Chương 42: And No Sore Losers
His Charizard stomped through the cell's limited space, thrashing his massive tail behind him and giving me the sensation of an earthquake beneath my feet. My unfazed Charizard stood in place, awaiting the clash – they collided, locking claws with one another and now pushing each other. The Professor chuckled...
There wasn't much I could order Charizard to do: Fire attacks could hardly hurt one another, and I felt my Pokémon was too involved to let me interfere in his confrontation, so Sycamore and I just stood and watched as our beasts battered and wrestled each other – I was apprehensive and scared, Sycamore was cool and collected throughout, amusedly smiling as they exchanged bites, head-butts and tail attacks...
The biggest Charizard pushed his foe with unbroken vigor – my Pokémon was shoved into the wall against which I stood one second ago.
"Careful there, darling..." Sycamore commented with cynicism as I jumped to his side, barely dodging the two of them. He eyed me sideways without moving an inch, or showing any will to trick and seize me: his confidence in winning unnerved me!
But I should know better and trust my Charizard's determination – he was nearly undefeatable once excited into that state of nerves, usually taking down even the strongest adversaries. Though he cried in louder pain, and suffered more attacks, he eventually came through to bringing Sycamore's Pokémon down in a violent scene I watched with difficulty: he picked himself up from the last blow and flew against his enemy, taking him down – in the same movement, he rolled on the floor gathering impulse, and threw his adversary against the cell's bars – the hard metal bent with the attack, shaping his volume before he fell to the floor.
Before Sycamore's Pokémon could get up, Charizard repeatedly stomped him...
Sycamore closed his eyes and smiled. Charizard, unlike me, didn't let his guard down as he furiously eyed the Professor, asking for more: The battle wasn't over yet.
"Impressive display of brute strength – I should expect this to be your strongest trait, given your adamant nature…" he commenced, reaching for the next Pokéball "Now I would like to see how much your beloved trainer has worked on your defense!"
"Oh no!" I muttered as Blastoise was sent out, just as sullen-looking as the previous one. Sycamore laughed quietly.
Needless to say, Charizard got severely thrown around by Blastoise's water cannons, and could hardly stand straight after just a few turns. Sycamore would show no mercy, smiling and snapping his fingers to order a new attack before my Pokémon even had the chance to recover from the previous one.
"No... No, that's enough, Charizard!" I cried, reaching for him... But before I could get too close, he snarled, rejecting my interference and immediately picking himself up with absurd effort.
"You don't have to do this!" I insisted, worried about his rapidly deteriorating condition "You don't have to prove me anything!!"
But Charizard stubbornly ignored me, holding his ground for just as long as Sycamore's unscathed Blastoise waited for new instructions.
"Leave him be!" Sycamore recommended, smiling with appreciation "'he's a helpless blockhead that can't be reasoned with, not with words at least – but I guess the same can be said for the both of you!"
I grimaced, inflicted by almost physical pain at seeing Charizard's difficulty in so much as standing.
"Get him!" Sycamore neutrally ordered.
I suffered with anticipation as Blastoise rushlessly tucked his arms and legs into his shell. Charizard braced himself.
Having retracted his head too, Blastoise's shell lurched forward, and with incredible speed it spun violently into Charizard.
"No!" I screamed, the cracks in the wall growing bigger with Charizard's body being pushed against it. He was more than finished... with what effort he managed to open his eyes! Nevertheless, up he went again, and Sycamore laughed:
"More still? My! What a grudge compels you, Charizard!"
He snapped his fingers, and Blastoise repeated the destructive blow, sending Charizard to the floor once more... and once more he stood up.
"No... Please! Please, stop him!!" I pleaded to Sycamore at last, however humiliating that might feel... but his eyes were just as determined as Charizard's.
"It will take more than that to keep me from her... and yet, for how much longer can you stand?" He teased Charizard. Blastoise looked at my Pokémon like a merciless, emotionless machine... almost like he could actually kill him!
"Once more, Blastoise." Sycamore smiled, and just as brutally Blastoise smashed my Charizard against the wall. Just as helplessly Charizard received the blow...
It took a long, hurtful minute this time for him to move again, to react... His body seemed too heavy now – standing up was too much of a torture. I couldn't watch him go through with it.
"Please, Charizard... stop!" I begged. He supported himself on the cracked wall... crawled his way up... stood with difficulty "Please, you don't have to do this! We'll find another way!"
