Vindicator

Part 6

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The night did not go well for Jason. During his waking moments, which were far too many for as tired as he was, he felt himself forced to admit that Kelly’s concerns might be valid after all. His dreams were less dreams than they were nightmares, no doubt a side effect of having Kangaskhan as part of his team. They were the same images it had shown him before... perhaps slightly more refined, but only marginally so. Definition to their faces still eluded him. All he could truly see of them was the deep-voiced thug was short and stocky, while his companion was tall and wiry. The boss stood somewhere in between the two.

The last straw for him had been waking in a cold sweat an hour before dawn. There he lay for a long time afterward, simply staring up at the sky, either unwilling or unable to continue the fight to sleep peacefully. The panorama above him shifted from starry evening to pale blue morning and the sun lazily peeked above the eastern horizon.

He drew in a breath and blew it out, then finally sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyelids lazily drooped halfway over his eyes and he felt himself momentarily tempted to try sleeping once more... but he knew that soon enough, Kelly would awaken and they would need to hit the trail. The sooner we’re on the move, the better, he thought.

He already had most of his side of their campsite dealt with and stowed away by the time Kelly was stirring from within her tent. She poked her head out through the flap to see him securing his bedroll to the underside of his backpack. “Rough night?” she asked.

He shrugged. “About what you’d expect, I guess. You go ahead and get ready to go, I’m gonna look around, see if I can find a few Pokémon to send back to the professor.”

Jason could tell from the look on her face she was slightly surprised by that declaration, but although he was certain she had some sort of smart remark on the tip of her tongue – she always did – this time she chose not to release it.

He was careful not to even let his fingers brush across Kangaskhan’s Dusk Ball. He didn’t want to consider what might happen if he released her against a wild Pokémon... likely as not, the poor victim would run away in terror before he ever had a chance to withdraw a capture ball of any kind. Anything that wouldn’t do that is just stupid, he thought.

It was only a few minutes into his search that he heard a scuffle in the grass, followed by a yip and a growl. He turned in that direction and edged closer; he could hear more yelping and snarling in the taller grass, and abruptly there was a crackling noise and a puff of smoke that rose up in front of him.

He spread wide two fistfuls of high wheat and pushed his head beyond it to inspect the cause of the commotion. His curiosity was rewarded with the sight of two Pokémon that gave him a moment’s pause – a ruffled-looking Growlithe and a slim Vulpix, circling about each other in a clear face-off.

“Uh-oh, territorial dispute,” he muttered, before his brain could stop his mouth from working.

That was all the apparent combatants needed to look in his direction, their expressions each bearing a measure of surprise and anger... he had just interrupted their match of dominance.

...Oh, hell.

Both of them began to take steps toward him, suddenly intent upon this new and much larger intruder into their already disputed territory. His instinctive response was to reach down to his belt and withdraw the Poké Ball belonging to Gyarados; his finger jammed down on the activation stud and he tossed into the clearing in a single hurried motion. As soon as it emerged, the massive sea serpent moved in between the two diminutive Fire-Type Pokémon and blasted a roar at them loud enough to shake the ground. Instantly the Vulpix seemed to wilt from the noise without Gyarados even needing to expend the energy to look at it. The Growlithe, on the other hand, let out a defiant snarl and lunged forward to bash its head against Gyarados’ side.

Gyarados barely shifted in place. Growlithe, meantime, bounced away and let out a surprised yelp. The only reward it really earned from the attempted tackle was Gyarados’ full and undivided attention – something it quickly realized it didn’t want as Gyarados’ eyes bored into its own. It let out a whimper as Gyarados drew itself up and to full height.

“Gyarados,” Jason warned. “Go easy on these two. I want them.”

He could almost hear the dissatisfied snort in the breath of air that blew from its nostrils... but the massive snake complied with its trainer’s wishes, and broadly swept its tail around. There was no feasible way for Growlithe to dodge the attack and it had no choice but to be struck; it let out another yelp, this time of pain, and bounced once across the grassy clearing. The tail continued moving and impacted against Vulpix, as well, which even now was still cowering under the intimidating presence of Jason’s pride and joy. The small red fox landed not too far away from Growlithe and lay on the ground perfectly still – playing dead, he thought. Looks pretty timid. Maybe that’ll make it a little easier to catch.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of Poké Balls even while Growlithe looked interested in struggling its way back to its feet. “Gyarados, again for that one, but not too hard.”

Gyarados obliged; as it did so, Jason relinquished just enough trust in his Pokémon to turn to Vulpix and cast a ball in its direction. Only at the last instant did it realize the ball was hurtling toward it, and it had no time to react. The ball transformed it into energy in one instant and encapsulated it in the next, then hit the ground and rolled about for several seconds – then came to a slow stop, and vanished into a red haze.

