heavy set of footsteps followed the receptionist and I looked up. The Lightning Hero himself, Lieutenant Colonel Emmett 'Surge' Roth, Gym Leader of Vermillion City was looking down at me.

He was massive in a way that I had never seen before. He towered over me, his legs at least as thick around as my chest. I felt completely and utterly dwarfed by the monster of a man in front of me. "So you're my morning challenge?" he boomed. "Not often that I see a gym challenge set for twenty minutes after open." He smacked me on the back, practically dragging me with him.

I shot the receptionist a terrified look as Surge wheeled me away. She smirked and shook her head as we passed through the doors deeper into the gym.

Surge led me by the shoulder through his gym. We passed training rooms by the dozen, passed by a rowdy sounding hallway, deeper into the gym. Surge practically shoved me through the small door at the end of the hallway and squeezed through behind me.

He shut the heavy door and he deposited himself into a reclining chair behind the desk. He pulled a thick rolled cigar out of his shirt pocket and offered me one. "Genuine petilil. Straight out of Unova," he said. "Rolled it myself."

I reluctantly took the roll and held it awkwardly in my hand as I sat in the chair opposite him. "I was hoping we could have our battle, sir. I'm on a tight schedule, sir."

Surge eyed me through a growing cloud of smoke. "Cut the shit. I'm not your superior officer." He leaned back and glanced over at the trio of magnemite that I only just realized were hovering in the corner of the room. "Are we good?" He asked.

The magnemite let out an angry buzz and I felt my pokegear vibrate slightly in my pocket.

Surge looked at me and narrowed his eyes. He slowly opened a safe on the wall and pointed to the bulge in my jacket pocket. He gently took my pokegear from me and placed it in the safe. He gently closed the door and pressed the lock button.

"What was that about?" I asked cautiously.

His scowl could have curdled milk. "I don't trust anyone, much less a Silph trainer. Corruption runs deep in Kanto and Silph is at the centre of everything." He gestured at the safe. "You never know who could be listening with one of those things."

I raised an eyebrow. "So my league sponsor is up to no good?"

He shrugged. "I didn't say that. But I do know that an expert-level trainer who had been expecting an in-depth training session this morning was suddenly bumped and replaced with you, a novice with only three reported pokemon." He crossed his arms across his chest and looked me up and down. "Would you be able to explain that to me? Because I'm of half a mind to deny your challenge and go on my merry way."

"Please don't," I said quickly, discretion falling by the wayside as the woman cracked Curie's ball in my mind. "They'll kill her if I can't earn your badge."

The expression of frustration on Surge's face morphed into a sympathetic smile. "There are no ears in here except mine." He leaned forward and puffed heavily on his cigar. "Tell me everything."

I did. I spilled everything to the war hero in front of me. I told him what happened after the Cerulean gym match, told him about how I'd helped defend Vermillion during the tentacruel attack, told him about the woman who had shown up in my hotel room and taken Curie. I told him about my trip up the eastern coast of Kanto, about the cubone colony.

I told him about Blue, about how his raticate had died. I told him about the same stylized red R that I kept seeing. I told him how the woman had appeared last night with the tyranitar's trainer and threatened me with the death of my pokemon if I didn't earn the thunder badge by the end of the day.

He leaned back in his chair, chewing on the end of his cigar. "Did you get any names?" He asked carefully. "Any aliases we could use?"

I thought back carefully, mind racing through the night. "She called the man Vicious. He had a metal helmet that covered the top half of his head." I wracked my mind again but came up with nothing. "I didn't catch the woman's name at all."

Surge sighed and shook his head. He sat up and looked me in the eyes. "Look, kid," he started. "What I'm about to tell you is secret. Nobody can know. Not your mom, not your best friend, not any of your trainer buddies. Nobody."

I nodded slowly, wondering what fresh mess I was getting myself into.

