Hard Enough

Chapter 207: New Island

Chapter 207: New Island

Sabrina had us at Fuchsia City within minutes.

We arrived at Koga’s Gym to find the place eerily quiet.

Not the quiet that one would expect of a residence where everyone was asleep as they should at this hour, but rather the house was silent as though the very earth itself was holding its breath in anticipation.

No pokemon stirred, no wind blew through the branches of elegantly spaced trees and no noise came from the house. It had my skin crawling and the hairs on my neck standing up.

I eyed the trees and flicked my eyes about; well aware that in Koga’s domain, you were always being observed by ninjas. The fact that they were making it so apparent with how quiet it was, meant they were in a way warning anyone off.

The traditional house that stood forebodingly before us had all the sliding doors pulled open but only darkness peered back when you directed your gaze inside the building.

If you couldn’t tell coming here was bad news you were either an idiot or acting in extremely bad faith.

When Karen and Agatha stepped out of the darkness I had a momentary flash of memory for my initiation fight and half considered if they might have baited me here for some training exercise.

One look at Karen’s face revealed that this wasn’t a drill or some shitty hidden test.

I pushed forward, ignoring the fluttering leaves in the trees that were probably shinobi. If I were a paranoid sort I suppose they would only be doing that much as a warning to ‘announce, or prove myself to be who I was’. I called up my rock and dark energy and became a towering edifice that surveyed all before me. A dark mountain that looms.

“Who are we waiting for?” I asked, my voice having an interesting resonance that rumbled forth and silenced the twitching trees.

Sabrina merely floated along next to me, making me realise I’d lengthened my stride without really noticing, the act of covering more distance simply happening and not a conscious thought on my part.

Agatha smiled but didn’t cackle at the display of power I’d unknowingly performed. “We only just arrived. I have brought with me a few channelers and Karen her minions.”

“They’re my Trainer Entourage!” growled Karen without the usual heat. I glanced past the two women and noticed some familiar faces.

“Molly and Annabelle, right?” I said recalling the time we’d raided a Team Rocket base together with Dennis. The pair nodded and stood a little taller at me recognising them. To the other side, a pair of familiar faces from the Guardian training we’d undergone bowed politely.

“Katrina, … Tiffany,” I said, easily greeting the first only to eye the second.

Tiffany bowed demurely and rose languidly, making sure to display how her dress clung to her form. She smiled when our eyes met and I snorted in exasperation.

I’d always recalled Tiffany as being part of the very rough introduction to the Guardians and thus kept a careful eye on her. She was always a little too friendly for my liking.

Sabrina glowed a little brighter and Tiffany straightened and looked away from me, her smile vanishing faster than ice in the face of a Fire Blast.

“Koga?” I asked, looking around only for the man himself to appear, on his back a sword was strapped while bracers with wicked-looking hooks were also attached. I blinked in surprise and considered asking if he didn’t think that was overkill only to realise that if anything, I should be copying him.

We were about to engage with a group known for being part of the Hoenn military, specifically their navy.

I swallowed. “What do we need to know?” I asked.

Koga nodded seriously. “You will need to know much in a very short space of time, but here is not the place to talk,” he said.

He gestured for us to follow him towards a nondescript bush that stood off to the side. He marched up only to crouch before it. He tugged on something that I couldn’t see and the entire bush shifted on a hinge revealing a hidden doorway into darkness. “Come, the true logistics centre is in here,” he said, moving down into the tunnel without concern.

“I think I’ll avoid the Ratata warren and make my own way,” Agatha said with a sniff before she grinned. I could feel the moment her ghost energy twisted through her form only for her to vanish in the next moment as she fell through the ground.

Tiffany and Karein smirked at us before copying Agatha causing me to raise an eyebrow. They’d never done that before at training. Had they been holding back, or was this a recent development for them?

