Politics

[Darien Shields]

Hey, I thought this might be a semi-amusing idea for a one shot. I guess there's scope for continuation, but I think it works on its own. But decide for yourself.

Shinichi Nakamura sighed.

"What was Watanabe playing at?" he said, tugging at his tie. It always seemed hotter when he was leaving the House of Representatives than when he entered. It had little to do with the late July sun, now beginning its gentle descent through the sky. "He knows I can't do anything about Safari Zone regulations."

"He probably just wants to pressure you as revenge for the ban on Master Ball production."

Shinichi paused, and looked at the young woman beside him. Yoko was altogether too smart to be a politician. Smarter than him, definitely. He often thought that if he'd been just a little bit smarter, he'd have seen sense enough not to pursue this horrid career. Become a pokémon trainer like his friends. Yeah, that was the life. But no. For some reason he'd stuck in, and between one twist of fate and another, become Prime Minister of the whole country.

That was one reason he knew Yoko was smarter than him. She was happy to sit lower in the administration, merely acting as advisor. She got to pitch in on all the good decisions, but she wasn't the one to take the blame when it all went pear shaped.

There was something wrong about that, he thought. He'd heard that back in the first war, when they were in the trenches, if you popped your head up you'd get shot in the face. All the rank and file soldiers had to chance it to see what was going on. But the captain- he was smart. He was issued with a little stick of glass and metal. A simple periscope. Easy enough to poke up without getting hit by a flamethrower or a thunderbolt. And yet in the world of politics, it was the other way around. It was the leader who somehow always had his head above the trench, ready to be lobbed off by any passing Scyther.

"He had shares in Silph Co. Took a real dive after that." the young woman went on.

Shinichi broke from his reverie, nodded, and continued walking. Seconds later the door closed on his private car. Now he could escape the heat. Unfortunately not the politics.

"The representative for Johto is complaining about understaffing in hospitals again." Yoko said, before he could even manage a tired sigh.

"And Hoenn, and Sinnoh, I expect." Shinichiro said. "After the whole Master Ball debacle Silph Co. will charge us an arm and a leg for another batch of Joys."

Yoko gave him a glare and nodded to the driver.

Shinichi gulped. Of course, he couldn't mention that particular policy in front of the driver. If the public found out about that, well... It was a wonder they had managed to keep the general populace in the dark so long already, really. Did nobody notice that all the country's emergency services were run by two sets of identical women? There was the cover story, but come on, who believed that? He had a cousin. Several, in fact. And not one of them looked completely identical to him. Identical twins is one thing, but identical cousins? That just happened to share all the same DNA? Well, for whatever reason, he was glad the populace hadn't cottoned on. If they did it'd ruin him, his five predecessors, the party, and probably the whole damn government.

"We might be able to placate them by dropping the tax on pokéballs." Yoko said.

Shinichi shook his head.

Shinichi Nakamura was really an oddity. He and his administration had been elected not by the pokémon training majority, but by masses of non-trainers. It was really quite remarkable, considering twenty years ago you didn't even get the vote if you didn't have a pokémon. He'd had some help, though. His predecessor had been kind enough to call the election in the middle of the pokémon league preliminaries. There aren't any polling stations on Indigo Plateau. Many trainers were rather surprised to emerge from the League and find a hefty tax slapped on their pokéballs and potions, and a sharp slash into the trainer allowance. He'd almost enforced a cut in the amount of time trainers were allowed to take out of school for their journeying, but he decided that that might be going a little too far. There could be riots, and he didn't really fancy being on the side without the pokémon.

"No, that's no good. What about grants for their non-training enterprises?"

Yoko frowned, but shrugged. "It'd be a hard se-"

She was cut off by a huge dink. Which in turn was cut off by a harsh metallic crunch. And that quickly gave way too the roar of fire bursting out of some shattered mechanism. Shinichi couldn't tell how the series of sounds went after that because his ears had popped, leaving nothing but a level ringing in his head.

The car lurched, and Shinichi found himself slammed against his seat belt. The world spun around him as he was jostled this way and that. The windscreen was a gaping hole now, although he couldn't see most of it for the crumpled metal ceiling that had been bashed down over the driver's seat. He couldn't see the driver either, but with that much blood...

The world outside his window was screaming to a halt. For a moment the pavement rushed up to meet him, but then lurched back down again suddenly, as the car decided not to tip. Then it rocked from side to side as something jostled from behind. He glance back just in time to see a huge boulder rolling off the shattered back window. It turned the boot into a crisp metal pancake, all in complete deafened silence. He couldn't even hear the blood pounding in his veins he could only feel the hammer of his heart against his ribs.

His belt whipped off, and sunlight poured through the open door. He looked up to see Yoko's lips moving, issuing some sort of harsh order. He could almost hear her now, but it was as if she was talking underwater. She grabbed him and yanked him out of the car. The tinkle of glass sounded somewhere distant, along with the light creaking of an aluminium can being crushed.

He was on his feet now, but he didn't stay that way. The ground refused to stay still- spinning and wobbling under him- and he tumbled to the ground. After rolling around he found himself looking back at what remained of his car, a little black shard of compressed metal, underneath that huge animate boulder.

A Graveller.

Yoko tugged at him, trying to pull him closer to safety.

Someone said something in a high, shrill whisper. The pokémon casually scratched its nebulous back with one of four arms, and broke off a chunk of stone. It tossed it like a discarded beer can in Shinichi's direction. He flinched, preparing for the smack of stone against his skull. It never came. Instead Yoko stopped tugging at him.

Graveller produced another rock, and tensed its arm, ready to send it careering into the Prime Minister's skull. But it paused, mid-motion.

Someone paced in front of him. A man- no a boy. A pokémon trainer. All the hallmarks were there- travelling clothes, backpack, hat, little red and white spheres clipped around his belt. But there was cold hard fury in his eyes. He was signalling for his pokémon to stop. He paced over to Shinichi, who was now trying to remember if he had legs, and if he did, what to do with them in order to get out of a situation like this.

The trainer grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him up. It was a good thing Shinichi had been on the ground, or it'd have been physically impossible for the young trainer to haul him up at all. He screamed at him, and Shinichi heard, but only just.

What on earth had he done to deserve this?

"Why did you ban Master Balls?!" the boy shrieked. "I could have caught Moltres! MOLTRES!"

Oh right then, he thought. Just the usual stuff.

[mistysakura]

Hehe, love the last line. The tension and the responsibility of being a Prime Minister was built up very well; I liked the analogy of the soldier who gets his head blown off. So true. Great description of the Graveller's attack. I couldn't help but wonder why the guy was so anti-trainer though. I think I would have empathised more with him if he mentioned that the money from taxes could go to better causes like, I don't know, public housing. The way he was portrayed it sounded like he was just making trainers' lives difficult for the heck of it. Also, while the Nurse Joys being robots thing amused me, I thought the revelation was really too big to just be a side comment. It deserves a plot point of its own.

Great job, and I'm looking forward to more of your work.