Act 2: Chapter 16

“Arms up! Pokemon League!”

‘Is that basically the very best I may give you?’ Lee grimaces inwardly as he and his pokemon, together with Brendan and Zinnia’s groups all pour out into the courtyard of the volcano’s customer middle. “Toss away any pokeballs and get in your knees!” he yells on the high of his lungs.

Each Magma grunt’s eyes shoot to them, with some being extra startled than others. Three of the grunts even cave to the demand, elevating their palms and dropping all the way down to their knees with seems of fright painted on their faces. Of the three, two of them could be no older than sixteen.

The others?

One grunt takes a pokeball from his facet and throws it on the floor, the place it pops open and releases a furious-looking Golbat. “Golbat, prepare!” the henchman orders.

As if listening to the pop of a beginning gun firstly of a race, the remainder of the grunts all shake themselves from their stupor and seize their very own pokeballs. Their orders all overlap one another as each scrambles to prepared themselves and their pokemon. In a mess of flashes, pokemon of all types take form at their coach’s toes. Lee spies a number of Poochyena, a Zubat, a Numel, a Koffing, a Mankey, and others. Two of the older-looking grunts, who have to be lieutenants, have a Machoke and a Lairon.

Ninetales bristles and lowers herself, taking place in entrance of Lee. On both facet of her, a growling Shelgon and manically grinning Marshtomp do the identical for Zinnia and Brendan. Lee solely spares a second to look behind him, seeing Grovyle, Octillery, and Corvisquire standing prepared to leap into the fray.

The grunt with the Lairon blinks and slides ahead a bit, his damage eyes targeted on Zinnia. The person is reasonably unremarkable appearance-wise, sans the cyan hair Lee can see underneath his hood. “Hey, Zena, babe? What are you doing?!” he calls for. “You are one in every of us! Is that this some kinda joke?!”

‘Zena? Is that this the man Zinnia was catfishing?’ Lee seems between Zinnia and the Magma goon.

Zinnia scoffs on the lieutenant. “You bought performed, dolt. Attempt considering with the pinnacle in your shoulders, and possibly you would not have been strung alongside or discovered your self in a gang.” She shakes her head. “You and your mates want to surrender earlier than you get damage.”

Lee would not miss how Brendan flinches at Zinnia’s examination.

The grunt retreats again a step, seeming to be genuinely distraught. Beside him, his Lairon’s blue eyes slim, and a growl rattles from his metallic throat. “Effectively” The lieutenant blinks his eyes, and his disappointment is changed with fury. “Fuck you, then! Lairon, prepare! Boys, step up!”

One other grunt steps ahead along with his spitting-mad Mankey on the lieutenant’s left, and on that grunt’s left, the grunt with the growling Poochyena takes place. One other steps out of the group to hitch his fellows, a relaxed Meditite on his heels. The three grunts step ahead, with the Mankey poised to tackle Ninetales, Poochyena on Shelgon, and Meditite on Marshtomp. The remainder all again up a dozen steps with appreciable haste, whooping and hollering for his or her fellow gang members.

“Kick some ass!”

“Make Magma proud!”

“Fuck ’em up!”

‘They actually do intend to combat us one-to-one’ Lee blinks at how surreal it feels. ‘I may have sworn this was going to show into an uncontrolled brawl.’

Ninetales snarls on the Mankey throughout from her, who screeches again in blind anger. ‘They’re afraid of a full-scale battle, and rightly so,’ she says, her ideas darkish as she stares down her foe. ‘They don’t know what they’re up towards.’

The lieutenant off to the facet, the one along with his tense Machoke, takes a radio from his belt and lifts it to his lips. Amidst all of the noise from the Magma members and their pokemon, the lieutenant’s message is misplaced even to Ninetales’ sharp ears, however it will probably’t be good.

‘He is most likely calling Courtney and Tabitha’ Lee grimly realizes. For a second, he is tempted to have Ninetales rip the radio away from the person, however stops himself, fearing which may represent an assault on the coach and switch the entire scenario right into a massacre.

Shelgon and Marshtomp take their locations on both facet of Ninetales. From Shelgon’s throat rolls a deep growl that reverberates from inside his shell, whereas Marshtomp wordlessly raises his fists.