Jason smirked, then turned around, and saw that Gyarados had actually grabbed Growlithe up in its mouth and was bearing it to Jason not unlike a pet Persian carrying a half-eaten Rattata or Pidgey to its owner’s doorstep, proud of the kill it had made. For a single moment, Jason feared that Gyarados had done the poor creature in – but no, it was still breathing, and one eye was still open. Gyarados’ jaws had caught it at the nape of its neck, effectively paralyzing it and making it unable to struggle any further.

Jason tilted his head. “Huh. Not bad. Now drop him.”

Almost before Growlithe hit the ground, another Poké Ball went flying to capture its prey. Like its predecessor, the ball did not fail its owner and kept Growlithe contained within until the Pokémon could no longer battle its own capture.

“I guess the words ‘not bad’ work well enough.”

Jason scoffed and removed Gyarados’ Poké Ball from his belt to recall his Pokémon. “Now you gonna reward yourself for hocking me into a capturing frenzy?”

“Not really in a position to reward myself for anything regarding you,” Kelly noted, and she stepped past the grass she’d been patiently waiting behind. “And I wouldn’t really call four Pokémon plus a ghost a ‘frenzy’. But I can treat myself to a few new Pokémon here and there. Just caught a Bellsprout and sent it off to the professor. I might trade in for it, though... I kind of like Bellsprouts.”

“You? Liking something?” Jason chuckled and brushed his hands off on his vest, moving to return to the campsite. “Who’d have thought?”

“Shut up.” She pursed her lips and crossed her arms while following behind him. “Anyway, I’m ready to go.”

“Good. Let’s get to it.”

–

The day was mostly devoted to traveling the path to Saffron City and finding as many Pokémon as slight deviations from that path would allow. Jason’s distinct sense of urgency relating to the mission he’d accepted from Kangaskhan was, he knew, as much from himself as it was from her. He wanted to help her find her killers... she really wanted to find her killers. He wondered if perhaps it was that urgency that was inhibiting his ability to formulate a concrete plan.

Grasses and wooded areas together created a fascinating mixture of terrain to choose from while walking the beaten path, which was paved in some areas and merely packed dirt in others. It was as though developers had considered the region with promise, but given up for some unknown reason in the middle of building what they considered a “modern” road. Jason could only imagine some Pokémon likely took issue with the polluting nature of some chemicals found in road tar. Trampling their homes... not such a good idea, he mused. He recalled hearing of at least a couple architects trying to invent some new, environmentally-friendly tar based on the gunk produced by Grimers and Muks, but he doubted it would gain much popularity unless they could find a way to extract the heinous odors present in the bodily fluids of those Pokémon.

His continued pursuit of Pokémon, further egged on by Kelly, culminated in the discovery and subsequent captures of a Mankey and a Meowth, each of which having been made to face not Gyarados, but a slightly “lesser” member of the team. For Mankey, it was Spearow – Jason saw no sense in putting any of his own Pokémon in greater danger than they needed to be – while Meowth confronted Rattata. In each case, Jason felt both pride in his own Pokémon’s abilities, as well as thankfulness that he’d had the foresight to stock up on curative items. Mankey might not have been able to deliver much of a hit on a winged creature, but Meowth had gotten in a few good scratches on Rattata, leaving Jason to put a healing potion to good use.

Jason knelt down and scratched Rattata behind the ears; the purple-furred rodent slapped a rear foot against the ground in a display of ecstasy more reminiscent of dogs than members of its various relative species. He looked up at Kelly. “Have we reached frenzy level yet?” he inquired.

“You’ve reached twenty Pokémon,” she answered. “Which I suppose might be admirable to some, but you might find that a lot of trainers, even the choosy ones, will have at least twice as many as that after the same amount of time spent on their journeys. So don’t let yourself swell up with too much pride just yet.”

He rolled his eyes. “Let’s be serious, if you saw that I had every cradle in my five hundred slots filled, you’d want me to go ask Professor Oak to give me another shelf.”

She shrugged. “Doubt it. Honestly, I’ve got really no emotional investment or interest whatsoever in your collection. Just a professional one. The sooner you’ve satisfied the professor on what he wants, the sooner the two of us can go our own ways, and I’m sure we’ll both be much happier for it. So as far as that goes, I’m glad to see you’re taking the collection business a little more seriously than you seemed to be before.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess.” He returned Rattata to its ball, then glanced at his watch. “Almost noon. Think we can make it into town before two? I wanna get this thing going.”

“Didn’t you say we’re traveling at your pace, anyway?” she remarked. “Move as fast or as slow as you want. Bet you I can keep up just fine.”