Charizard grimaced and let out a chocked cry his lungs could barely manage to sustain. He opened one eye at a time... then stretched open his arms, challenging his foe again.
"He's killing you!" I screamed – Sycamore snapped his finger, and Blastoise retreated into his shell again.
"Stop it!!"
He spun through the air – I screamed, the life of Charizard about to slip away with just one more blow... but the dreadful noise of his massive body being cast into the wall didn't come a fourth time: he somehow managed to stop Blastoise in his tracks with renewed strength in his arms, holding a powerless, immobilized shell.
"That can't be!!" Sycamore nervously groaned, surprised.
Charizard opened his mouth – a shaking gleam illuminated his throat, the flames that followed danced around his teeth and licked his face as he held it in, charging... then he released!
A massive flamethrower poured straight into Blastoise's shell opening, escaping through the gaps for his limbs and tail, seeming to last forever. Both Sycamore and I had to protect our faces from the intense heat that possessed the cell. When the blow was over, Charizard was exhausted... the shell fell back, steaming: Blastoise had been defeated!
"How..." Sycamore ground his teeth "How in the world could he..."
I watched with awe through my teary eye – Charizard panted, recovering his breath. His eyes, however weak, however sleepy and half-closed as he fought his exhaustion, still confronted Sycamore. I couldn't believe that unstoppable beast I was watching was my Pokémon...
"Humpf!" Sycamore smiled sarcastically, sighing and recomposing "Impressive skills, indeed!"
Sadly, the battle wasn't over yet – The Professor reached out for a third Pokéball, ignoring my gasp of apprehension as I noticed it.
"You shouldn't find this one much trouble at all, after taking down a Blastoise..." he announced, spiking Charizard's anxiety "Go, Venusaur!"
Charizard and I waited and watched as the massive frog-like figure produced a heavy thud when it landed on the floor, the gigantic leaves growing on its back swaying with his movement.
The type favored Charizard, it is true... but only if he could land a few blows! Sycamore's smile proved that, just as me, he could see how tired Charizard was – how much energy the slightest movements demanded. He was clearly counting on that when he decided to leave Venusaur for last.
"Let's get this over with, shall we?" he grinned tranquilly, assigning Venusaur ahead.
"Be careful, Charizard!!" I advised, hoping my Pokémon wouldn't fail for excessive confidence "I'm sure Sycamore has something up his sleeve..."
Throughout that last decisive portion of our battle, Professor Sycamore stood out as a quick, highly efficient tactician whom Venusaur obeyed without question. His Pokémon had little actual power against Charizard, but dodged every lunge the latter attempted with ease. Cold sweat started dripping down my forehead...
Charizard's flame started weakening as he poured out what he had left of it – eventually, mere fire balls would be launched by his throat where a flamethrower had been ordered. Venusaur would roll away at the last second – regardless of his weight, with Sycamore's quick and detailed orders, Venusaur kept draining Charizard's power by dodging every single attack and then waiting for the next one.
"It is but a matter of time now..." Sycamore announced, calm enough to spontaneously start conversing during the battle "Until he can't take any more of it. I daresay I won't even need wasting any of Venusaur's moves – Your Pokémon's stubbornness alone will bring it down!" he laughed, raising his head. "Charizard will weary himself to death! He'd rather perish away than survive, if surviving means surrendering pride's idiotic reign..." And his eyes turned to me – how cold and disturbing they looked, how resentful... "I didn't teach him as much, he must have taken that from you!" he sighed, looking back ahead and now starting to pace around in Charizard's view "A stubborn pair supporting one another's delusions into a mad race in the name of a transient phantom some call virtue, some call honor... Folly, all of it!" he stopped to nod and chuckle in a mocking reproof "What a tragic ending you are buying yourselves!"
Charizard's eyes were alert – fearsome. Did Sycamore not know the effect such teasing had over him? I kept quiet to myself, giving him the space to taunt Charizard into the burst that would pull us through.
"Look at yourself now, Pokémon!" He called, raising his voice "Look at all you have to defend your trainer's pristine ideals! All you have to prove her, and prove me, that you are more than that scared infant craving protection!"
Charizard squirmed with the pang of humiliation – The Professor's enjoyment visibly growing as he watched the reactions his words wrung. Such a smart man... - I thought to myself – and yet, there he was, urging Charizard forward more than anything I said could have.