The chatter of the grunts and the cries of their pokemon fall quiet. The heated air of the volcano high fills with uneasy rigidity, one in search of any excuse to blow up like a spring wound too tight.

Ninetales’ Drought begins to make the sunrays unpleasantly sizzling, and Lee has to withstand the urge to tug on the collar of his shirt. Retaining his head nonetheless, Lee turns his eyes to the left.

Zinnia meets his nervous gaze with purple eyes virtually blazing with resolve. That agency, assured perception that all the pieces will end up high-quality takes the sting off his nerves.nove(l)bi(n.)com

To the proper

Brendan refuses to fulfill Lee’s eyes, as a substitute trying away with guilt for some purpose. The boy’s perspective does nothing to settle the twisting throughout the older coach’s abdomen.

The Mankey throughout from Ninetales snorts and lowers himself. Behind him, his sweating coach’s lips lastly half. “Mankey! Kara-!”

The remainder of his phrases are drowned out as all three battles erupt without delay. Shelgon rolls right into a ball and fees his foe, whereas Marshtomp bellows and fires a spear of dashing white water from his mouth. As Ninetales snarls in wordless fury, Lee pulls her thoughts nearer and tries to regular his pounding coronary heart.

Mankey bounds ahead at his coach’s command, his hairless fist glowing with sufficient energy to show a boulder to powder. Leaping excessive, he screeches and zooms downward with all his physique weight behind his assault.

Collectively, Lee and Ninetales devise a counterplay, exchanging telepathic messages at lightning velocity.

The monkey-like Mankey is stopped lifeless when Ninetales geese his strike and latches her tooth round one in every of his ankles, drawing a shrill shriek of ache from him. The fox then throws her neck, releases her jaws, and dashes her smaller foe throughout the rocky floor like a baby making an attempt to destroy glassware. Earlier than the winded Preventing-type can rise up and get well at his coach’s frantic urging, Ninetales leaps to him, stomping a entrance paw onto his abdomen, then hovers her open mouth mere inches away from Mankey’s face. The wavering warmth mirage pouring from her throat is a lifeless giveaway of what’s about to befall Mankey.

Mankey screeches and drives his fist into Ninetales’ decrease jaw in a flash, even quicker than Ninetales can assault, however the vixen hardly budges from the strike, merely redoubling her hostile glare in reply. No, from the hardly-painful phantom affect on his personal chin, Lee can inform the power distinction between the 2 Pokmon is just too huge to beat. Mankey was completed the second he stepped up.

A split-second later, the Magma grunt’s Mankey is bathed in a point-blank Flamethrower. The roar of the fireplace covers any form of agonized sound that Mankey is unquestionably making, and regardless of the monkey pokemon being a real enemy, Lee feels his burn scars tingle in sympathy. The flames are a mercifully cool orange reasonably than white, however lots of the spectating Magma goons nonetheless cry out in alarm and shuffle backwards from the warmth.

Ninetales cuts off her assault after a mere few seconds, then leaps backward nearer to Lee, her stance remaining low and her tails fanned out threateningly.

On the blackened floor, Mankey, lined in blistering purple burns and wheezing, would not even attempt to get again to his toes. Behind him, his grunt coach is observing Ninetales in open terror, shaking so badly that he can hardly elevate his pokeball. “R-Return!” He cries, pointing the pokeball into the cramped combating space.

In a flash of purple, the wounded Mankey is recalled into his pokeball.

Cradling the ball in his palms, the fearful Magma member pushes his means behind his shocked fellows, hiding himself away.

‘Effectively, that did not make me really feel like a bully or something.’ Lee thinks, with Ninetales the one one to listen to his sarcasm. He scans the group of Magma goons, seeing their smirks and jeers gone, changed with fearful realization. The one noise that is not from combating is Corvisquire’s mocking laughter, trumpeting like a grating, rusty horn behind them.

‘Is Ninetales that scary?’ As soon as extra, Lee wonders if his concepts of normality are skewing.

‘They will give up any time they need,’ Ninetales snorts in reply. ‘Till then, they obtain no quarter.’