"When I said corruption runs deep in Kanto, I meant it. Silph is compromised to a degree that I'm scared to even investigate." He got up and slid open the desk drawer. He pulled out a folder and opened it. For a short moment, he looked at the photo mournfully. "Something is rotten at the core of the league. Lance won't give me any straight answers about anything, we've had an empty Elite Four slot for months, Agatha has gone silent, Lorelei is her usual ice-bitch self… And Bruno is stuck in Saffron, dealing with whatever the hell is going on there. Pokemon traffickers run rampant, swarms of strangely evolved pokemon are attacking cities that haven't faced attack in decades, and I have Rangers across Kanto noting unusual wild pokemon movements."

He flipped a page and his expression hardened. "Someone is playing a dangerous game here. Someone very powerful."

He looked up at me and I saw the gravity of the situation in his eyes, saw the weight of responsibility laying on his back. "And that red R? It's at the centre of it all. It's on the periphery of every major event, just taunting me with its presence." He dropped the folder in front of me. "Notice anything?"

I looked down. It was three men, all of them laughing and posing for the picture. They were clad in fine suits and all held glasses of bubbly liquid in their hands. "A younger you," I said. "Is that the champion?" He nodded and I looked over at the last man and immediately focused in on the stylized R on his collar. "Who is that?"

"That is Leader Giovanni Sakai, of Viridian City. This is before he took that post, of course. Back when he was just part of the Indigo Aces. It's also the first instance I could find of that R appearing." He shook his head. "Just an aerospace firm… I don't think so." He rose to his feet and massaged his temples. "I don't have much, but something big is coming. I'm a soldier at heart. I can feel it in my bones. War's coming. And whatever that R is, it's at the centre of it all. It appears in too many places, is connected to too many unusual disturbances and events to be a coincidence. Someone is up to something, and I'd bet on Leader Sakai having answers."

I looked at the rest of the pictures. "More people with the R?" I asked. I pointed at the masked trainer. "That's Vicious," I said. "And that's the woman…"

"Domino," he said. "She doesn't appear to have any pokemon that we know of, however it doesn't appear as though she needs any."

I looked up at him, unsure of what to make of this. "What do you need me to do?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I never wanted the bullshit of command," he started. "I was always at home in the middle of the fight, not giving the orders from the back or sneaking around in the dark. All this conspiracy bullshit? It's not my kind of fight." He turned around and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Here's what we do. We have our battle."

I raised an eyebrow. "And then what?"

He met my eyes and I saw the tired in his eyes. "You'll play along, at least until I can figure out a way to get your happiny back safely." He turned and entered the combination for the safe. He pulled out my pokegear and held it out to me. "I only have one question, trainer Wright. Are you ready for our battle?"

I nodded and looked him in the eyes. I wasn't ready. I was exhausted from a night of no sleep. My brain was throbbing and my throat still ached from Vicious choking me. My pokemon were not rested and we hadn't done any specific training for the battle. We were strong, probably strong enough to win, but I didn't like leaving things to chance. "I am ready, sir."

He rose from his seat and opened the door. "Follow me," he ordered. "Your battle will begin shortly."

I rose to my feet and followed the living legend through the gym. We didn't speak. We didn't have to. I had to win. Everything else was irrelevant.

Pokédex Entry #248 – Tyranitar

This fearsome predator is almost solely found in the Argent Mountain range that divides the Kan-Jo supercontinent. These impressively powerful pokemon are capable of reshaping entire landscapes with their raw strength.

Tyranitar are inherently aggressive. They attack at the first perceived slight, often for trivial reasons. It is highly recommended that trainers avoid these pokemon at all costs.

They make their nests in the hollowed out shells of broken mountains. Almost no records of tyranitar reproduction exist, but mother tyranitar appear to have strong bonds with young larvitar. It is unknown whether this bond remains as the young age, as tyranitar are solitary creatures that are seldom seen in a peaceful state.

Novice Trainer KT# 07996101, Marcus Wright, current team

Luna, Vulpix

Pride, Nidorino

Acolyte, Marowak