A dull roar met their ears, coming up behind them on the main throughway. They turned, and saw a pair of motorcycles tearing up the road and belching black smoke. Jason couldn’t recall offhand the last speed limit sign he’d seen on the road, but he was fairly certain these two were in great excess of it – and the motorcycles were nearly upon them in the time it had taken him to conceive that thought, looking for all the world like they might actually run the two teens over.

But then, in tandem, they came to a screeching halt, grinding the dirt even more and throwing up a tan cloud that intermingled with the dark smoke from their mufflers. The rider on the left, a muscular sort with a mohawk and a leather vest hanging from the shoulders of an otherwise bare torso, had stopped a few feet ahead of his compatriot, and he peered over his handlebars and shook a fist at Jason and Kelly. “Hey, you kids!” he shouted. “Do the world a favor and move your issues off the road!”

Jason and Kelly responded in unison. “You first!” They exchanged looks upon the revelation that they’d said the same thing, for once in complete agreement with each other.

The second motorcyclist glowered down at them from his mount. “Get lost, kids, some of us actually need the road and don’t have time to stop. Ought to be glad we did at all.”

“You expecting thanks for that?” Jason snapped back.

“I didn’t see any sign saying this road belonged only to punks with mufflers between their legs,” Kelly supplemented.

The first rider let out a spiteful bark of a laugh, and threw down his bike’s kick stand. “Sounds like fighting words to me,” he answered. He tilted his head in the direction of his companion. “What do you say, Ric?”

The other biker, who seemed almost a mirror image of his fellow rider, likewise put down his kick stand and dismounted his vehicle. He wore a smirk that suggested a wealth of self-confidence. “Sounds like they could use a lesson in manners, Jaren.”

“Manners?” Kelly spluttered, while at the same time, Jason scoffed, “Yeah, right!” But they both recognized the danger being presented to them – these two were actually rather imposing from a physical standpoint – so their hands hovered tentatively near their capture ball belts.

The one called Jaren didn’t miss the hesitant gestures and chuckled. “Actually, looks like they’re fairly itchin’ for a fight, now, Ric. Well, let’s get to it, then, we’ve gotta get back to the rest of the group soon.” He got off his own bike and stood to the left side of the road, in direct opposition to Jason. “Think I want this one, he looks like he wants a bigger bite than he can chew.”

“You have no idea how right that is,” Kelly muttered, which got her a sidelong glare from her companion; but then her attention became occupied by Ric, who had removed a Poké Ball from his leather jacket and already enlarged it.

“S’fine with me, I don’t mind seconds. Long as they’re not sloppy.” He leered at her. “I got four-sixty says you can’t handle a two-on-two.”

“Give me a break,” she scoffed, but all the same, she removed from her belt the Friend Ball in which she had captured Haunter. “You want to show me you’re not a chump, don’t put up chump change.”

Jaren let out a bark of a laugh at her remark and the scowl it earned from her opponent. “Well, she showed you,” he said, then he turned to Jason. “Mine’s four-eighty and I’m game for a two-on-two.”

“Some big spender you are,” Jason responded. “But sure, I’ll match. Bring it on.”

Almost as one, the two bikers tossed their Poké Balls into the road, now an impromptu arena for their battle. The one Jaren had chosen revealed itself to be a Grimer, a sentient purple pile of sludge that seemed as likely to collapse upon itself as perform in a battle with any hint of adequacy. To the other side, Ric had sent forth a Koffing – a porous balloon-shaped creature that, like its companion, was the dark violet color of the poisonous properties their bloods shared, and it was held aloft by a brownish cloud of even more toxic vapors.

Kelly’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Normally I might have objected to fighting in the road but now I’m glad we didn’t move out of the way. Those things kill the environment.”

“Then show us your Pokémon, already,” Ric snapped.

“Gladly.” She enlarged her Friend Ball and her Haunter was released into the air. Its eyes glowed a fierce red and the grin across its face was nothing short of sadistic; when Jason looked at it, he half-expected it to be rubbing its hands together like some fiendish arch-villain out of the cartoons he’d used to watch in his early years.

“Let’s go, slowpoke!” Jaren called, and it was only then that Jason realized he’d yet to release a Pokémon of his own into the battle.

“Uh...” Jason fumbled for a moment, leaving the other three combatants to roll their eyes and mutter various curses under their breaths. Inwardly he cursed both himself and them – himself for being so dumbfounded, them for their reactions. Fine, if they’re going to act like that, let’s see what these jokers think of this! “Let’s take it to ‘em, Gyarados!”

Gyarados let out a violent roar upon solidifying, and it had a satisfying effect on the opposing Grimer – suddenly its Poison-Type antagonist didn’t look quite like it was prepared to battle. But Jaren seemed annoyingly unmoved by the huge sea serpent, and crossed his arms confidently. “Grimer, give Gyarados a Sludge attack!”

Ric was quick to get on his companion’s heels. “Koffing, use Smokescreen!”

