Chương 40: Stepping out from a Shadow by 92fireDemon (Pokémon)
*RedxCynthia*
Summary: With the world tournament coming up, Cynthia learns of a mysterious trainer sparking her curiosity. Mainly game-verse, elements form the anime and manga will make it in. I moved the rating up to M, to be on the safe side. The first few chapters are definitely the weakest so please do bear with it and read on.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8343938/1/
Word count:71k+(COMPLETE)
Chapters:17
Chapter 1: Awe
Cynthia was a little in awe. It was the first time she had visited Indigo Plateau and she had been taken aback by its majesty. The stadiums were larger here and more numerous than any other region. And then there was the champion's stadium. She had gone there in between meetings to get a feel for it, imagining what it would have been like if full. She could easily see why the Indigo Plateau had the won the right to host the resurrected Pokémon World Tournament next year.
But that was not what she was in awe of. She had left the press conference early, as she was not as fond of answering questions as the other three champions, and found herself staring at the gargantuan mountain that the plateau was in the shadow of. Mt Sliver.
Though Mt Coronet was supposedly the tallest mountain in all the regions, there was no doubt as to which was the largest. Mt Silver, right on the division between Kanto and Johto, was huge, its width could easily be the same as a medium size city and some areas of the mountain seemed as though they had its own weather climate. She had never seen thunderstorms and blizzards rage so violently.
It was her third time she had found herself on this balcony staring at the mountain. There was something mystifying about it, in fact most of the locals knew very little about it. The residents of Silver Town (located near the foot) claimed it was the hardest mountain to climb, in part due to weather and tricky conditions and another to the horribly strong Pokémon that called the mountain their home.
In the past, many had disappeared attempting to conquer it, forcing the government to prevent people who had less than 16 badges from attempting it. Strangely though, there had not been a death in the last three years, most would turn up just outside of Silver Town suffering from mild frostbite. Their stories usually contained them falling unconscious due to the cold or having an unfortunate accident only for them to be saved by a great black winged creature. However there were even stranger stories from those who had got to the peak.
They said there was an eternal blizzard at the peak but they found a person there seemingly unfazed by the weather. This person wore nothing but an old pair of jeans, some old brown like shoes and a black hoodie that had the hood up so that only the lower part of his face was showing. They kept calling it a person as they were not sure as to if it was a man or a woman, some even questioned if it was human. The person had Pokémon and as the people who got to the top were always trainers they challenged this person to a battle.
The next part of their stories differs; as it is the case (they say) that one battle is different to another. But one thing remains constant they always lost, not even being able to knock out the first Pokémon said person sent out. Afterwards, the black creature would swoop in behind and grab them before they could react, fly down a side of the mountain and drop them of at the foot. And when they had the chance to turn around it had flown back up again.
Cynthia chuckled to herself, surely these stories about what the locals now call the Shadow of Mt Silver were just that, stories. How could there possibly be a person at the top waiting for people to arrive and challenge him/her. It was preposterous.
Just then she saw a flash of light coming from one of the storms about three quarters the way up. It didn't look like lightning nor did she hear any sound of thunder. The flashes continued, and as she strained harder to see they appeared to be coming from the same spot of cloud but their colours were different each time. What could they be?
"He's training."
She wiped around to see who had talked to her. She smiled as she saw Lance approaching her; red hair, cape and all.
"What do you mean?" she queried.
"The Shadow, he's training."
"Lance, be serious, they're just rumours aren't they?"
"Well I don't know if he lives up there or not but there is a man at the peak."
"But…"
"I battled him about one and half years ago now. Dragonite and I flew up about halfway up the mountain before the winds got too furious for him and I climbed the rest of the way. I was curious to see if the rumours were true or not, I didn't think so at first but then how were there no fatalities for the last one and a half years (at that time of course).
Anyway, I reached the top and there he was. I say he because I'm pretty sure it was a man under the hood, it looked like he had a beard. He looked at me when I approached and grabbed a Pokéball, I did likewise. I never had a battle like it. I was destroyed, his Blastoise sweeped my entire team. It didn't even look tired afterwards. And then after I had recalled Dragonite, something picked me up and covered my eyes. I felt wind rush against me at amazing speed before we slowed down and it unceremoniously dropped me a couple of feet from the foot. I turned back to see a flash of black but then nothing."
"Uhm…" Cynthia did not know what to make of it, was this a joke from Lance, if so it was a terrible one.
"I can see you don't really believe me do you?" Lance asked rhetorically with a small smirk.
"No, no I believe you" she replied a little too quickly.