Karen scowled and tossed her head. “Come on girls, don’t let Koga leave us behind,” she said as she strode into the tunnel after him. Annabelle and Molly followed her. Sabrina and I trailed through the narrow tunnel after Karen and her entourage

The tunnel twisted in and around on itself a few times and from my talks with Surge in the past along with my training with the Guardians, I could recognise them as ambush points or positions where traps could be installed to waylay intruders.

For the moment they were empty.

When we exited the tunnel it was a sudden and unannounced occurrence, going from near darkness to sudden light quickly. I glanced back at the doorway to find that a thin cloth trailed down in multiple layers causing less and less light to escape. I’d walked through that cloth without even noticing.

Koga must have a very specialised Ariados to pull that trick off. I reached out and brushed my hand through the cloth only to barely feel anything, and that was while I was expecting it.

I turned away from the entrance to look at the rest of the room only to be surprised to find what looked like an old war centre with maps laid out and several wall-mounted radios.

“Koga… you really need to update your command centre if this is the best you can do,” said Karen with an unimpressed tone.

Agatha huffed. “Don’t disregard the old tools, most of the League is too caught up with modernisation to care for older methods of communication allowing for unrestricted and unmonitored lines of communication for those that hold to older methods.”

Karen sighed. “I’m just saying, you could have some computers and holopads set up to—”

Koga flicked a switch and the maps shifted causing a three-dimensional display to appear.

Agatha shot him a look and he coughed. “Janine has been working on this,” he said.

He flicked his fingers and the display shifted to a map overlooking Kanto. With deft movements, he zoomed in to Fuchsia from above. On it, the Seafoam islands were shown, and further south, just on the edges of Kanto’s sea border, sat New Island.

“Twenty minutes ago two submarines were spotted moving towards New Island. It would appear the extremely fast development of the island has not gone unnoticed by Team Aqua. They have sent an expeditionary force to investigate. While we do not have anyone within their organisation we have been able to intercept radio broadcasts between their sea vessels.”

On the map, two small blue blips began to move towards New Island. “They will make landfall within ten minutes by our estimate. We will not be able to stop them reaching the island, but we should be able to intercept them before they can penetrate too deeply into the facility that Mewtwo has created and potentially enrage him.”

Sabrina shifted, eyeing the distances involved. “I won’t be able to Teleport us very close…Within ten kilometres at most which will still put us directly above the sea.”

Konga nodded and tapped at the holopad only for Janine to cough and type in something on her side.

A circle formed around the island marking the ten-kilometre distance and just how much ocean we would have to cover.

I chewed my lip. In any other situation, I doubted that would be an issue for Zephyr, but with Mewtwo possibly raising a storm? That might make it a bit more touch-and-go. It would depend on how amiable Mewtwo was.

“Any thoughts on how Mewtwo is responding to Team Aqua encroaching on his territory?” I asked. That was the big issue here after all. We did not want to agitate a Legendary pokemon if we could.

Team Aqua sticking their heads right into the Feraligatr’s maw rather forced our hand, however.

“No response as yet,” said Koga. “We need to stop Team Aqua from antagonising him. For that, Sabrina’s psychic abilities will be of paramount importance.”

Sabrina made a face. “Once we get closer I don’t think it wise to rely on my psychic abilities as I have no doubt that Mewtwo would be aware of me.”

“As the person that has the best interactions with Mewtwo thus far, you are crucial to making peaceful contact should it be required,” said Koga. Agatha nodded at this while Karen bit her lips. I could just tell that she wanted to scoff, but she knew she couldn’t refute the words.

She did straighten up after a moment. “What if Team Aqua has specialists like myself? Dark-type trainers to negate Mewtwo, or pass undetected?”

Koga made a face. “We will need to act on humanity's behalf. We cannot allow them to enrage a Legendary.”

Koga made a gesture and the map rose with the Seafoam islands and Shamouti being highlighted in red.

I grimaced, both sites housed other Legendary pokemon. If Mewtwo became agitated it might cause a chain reaction, especially if he called forth a storm like he had in the first movie featuring him.