Although it had been Grimer to receive the first instruction, Koffing was the first to move – and it didn’t move so much as it sprayed. From each of the crater-like pores in its bulbous body there wafted a dark, inky haze that seemed to take on a life of its own and quickly spread across their side of the field like a wall. Jason exchanged a quick look with Kelly; but that was his mistake, because through the darkness there emerged a fistful of dark purple muck that struck Gyarados squarely in the face.

Jason winced in sympathy while Gyarados shook its massive head, trying to rid itself of the disgusting mess that had just assaulted it... but then the trainer realized the sludge was going to do more than that, as he saw some of the briny fluid swimming about in Gyarados’ eyes. The poison a Grimer produces can be controlled by it, to some extent, he recalled from his studies, and if it’s in Gyarados’ eyes, it’s not going to stay there for very long. Grimer will make it travel through his system and weaken him. Better get this fight overwith while I can!

Kelly was staring at Jason cockeyed over the upper edge of her glasses, reminding him a little too much of his teachers back home, and he knew what she was thinking – I’m an idiot for putting my best Pokémon out there like it’s invincible. Yeah, yeah...

But she returned her gaze to the opposing side of the field and loosed her first order of the battle. “Haunter, use Confuse Ray on Koffing!”

Haunter wasted no time in following her command, waving its hands about in front of it as though operating a marionette. Jason almost felt hypnotized by the effect himself, even though he knew that was an impossibility; it was intended only for its target. And in spite of the murky cloud between them, Haunter’s attack found its mark – Kelly’s mouth turned up in a grim smirk when she spotted Koffing suddenly spinning erratically in place.

Jason took a deep breath and looked up at Gyarados. The massive Pokémon was still futilely trying to blink away the slime in its vision; and Jason could already see an odd violet hue propagating in spider-web fashion beneath Gyarados’ translucent blue scales. Let’s try to make this both impressive and fast. Grimer’s not gonna like this one so much... “Gyarados, Earthquake!”

Kelly held up a hand in warning. “Jason, wait, not on the road–!”

But it was too late, and Gyarados – either in sympathy with Jason’s sense of urgency or simply complying with its own – was already in motion. It arched backward, and then slammed the bulk of its body into the ground, instantly creating an impact crater around it. A crag in the earth formed, and the split snaked with uncanny accuracy towards Grimer. It let out a bass cry just before the crack split beneath its oily form; the creature, with no proper bodily structure to speak of, had no choice but to leak into the crevice.

All at once, the crag snapped shut in a rolling shudder that nearly forced all four trainers off their feet entirely – and it seemed for one terrifying instant that Grimer had been forever trapped. But before anyone could react, another mighty shake of the ground forced an irregular chunk of the road to suddenly eject upward almost as high as Jason was tall.

And against one side of that chunk was a thick purple smear with a quivering face. The horrifying fluid that comprised Jaren’s Grimer rolled down the side of the newly-formed boulder and pooled amidst the rubble at its base. It did not rise back up to fight, however, and Jason could not blame it for that – he would have found it unnerving if it had.

The look Jaren cast at Jason was not one of defeat or irritation, but one of equal parts anger and horror. It seemed to say, How could you do that to my Pokémon?!

All of a sudden, Jason realized he didn’t have an answer for that question – and now he understood why Kelly had tried to warn him. Maybe she knew something like that would happen... or maybe she was just worried about what it would do to the road itself. Whichever... I’m not sure if I even wanna battle now, after that...

Grimer was already going back into its trainer’s ball, and Jaren, for his part, looked like he was out for more than just victory in a Pokémon battle. “You’re gonna pay for that, kid!” he bellowed, and he tossed out another ball. “Muk, let’s get him back for that!”

The creature that emerged from Jaren’s second ball was much in appearance as its predecessor had been, but larger, thicker, and possibly more disgusting than Grimer. Its voice was also deeper, and it belched out a defiant contrabass “Muuuk!” that rumbled the ground.

Jason narrowed his eyes at the Pokémon. “It’s just a bigger version of your Grimer, you think an Earthquake won’t beat him, too?”

“He’s my Grimer’s father,” Jaren snapped, “and I spent a lot of time an’ care on him. He’s not gonna like you splattering his kid. Muk, take it to him with Mean Look, for starters!”

Jason tilted his head while Muk affixed Gyarados with as angry and determined a stare as he had ever seen his own Pokémon give to anything else. Though it was not truly an attack upon Gyarados, Jason knew the effect it would have – Gyarados won’t return to his Poké Ball until either he’s down or Muk is. That’s not gonna be good as long as he’s poisoned.

Ric, meantime, seemed to be addled as to how to handle his Koffing, which was still spinning about uncontrollably. “Koffing, snap out of it, man! Show Haunter a Smog attack!”