"Well then..." he closed his eyes and his smile stretched "If that is all you've got... "
I felt the tension on my knees, making them tremble – Sycamore opened his eyes, looked at me, smiled conceitedly:
" I will end this at once and seize my prize. Venusaur, use slam."
The heavy beast charged ahead with impressive speed. If there was a time to interfere and make myself be heard, this was it! I screamed nervously, matching my feelings to Charizard's :
"Hold him down, now!!!"
Charizard was startled by my change of spirits, and though his eyes met mine to transmit the fervor and the energy swirling in there, they quickly returned to his foe in time to obey my command: He jumped up with the help of his wings, dodging the attack, immediately falling back down and taking hold of Venusaur.
"Use your Flamethrower, like you did with Blastoise!" I ordered.
Sycamore gasped, genuinely worried – he knew that a single hit like that one would finish the fight.
"Venusaur, whip the floor!" He screamed energetically.
In the face of Charizard's open, charging mouth, the heat already building up in the air, Venusaur cringed, then obeyed his master, stretching out his vines and hitting the floor next to Charizard with enough strength to push himself back with the help of a leap.
As soon as he landed far from Charizard, my Pokémon's final effort sipped out in a big flamethrower.
"Dammit!!!" I groaned, and Professor Sycamore gasped for air: the attack had barely missed Venusaur – a fraction of a second more, and he would have been defeated. The blow did, however, severely damage his vines.
Both me and my cynical rival sweated nervously now: Charizard was powerless, but still standing. Venusaur had barely begun to break a sweat, but had already taken heavy damage and compromised the Professor's smartest strategy against me. Could a grass attack take Charizard down? ...I really doubted it! Without his vines, Venusaur's agility in dodging Charizard was seriously hindered... Now was our time to attack!
"Charizard, hit him with a dragon tail!"
Sycamore paced back, worried: one more blow, and Venusaur would be out.
His next command wasn't as specific, wasn't as detailed and planned out – he didn't have the time to do it, through his nervousness: "Dodge it, Venusaur!!"
Overtaken by his master's panic, Venusaur clumsily jumped back, barely escaping the attack – Charizard hit the wall with furious strength, taking back some damage from it. Damage he could no longer afford receiving. This was it – I could feel it! One more blow, a single leaf from Venusaur's back would be enough to make him faint…
"Now..." Sycamore quickly surveyed the scene. I predicted him taking advantage of my staggered Charizard, I could see the end… "Venusaur..." he commanded again, but this time his eyes turned towards me – and so did his Pokémon's. "Like we planned – take her!"
My eyes widened. Venusaur didn't hesitate before the order: he bent forward and rapidly sent his vines flying my way.
Sycamore had planned that – rehearsed it, I'm sure - his coward backup plan if all else failed, if defeat was upon him: to seize me and run. And why did I even let myself believe this would be a clean fight? ...I barely made out Charizard turning from the wall through the corner of my eyes before I closed them. The vines slashed the air, flying fast and audibly in my direction.
The flesh around my wrist burned deep, down to the bone. A growing, thundering sound progressed into loudness inside my ears through the length of that millisecond, and a brilliant glow invaded my closed lids. With a moment's clearness I knew what was happening – I embraced it without fear: Raising my arm high up, the excitement of battle possessed my chest – Charizard's excitement! The noise broke out in the sound of a million glasses exploding before me, followed by a mighty, trembling roar! I opened my eyes to see the power I felt filling up the air, coming from Charizard: a black fearful dragon stood before me, holding in both his arms Venusaur's vines. A blue flame escaped his mouth like in a hot overload, his wings confidently moved, keeping him in the air.
"My... Charizard..." I gasped.
"He mega evolved!" Sycamore said to himself, too astounded to even order his Pokémon retreat. "The might of the mega evolution..." he repeated, distant in fascination.
Venusaur forced his feet against the floor, anticipating what was to come: Charizard swung around, pulling him by the vines with ease – when he had the adversary in front of him, his scary, piercing red eyes tracked me, and I jumped back in an unconscious fright... Then I laughed at myself: Charmander's timid cuteness still lingered somewhere in there.
"Alright..." I walked forward smiling daringly – my Pokémon awaited for commands "Charizard, use Flamethrower!"
Charizard puffed, satisfied – he opened his large, flaming jaw; took in a big breath, then roared out his attack.
