Chapter 87 – Chink in the Armor

Chapter 87 – Chink in the Armor

“It is a pleasure meeting you, Leader Stone. My name is Egon from Lavaridge Town.”

“The boy I have been waiting for. Take a seat we have much to discuss.”

‘This is… I’ve never met her before, why go out of her way to set all of this up? The only possible reason would be Roxanne’s sharing of our fossil adventure.’

“Roxy likes talking about nerdy stuff all the time! Even Rocky says so.”

Although our stint exploring the desert ruins was a remarkable experience, I figured that I could at least count on Roxanne keeping mum on our more important mutual secrets. With a small sense of trepidation I took the seat opposite to Mrs. Stone, nervously awaiting what this powerful woman had to share with the likes of me.

“Leader Stone, shouldn’t we go ahead and start my gym challenge right about now? I am sure that you have a very busy schedule to keep this late in the season.”

“We’ll get to your challenge soon enough but first there is something I need to discuss with you. Did you hear about our little ghostly incident three weeks ago?”

“…The receptionist at the time made it clear that the issue had already resolved itself by the time I visited the gym.”

“Curious, isn’t it?”

“What is Ma’am?”

“My staff thoroughly investigated the security footage of that day. Can you guess what they found?”

‘…Tini, you made sure to keep yourself invisible the entire time while you were here last time, right?’

“Hmpff! There’s no way they noticed me! I am a stealth expert!”

“I don’t know Mrs. Stone but I am sure you are about to tell me.”

“Nothing, not a single thing.”

“Okay…”

“That’s when my partner Yorick noticed a discrepancy.”

‘Oh boy…’

“The silhouette of a Pokémon bending the ambient light in such a way as to turn invisible. Now normally we would have no way of knowing where this mirage Pokémon disappeared to afterwards, but strangely enough my partner determined that said Pokémon clung to your nape riding along as you exited our premises.”

The gym leader’s inquisitiveness had triggered my fight or flight response. The only reason I didn’t just walk out right then and there was because of my need to earn a gym badge and not wanting to risk offending the most powerful woman in the entire region.

“What are you asking of me Mrs. Stone? Me and my partners came here expecting a gym match. If that is not in the cards, we will have to leave. There’s little under a month left until the conference starts so I have no time to play guessing games.”

“Hmm… more straightforward than I expected, fine then. You see, me and my partner have fallen into a slump recently and are looking for a real challenge to close out our retirement from the battling scene. The two of us would like to battle against your mystery Pokémon in private away from the public’s eye. Victory against us will net you the Armor Badge and as an extra incentive double the usual prize winnings.”

‘Is she even allowed to do that? Gyms are technically paid for by the association. Unless the extra money is coming out of her own pocket.’

“Let’s do it! And since I am battling alone, the extra money can be used to hire more workers for Kecleon Brothers & Co.”

‘Hire more workers?’

“The colony of Tropius living on routes 119 and 120 only do freelance work and have very expensive taste in berries.”

‘This could all be a trick to get us to lower our guard. There could be a team of poachers hiding right underneath the bleachers ready to take you away.’

“I am not scared!”

‘Alright, it is your decision. Just keep your distance for now, okay? You always seem to get grabbed and treated like a plush toy when revealing yourself for the first time.’

Victini, who had been holed up in my backpack up until now, telekinetically opened up the zipper from the inside before slowly floating out of her hidey hole. First it was her long fluffy ears that popped out followed by those big sparkling blue eyes. When the rest of Victini’s body became visible Mrs. Stone had already unconsciously reached out with her dominant arm. But before being able to grab onto Victini the offending appendage was grabbed ahold of by Mawile who had up until now contented itself by devouring the set out pastries by the handful. Seeing its trainer become tempted with fluffiness which she lacked as a steel type set something off within her.

“Wiiiileee!”

“Oh dear, of course you’ll always be my favorite Penelope.”

“Maaaaw!”

“Before we begin with any sort of battling I’d like to introduce myself and my partner. Make yourself known, Yorick!”

Without its trainer’s assistance the luxury ball which had been resting inside a fancy steel and gold trimmed casing hanging on the nearby wall opened up. The Metagross contained within materialized the large metal arachnid like robot focused its red gaze upon Victini no doubt wishing to convey something of importance to it. 

“Vi?”

