This is a multi-part Pokémon fanfiction short story. Read and enjoy.
Red-eyed Venemoths appear between the trainer and Koga.
“Venemoth!” Koga shouts into the darkness. “Come!”
Low buzzing echoes in the distance.
The ground starts vibrating.
Buzzzzzz! Buzz! Buzzzzz!
The ground quakes, slow and controlled. Then, it rumbles.
A horde of red-eyed Venemoth appears between the trainer and Koga.
“Get across without fainting from the poison,” Koga shouts to the trainer from across the chasm. “If you can do it with the three Pecha Berries I handed you, and then make it up to the top of this waterfall,” Koga continues, pausing. He looks at the trainer. His face shielded by hovering, oscillating Venemoth, carefully moving in a rehearsed, dizzying fashion.
Their thin, paper wings flap against their purple, furry thoraxes, spewing venomous dust.
Poison Powder swirls in the breeze between the Venemoths. “Eeek! Kreeeeee!” A Venemoth shrieks. Its mandibles click and snap, echoing in the infinite darkness between the waterfall and the trainer’s last step.
“…You can claim this victory, –, ” Koga finally says. Koga almost finishes his sentence with the trainer’s name. “Errr? Uh? Tell me, Trainer?” Koga asks. His voice carries between the soft swishes of the Venemoths’ wings. “Have we met? I seem to recall you, or your likeness, but I do not recall your name,” Koga says.
Meanwhile, on the otherside of the arena, Blissey tries to roll away from Lucario’s fist, but it slips on a pebble, tumbling under its awkward, unstable girth. “Bliss!” It shouts, surprised and anxious. Lucario’s most recent direct Aura Sphere seared Blissey’s thin pink fur, exposing masses of burnt skin. Blissey struggles to stand, staring Lucario down, wheezing and gasping, its exhaustion nearing its limit.
Blissey attempts to heal itself using another Soft Boiled attack. It has eaten all its available unborn young to meet the demands of the battle with Lucario.
Now the tide of battle rolls in Lucario’s favor. It howls and launches a barrage of Bullet Punches. Lucario focuses his rage on his knuckles. The resonance of his thoughts combined with his steel typing attracts iron, nickel and aluminum from the atmosphere around it. The particles coat Lucario’s fur at a microscopic level, hardening the fibers until each hair becomes a solid metal needle. Lucario’s ironclad fists pummel Blissey with a myriad of weak, but continuous, super-effective strikes.
Blissey’s Light Screen reduces the damage of the first successive series of hits. However, the protective coat shatters after the umpteenth blow. With no time to restore its health, the Blissful Medium’s rare pokemon prepares for its first defeat.
Blissey stares Lucario down between each echoing wham! “Blissey!” it shouts, refusing to back down, yet visibly enjoying the opportunity to face such a worthy opponent.
As the trainer pauses, pondering Koga’s question, Blissey smiles at Lucario one last time. It waves its bulbous hands in an effort to use the move Metronome and, hopefully, pull something, anything, out of the air.
“Arrrrrooooo!” Lucario wails, delivering the last consecutive Bullet Punch to Blissey’s face. Lucario’s fist swishes through the air in slow motion. The metal coating reflecting Blissey’s face back to itself from each knuckle.
Swish! Fwoop!
Blissey flinches.
“I am not sure,” the trainer finally responds to Koga across the battlefield, readying a Pecha Berry in the immediate-access, emergency pocket within the left inner breast of his Samurai gi. “I remember battling you. Somewhere… Gold teeth… A warden—Ah!” he screams grabbing his head. “I remember, Mount Silver, and… the book.”
The trainer freezes. A face flashes in his mind. Espeon’s original trainer?
The trainer collapses onto a knee and tries to keep himself propped up. He gasps, feeling heavy with each breath. His vision blurs. The Venemoths’ wings look like paper fans folding in the purple mist.
Koga crosses his arms and stands up on the large boulder beside the weakening waterfall. “The book. The Beautiful Medium?” Koga responds. “I see. You have her Espeon I take it?” Koga asks, breathing heavily. The trainer nods between the rows of Venemoths. Koga sighs, relieved. “Well, why aren’t you using your magic elemental blade, Samurai?”
“Venom – moth,” the Venemoths chant in unison, whisper while their mandibles chatter like rattling, clicking bones.
The trainer bites a Pecha Berry. He stands, and examines his path between the poisonous pokemon.
“Or should I say, Tsunami Samurai?” Koga adds, speaking sternly, his dry voice filled with eager excitement. “Ah, yes, what a memorable trainer. By my account, we battled some years ago, but as I am sure you know by now, time moves differently in these caves. I am a version of me from after our battle. Even when we fought, I was the Blissful Medium. I made an oath to Arceus and Azelf that I would bear responsibility for the sound, and letter, of Source Unown ‘B’,” Koga replies stoicly. His raspy voice scrapes through his shinobi scarf.” He continues examining the trainer across the distance.
The Tsunami Samurai swipes his blade across the air, and water dowses the Venemoths wings, preventing the the toxic dander from their thoraxes from spreading by their flapping wings.
Koga claps, smiling behind his mask.
The Tsunami Samurai’s wood and straw Getas crackle, sparking with yellow electricity. Reflective water particles coat the air the beneath his steps like glowing footprints over the chasm. He raises his sword, focused and silent.
Zip! Pop! Crackle!
Sparks flicker around the cobalt-edged blade.
The Venemoth separate, creating a direct path to Koga.
Koga throws a dagger at his face.
Tink!
The Tsunami Samurai flicks it away with his blade.
“Azelf!” Koga shouts. “I’d like to fight this one with my fists! More water!” He demands, expecting the waterfall to pick up.
Azelf appears, hovering in front of Koga. It shakes its head, denying the request.
“I understand, Azelf,” Koga responds to the mythical, legendary pokemon. “Arceus knows what it does. Palkia and Dialga, guide us. Deliver us from Giratina. May the Emerald Dragon be on our side.”
The fire in the trainer’s eyes inspires Koga.
The trainer walks on the air, approaching the waterfall. He reaches Koga and steps onto the solid ground around the waterfall basin.
Koga leaps up, running vertically up the side of the waterfall’s lateral boundary. “Up to the top!” he wails.
Boom!
Bright lightning blinds Koga.
Thunder echoes in the abyss.
Koga continues sprinting upward. He sidesteps loose rocks, dashing uphill, oblivious to the trainer’s whereabouts.
At the top of the waterfall, to Koga’s surprise, a hand reaches down, prepared to hoist him up to the waterfall’s summit.
Koga grins at the open palm then slaps it away, quickly jumping over the edge of the waterfall and landing beside the trainer. “You already have the Soulstone Gym Badge, so, Trainer, with this victory, you can claim the ability to commune with the Blissful Source Unown.
The Tsunami Samurai takes out the special pokeball for his quest. Blue fire flickers over the capital letter “B” inscripted on the face of the black metal pokeball.
“Your next opponent is the Cliffside Medium. My daughter,” Koga says, smiling as a portal opens next to him. “Janine, introduce yourself to the Tsunami Samurai,” he requests.
A woman with short spiky hair steps out of the portal. Her purple outfit is identical to Koga’s. They also have matching red shinobi masks with the Koga family crest printed on the side.
“Years of fighting with poison has taken its toll on my father. This version of him can’t fight you, so I’ll be your opponent. We’ll fight around the reservoir at the top of this cliff,” Janine says. “This will be a standard pokemon match. One of your pokemon against my Alpha Clefable. Who do you choose, trainer?” Janine asks, wasting no time.
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