Yukito
Mossui Town Hunter
"Why do you continue to not hear me! A small foreign girl came across a Mimikyu! We should be looking for her body!" He argued growing heated as once again his words left no impact on the older man.
"The girl and the other as well, are not one of us. I will not allow another to head into the deep forest just to find a body." The elder offered with a sigh. "Yuki-chan. Let it go."
"I fled! I tried to grab her and drag her out of there but she fought me so I... I left her." He admitted to the Elder sitting across from the older man, both of them at the Elders home sitting out on his porch watching the fields.
"I know Yuki. You mustn’t blame yourself, or hold such blame in your heart. You did what you could. They were children, but they were odd. They did things differently from us. If our warnings are not heeded... We can do what we can to help, but we can’t take up the lives of all people on our shoulders."
"I regret it. She was so young. So small."
"Then let her spirit not haunt you, but lift your shoulders. Use her memory as something to grow from."
"I will try... I will try." Yukito stared out over the fields. He had lived his entire life here in Mossui, had chosen to become a hunter to explore. To get away from the confines of the village.
But perhaps he wasn’t meant for this.
"The other girl is likely still alive." He muttered trying not to sound petulant.
"If she is, and she needs help, then Mossui will be open to her." The Elder offered looking conflicted even as he spoke. "To allow children to travel so far from home alone? What madness exists out beyond the mountains?" He asked more to himself, but even Yukito didn’t know.
They sat there quietly, in the morning air wondering what was going on with the world. What insanity would send children so young into the wilderness. Mossui rarely had the strongest pokemon trainers, like other regions, but its children all grew up!
Yukito had met a Sinnohan trainer once. A man that had been at Stormpoint Port at the same time that Yukito had been with a trade caravan. Mossui had one truck that it used to transport rice and apples up over the mountains to the coast and bring back everything they needed.
But that man had scared Yukito. He had been challenged out of nowhere to a pokemon battle, which had baffled Yukito. Pokemon battles were never done anywhere but at the safest times. No one battled outside the village!
Even if Stormpoint Port had been pretty safe, it was obvious that Yukito was a traveler.
Yet, his own ardor had pushed him on. He had agreed, it was the first time Yukito understood the difference between Mossui and the rest of the world in truth.
This man, just a random wanderer from a great region, had defeated both of his pokemon without effort. It had been disappointing all around for both teenagers.
Yukito had fled in embarrassment after the battle.
The foreigners were so strange. So powerful, and yet it was like none cared about Kitakami.
The sound of rushed footsteps disrupted Yukito’s wandering mind.
"Really, Hideko? You know better." The Elder said turning to glare at his granddaughter, but the teenaged girl breathing heavily and rushing up onto the porch ignored the reproach.
The only person in the village that did with such casual ease.
"Look! Up!" She gasped and pointed and Yukito did so before gasping and feeling his knees going weak.
"Impossible."
"No... No!" The Elder gasped, hands trembling and afraid.
Because above their village. Highlighted in the first light of morning was a Gyarados.
A flying Gyarados.
Impossible. Those beasts when roused from the rivers rampaged with such power. The only beasts that worried the villagers more was the Ogre, or the Great Matriarch of the mountain.
The Garchomp that ruled with brutal force.
"No no! Look!" Hideko called out and pointed up but Yukito wasn’t sure what she meant. He had very much noticed the flying disaster.
A disaster that should not be able to fly!
"No, look at its head! Don’t you see the gold?" She demanded and then Yuki looked less at the entire moving calamity.
There. "Wait." He muttered then as the realization sunk in he spoke louder. "Wait!"
"That’s the foreign girl." The Elder spoke with surety the words that Yuki wasn’t sure he could say.
"She’s alive."
"I’ll say she is more than just that." Hideko said, looking up. "We noticed her as we were picking up apples at first light. She’s not moving very fast, but that’s her, the foreign girl."
"Lord Arceus. Truly you treasure some more than others." The Elder spoke a snippet of an old prayer. "Be thankful Yuki, it seems your actions did not end in death after all... Even the evil Mimikyu, would not have challenged such a beast after all."
"Yeah." He said quietly, looking up at something wondrous and impossible and wondering.
Why? Why could he not reach such strength but foreigners could?
Perhaps... Perhaps it was time to find out.
—--
Richard Brushfire
Chief of Kanto Ecology for the League
He really wished he could smoke.
Another meeting, another waste of time, but that was his life. He spent half his life in these meetings so his men could get some actual work done.
The big heads all demanded another meeting, as if they didn’t have the same report he had already made on this topic.
Nope they wanted a face to face meeting. Richard honestly wanted to one day ask them all if they were even capable of reading.
Maybe on his last day before retirement? Yeah that sounded good.
"We all know what this means! Garchomp! The powerhouse of Sinnoh here!"
"We should implement a breeding program! With just a few females, we could have an entire host of them!"
"Don’t get ahead of yourself." Richard cut in. "Garchomp is rated purple on the ecology disaster index. Small groups are fine due to frequent infighting, and splintering into even smaller groups which make them manageable. But a powerful Alpha rising up and a trainer to keep everything settled would be a disaster of untold proportions. As outlined in my report."
The man he interrupted sent a glare at Richard, not the first time. The old war hawk. Daniel Tsunada, was a man that always attempted to create every advantage for Kanto possible. Even at the expense of Kanto’s ecological health. The man was short sighted in the extreme.