Kelly loosed a sharp, unamused laugh. “What are you, brain-dead? That won’t even slow Haunter down – assuming the attack even goes through at all.”

In spite of her prediction, or perhaps because of it, Koffing seemed to gather just enough focus to straighten itself out and perform the attack: a blast of horrendous black smoke that surrounded Haunter entirely and closed about it like a vice. But Haunter’s glowing red eyes continued to pierce through even that veil, so bright that they could be seen from either side of its body... a fair enough indication that it was hardly even fazed by the attack.

“That’s it, Haunter, now use Shadow Punch!” Kelly encouraged.

The twin red jewels within the smog cloud vanished – at the same time, Koffing let out a yell and sharply tumbled backwards, almost into its trainer. As it recovered, Haunter reappeared near Kelly, chuckling and cracking the knuckles if its right hand.

Jason didn’t dare reach out to touch Gyarados in the middle of battle, but he did snap at it to acquire its attention from Mean Look. “Gyarados! You can take him, now prove it!” He stopped himself before he could instruct it to perform another Earthquake attack, however, at the sight of Kelly’s pointed glare in his direction. Pick something else? Okay, then... “Use Bite!”

He felt something in his stomach lurch when Gyarados lunged out and clamped its jaws about Muk, comprised as it was of nothing but appalling, death-tempting fluid, and knew instantly that he regretted giving Gyarados that instruction – if anything, it was simply going to hasten the serpent’s defeat by ingesting even a teaspoon of Muk’s filth. Nevertheless, Gyarados’ constitution seemed to hold out and Muk let out a roar of pain and anger.

Jaren wasn’t content to let the poisons coursing through Gyarados’ system to have all the fun, however, and while Gyarados still had its mouth clamped about Muk, he shouted out, “Muk, you’ve got him close, use Thunderpunch!”

Oh, great... “Gyarados, get out of the way!” Jason called. But there was no time for Gyarados to comply; Muk, with surprising quickness, had congealed a fist out of its mass of purple slime, and that fist was sparking with electrical fury. Just as Gyarados was releasing its jaws from its foe, Muk slammed its fist into Gyarados just beneath its gullet, and the great serpent seized and shuddered uncontrollably as thousands of volts were released into it. Jason almost thought he could see steam rising from it once the attack had taken its course, and Gyarados recoiled with its head hanging low.

He needs to retreat, he can’t keep taking this kind of punishment. But I can’t call him back because of Mean Look! Jason grit his teeth. The only way for Gyarados to win this one is Earthquake, but if I do it again...

“Koffing!” Ric shouted. “Use Assurance!”

But this time, instead of obeying, Koffing spun even more rapidly on several axes at once, and then suddenly erupted into a massive fireball that bowled its trainer over. The other three combatants winced and shielded their eyes, but the incident had taken only an instant; when the vapors cleared, Koffing was a charred, deflated pile on the ground, in no condition to battle further. The dark haze that had provided cover to the bikers’ side evaporated, leaving the field as clear to the eye as it had been in the beginning.

“I don’t think Selfdestruct was what you had in mind,” Kelly remarked, “was it?”

Ric sneered, then recalled his fainted Pokémon to its ball and tossed out another to take its place. “So maybe Koffing doesn’t cut it, but I’ll bet my Grimer can!”

When the declared Pokémon arrived on the field, looking like a cousin to its compatriot to its right, Kelly scoffed. “Nothing but Poison-Types? You guys need to change it up more. Haunter, Shadow Punch!”

Again, Haunter vanished into thin air at the command, and Grimer seemed to recoil from nothing at all a moment later; it hadn’t even had time to try to put up a guard, to say nothing of figuring out where the attack would have come from anyway.

Gyarados was lurching sickly to one side, and the dark poisons running through its bloodstream had corrupted its color almost entirely by now, but it still appeared to want to fight. Jason’s lips were set in a grim line. I’ve gotta do it. “Gyarados, Earthquake, one more time!”

“Jason!” Kelly protested.

Gyarados was not content to hear her argument, however, and it slammed into the ground full-force once more. It produced a different effect than it had before – instead of creating a fissure for Muk to fall into, the attack caused the massive boulder to Muk’s right side to shudder and crack, and then crumble into a rock slide that washed over the creature of sludge in a bath of gravel and tar. The ground trembled and quaked beneath the combatants’ feet a moment more, and then the slice of road Muk had been occupying jutted into the air, becoming more of a pedestal or monument to the overwhelmed Pokémon.

A slime-covered hand punched its way out through the rubble that had buried its owner, and a moment later Muk wormed its way out through the hole it had created – still able to fight, but obviously weakened, as its movement was less like quicksilver and more like peanut butter. It belched out a low “Muuuk...” as it emerged and slid down the side of the outcropping.

