RE: Mysteries of the Mind - A Trainer's Vision
Whew... I'm finally done with this chapter. Seriously, maybe my life is too ****ed up atm to think straight on these things, but this... took me forever to write -_-. In any case... here it is!
Chapter 15 – Searching the Blaze
“Man where ARE those two!? They HAVE to be here somewhere…”
Calum frantically searched Rowan Town’s pokemon centre for his beloved Gardevoir and their new friend Absol, whom she had taken to the pokemon centre to get urgent medical attention for his wounds. However, despite ten edgy minutes of searching for the pair, they were nowhere to be found! There wasn’t even any trace that the pair had been at the centre… Ryan managed to catch back up to Calum at the entrance to the centre, wondering how the search had gone.
“She’s not here then…” he said, with as much empathy as he could muster. “Well, there’s ONE thing that I can try… come on out Vulpix!”
Ryan called his red fox pokemon out, who gave him a confused look, as if to ask why she had been summoned.
“Vulpix, Gardevoir and Absol have gone missing! Can you find them at all? I know you have some psychic abilities… please try!”
Vulpix closed her eyes as she tried to focus her attention on Ryan’s command. It was true that she had some psychic abilities – however, they were very limited, and couldn’t actually do anything to find the missing pokemon. She turned back round to face Ryan, unhappy at not being able to find her friends.
“It’s ok, don’t worry about it! It was just a thought anyhow…”
Ryan was about to call the small fox back, but she suddenly came up with an idea! Using her Extrasensory move, she managed to force Ryan’s bad open and pull out a clear, bright red stone with an orange flame running through the inside. It dropped to the floor with a slight thud.
“Vulpix, what are you doing? That’s…”
But Ryan didn’t have time to finish; Vulpix had already run over to the stone and smothered it with her paw! Reacting to the intense energy running inside the stone, a familiar white glow surrounded her, and she began to evolve! The resulting pokemon was a pale brown fox, around four feet tall. Nine magnificent tails flowed behind her, each with a chocolate tip. A delicate tuft of fur rested on top of her head, somehow adding to the elegance of her appearance. Her bright red eyes shone mysteriously, making you uneasy if you looked at them for too long.
“Vulpix… wait, no, you aren’t Vulpix now; you’re Ninetails!”
Having used the power of the Fire Stone to evolve, Ninetails took her paw off of the now lifeless rock. Looking at herself in the clear reflection of the stone, her eyes lit up with joy. She was clearly pleased with her new look! Once she had gotten over the immediate joy of looking at herself, she remembered why she wanted to evolve in the first place. She fanned her beautiful tails out behind her, as far apart as they could possibly be. A familiar pinkish purple aura surrounded her body, causing a slight wind to blow in the area around the fox. After about three minutes, Ninetails opened her mouth and shot a strange green flame towards the ground, which danced around like a slinky in a pattern on the ground. The flame was writing a note! Ninetails must have managed to find the missing pokemon, and was using this ethereal fire to say where they were.
“Ninetails, we’re in the Evergreen Pokemon Centre, as the one at Rowan wasn’t working. Absol is getting healed as we speak, and we will be with you shortly.”
Having spelt out its message, the flames died down, leaving no trace of their existence behind them. Ninetails, having also finished communicating with Gardevoir, stopped glowing and waltzed over to Ryan, cuddling into him affectionately. Still in awe at her willingness to evolve without any provocation, he just bent down to pet his new pokemon. Calum gazed at the spot where the message was written, thinking about his Gardevoir for a second. “Come back soon Gardevoir…” he whispered softly to himself, fighting to keep tears from running down his face. Seeing his friend’s expression, Ryan was quick to try and comfort him.
“Calum… don’t cry, please! They’re coming back; they said so themselves! Why don’t we head towards the gym and meet up with Jamie… I’m sure Gardevoir will make it back by the time you’re done.”
Calum stopped looking blankly at the floor and turned to face Ryan. “You’re right… let’s go.”
Rowan Town’s gym wasn’t too far away from the pokemon centre, so the journey didn’t take very long. The gym building was in the shape of an erupting volcano, something that neither Calum nor Ryan had noticed beforehand. “At least we know the gym type before we start…” Ryan muttered, unimpressed by the thought of a fire gym in the middle of such dense woodlands. At the door of the building, several hot springs were steaming, creating a relaxing atmosphere around the outside.
“Boy, things sure do get back to normal quickly, don’t they Calum?”
Jamie was standing outside of the gym, looking onward towards his next opponent. Entirely dressed in red and orange, he looked rather like a human fireball – probably the image he was going for. Calum walked over to greet his friend, knowing full well what kind of battle he was about to have.