"Trust me, he exists and I doubt anyone can take him on. I don't even think Red could take him."
And here was Kanto's and Johto's second mystery that intrigued her. The plateau's champion before Lance was reappointed. The youngest regional champion ever. Becoming champion less than a year after he had started out, a few months before his eleventh birthday. He then became the youngest world champion at the PWT (Pokémon world tournament) the following year and then two years later defended his crown to become the youngest double world champion. They claimed he could never be beaten and that he would become the greatest trainer ever if he was not already. But then came the seven month war.
Two men would shake their world completely. Sektor the leader, believing that he deserved to rule, convinced the former world champ (the one before Red) into helping him. They had somehow created machines that were run on Pokémon life-force and completely overwhelmed Sinnoh and the west half of Kanto before Red stopped them at their Kanto base, Creulean Cave.
Nobody really knew what had happened. The cave itself was destroyed; Sektor, the former champ and some of their followers were laid outside either knocked out or tied up. There was no sign of Red or his team. Some said he had died when the cave collapsed along with the rest of Sektor's followers others believed that he was alive somewhere. Either way no one had seen or heard anything from the boy in four years.
"Cynthia? Are you Ok?"
"Oh…. Sorry Lance I guess I kinda fazed out there."
"I guessed as much. Ah yes I forgot. As you might have guessed from my presence here, the press conference has finished."
She smiled, the press knew the PWT was going to be resurrected after these five years, it had leaked out some time ago; but now it had been made official. She looked up at Lance and saw that something was bothering him.
"What's wrong?"
"I still think that's it is wrong to hold it so soon. The whole reason it was cancelled in the first place was because of a former champ turning rouge and the current champ dying from the resulting war."
"Hmm. I reckon Red would want it to take place again."
"Maybe, anyway I am going to turn in for the night. Do you have a place to stay?"
"Yes."
"Good, I trust you don't have an early flight tomorrow?"
"Actually I've taken the next month or so off, so I might do a little sight seeing while I'm here."
"Ok then. Might I suggest you visit the Pewter city museum a most interesting place. Or perhaps the Tanoby ruins on the islands south of Kanto. Or even the radio tower in Goldenrod city."
"They all sound like great ideas to me."
"Good, well as I was saying I am of to bed. Good night Cynthia."
"Good night Lance."
And with the Lance walked of leaving Cynthia alone. She looked back upon Mt Silver trying spot any of those unusual flashes. Nothing, just the constant storms. She looked at the peak, wondering about the Shadow of Mt Silver. She smiled to herself, she knew she could get to the peak, it would not be easy but she felt confident in her abilities. She had to find out if he was real or not.
She turned back, it was late but she was not tired so she decided to do some exploring around the plateau. Before long she found herself she found herself in the hall of fame room. She looked at the pictures of past champions, noticing some familiar ones such as Lance, some that she had never heard of, some that took her completely by surprise, (she saw a picture of a young Professor Oak looking quite dashing) until she found the one she was looking for. Red. There he was, with jet black hair, tanned skin and in that iconic red jacket and hat, he looked so young in the picture but there was something wrong. He was smiling but his eyes told a different picture. They were deep brown but she could swear there was tint of crimson in them. It was like he didn't want to be there or he didn't want his picture taken, something was just not quite right.
Her mind began to wonder about herself as a trainer. She was the youngest Sinnoh champion having accomplished it last year; and was by far the youngest out of the current crop of regional champions, just having her 20th birthday. The closet in terms of ages was Steven Stone almost nine years older than her.
It had taken her almost four years to become champion, having started at the close of the war. Quite a few people had said that it had taken her too long to become champ. She was pleased that people were following her career but it also annoyed her. At first she liked the attention but soon found it got in the way especially now that she was champion. She also wondered why they had taken an interest in the first place; the reason was staring back at her. After Red's disappearance people wanted a new champ to get behind, and the people who had seen her battles thought that she fought like him. Calm and emotionless through battle, uttering commands that were all but inaudible, sweeping all challengers aside.
In fact it was true that Red had been one of the reasons that inspired her to become a trainer; the other reason she didn't want to think about, even now it still hurt her. She had learnt more about Red after she had become champion with the more time she had. He was a bit of a loner preferring to travel alone than in a group and hated the media's attention on him. He also barely spoke; some people in fact thought that he was a mute when they met him. Lastly he had no known family and had grown up in an orphanage in Pallet Town where even now they still treat him as a hero.
That is where she would go tomorrow she thought; she could talk to Professor Oak, see if he knew anything more about Red and plus he was the one who handed out the passes so that you could climb Mt Silver. She couldn't wait.
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