Gyarados, on the other hand, was not so fortunate; the Earthquake attack had taken everything out of it, and it now lay prostrate on the ground, unable to continue any further. Jason resisted the urge to react in a myriad of unsavory ways at having arguably his best Pokémon go down to a pile of garbage and simply held out its ball. “Gyarados, return.”

“S’what you get, kid,” Jaren sneered, “thinkin’ you can just mouth off like that an’ get away with it. Bring on your next one, I’ll take that out, too.”

Jason shot a sideways glance at Kelly, who like the others was waiting to see what he would do. She has an edge with her Haunter, he’s barely taken any damage yet and he can resist Grimer’s poison. I’d better follow suit on that one. He plucked a Dusk Ball from his belt and tossed it up. “Let’s go, Gastly!”

When Gastly emerged from its ball, it had only to take one look around the field to know why it had been called upon, and it looked eagerly at Muk. In fact, it almost looked to Jason as though it were... salivating?

“Poison. Poison all around,” Kelly muttered.

“Let’s see how it measures up to this,” Jaren announced. “Muk, use Payback!”

Jason felt himself stiffen while Muk whirled its fist about. That’s gonna hurt Gastly a lot...

The punch was thrown, Muk’s arm extending across the field like a thick, slime-covered bungee cord. And though Gastly should have been immaterial enough for the strike to simply pass through it, Muk’s fist hit its mark and clobbered Jason’s relatively weak Ghost-Type Pokémon between the eyes. Gastly could offer no resistance to the attack and it rolled backwards through the air, a beach ball amidst a hurricane. It righted itself after a moment, but it sagged in midair and for a brief moment Jason feared the strike had been a one-hit knockout. But no... Gastly stayed aloft, albeit with a loud, shuddering moan of pain.

“Gotta get you to train my Grimer someday, Jaren,” Ric said in admiration. Then he turned to his side of the battle. “Grimer, use Sludge!”

Kelly scoffed again. “Haunter, Sucker Punch!”

Just as Grimer had reared its hand back to launch a glob of gunk at its opponent, Haunter vanished from sight again, this time to reappear an instant later directly in front of its opponent. It delivered a brutal gut punch to the poison-covered Pokémon, causing Grimer to temporarily lose its cohesion and splash back into its own puddle of goo. By the time it regained control of itself, Haunter had already returned to its own side of the field.

Grimer then launched its attack as it had intended to, but whereas the sludge had proven nothing short of deadly for Gyarados, it seemed to simply absorb into Haunter’s semi-transparent form instead. The phantasm let out a belly laugh. “Honta-honta-ha-haaa!”

“You made my Pokémon laugh. Consider that your biggest accomplishment in this battle,” Kelly noted.

Jason clenched his teeth together as he prepared for his next command. Could be the last move Gastly gets in... better make it count. But it looks like Muk is almost down, so it should work. “Gastly, use Night Shade!”

“Gaaasss...” Gastly let out another quavering moan and shuddered in place, seeming to phase out of reality entirely with its movement – and then Jason’s eyes were drawn to Muk, which suddenly seemed to have a miniature black cloud descend all around it like a cloak. There was a muffled belch that erupted from it... and then the black fog lifted, to the sight of Muk collapsing upon itself and bubbling down.

Jason pumped his fist in victory. “Yes!” he cheered.

“Gaa-gaa...” Gastly also appeared elated, or at least as much as it could seem that way – but there was no mistaking it was still reeling from the pain of Muk’s Payback punch. Still, it’s over now, and a good thing, too, Jason thought. It probably couldn’t take another one of those. He pulled out his PDA and held it up for Jaren to see. “All right, you said four-eighty. An apology wouldn’t hurt, either.”

Jaren scoffed and removed his own PDA from his pocket. “Got nothin’ to apologize to you for, short stuff, but a wager’s a wager.” He tapped in a command; Jason’s device beeped a moment later, letting him know the transaction was complete.

Kelly’s reaction to the sight of Jaren’s defeat was to cross her arms and look pointedly at Ric. “If his Muk couldn’t beat a Gastly, your Grimer isn’t going to do any better against my Haunter. Maybe you want to give up now before I whomp you?”

Ric scowled at Kelly in return for a long moment, and his mouth opened to offer a response – but whatever he had to say didn’t come out. Instead, his gaze shifted from her to a point on the horizon between the two teenage combatants, which in turn caused them to likewise frown and look at whatever it was that had grabbed his attention.

Just over the next hill, they could see a trio of motorcycles much like the ones Jaren and Ric had been riding, coming from the direction of Saffron City. Even from this distance, they could see the long, disheveled black hair the lead biker was sporting, styled in a horrendous mohawk that only drew attention to his bulbous head. Perhaps more striking than this, however, was the presence of a Pokémon astride his handlebars – a Flareon whose ears were flared out from the force of the wind against them.