“So… are you going to put us through your gym’s puzzle and get our challenge underway then?”
Jamie was slightly taken aback by this abrupt request, hoping he could talk a little to Calum first. Sighing, and beginning to look a little sheepish, he replied, “well, actually… things don’t get back to normal THAT quickly. Team Leafre wrecked my thermally powered movement systems, so my gym’s tricks aren’t working for now. So… how about we just battle and get it over with?”
Still a little sombre about not having his Gardevoir, Calum was more than happy to just get into a battle and go for the badge. Upon hearing the acceptance of the challenge, Jamie lead Calum and Ryan into his arena.
The inside of the building had completely changed from when Calum and Laura had battled. You really got the impression that you were in an active volcano – the metallic floor revealed a pool of seething lava underneath, the walls were all craggy and loaded with gemstones, and they gradually came closer to each other as you looked up towards the “roof”, which was open-top.
“Ready to battle then Calum? Blaziken, let’s do this!”
A human shaped, bird-like pokemon came out onto the metallic field. His grey claws were cloaked in flickering flames, as was a lot of his body. Most of his body was a bright red colour, save for the yellow chest and legs, and the long white hair streaked behind it. He stared at Calum with a calm and collected expression on his face – it was clear to see that this was a very well trained pokemon.
“Well… looks like I’ll have to use my best match-up first if that’s what you’re using! Milotic, go!”
Calum’s dazzling water pokemon came to the field, radiating her becalming aura as normal. Upon seeing her opponent firing up, her own expression turned a little sterner, as she sized up what Blaziken was capable of.
“Blaziken, let’s fire up! Focus Energy, let’s go!”
Blaziken closed his eyes and began to focus his internal energy as instructed to. The fire surrounding him was becoming more intense with every second that passed, causing Calum to grow a little concerned for Milotic. Seeing the build-up of fire energy, he decided to try and nullify this with a trick of his own.
“Milotic, try and cool it down somewhat with Rain Dance! It seems to be building mostly fire energy… and we can stop that!”
The scales on Milotic’s tail shimmered with an aquatic blue glaze as she cried towards the sky, causing dark clouds to appear at the crater of the gym! Soon enough, a heavy downpour came hurtling towards the field, forcing Blaziken to weaken the fiery aura it had created around itself. Seeing this, Milotic wasted no time in waiting for an order – she went straight into a Water Pulse attack! The sonic wave quickly passed through the pouring rain and struck the unfocused Blaziken head on, but he wasn’t fazed by the attack. It WAS angry at it, however.
Jamie was a little angered by it as well. “You might want to raise that Milotic a little better Calum… it shouldn’t be attacking without your command! Anyhow, since it DID, let’s show it what we do to those who do that to US! Blaziken, Double Kick, go!”
Blaziken charged forwards at a blinding speed towards Milotic. Leaping the final few feet, it lunged feet first into the snake-like pokemon, delivering a swift kick to her lower body. This caused her to reel in shock and pain, giving Blaziken the time to dive in a deliver another kick straight to the neck! All the training it had been put through was really showing here – Milotic was under a good deal of pressure just to stay in the battle after a single attack against it.
“Gah, Milotic, come on! I know it’s tough, but you’re tougher! Show it with Hydro Pump!”
Milotic, after making some distance between herself and Blaziken, opened her delicate mouth and shot out an enormous volume of water directly at the fire pokemon! Blaziken managed to leap out of the way of the main blast, but couldn’t avoid all of it – the rain that was still falling in the gym had increased the size of the attack too much for him to fully evade it. Blaziken span off into the wall, winded slightly from the strength of the impact. Seeing her chance, Milotic redirected the endless spray towards the grounded Blaziken, hitting it head-on. Even with how well it was trained, there was no getting up from that – it was down for the count.
“Come back Blaziken…” Jamie said, sighing softly as he did so. “I should have known that you’d be packing water Calum, since you always DID like that Milotic… But you can’t beat all of my pokemon with it! Charizard, take her!”
Throwing his next poke ball onto the field, Jamie sent out a colossal red lizard with wide-spreading wings and a large flame on the end of its tail. It roared in delight at the prospect of a new opponent to battle – a feeling not shared by Milotic, however.
“Charizard, let’s try and stall this rain out; use Will-O-Wisp!”
“I don’t think so Jamie! Milotic, Safeguard, quickly!”
The huge lizard’s flame tail turned from bright red to whitish blue as it fired the same colour flames from its mouth towards Milotic. She was ready for this one however, covering herself in a pale blue barrier that stopped the flames from having any effect whatsoever. Milotic then glanced at Calum, waiting for another command whilst the rain was still in play.