“Metaaa!”

Just like that an entire conversation which I was not privy to commenced. By now I was proficient enough with Victini’s brand of pokéspeak that I could interpret about a quarter of the conversation happening in front of me, but I felt it appropriate not to involve myself unless asked to. Instead, I continued to converse with Mrs. Stone.

“What a remarkable Pokémon. How does one so young as yourself manage to encounter such a creature?”

“Just regular traveling. One comes across all kinds of Pokémon while sightseeing the world’s natural wonders. Victini used to be very shy, especially around strangers, which is a large part of the reason why I think people haven’t heard about her before now.”

“Victini… a fitting name. My own trainee Roxanne has managed to capture a legendary Pokémon of her own quite recently. Have you heard about this?”

“Ehm… Roxanne and I have been friends for some time now. I was one of the people present when we first encountered Regirock.”

“That girl fails to keep me her sponsor and mentor in the loop. She’s developed quite a rebellious streak.”

“It is not like that! The original plan was to keep Regirock a secret to prevent her being targeted by the darker elements of our society. However, she also made a promise to you to win all eight major badges. In the end Roxy saw no other alternatives but to call Regirock out to battle against Juan.”

“Good you pass.”

“Eh?”

“That girl had always been put on a pedestal by her peers and instructors even back in trainer’s school. Due to that she’s had very little in the way of companions. Admirers and sycophants sure, but almost none that I would call true friends. Tell me, how is my little protégé doing nowadays?”

“Last I spoke with her she was determined to set off swimming towards Ever Grande City.”

“With only that newly caught Relicanth of hers I presume? Foolhardy girl I’d have lent out my Empoleon to her if she’d just asked.”

“You have an Empoleon?! No…, that makes sense.”

“Our wealth and connections have opened many a door for my family. You will come to understand this when competing against my son Steven in the Ever Grande Conference.”

While I had been kept busy talking about Roxanne Victini’s and Metagross’ conversation started winding down. From what I could interpret Metagross was asking Victini for some important favor which she was hesitant about fulfilling. When the conversation seemed to be winding down both of them had come to some sort of understanding.

‘What’s the situation?’

“Vi Vi…” “Metagross wants boring remedial lessons on how to bend light.”

‘Please don’t tell me you got peer pressured into anything. You don’t have the time for any additional projects.’

“If we lose, I have to teach him.”

‘Otherwise?’

“…All the berries we can carry.”

‘Not just any berries right? This lady is loaded.’

Completely ignoring my surroundings, I was just sitting there having a mental conversation with Victini. For a minute I thought of apologizing to Mrs. Stone for my rude behavior before realizing Metagross and its trainer were doing much the same.

“Our dealings have concluded. Let us commence the battle.”

Mrs. Stone stood up to take her place inside the leader’s box on the battlefield while me and Victini moved towards the square meant for challengers to stand in.

“This is the first time I’ve been in an official match! This is so exciting!”

‘You have a complete advantage when it comes to typing. The only way that Metagross will be able to significantly hamper you is by use of Gravity. You can also expect it to use Ghost and Rock type moves to make up for the innate difference in strength.’

“Gravity isn’t a biggie!”

‘Really? Says the Pokémon who only uses the ground for sleeping?’

“Since this is a private match, we will do this without an official battle judge. Are you fine with this?”

“No problem leader Stone. We keep to the rules even without one.”

“Penelope dear, would you do the honors?”

“Maaaw!”

We watched as the two feet tall steel type Pokémon leaped onto the side lines where a battle judge would usually stand and grab both the red and green flag. The flags were comically oversized for Mawile’s petite body and instead of making her look like an actual battle judge it had the complete opposite effect.

“Wile, Wile!”

I couldn’t actually understand what she was saying but Victini took the initiative by floating towards her starting position on the battlefield with Mrs. Stone’s Metagross doing much the same.

“Maaaaaw, Wile!”

I didn’t need to understand Mawile to know what that last sentence meant. Our wager battle had officially begun.

“Flame Charge!”

“Gravity!”

Victini charged headfirst into Metagross’ direction while engulfed in flames. Flame Charge was an excellent move to start getting the body pumped for battle and also to scout out the opponent’s reaction times, but before Victini could close the distance an oppressive force fell over the battlefield. I had observed many a Pokémon use Gravity to lock down an opponent’s flight capable Pokémon but this move was one notch above even that. I could only watch on haplessly as Victini was forced aground despite her best efforts.