“Who’s that? Harris?” Ric said, squinting at the trio.

Jaren let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. “Yeah, Harris, and he’s got Zeke and Dwayne with him.”

“So what do I do? I was about to give up to this chick.”

Jaren tilted his head at Ric. Ric shrugged. “I mean, she’s right, it’s stupid to keep fighting if all that’s gonna happen is Grimer gets flattened.”

“Fine,” Jaren scoffed, “you can do that if you want, but Harris might not like it. Wouldn’t expect him to try to get that money back for you.”

Jason was working hard not to give them any visible reaction, but he was suddenly starting to feel very unsure about the circumstances. That Flareon looks like less of a pushover than Muk was. And who knows what the other two guys have? I don’t like the idea of having to face this many trainers, especially after Gyarados is down and Gastly’s barely keeping it together.

Kelly lent voice to Jason’s concerns. “Hang on,” she said. “Battling you guys is one thing, but you can’t just foist your buddies on us ‘cause you decided to be sore losers.”

“We’re not being sore losers,” Jaren returned. “We lose, we pay the wager. But we aren’t the only members of our gang, so if you wanna take one of us, you better be ready to take all of us.”

“Hey, it’s not like we wanted the fight,” Jason protested. “It was you guys that came roaring up at us like you were gonna run us over. What, you’re gonna try and push us around just because you think you can? ‘Cause that’s why we’re standing here right now.”

“Good for you, kid, you pushed back,” Ric snapped. “Now our friends can show you what it’s like to fall down.”

And then there was no more time to argue the point – the three new bikers were bearing down behind Kelly and Jason. The leader stayed directly behind them, while his wingmen went to either side of the teens, leaving them effectively encircled by the gang.

The leader hopped off his bike and stepped forward. As he did, his Flareon jumped up onto his right shoulder, posture never altering from head thrust far forward; it seemed determined to stare pointedly at whatever was directly in front of it. When the leader spoke, it was with a thick brogue. “What’s all this, now?”

“Hey, Harris,” Jaren spoke up. “We were on our way to meet you when we, uh... we had to slow down for these kids.”

“Slow down. You’re funny.” Harris’ tone didn’t sound remotely amused, and his sallow face spoke far more to irritation than anything else. “You know, maybe if you weren’t wasting your time on battling riffraff, maybe – just maybe – you might have arrived on time.”

“Riffraff?” Kelly repeated, and she started to step forward... but Jason held up a hand to indicate she should stop; his expression imparted to her his opinion that this argument was not theirs just yet.

“C’mon, Harris, we were trying to get there as fast as we could,” Ric said. “Besides, what difference does it make if we miss the appointment? You guys were there, right?”

“What difference?” Harris scoffed. “He had five ready for us, one apiece. You know dumb and disorganized it looks when two clients out of five don’t even show up? I even tried to cover for you two – I told him you’d be getting there in just a minute. But he didn’t have a minute, and he wasn’t gonna give me Pokémon that weren’t for me. So now I look like a bloomin’ idiot who can’t control the group, and you two are out what could have been really strong Pokémon for yourselves... ‘stead of that Muk you’re so fond of.”

“Hang on, there’s a reason I’m fond of him, I put a lot of time and effort into him,” Jaren returned... but the weight of conviction was not behind his words, leaving the protestation sounding half-hearted at best.

Harris seemed to seize upon that hesitation. “Fat lot o’ good that did you, you got two KO-ed Pokémon to show for it.” At the confused looks from all four combatants, he chucked a thumb at the wingman on Kelly’s right. “When we came up over the hill, Zeke saw you were already at it, so we just stopped and waited. I figured, maybe these two kids challenged you to a battle? Maybe they got in the way, wouldn’t let you past without getting run over?” He arched an eyebrow at Jason. “How ‘bout it, kid? You keepin’ my guys from goin’ where they need to go?”

Jason spread his arms wide. “Hey, they were the ones shouting at us to get off the road. We’d have moved, probably, if they’d said it nicer, or maybe they could have off-roaded for all of two seconds. They don’t own it all and we didn’t feel like being pushed around.”

Harris stroked his chin for a moment. “Well... gotta say I admire your spirit, kid. But now, you know, I have to battle you, and so do Dwayne and Zeke here.”

Kelly frowned. “What for?”

“Well, honor system, for one thing.” He pointed at Ric and Jaren, who both were looking suitably ashamed. “These guys are blockheads, but they’re still my blockheads, and I’m gonna make sure they’re fought for.”

“Their Pokémon already fought for them and lost, that should be the end of the story,” Jason answered.

Harris shook his head. “Nope, goes further than that. Brothers fight for each other, you know? Blood or not, you get your brothers’ and sisters’ backs or you don’t deserve to have any. Any one of them, they’d fight for me, or each other. We all help each other out. Got me?”