With a gush of blue, hot light that swept back both me and Sycamore and lingered in the air between us, the battle was over...
The flame sparks floated nervously around in the hot air, then they disappeared, swiftly coming undone. Charizard stood proud in his new menacing form. Sycamore watched us, nearly speechless. The Pokémon still looked his way – still kept his intense gaze firmly locked against the Professor's... but this time they were changed: He waited for approval, for the one word that would acknowledge his iron persistence and take back any prior underestimation.
I breathed heavily – there should be no worry in those next few minutes; Mega Charizard was visibly unstoppable, Venusaur didn't stand a chance before him... But even so, I felt strangely exhausted, strangely breathless, praying my clever Professor was done with the tricks...
Sycamore closed his dropped jaw, then smiled a reluctant smile, shutting his eyes and shaking his head again in a hearty, almost proud rebuke.
"You've really gone and done it!" He sighed.
Mega Charizard relaxed his stance – his eyes narrowed and a pleased groan moved in his chest. I could read him through them very easily now: the eyes that so admired, so loved Sycamore with twice as much warmth as the one he could give me, even now... but he was my Pokémon, and that should never change.
"Charizard!" I called, pulling him from the long gaze they shared.
He looked at me and I smiled – that was an awesome, unique feeling that flooded my chest, and I'm sure we both felt it: as long as that bracelet burned in such painless heat, we both would! There I didn't need any words to commend him, or tell him how proud I felt – good thing, too: I wasn't good with them!
"Well, well..." Sycamore sighed daringly, breaking the pleasant air lifting around us.
He slowly, tranquilly opened his eyes and examined us with a default smile:
"You two have managed to defeat me..." he stated. By the sheen behind his blue eyes, I knew it wasn't over... I knew I couldn't relax just yet, like Charizard had done: Sycamore wouldn't give up so easily!
"This changes nothing!" He announced, proving me right and making my stressed heart skip a beat "It never could, as long as I have the key!" and he turned, walking out of the cell.
He stopped by the door and faced us again. I assumed a rushed step forward, automatically attempting to escape before he could lock us in... but Charizard stretched out an arm and placed it on my way, stopping me, now caught up in the same worry as I, trying to figure things out.
Sycamore smiled, pleased: "Anne, you are still Team Flare's prisoner, until I say otherwise!" He cynically announced "Charizard... the weapon will still go off, and all your friends will die."
"No!" I protested in disbelief.
Charizard followed him with wary eyes. Sycamore sighed, dropping his head:
"What a pity!" he let out a long, tired sigh, then shook his head, almost in mourning "Why didn't they hear their professor? No point in fighting, I said!" he shrugged and sighed again, turning to go. "I knew better, I knew better... Tsk Tsk!" He clicked his tongue and soliloquized as he walked to the dark end of the corridor.
I exchanged glances with Charizard, both utterly confused, then we ran to the opening of the cell to see him off – Sycamore's shoe echoed through the lonely hall as he disappeared in the dark.
"Oh, dear me!" he suddenly exclaimed with a comical urgency, stopping in his most recent step and turning his neck to look back at us "I seem to have forgotten to lock your cell!"
A devious smile parted his face then, his eyes narrowed cunningly:
"…but… I think I'll leave it at that."
And, looking back ahead, he resumed his steps again, disappearing into the darkness. "Now you're in my debt…" I heard him chuckle imaginatively.
"What the hell?" I wondered about Sycamore's last minute madness, then exclaimed when it hit me: "Oh!"
Looking at Charizard, he was calm and enthusiastic – he knew it, too! I smiled, my heart thumping fast.
"Let's go!!" I pushed the door open, barely able to contain myself. Charizard followed in pretty much the same fashion.
We passed by Sycamore at the end of the long metallic corridor – his coat flew violently with the wind as we rushed by; he didn't move an inch from his tranquil pace, not even to get out of our way, or actively hinder it. Without looking back, I could tell he smiled...
***
Shauna, Trevor, Tierno and Calem all stood around Lysandre in the lowest chamber of that dark, red facility. A composed, decided sigh escaped his chest as he faced them; a strange mechanism branched from a device around his torso, he put on a pair of red glasses...
Calem seized his Pokéball, everyone else followed. In the back of that room, Charizard and I exchanged glances: his eyes burned into mine – the same strength, the same resolution... We walked forward, joining the battle.
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