“So we’re going into a hot situation that is delicate, to say the least, against a force that will have no issue with going…” I paused, having been about to say nuclear, but that wasn’t the term in this life. “Well, going Legendary on the situation,” I said tentatively.

“Yes, a rampaging Legendary, or more, is at risk. We will need to be quick and extremely clever, but most of all lucky!” said Agatha with a smirk.

She inhaled and straightened up as her shadow gained its own grin. “Ah! Just like old times!” she said and I could only shake my head, my eyes locked on the tiny pinprick that depicted where everything was going to come to a head.

“Alright? New island here we come,” I said.

Sabrina teleported us to the seafoam islands first. Having been watching for it, I was not surprised when she flinched minutely. I squeezed her hand as the question I’d been wondering about the seafoam islands was answered.

Articuno had a nest here.

Sabrina squeezed me back before gesturing with her head to the south. “We will be teleporting in a few seconds, have your flying or water type pokemon prepared,” she said.

I reached for Zephyr’s pokeball while Sabrina looked to Alakazam.

“Three, two, one,” said Sabrina counting down the next teleport, so that all of us would be ready to move. From a single practice session with the Guardians we’d learnt it was important to have a verbal cue, otherwise, people like myself or Karen were slow to react.

A flash of light momentarily blinded me but I was ready for it, and was already releasing Zephyr a heartbeat after I felt my environment change.

Zephyr appeared beneath me and I fell all of a few metres before landing on his back with him only buckling a little.

“Stay within ten metres of sea level! Otherwise, the radar that Team Aqua uses will detect us!” called Koga from his position on his Charizard’s back.

Karen, who was using a giant Honchkrow glowered at Koga and eyed the waves and howling wind. I hid a pleased smile as I strapped myself into my flying saddle, only to tug my scarf into position so that no cold air ran down my flying jacket.

Karen and her entourage, it turned out, were the only people in our group who didn’t have some form of flight jacket.

Agatha had a rather interesting canvas-like uniform with a leather helmet that looked like a flight suit from my past life for the First World War aviators. She wasn’t using a flying type but instead had a pack of Ghost-type pokemon supporting her and the Channelers that she had brought with her.

Sabrina herself merely hovered in the air, held aloft with her own psychic power.

I whistled, impressed despite having seen her do feats like this multiple times before.

Sabrina gave me a smile only to nod to the side indicating an oncoming wave that Zephyr and I had to dodge around.

“Spoink shit!” growled Karen as she barely avoided the wave.

With that the team began to move, gliding over the water and occasionally dodging the waves. With each splash and burst of wind, Karen released a new torrent of curses that carried on the wind.

Koga slowed his Charizard to match her. “If you keep that up! They’ll hear us!” he called to her only for her to glower at him.

“Screw you! You have a Charizard! You’re not freezing your ass off!”

Koga sighed and tapped his pokemon on the shoulder.

Charizard performed a barrel roll over the back of Karen’s Honchkrow and I could only watch as Koga’s hands blurred.

Buckles unclasped and straps were thrown aside and for a moment I thought Koga was about to throw Karen into the ocean to fish out later.

Instead, the barrel roll ended and I was left gaping.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Somehow, Karen and Koga had switched places. Now Karen sat atop Charizard’s back while Koga… stood with his scarf flapping in the wind.

If it had been impressive when the Pewter Flight club did it, it was even more impressive seeing Koga pull it off without his partner even knowing what was happening. It was a wonder Karen hadn’t flinched and caused an accident.

Or had she and Koga merely accommodated for that as well? It was hard to judge with how quick he’d been.

I turned my head away.

For all that Koga could be frustrating to deal with sometimes, that had been cool.

I felt like it spoke more of Koga’s skill than Karen’s calm attitude that the manoeuver had been pulled off.

I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that Karen was still looking a bit dumbfounded at her changed position.