Jason held up his hand again, this time in Harris’ direction. “I don’t want to battle you.”

A dark smirk passed across the motorcyclist’s face. “Well, like it or not, kid, I’m here to battle you, and you can’t turn down a challenge once issued... and even if you tried, we’d be making sure that wouldn’t happen. So show me what you got.”

Jason felt his heart begin to race at the prospect of having to continue the fight against three more people. Even with Kelly helping out, I don’t think I have anything that can beat that Flareon on his shoulder... and if she hasn’t had this much field time, she won’t have anything that powerful, either...

He felt a shuddering on his belt.

He frowned and looked down. The Dusk Ball in which Kangaskhan had been caught was physically trembling on his waist – and its shaking was becoming more violent with each instant. Before he could even consider options as to what to do about it, the ball shook off his belt entirely and bounced to the ground.

Harris tilted his head, and Jason didn’t have to look at the others to sense them engaging in similar reactions. But it was only Harris that offered a vocal response. “What’s that, now?”

The ball shook again, and rolled onto the stud in its center, causing it to enlarge.

Then it split open, pouring orange energy and dark smoke up into the air.

–

Harris and his gang stood in the darkness of the vast room; the gang leader was feeling acutely aware of how cold it was in the open space, despite the brightness of the singular floodlight aimed in their direction – it threatened to overwhelm his vision. He restrained the urge to tug on the collar of his shirt... it seemed to be closed about his neck uncomfortably.

The sharp voice that had greeted him upon entry had not yet spoken in response to the tale he had been brought in to tell. He began to wonder if its owner had actually left the room during the story.

But then, after another lengthy moment, it did deign to offer up a reply. “I expect better from my employees... even secondhand ones. I don’t offer you Pokémon simply out of the charity of my heart. I expect you to use them. If that’s a goal you can’t accomplish, I suggest you inform me now, so that I may take back what was given you and redistribute it to those who can.”

“Hold up,” Harris protested. “Maybe you didn’t hear me say phrases like, ‘it came out of nowhere’ and ‘they disappeared’. Other than the ball falling off his belt, what warning did we have? And even then, we had no idea what was gonna pop out of there.”

“To enact momentum on a capture ball while still inside it takes an incredible concentration of will and strength. This is to say nothing of actually escaping one. You won’t find that just anywhere. That should have been sufficient warning for you. You should consider yourself fortunate the creature did not obliterate you and your cohorts where you stood.”

“Hey, you said you gave us Pokémon that would do the job.”

“Yes, to capture it, but it would appear someone else already has,” the voice hissed; Harris tried not to flinch or cringe, but only succeeded in holding back the latter. “And by himself, at that. An extraordinary feat, I should think, considering three of you in supposed tandem were unable to contain it. It should have been five of you fighting for this prize on my behalf. A shame two of your number could not seem to get their act together enough to arrive on time for their part of the transaction. But then again, given the apparently phenomenal conglomeration of incompetence that stands before me, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Harris glowered – the only word he’d understood out of that chain of big ones, and maybe the only one he needed to, was incompetence. “Let’s see you do better,” he challenged. “Go find the kid and fight him yourself, see what happens when he drops that ball on your ass.”

A dark chuckle escaped the shadows and rebounded about the theater. “That won’t be necessary. But you do give me a proper idea... I’m to understand the boy won a wager. Give me the PDA used to transfer his reward to him and you can keep the Pokémon I gave you.”

Harris looked to Jaren, who had a distinctly unhappy look on his face at the idea the leader would consider this option. “Dude, Harris, I didn’t even get a Pokémon from this guy. Now I gotta give up my PDA?”

“Hand it over,” Harris growled, and he stuck his hand out expectantly. Jaren groaned, but did as he was told. Harris extended the handheld device into the darkness before him – he felt something take it from him, but he couldn’t determine what manner of appendage had grabbed it.

Jaren couldn’t contain himself, and he called out, “What are you gonna do with it?”

“Simple data retrieval. All PDA’s retain information on the trainers with whom you make monetary transfers, such as wagers in a Pokémon battle. I want to know about this boy with a ghost on his belt.”

Suddenly, there was a loud clatter on the wood floor, and the biker gang could hear the sound of something shattering underfoot – and it took no genius amongst them to realize it was the device he’d just taken from them.

“What a terrible accident,” the voice murmured. “I hope that was insured.” Before Harris or his cohorts could summon a reply, the voice hardened and snapped. “Now get out of my sight, before I decide a similar fate for you.”

There was not one amongst them that had ever felt so grateful to see sunlight as they did when they escaped the building. Jaren cast one last, forlorn look at it before they scrambled away to their motorcycles and rode out of town.

Viridian City Gym

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© Matt Morwell, 2011