Lee hazards a glance over to Zinnia’s combat, watching as an unhurt Shelgon bashes his namesake shell into the pinnacle of the Poochyena who dared enter the ring with him. Poochyena yelps like a pet unfairly struck, then stumbles, bleeding profusely from a cut up in his cranium. He stands for under a second extra earlier than he collapses, going limp and inhaling gasps. Earlier than the blood pooling round his head can develop to a worrying measurement, Poochyena is frantically recalled by his coach, a middle-aged grunt.

Happy, Lee glances over at Brendan’s skirmish.

Marshtomp performs his combat sluggish at Brendan’s path, harassing Meditite at vary with Water Gun, and parrying bodily blows along with his massive palms when Meditite dares to shut the gap. Marshtomp seems as contemporary as could be, smirking all through the battle, whereas the panicking grunt’s Meditite is flagging, turning into sluggish as his stamina wanes.

“Meditite, H-Excessive-Leap Kick!” The Magma member with Meditite can solely be sixteen at most, as his voice cracks nervously midway by means of the command.

The sweating Meditite leaps excessive up into the air, his little humanoid physique lined in a faint aura of blue. On the apex of his bounce, one in every of his brief legs shoots out and he races down at Marshtomp like a javelin.

“Now,” Brendan orders with uncommon apathy.

As Meditite races down, Marshtomp stays nonetheless till absolutely the final second, then one in every of his arms blurs into movement and knocks Meditite’s kick extensive. In the meantime, he clenches his hand right into a fist glowing with a slight define of white, then drives it into the still-falling Meditite’s photo voltaic plexus like a battering ram.

Lee can truly really feel the shock wave produced from the brutal blow, which stirs some mud on the bottom.

Meditite can do nothing however rasp by means of his winded lungs, his palms greedy Marshtomp’s thick wrist for assist as his eyes bug out from the intestine punch. When his grip turns into limp, he falls from his place suspended on the mudfish’s fist, hitting the bottom in a heap.

“Do not simply stand there!” The lieutenant with the Machoke yells at his shocked compatriots. “Another person get in there and begin combating instantly! Now we have to carry out!”

From the nervous crowd, three extra frightened grunts are pushed ahead, figuratively thrown to the wolves by the boys behind him. With no different alternative, the trio shares a glance as each reluctantly takes a ball from their belt.

‘Right here we go once more,’ Lee mentally clicks his tongue.

The brand new trio, this time with a Zubat, a Machop, and a Rockruff, fare no higher than their predecessors. Inside a handful of strikes and barely a number of moments, the second spherical ends simply as the primary did. The grunts recall their wounded pokemon and push their means by means of the throng of our bodies behind them, in search of refuge behind the opposite gang members. The third spherical passes, after which a fourth, each draining the gangsters ranks increasingly. The lieutenant with the more and more twitchy Machoke beside him rapidly grows pale as he realizes his forces are being chewed by means of.

“C’mon!” Zinnia taunts with an unsettlingly extensive grin. “Quit!”

“You do not have to harm your pokemon like this!” Lee chimes in as properly. “You will get a shorter stint in jail in case you cooperate!”

Brendan stays silent.

The morale of red-clad gangsters is in complete freefall, as even the lieutenants are trying uncertain at this level. It is turn into evident to all of them that profitable merely is not going to occur. Simply as the following three reluctant gang members step ahead, a loud, offended voice cuts by means of the silence.

“Why the hell are you all losing yourselves like this?!”

The gang of grunts quickly half, permitting a pair of figures entrance.

On the proper is a big, rotund man, each broad and tall, clad within the signature purple uniform of Magma. Squinted eyes upon a spherical face open sufficient to see on the gangsters round him with disapproval, which is sufficient for lots of the Magma grunts to bow their heads. On his belt are 4 pokeballs, one in every of his massive palms hovering above them.

Beside the massive man is a way more acquainted face.

Courtney mirrors him, her brows furrowed and her grip on her pokeball shaking.

Ninetales and Shelgon tense, with Lee and Zinnia following swimsuit. Behind them is a cacophony of hisses, growls, trills, and screeches from the gathered pokemon. Everybody freezes in place, nonetheless when a voice calls out from behind them.

“Oh? I hoped to talk a bit longer.”

Slowly turning his head behind him, Lee feels his blood run chilly.

Hovering above the Mount Chimney customer middle, on a sq., translucent pane of purple power, a person stares down on the gathering beneath by means of his thickly-rimmed glasses. At his facet, a black, doll-like pokemon hovers midair, unnervingly nonetheless.