Heh, that was certainly one way to silence her.

“New Island! Dead ahead! Prepare yourselves!” called Agatha from the midst of her ghost pack.

I leaned down into Zephyr's back, my left hand moving to Tide and Shrek’s pokeballs, more than ready to deploy them should we come under fire.

We raced low along the water, eyes peeled for any incoming missiles or rocks that might threaten us. I couldn’t see anything but I still felt like something or someone was watching us. I shot Sabrina a look and she had a tense expression on her face as she flew on. Her eyes weren’t tracking the shoreline but instead the top of the island where the dark castle loomed.

Glancing up was enough to send a shiver of fear through me. It was everything I’d imagined with tall dark towers that dotted the top of the island, while numerous small windmills spun silently. Green and yellow orbs bobbed like fey lights beckoning us to come closer while lighting up the dark metallic walls with a green pallour that made me think of horror movies.

If she could feel Mewtwo, surely Mewtwo could feel her, right?

I swallowed wondering how he was going to react to our appearance. Sabrina had mentioned feeding him positive core memories to help him. Would that mean he was different from the cold and vengeful pokemon that appeared in the first pokemon movie?

Or would he be something else? More thoughtful and collected?

If he was as sentient as a human he might be struggling with the newfound emotions.

Was that even a good thing?

I knew for a fact that pokemon could get emotional, or even hormonal. What would it be like for a pokemon that had been repressed for so long to experience emotions once more.

No lights flickered, and nothing seemed to stir on New Island as we came closer. We had only the barest idea of what we were racing towards.

The timeline and situation had changed enough that I wasn’t confident I knew how Mewtwo would respond to this invasion. Last time he had… not fled, a pokemon as powerful as him couldn’t be said to have fled.

He’d adjourned to contemplate the information.

I cast my mind back, back then he’d rejected Giovanni and seized freedom, but he’d also spurned Sabrina’s offer of friendship.

Would us turning up here cause more issues?

I had no idea what it would do. None of us did, which was a big problem.

I pushed the thoughts away as I darted my gaze about the shoreline, not spotting the submarines that had caused this entire situation.

Koga flew in front of me, still posed in an upright standing position that… well I had to give it to him, made him look damn cool. “Make landfall on the upper level and call in your pokemon,” Koga barked.

We did just that, landing and dismounting from our pokemon before returning them. I shifted, feeling like something was off. I eyed the area around where we’d landed. There wasn’t much actual free area with the size of the building Mewtwo had created. Had we landed near the arena… had Mewtwo even built the arena this time?

What was this facility for?

Koga was also surveying the area with a critical eye. “Mewtwo has suffused his power throughout the island…” he said with narrowed eyes.

Agatha and Sabrina all nodded.

I glanced over and found Karen, like me, was also able to feel that something was off but unable to put our fingers on what.

Agatha waved a hand and a trio of Haunter floated away, notably without their typical jeering or menacing attitude.

They must have been able to feel the crisp power of Mewtwo. Had his building everything on this island caused a pseudo-Psychic terrain or something? I chewed my lip and pushed the thought to the side to ask Sabrina about it later.

“Do we know where they made… landfall?” I asked.

Koga shook his head. “Only that they intended to, from our approach I detected nothing amiss,” his eyes continued to dart about. “Apart from the psychic presence,” he continued after a moment.

I grunted, and when Koga made some signs for us to move as one I felt a surge of relief. We weren’t going to break the party. Yes, Agatha had sent some Haunter out as scouts but that was just good thinking.

Breaking the party would have surely triggered all the red flags.

Heck just being here made me start mentally reviewing the guide on how to survive in a horror movie.

First, if there was a noise, it wasn’t just the wind. Should I check it out? No. Were we wearing the right attire? I reinspected everyone only to pause on the Channellers. They seemed to be wearing some sort of traditional footwear rather than supportive runners.

“Hey, girls got any joggers?” I said, causing them to blink owlishly at me.