“Vi Vi!” “This is cheating!”

‘I warned you but for them to immediately identify your weakness. That’s one experienced duo. However, flight isn’t the only way we get around.’

“Vi!” “On it!”

“Teleport into Fire Punch!”

“Iron Defense.”

My ground bound Pokémon teleported straight on top of Metagross’ metal body before using one fiery clawed first smashing down with all her might while aided by the intensified gravity. The following resounding bonk closely resembled someone’s hand breaking after punching sheath iron. While I didn’t expect Metagross to go down with just a single move, a super effective one coming from Victini should have left it with quite a dent in its carapace.

“Vi VI!” “Ouch! That’s hard!”

‘I’ll wrap up your paw after this. If physical hits don’t work, we’ll cook that outer shell red hot.’

“Flamethrower!”

While Victini didn’t prefer doing so she was quite excellent at using fire type attacks the traditional way from the mouth. Within seconds Metagross’ upper body segment turned red hot in contrast to its previous cool blue luster. However, before Victini could finish. 

“Get it off! Shadow Claw!”

Metagross’ ball joints allowed its crablike arms to make full three hundred- and sixty-degree rotations. Which it now cleverly used to invert its arms, allowing Metagross to reach its vulnerable backside. Its claws extended and glowed with ghostly energies as they swiped at the offender who was currently cooking it alive. Both Victini and I were caught off-guard as she was swatted away by the super effective attack. 

“Vi Vi!” “Ow! Ow! That stings!”

‘Just stings? This Metagross is an elite tier Pokémon.’

“Banette’s Shadow Claw hurt way more.”

 It seemed like this Metagross was lacking in strength compared to its exemplary ability to shrug off physical attacks Now that it had been flambéed by Victini it wasn’t looking too fresh. Its sleek metal body was still discolored from the heat. It seemed like taking two super effective moves in a row from Victini was starting to take its toll.

“Let’s do my super-duper special attack we’ve been working on!”

‘Use that move in an actual battle? …Alright, but don’t go overboard. We don’t want to do any permanent damage to Metagross.’

“Searing Shot!”

Victini formed a sphere of fire around her body. The ambient heat in the room swelled to uncomfortable levels as she kept feeding the move her own unique brand of weaponized energy. That power which she usually used to empower others mixed in with fire type energy and compressed with the help of her psychic powers was powerful enough to level buildings. When the resulting sphere of fire became compressed enough Victini unleashed it upon our opponent.

“Protect!”

Just before the move could connect the all too familiar turquoise shield popped up around Metagross. As the Searing Shot collided with the Metagross’ protective shield something very unusual happened. Cracks started forming on what the association considered the most impenetrable defensive move. Sounds that resembled the cracking of glass echoed throughout the battlefield as the shield eventually gave in. The sphere, now much reduced in size and power, hit Metagross square in the face blasting the steel type across the battlefield.

“Metaaa…”

‘This is the first time I’ve ever seen Protect breaking. Did you really hold back like you said you would?’

“…Woops?”

Victini moved up close to Metagross curious to see if the Pokémon was still in fighting shape. That was our first and last mistake.

“Grab Victini! Explosion!”

“Ehh?!” “What!?”

All of a sudden Metagross dropped its ruse and used its two clawed appendages to grab ahold of my partner who had ignorantly gotten up close to it. Victini tried struggling out of the steel type’s grip but couldn’t do so fast enough to avoid what Mrs. Stone had planned for her. 

Metagross’ entire body started shining before the great force it was building up rocketed outwards. The entire battlefield trembled as the blast expanded to cover the entire battlefield making metal shrapnel fly everywhere but I couldn’t care less about my own safety.

‘Tini!! Are you okay?’

“…Vi.” “…It hurts. No fair, that’s cheating.”

Once the dust settled, I could see the passed-out form of Metagross splayed across the field with my own partner in a similar position only a hair’s breadth away from fainting herself. Ignoring my opponent, I rushed up to Victini and lifted the tiny rabbit up into my arms to comfort her as well as to assess the damage she had sustained from Metagross’ Explosion. 