“Ok, now try another Water Pulse!”
Jamie laughed. “That won’t catch Charizard here out! Fly away now!”
Milotic sent off another sonic pulse through the rain towards where Charizard was standing, but he saw the attack coming from far away. Before it was even launched, he had flown high into the air, and was now circling ominously around Milotic's head.
Calum looked up in annoyance, not expecting the move to be avoided so quickly. “Milotic, let’s drag it down from there… use Blizzard towards the sky! Then Protect from the inevitable…”
Jamie was curious. “Inevitable? What do you mean Calum?”
As he tried to figure out what was meant, Milotic created a huge wave of frigid energy from all around her body, and had sent it towards the sky. Charizard didn’t even have to try hard to evade this attack, simply flying close to the wall to avoid every last snowy flake that was fired up at it. Once the attack had ceased, it charged towards Milotic, looking to get a strong Slash of some sort in before any more attacks came. Milotic followed the orders she was given though, protecting herself with a pale green light that sent Charizard reeling back into the air. Up above, the storm clouds caused by Rain Dance were starting to dissipate slowly. However, they had one final surprise first…
Powered by the freezing energy Milotic had given them, the rain falling from the clouds began to freeze in mid-air! Within seconds, icicles were raining down as opposed to raindrops! Milotic was still under the influence of her Protect attack, and so took no damage from any of this. Charizard, on the other hand, was sent back into the air from the Protect in the first place, and had nowhere to run from the incoming storm. It’s back and wings were struck hundreds of times by the sharp, needle-like shards of ice falling from above, forcing it down to the ground in agony. Several shards could be seen poking out from beneath his skin – he was obviously in a lot of misery at this time. As the clouds above finally cleared, Charizard could be seen struggling to try and get on his feet again, with Jamie being unable to do anything but look in shock at what just happened to his pokemon. Not wanting to draw the battle out any longer, Calum issued a command for Milotic to use Hydro Pump again, which it swiftly executed to put Charizard down as quickly as it had come out.
“What the… she took out Charizard as well!? That Milotic is vicious…”
Jamie was stunned at the power of Milotic, but not willing to give up to it either.
“Well then, I guess you’ll have to take him on entirely! Typhlosion, go!”
The last pokemon sent out by Jamie was a large ferret pokemon, with a yellow belly and a dark blue back. A ring of flames covered his neck, indicating that this pokemon was also up for battle, and that he wanted to avenge his fallen comrades. Jamie was quick off of the mark to issue commands this time, giving orders before anyone could even react.
“Typhlosion, combine Quick Attack and Thunderpunch!”
Crying audibly as it carried the commands out, the ferret pokemon darted over on all fours towards Milotic at such a pace that it became impossible to track it! The next thing anyone knew, he had charged headlong into Milotic, sending her crashing into the wall. Quickly giving chase, Typhlosion darted over once more towards Milotic, but this time he threw an electrified punch straight into her belly! Howling in pain, Milotic crumpled to the floor, buzzing and crackling with static electricity.
“Milotic, no…”
Calum hastily called his pokemon back before any more damage could be done to it. Having already lost one pokemon like that, he was unwilling to take any risks at all with any others. However, he was in a bit of a tight situation now regarding what to send out.
“Hmm… if I send out Growlithe, he’s going to get hammered,” he thought to himself, trying to figure out what to do here.
“But if I send out Eevee, he will be beaten worse… or worse yet, he might kill Typhlosion! What do I do…”
Before he could finish his sentence however, a curious black poke ball was thrown from behind him onto the field. Turning round to see who had thrown it (thinking that they were interfering with the match somehow), Calum looked sternly in the direction that the ball had been thrown from. His gaze quickly softened when he saw who it was, however.
“I hope we’re on time, master. Your new acquaintance would like to take this next one, if you don’t mind…”
The poke ball on the field opened to reveal the next pokemon… but was it in an able condition to battle?
Well, there we go... now, I don't think there's many questions to accompany this, but I'll try and come up with a couple...
Why did it take SO long for Gardevoir and Absol to make it back? And HOW did Absol land up inside a black poke ball anyhow?
Anyone actually know what poke ball IS black anyways? It should be clear to those who play the games, but I just want to know if anyone remembers
Oh, and why has nobody tried to kill me again yet? Is there perhaps a rare break from that coming up?
Finally, is Absol going to be fit enough to battle the fierce Typhlosion? And if it can win, what move is it going to have to win with?
All this and more... next time!