Sabrina frowned at me only to blink and reassess her surroundings. She, as the only other person who had entered an obviously haunted castle with me in the past, knew about my ‘plans for haunted houses’.

“You should release Gawain,” Sabrina said while eying Katrina and Tiffany. “Can you run in that outfit?”

When they shook their heads and made to argue the importance of their attire Sabrina dismissed them. “They will make decent sacrifices,” she said firmly alluding to one of the rules I’d told her once.

Women who wore impractical clothing into a haunted house actively lowered their chances of survival, and should never be stood next to.

I’d mostly said that to make Sabrina stop wearing that extremely doll-like dress.

I released Gawain and he raised his axe-like claws with a tentative glance around. “Klea-vor?” he asked. I pat him on the shoulder.

“Need you out so that if something jumps us you can Stone Axe them,” I said seriously.

The others took that moment to release their own singular pokemon that would be able to walk with us without making our group too large.

Sabrina’s Alakazam merely stroked his moustache, his spoons held out as he slowly rotated in a slow orbit. Karen noticed this and frowned. “What’s he doing?”

“Divining where Team Aqua are,” Sabrina replied.

When Alakazam started to lean forward and his spoons began pointing down I could only click my tongue in annoyance. “There must be a grotto down there or something,” I said.

Hadn’t Team Rocket entered New Island via that method… no, Ash, Misty and the OG Brock had as well on the boat… no that was wrong as well they’d capsized and needed to use water pokemon to save themselves.

“It makes sense they’d find a route in via the ocean. We must have missed it by how we came in,” I said. “Should we circle back around?”

Koga and Agatha shook their heads. “Team Aqua will have secured their exit,” said Agatha.

Koga nodded. “There is also a chance that they will have set out mines.”

“So no water entry and we need to find a way to them… or a way to talk to Mewtwo,” I summarised.

“Preferably the former,” said Agatha as her eyes flicked up towards the tower structure that screamed ‘boss fight area’ in my mind.

Agatha gestured towards the tower. “Team aqua if they encounter us while negotiating with Mewtwo will disrupt us.”

I turned to Sabrina to see if she’d been able to make contact with Mewtwo only for her to shake her head. “He seems to be ignoring me, or focussed on something else, I can’t tell and I am not willing to… poke at his mind for his attention.”

I nodded grimly. “So, maximum effort?” I said with a smile to which Sabrina nodded. The others looked at me and I just rolled my eyes and gestured for Koga to lead us into the totally not a haunted castle that Mewtwo had made for himself.

We approached what looked like a large circle only for the circle to split apart, retracting into itself.

We all paused when we found ourselves in a room that expanded out before us. The, room unlike outside, was well lit with lights that sat atop small platforms. Each of them were the shape of pokeballs.

Above us, balconies twirled around the room making me itch as I realised how many alcoves there were for people to have the high ground against us.

In the middle of the room, a spiral staircase rose while surrounded by a moat of water. I paused, realising I knew precisely where we were.

This was the room where Fergus, Corey, Neesha, Ash, Brock, and Misty would recover from braving the storm in the movie.

This was where they would meet the most ‘powerful trainer in the world’ only to learn he was also the most powerful pokemon.

A pretentious claim, but one that was oddly suitable for drawing in strong trainers.

Often all a trainer or an organiser for a specific event had to do was claim the title of strongest in the world and it would result in trainers piling in to prove themselves against them. It was a great way of generating hype and interest.

I blamed the last World Cup’s results.

Due to the format, there hadn’t been a method to deal with draws when each trainer simultaneously knocked out the other’s pokemon.

This had led to a lot of chaos and the winner not actually being possible with four double knock outs, narrowing the field of trainers that reached the end while others advanced unimpeded with how the rules had been set up.

Lance himself had been one such double knockout from memory but I couldn’t recall who he’d faced.