‘A Claydol,’ Lee thinks, as he remembers the odd Psychic and Floor sort pokemon. Like its title suggests, the pokemon resembles a bulbous doll original from black clay, maybe a bit over 5 toes tall. Located throughout its head in a circle, eight unblinking purple eyes stare in each path, making its visage an disagreeable one to behold.

“Chief Maxie” Courtney breathes reverently, her eyes locked on the brand new arrival.

“Fuck me” Lee swears to himself.

The person, Magma Chief Maxie, stands tall and slender. His extreme face is pale, angular, and aristocratic, becoming completely with the aloof expression on his face. Very similar to Tabitha and Courtney, Maxie wears the signature purple outfit of Staff Magma. What rattles Lee essentially the most, nonetheless, is the look within the man’s eye.

Practically each foe he and Ninetales have met to date of their journey gave them their due warning, even when slight or unintentional. Zinnia, Roxanne, Brawly, Tyson, Wattson, Moore, every one in every of them met the person and fox as equals.

Maxie’s eyes stare down at everybody coldly, as if pondering how finest to step on an insect.

‘Love?’ Lee begins. ‘Did you hear him method?’

‘ No, no I didn’t.’ Ninetales admits reluctantly. Lee feels her attain her thoughts out in direction of Maxie and his pokemon, solely to withdraw as if spooked. ‘I I can not really feel his nor his Claydol’s thoughts. It is as if they are not even there.’

The hairs on the again of Lee’s neck rise up.

“Chief Maxie!” Tabitha speaks up. It would not take a genius to see that his smile is merely a skinny masks, one poorly hiding a deep nervousness. “We have been just-“

Maxie holds up a single hand, palm out, and Tabitha’s jaw snaps shut. The tall man folds his arms behind his again and takes a step ahead, seemingly about to tumble off of his platform, just for one other pane of psychic energy to seem underneath his foot with no sound or perhaps a flash. He continues his stroll leisurely, descending upon glass-like that seem underneath his toes. The Claydol at his facet – the one presumably creating the steps – descends with him, remaining deathly nonetheless because it does so.

As his toes lastly meet the rocky floor, Maxie turns and regards Brendan, ignoring Marshtomp sliding in entrance of the boy defensively. The barest trace of a smile flits throughout Maxie’s lips. “So, you’re the one Courtney sings praises for,” he begins, prompting Brendan to blink and absently level to himself. “Sure, my boy. You. The inheritor to Nigel Birch was certain to be a coach of nice consequence, however you transcend that. After seeing you and your pokemon in motion, I consider I perceive all of it now. You and Courtney are fairly alike, you already know. Such regular pragmatism is a top quality sorely missing in as we speak’s world.” Maxie says, every phrase clean, unhurried, and woven with cloying respect. “It will please me to welcome you into the ranks of Magma personally, in spite of everything is concluded right here.”

“Brendan,” Zinnia growls, trying between the boy and Maxie in disbelief. “Do not you-!”

She’s lower off when Claydol hums threateningly, rattling the bottom with a deep, horn-like sound.

“I can be with you in a second,” Maxie provides Zinnia a raised forehead and nothing else, returning his consideration to Brendan a second later. “My boy, may I ask a favor of you?”

The younger Birch wants a second to compose himself. “What kind of favor?”

“Could I ask you to defend the extractor with Courtney and Tabitha?” He asks, turning his eyes to the machine within the distance, which is surrounded by a fringe of lower-ranking Magma thugs and a hoop of pokemon. “Aqua is on the way in which to crash the get together as they’d say, and your experience is sorely wanted.”

“L-Chief Maxie,” Tabitha lastly finds his voice as soon as extra, although he fingers the pokeball in his hand with apparent trepidation. “Are we not sufficient to maintain the volcano safe?”

Maxie smiles as soon as extra, however there isn’t a heat inside it. “Sources embedded inside Aqua suggested that my dullard counterpart Archie could also be with the raiding get together, therefore my arrival.”

Courtney’s face loses all of its shade whereas Tabitha’s transforms into picture-perfect horror. “What?! That madman is coming right here?!” Tabitha each seems and sounds as if the incarnation of demise itself flashed earlier than his eyes.