"So you want to butter Lance up?"
"Not just that. I hope that Lance brings those pokemon back from Kitakami himself."
"Sir? Losing an advantage like that? Is it worth it?"
"Old thinking Brushfire. Old, war like thinking. What’s the point of an advantage you intend to never use? No. Better to sell such an ’expensive’ gift for something far greater. Despite our openness about the situation there are still grumblings from Johto. Grumblings that have been causing issues." Goodshow blew out a cloud of smoke as he stared at the map.
Then the President turned and looked up at Richard. The President may be small, but he had a powerful presence at times. When he continued speaking Richard was listening.
"Troublemakers are as always spending their political capital to cause issues. What do you think will happen when Johto soon has their own new dragons? And it was because Kanto allowed it, in the spirit of peace?"
The idea framed in Richards mind. He wasn’t a politician but he could understand it.
Men and women on the other side of the mountain stirring up unrest, suddenly silenced when their champion is assisted in empowering himself.
"You want to weaken the opposition to peace, and empower those calling for it... But Sir, if Kanto is offering this boon to a Johtan champion, you are weakening the Johtan warmongers, but you might be enhancing the Kanto side."
"Yes." He agreed simply and didn’t say anything more staring at the map of Kanto.
Richard smoked that cigarette, and nothing more needed to be said. He withdrew without another word, heading to make some calls.
—--
Elizabeth Ferrous
Elizabeth wasn’t sure what to feel.
Her little cousin seemed so delighted as Pokemon after Pokemon that Elizabeth had never heard of came out of pokeballs.
Elizabeth knew she was a strong trainer. She knew she had talent, taking Skitty to the conference and through skill and clan knowledge of cat types earning her place.
But that and this was something else.
The Gyarados alone had Elizabeth stepping well back, back up onto the porch overlooking her cousin’s stable.
The section of land behind the clan had previously been pretty small, The Fuschia ninja clan had owned the woods, and the Ferrous Clan had struggled to try and buy it.
Only with the money from the Milotic had it been approved.
The fact Koga of all people was fond of her cousin was just as weird. She had been allowed to sit in on the meeting between Daddy, and Gym Leader Koga for the land.
The Gym Leader had mentioned it would do Victoria well to have a stable away from Viridian.
So Elizabeth knew that Victoria was trouble. Knew that she was a strong trainer, with luck and skill.
But before this Elizabeth had only seen her pokemon by themselves.
Her Arcanine way back on the first day they met, the day that Elizabeth knew that the little blonde would be more than just a distant unwelcome cousin..
Then a Dragonite when she flew away after the clan meeting.
But looking over her entire team had Elizabeth assessing it objectively.
She knew more about Milotic than most since she had been helping take care of the flock that was transferred and even helping the team brought in to adjust the entire landscaping.
But Victoria’s partner? It was night and day compared to the pampered flock.
Thick muscles shone under its scales. It was larger, thicker, and longer, and moved with a grace on land that even some of the flock couldn’t get in the water.
Powerful. Elegant. Beautiful.
Elizabeth admitted her jealousy, and moved on.
Arcanine was a beast. Dragonite was a Dragonite. She couldn’t even properly assess them. They were strong though.
But the Gyarados? That had Elizabeth paying it extra attention. She had fought a trainer with a Gyarados before in the conference.
He had knocked her out. His Gyarados had been a brutal rampaging beast, even Skitty using Thunderbolt hadn’t managed to stop the beast until it crashed on top of her.
Her agile fighting style countered by overwhelming bulk.
But that Gyarados, while bigger than her Cousins was an uncontrollable beast. Its trainer hadn’t given it a single order during the fight.
He couldn’t. Even in the end, after defeating Skitty it had needed to be returned to keep it from attacking her.
The Trainer... Yaro? Yilo? Something like that. He had nearly lost his win because of it.
He had been knocked out in the next round, because he had been banned from using his Gyarados after its attack on her.
So Elizabeth had studied Gyarados, trying to figure out a method to have won the battle.
Yet... Victoria’s Gyarados didn’t rampage. Didn’t attack. Didn’t even mind when Milotic floated around it or on top of it.
It just swam there sedately, eyes locked onto Victoria with a calm intensity.
If it hadn’t just been there unmoving for the last few minutes she would have assumed it was planning on attacking.
"Blue Heart! You big cutie! You can do whatever you want of course my darling." She called out to her Gyarados who just sort of wiggled at her in response.
It made no sense. How had she done it? How had she made her Gyarados so placid? So controllable?
And who the hell called Gyarados a Darling?
Elizabeth shook her head, as her cousin ran off to chase after the littlest pokemon Victoria had brought back. Goomy? She didn’t get why she wanted so many poison types. But Victoria seemed to delight in them, and Elizabeth wasn’t going to comment on liking weird Pokemon. Her Sandslash wasn’t considered cute to most people, but Snicker was one of her best friends.
Elizabeth would need to watch her cousin. To figure out a way of defeating her, because she didn’t plan on losing the conference this year.
But she also knew that there was a gulf between them. Luck, rare pokemon... Maybe even skill. Although that one was what Elizabeth was betting she could win on. That and experience.
As she watched her cousin run back later with a Goomy in her hands. Elizabeth agreed to help.
The fact Victoria might be an enemy she faces in the conference, had nothing to do with the future of the clan.
This and that were two different things.