Victini’s body was all scuffed up. Being a fire type she was naturally resistant to sustaining any scorch marks or the like from the heat generated off such an explosion, but the physical force alone was enough to leave her battered and bruised.

“Don’t you worry Tini! Emergency situations such as this is why we keep a fresh Hyper Potion stashed away in the backpack.”

“Yorick, Return!”

“Maaaw! Wile!”

Mawile, who had been our unofficial battle judge, raised up the green challengers’ flag to indicate that Victini had won the battle and thereby the match. The ruling on explosive finishers was quite clear making the match go to me by default. Technically speaking the exploding party would be the ones that got knocked out first. This rule was established quite recently to prevent sore losers from abusing the move Explosion to force matches into a draw.

I was quite sure Mrs. Stone was trying to teach me some important life lesson at the moment but I didn’t pay her any attention. There I was in the middle of the battlefield giving my Pokémon emergency medical treatment. Not at all minding having to expend my singular expensive Hyper Potion to make Victini feel better.

After finishing spraying down all of Victini’s booboos I returned the little rabbit to her poké ball. Given that my partner was now safely recuperating I now had the wherewithal to share my displeasure on the source of Victini’s unjust suffering. Who had been standing over my shoulder observing all the while.

“What on the reverse side were you thinking!? That’s not how a gym leader should act! Pokémon battling is a sport, not some free-for-all warzone!”

“We were testing the two of you. It is the same trial I plan to give to Roxanne once she returns to Rustburo.”

“For what?! How to identify jerks?”

“Your Victini has only been with you for a year’s time at most and she’s already stronger than my lifetime partner. You did well keeping her a secret but when Victini’s existence becomes public knowledge there will be all sorts of unscrupulous types with more money than sense looking to acquire her.”

“Anybody you know?”

“My husband for example.”

“The president of Devon Corporation? That man could hire a small army. There’s no way he’d be interested in a singular Pokémon no matter how powerful.”

‘Well except for Rayquaza as far as I know.’

“Joseph is not the same man that I had once married. After taking over the company from his deceased father he has changed. My husband has set his sights on having our Steven win the championship title this year in order to remove all limits placed on the company. I am afraid of what he might do to ensure our son’s success.”

“…Really? Can’t you just tell Steven to stop taking advice from Mr. Stone?”

“You don’t understand. Steven grew up tied to the pants leg of his father and blames me for our legal separation.”

“You are divorced?!”

“In every way but on paper, but enough about me. Please do make sure not to fall for my husband’s scheming ways. He’ll do far worse than just a surprise Explosion once he finds out about your Victini’s participation in the Ever Grande Conference.”

“And you are not telling Roxanne about this!? She’s also just caught a legendary Pokémon!”

“The chances of little Roxanne beating Steven is astronomically low even with the helping hand of her new partner. Despite his naivety regarding Joseph our Steven is the strongest steel type trainer in Hoenn we made sure of that.”

“And what if President Stone has already discovered Victini?”

“I imagine he’ll try a soft approach first, perhaps come to you with offers of lucrative sponsorship while hiding crucial key details in fine print. Something to the effect of; having the right to confine your Pokémon for scientific research.”

“They can do that!?”

“No, but his army of lawyers can stall for time until the conference is already finished.”

“Ehm, and what if I were to refuse such an offer?”

“Hmm… knowing my husband he’ll likely bribe an association insider to conveniently lose your conference registration. By the time you’d get word of the clerical error it would be too late. Granted this could be easily preventable if one knows someone who works at the league that is able to pull some strings.”

“Oh, that’s fine then I guess.”

“As a last-ditch effort, Joseph might try to commission off the book poachers to steal Victini. Seeing as she is such a powerful Pokémon, only infamous professionals would take on such a job.”

“Mr. Stone would go that far?!”

“Not the Joseph I knew. We haven’t spoken in many years and his darker inclinations might have grown lesser or worse in my absence. This is all speculative of course, as long as he or other power brokers don’t gain knowledge of Victini’s existence before the conference starts you will have nothing to worry about. 

‘The PI that was stalking us could’ve been hired by Devon Corporation. We’ll wait to see if any offers of sponsorships from Devon show up in my mailbox before drawing a conclusion.’

“Now I believe you have rightly earned this Armor Badge. Normally I am required to give out a speech to the winning trainer. Are you still interested in that?”