‘Archie, the chief of Staff Aqua?’ Lee ponders to himself, watching with a sinking intestine. ‘Madman? Is he actually that scary?’ With a gulp, he mentally reaches out to Ninetales. ‘9, use telepathy and inform Corvisquire to run for backup. Have him hit the Lavaridge Gymnasium, the Pokemon Ranger station, and the police division. Inform him to make use of Extremespeed from the get-go so nobody has time to react to him leaving. This has formally spiraled uncontrolled.’

‘Very properly’ Ninetales sighs, and from the nook of his eye, he watches Corvisquire stiffen on his toes. From the gritting of his beak, Lee already is aware of what the corvid’s opinion on such directions are, however regardless, he shifts his wings and takes a deep breath.

Everybody’s heads flip to Lee when Corvisquire vanishes in a sonic crack, turning into a shadowless blur that’s gone over the facet of the mountain immediately.

Maxie recovers the quickest, as soon as extra seemingly unfazed. “Ought to we be involved about that, Mister Henson?”

‘In fact he is aware of my title’ Lee steels his nerves and meets Maxie’s apathetic gaze. “He misplaced his nerve and ran away to cover. He does that typically,” he lies easily.

“Hmm” Maxie hums, his eyes trailing the trail that Corvisquire took by means of the air. “I see.” Fairly than touch upon it additional, he turns and offers Brendan a smile. “As I used to be saying, my boy, are you able to please support Courtney and Tabitha? It would additionally give me ample time to talk to your mates right here.”

Brendan hesitates. Like he did quite a few instances again on the raise, he seems in direction of his pokemon for solutions, just for none of them to be prepared to fulfill his gaze. “Mister Maxie?” He begins slowly and unsurely. “This… Lee and Zinnia are nonetheless my buddies, so you will allow them to go, proper?” As he says that, Brendan seems in any respect of them pleadingly. “I” He seems to Courtney once more and gulps. Watching the usually unflappable boy falter is such a surreal expertise. “I did not need this to show into such an enormous deal, and and”

Lee swallows the incredulous phrases on his tongue, not desirous to set off Maxie’s Claydol. Taking a look at Zinnia, she seems to be simply as pissed off. ‘What sort of hooks did Courtney set into Brendan to make him do that? Certainly he can see this can be a mistake!’ He telepaths to Ninetales. ‘His dream, his buddies, his household? Does he know what he is giving up?’

The place Lee anticipated burning fury in Ninetales aimed squarely at Brendan, her earlier vexation is gone, and in it is place is a storm of battle, one which grows the longer she thinks of the occasions taking part in out earlier than her. The vixen shifts her eyes between the boy and Courtney, her personal ideas in disarray. Lastly, she says: ‘Feelings and logic typically don’t stroll hand in hand.’

There’s a transient second, lower than a second, the place Lee’s thoughts goes to a darkish, impulsive place and considers the professionals and cons of asking Ninetales to slay Maxie. A mere flex of the vixen’s telekinesis, and the person’s head could be faraway from his shoulders, completely pulverized. Magma could spiral uncontrolled with no chief, thus halting their madness in its tracks. As rapidly because it got here, the plot is discarded with haste borne of self-disgust. If Maxie died, they’d be left along with his grieving and enraged pokemon to cope with, to not point out the opposite Magma members. And even when they managed to get away from such a multitude, then the regulation would certainly come down on them for circumventing due course of.

‘Shit. Not that it could have been that straightforward anyway.’ Lee grimaces and steals a look at Claydol, who is unquestionably providing Maxie some type of unseen safeguard.

“There isn’t any want in any respect for violence,” Maxie soothes, reducing Brendan’s stammering off. “I’ll do all the pieces in my energy to see them residence safely. They want solely promise to be truthful throughout our negotiations.”

“Negotiations?”

Maxie adjusts his glasses, pushing them up the bridge of his nostril as he nods. “Certainly. Magma, as of but, nonetheless requires secrecy. Earlier than your well-informed buddies are despatched on their means, I want to see about compensating them for his or her silence. You perceive, do not you?”

“I do” Brendan murmurs.

“Include me, Brendan,” Courtney smiles and beckons the boy to her facet. “You made the proper alternative. Magma will care for you.”