I hadn’t given the World Cup much attention as I’d thought it overly pretentious for Indigo, Hoenn, Orange and Sevii to call themselves ‘the World’.

I think Wallace from Hoenn had been the winner in the end but I was probably wrong about that.

Koga waved us forward and our group advanced, fanning out and forming a loose circle with myself on the right edge while Karen and her crew formed the left edge of our circle. Sabrina and Alakazam hovered in the middle, their gazes swivelling around and taking in all the features of the room.

I glanced up only to find myself looking into darkness with the lights not being strong enough to reveal what was at the top of the spiral staircase.

“Agatha, recon?” Koga called, his eyes darting about. He out of all of us looked to be the most on edge, but that was probably due to his being forced to stay out in the open while Mewtwo was unaccounted for. With Koga being a horrible match up and Mewtwo’s powers. Agatha had put her foot down on Koga doing his usual sneak-off routine.

Forcing the ninja out in the open in a potential combat situation seemed to be rather fraying his nerves, however.

It had to be counter to his instincts at the very least.

“We need to find a way to secure any access points to any waterways beneath us,” Koga said, pointing towards a cluster of doors. “We need to find out which are our targets quickly,” he said as he looked into each shadow pointedly as we moved further into the room.

Agatha raised a hand and from her shadow, another four ghost pokemon spilled out leaving only a single set of eyes to glower out and wink at us sinisterly.

I watched the ghost pokemon race out, some went high and others went low before I lost sight of them as they became invisible.

The ghost pokemon reappeared at the doorways and the various doorways on our level.

Two doorways led into large rooms much like this one while another led to a hallway that glowed green in a manner that caused an itch in my brain.

Hadn’t the room where Mewtwo cloned other pokemon glowed green like that? Was that what was down there? The cloning facility?

“There!” called Katrina, her hand pointing to the left where a Mismagius had revealed a door that opened to a cave system that angled down.

Voices echoed up and I knew straight away that we had found what we’d been seeking. We broke into a jog making straight for the door only for a trio of men and women to appear in the doorway.

All of them sported white and blue shirts and socks that made me think of stereotypical sailors. On top of their heads scarves were banded tightly around their heads with the Team Aqua symbol proudly on display.

“Boss! We got company!” screamed one woman back down the tunnel they’d come from even as the other two released all of their pokemon revealing a small force of twelve pokemon.

Muk, Golbat, Pelliper, Mightyena, Starmie, two Crawdaunt, another pair of Tentacruel, a Cloyster, Sealeo, and a Golduck.

Their trainers both gave their teams orders as we raced to close the gap with them, our hands reaching for our own pokeballs.

“Charge!” shouted one of them while the other slashed his hand in front of him.

“Defence Up!” he called and all of his pokemon began to howl, screech, or buff up as our pokemon were released.

Sanchez took one look at the assembled pokemon and began to spark up, knowing he was going to go big for this line-up.

I didn’t hesitate to unleash him as I twitched the bond we shared and fired off a thunder straight away at the pokemon charging us.

Pelliper and Golbat vanished as the lightning arced down. When the powerful electric move ended it revealed a knocked-out Pelliper on the ground while Golbat was revealed to be in a Protect shell.

This didn’t stop my other pokemon from knocking it out of the air the instant the Protect faded.

From there the battle was joined with me, Karen, Molly, Annabelle and Tiffany overwhelmed the trainer that had sent his pokemon out to engage and slow us down. We made short work of the six pokemon with the twenty we had, twenty we’d released but it did slow us down as after Pelliper, each pokemon held with a Protect or a Detect, avoiding our initial strikes only to be taken down with follow-up strikes.

As the final pokemon, a Crawdaunt went down under a barrage of Dark Pusles from Knight and Karen’s Houndoom.

I spotted the aggressive Grunt begin to twitch and froth at the mouth.

Hmmm he was whiting out from six pokemon being taken out? He truly was a Grunt then, despite his rather impressive— for a Grunt— pokemon roster.