“Ehm no thank you. Victini did communicate to me the details of her wager with Metagross involved us leaving with as many berries as we could carry?”

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Later at the Pokémon center*

“How are you feeling Tini?”

“Vi?” “Can I have one more Sitrus berry?”

“Of course, anything to help you feel better.”

After finishing up at the Rustburo gym we came back to the Pokémon center carrying three heavy buckets with an assortment of berries I had picked out. The food stores of the Rustburo gym were pitiful due to the fact that the steel types being trained there didn’t have much need for organic food. Altogether we had to make do with what was available, which was a whole heaping of Sitrus berries, with the smallest of these buckets filled with Babiri berries. Sitrus berries being a favorite of mine I was quite content while Victini was at least mildly satisfied about crossing out Babiri off her list of berries she hadn’t eaten yet. 

The first thing we did after entering the Pokémon center was to book a private room so Victini could recover from her wounds. She was now in the process of being doted on by my concerned team members and I could tell from her semi-smug expression that she was enjoying the extra attention. The reason I didn’t have her looked over by nurse Joy was obvious, but it did lay heavily on my mind that I couldn’t provide the best care for one of my partner Pokémon.

“Pent?”

“The gym leader knew about Victini and insisted on battling her in a singles match.”

“Laaamp!”

“Don’t worry you’ll be key to winning my next gym badge. Petalburg City’s gym leader specializes in normal types.”

I had already decided to challenge the Petalburg Gym for my final gym badge skipping Dewford entirely. To get to Petalburg City I’d have to traverse the Petalburg woods south of Rustburo but after talking with Mrs. Stone about the precariousness of my situation I felt apprehensive about traveling out alone on the routes.

“I am off to the center’s media room to check out the trainer mail on my league account. Who wants to go with me?”

“Ninee!”

Rena volunteered while the rest of the team seemed to be too caught up enjoying our recent bounty. I would usually take them to a fancy restaurant after a win like this but the windfall in berries kept them distracted enough to prevent my team asking for anything more, allowing me to keep our gym winnings. As we walked, Ninetales' curiosity got the better of her and she inquired about why I suddenly felt the need to check my emails.

“Nine?”

“If I am right, we should have received a couple of sponsorship offers.”

“Nine?!”

“By this point a trainer in my position would make for a sure bet to qualify for the conference. Every single participant gets featured on live TV. That could translate into some cheap advertisement for whichever company manages to snag me up. I am not expecting large sums of cash or anything, but it would be nice to get stabling rights and some free goodies.”

Entering the media room I quickly sat at the last available PC booth with Rena cramming herself next to me draped over my lap.

“Let’s see…”

After successfully logging into my association account, I quickly located the page containing all my emails. 

“Over 50 unread emails?! This is going to take ages…”

Biting the bullet I forced myself to slowly go over each and every single one. As I did so we came to find out that about half of the emails I received were just junk mail. There was just no way that I would believe a Paldean prince needed a quick influx of cash to pay for legal bills after which he’d richly reward me for my aid. 

The remainder of the emails, however, consisted of trade requests, sponsorship deals and oddly enough one letter from a bug catcher in Solaceon Town willing to fork over an exuberant amount of money to reserve one of Halo’s future progenies. It seemed that while I wasn’t paying attention that Halo had become widely known as being the first Larvesta spotted outside of Unovan borders. Incidentally Halo wasn’t the only one among my team members which people were interested in, I received trade requests for both Glove and Orin as well. Likely due to the fact that one sported the rare form changing ability and the other because of his status as an off-color Pokémon.

“Pfft! Who would trade a Larvesta for a top percent Wurmple? Honestly, some people.”

A solid thirty minutes passed until I eventually finished amusing myself, going through all the ridiculous trade requests, some of them serious, others not so much. I had been holding out on reading through the sponsorship deals because of the large amount of reading material involved but skimming through them I could see that at least a few of them had potential.

One of the first sponsorship deals which stood out to me came from the city council of La Rousse. It appeared that Hoenn’s most futuristic city needed trainers to advertise their newly built Battle Tower. Another interested sponsor lived all the way over on Muscle Island and was the proprietor of a fitness bootcamp. And lastly the one sponsorship deal I had been dreading came from none other than Devon Corporation.

‘Tini, from now on I‘ll keep better watch over you.’