A smile tries to rise on Brendan’s face for the primary time as we speak, however it dies and leaves him solely showing extra divided with himself. After a second that appears to stretch on and on, Brendan and his pokemon slowly stroll to the Magma Admin’s facet, falling in step as she and Tabitha flip and start the stroll to the lip of the volcano. Even from such a distance, Lee can see Marshtomp’s knuckles flip white as he and the remainder of Brendan’s pokemon drag their toes.

When Courtney wraps an arm round Brendan’s shoulders, Zinnia explodes.

“What sort of fucking superhero bullshit did you feed him?!” The tanned girl screams at Courtney’s again, her voice so loud it echoes off of the buildings and the mountains surrounding Mount Chimney. Lee and Ninetales each flinch on the quantity. Even Shelgon regards his coach with shock.

“Do you’re feeling good, you bitch!? Do you’re feeling good manipulating a child like that!?” The Dragon tamer continues her tirade. “What number of different individuals who do not know any higher have you ever fucked over?! What number of of them have been children?! You fucking freak! You are not going to get away with this! I will break you over my fucking knee, you scrawny, pink-wigged whore! If I discover out you probably did something worse to him, I am going to make you remorse ever being born!”

Regardless of all of the curses and threats, Courtney would not look again. She would not a lot as waver in her steps.

Zinnia is compelled to take a breath, then she shifts the main focus of her frustration. “Brendan!”

Brendan seems again, his eyes extensive.

“You had higher hope I die on this volcano, as a result of if I get my palms on you after this, then you are going to going to” Zinnia loses steam, her shoulders slumping. To Lee’s alarm and Ninetales’ uncomfortable shock, the girl’s eyes are prickling with tears. “I assumed we have been buddies, you little shit” She finishes in a weak whisper. She pulls her cloak round herself, seeming to shrink.

Courtney leans her mouth all the way down to Brendan’s ear, whispering one thing that nobody else can hear. Slowly, Brendan turned his shaken visage ahead, persevering with to stroll with the pair of Magma admins.

“Feeling higher?” Maxie asks dryly, unbothered by the piercing glare Zinnia strikes him with. “As I stated, I’d converse to you two to see how we will resolve this little wrinkle. I meant what I stated earlier, there isn’t a want for us to combat.”

Zinnia sneers, as soon as extra all piss and vinegar. “Actually?”

“Actually,” Maxie reaches his hand up and rubs his chin, observing Lee, then Zinnia. “In fact, younger Brendan retains firm as glorious as himself. To journey and courageous Hoenn as a trio means you all have to be fairly pleasant with one another. Magma at all times has extra room for such people, so-“

“Stuff it!” Zinnia snarls just like the dragons she trains, each Shelgon and Tyrunt mirroring her. “You already know the reply to that!”

Maxie frowns. Regardless of being on high of a volcano, the air appears to sit back. “Very properly Then we’re left with just one possibility.” He glances at his Claydol, who has remained completely emotionless your complete time. “Magma can undergo no leaks, and also you, my buddies, are certainly the worst form of leak: highly effective, educated, and related. When you want to be let go together with no violence, then reminiscences of your time right here have to be wiped and reminiscences of younger Brendan have to be altered. Claydol is an knowledgeable of such arts-” he waves a hand to his Pokmon “-and I promise you that minus a number of hours’ time out of your perspective, you’ll go away right here unmolested.”

Ninetales growls, and Lee feels her wrap her thoughts round his in a bristling, protecting defend. ‘Is he truly critical?!’ She says to Lee, aghast. ‘Completely not!’

Lee cannot fairly conceal how disturbed he’s by how casually Maxie presents such an invasive and doubtlessly identity-shattering process. As soon as extra, he’s reminded that psychic pokemon are greater than mild reveals and floating objects. He would not want to take a look at Zinnia to know what her reply goes to be.

“Effectively?” Maxie asks, elevating an eyebrow. “I would favor a solution sooner reasonably than later.”

‘A lot for negotiations’ Lee provides the taller man a tough stare. “Maxie You are underneath arrest for suspected terrorist actions. Come quietly.”

Maxie sighs. “Pity.”

In a flash of motion, a pokeball is launched from his hand. The ball snaps open midair, and the air turns into sweltering.