He’d still done enough to slow us down.

Or at least slow down half our group.

We were after all more than used to working as a team on multiple different objectives.

While we’d been stomping down on one of the Grunts, Koga, Agatha, Sabrina, and Katrina continued to race forward. They made a beeline straight for the trainer who was trying to create a beachhead for his fellows.

Sabrina even tried to snipe him with a well-placed light fixture that was ripped from its bracket in an attempt to brain the Grunt into submission. Sadly, another Crawdaunt stepped into the path of the attempted snipe, catching and crushing the light while shrouding itself with dark energy.

“They’re playing for keeps!” shouted the grunt with a high-pitched tone. Heh, he must have been rattled with how Sabrina had gone after him.

For a second it looked like the Grunt would flee, only for his resolve to be bolstered by the return of the female Team Aqua Grunt.

The girl released her own pokemon to help hold the line and I could only click my tongue as they unleashed a series of Surf only to freeze them solid.

Koga pointed and from his team, an Arbok leapt forward exhaling a huge gout of purple gas straight at one of the walls. When the poison touched the ice I was impressed to see that it was causing the ice to sizzle and hiss.

Koga didn’t leave it there though. With the gas beginning to liquify the wall while condensing itself, he followed up with his Charizard unleashing a powerful Fire Blast that knocked the base level out from the frozen surf.

The icy walls tumbled down with a deafening boom that shook the room. Within the mists, shapes moved as we lost sight of our targets.

They however couldn’t see us closing on them with my group and our pokemon made up of some truly powerful pokemon that barreled into the side of the Team Aqua pokemon forcing them into melee.

A moment later the mist was blown away by a powerful gust of wind that I leaned into as it threatened to knock us back.

Damn, that hadn’t been one of ours. I snapped my hand out, grabbing at Tiffany as her large robes acted like sails causing her to be blown back.

“Urgh!” she grunted as she came to a sudden stop in my grip.

I smirked to myself, Sabrina had warned her.

I held in the urge to tease the woman however as I instead noted that Team Aqua reinforcements had arrived with what seemed to be a whole platoon of trainers. I stepped away from her, my mind aware of the second part of the warning I’d given Sabrina.

Twenty trainers, with all of them reaching for their pokeballs grinning at us sinisterly.

I cracked my neck, locking eyes with a man wearing what looked like a white sailor's jacket draped across his shoulders.

Around him was his pokemon team along with some lower-ranked Aqua members.

His team seemed to be the cause of the winds. I was interested to spot a pair of Gyarados with their fins fanning the winds. Alongside them were a Snorlax, a Lanturn, a Scizor, and a Swampert.

Gawain locked eyes with his modern evolution, his axes rising up in challenge. Shrek did the same with his counterpart as around us pokemon and Team Aqua roared and growled in anticipation of the coming battle. The noise they unleashed was an intimidating show of force alone.

But it wasn’t enough to have any pokemon or people in our group faltering.

This was exactly what we’d trained for.

I leaned forward a small smirk on my lips as I let Tiffany huddle behind me, her ghost pokemon pulsing and glowing in agitation as our own pokemon gave back their own battle cries.

I released the other pokemon I’d been holding back, allowing Titan and Empress to take to the field.

My smirk grew as more than a few Team Aqua grunts stepped back at my pokemon merely appearing.

Koga drew his blade and raised it towards Team Aqua. “Guardians of Indigo! To battle!” he roared, signalling the start to the battle proper.

Our pokemon surged forward, I readied myself for a fight that hadn’t been seen in years, a proper battle of two forces fighting to conquer each other.

Defeat wasn’t an option. We needed to put them down hard.

“Hyper Barrage! Full Broadside!” roared the Aqua Commander.

I blinked in surprise as not one, but a full wave of pokemon rose up, their maws beginning to glow as they heralded the oncoming wave of Hyper Beams.

Fuck, I thought.

That was a good opening move.