"Kyoko! Magical Leaf! Orin! Icy Wind!" Tag roared as he stood his ground, sweeping his hand across the field as he issued his commands. His Bellossom and Snorunt nodded upon reception before launching into their respective techniques. Twirling gracefully, Kyoko shot out several glowing leaves in all directions. However, before they hit the ground, they turned and shot off in the direction of her opponents, streaking towards them as only dangerous projectiles could. Orin, the Snorunt, drew a deep breath before unleashing a surprising amount of frigid wind from her chilly little body. The two attacks cascaded unto Tag's foes. The Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, Machamp and Hariyama and crossed their arms in defense.
When the barrage cleared up, Tag saw that the Hitmonchan had finally fainted, and the Machamp was frozen in place, a chilly blue sheen all over his skin.
The four trainers at the other end stared in disbelief at Tag's pokemons' display of power. Their cameras hung almost limply at their side. For a moment, it seemed like they didn't want to continue the battle...but they really needed what Tag had been protecting.
Raven Amaranth was the prize. Photos, interviews...something. The elusive woman had turned up in Furoh after many years of disappearance, and this was potentially the story of a lifetime. This scary looking Tattoo Man had stepped between her and them and gently ushered her along. As they made to move, he'd stepped in their way. Despite the fact that there were four of them and only one of him, they seemed hesitant to pass by. In fact, it seemed that each time they took a step closer, his already intimidating glare intensified tenfold. This scary man was keeping them from the scoop of the century.
"We need to talk to Miss Amaranth!" One of the men piped up, "Just let us, please!"
"Yo Bodyguard, just drop it. We're not going to do anything to her, just talk and take pictures."
Tag appeared to consider this, even though his face remained motionless throughout. He took a slow breath, as if ready to utter his response, but all that came out was:
"Kyoko, Leaf Blade. Orin, Ice Fang."
The two much smaller pokemon caught the trainers off guard as the rushed forward. Kyoko drew a leaf from her skirt, a dangerously long and thin one, almost in the fashion of a rapier. With surprising grace (And cuteness), she thrust forward several times, mimicking the movements of her comrade and partner, Bachi, a Nidorino. The Hariyama flopped backwards from the attack, only to be met with a final downwards slash on his head. Kyoko stood triumphantly atop the bulky mass of an unconscious pokemon, smiling vibrantly at the enemy trainers.
Meanwhile, Orin had sprung forward, clamping her teeth down on the Hitmonlee's Leg. Icy energy foamed out as she clamped down, mixed in with the roaring of pain from the Kicking Pokemon. When she let up, a block of ice encased the pokemon's leg, rendering it fairly useless, considering its specialty.
With the four pokemon disposed of, Tag whistled sharply. Kyoko and Orin obediently moved to Tag's side. The veteran trainer nodded in silent praise down at his two pokemon before returning them to their homes.
"We're through." He turned to walk away, amidst the protest of the photographers. Tag stopped in his tracks and whipped around, firing off a glare that would make thunderstorms whimper. The journalists froze in place, and quickly found that tending to their pokemon was more important than pursuing an illusory girl and her terrifying protector.
* * *
Tag reached the Pokemon Center not too long after. He wasn't quite used to be underground in such a fashion, but it was still sort of hard to believe that he was. Everything felt as if they were, for all intents and purposes, topside. Gigarte's atmosphere, within its dome, was a much more vivid display that some of those he'd seen in all of his travels. However, he noted, that there was something still...man-made about it. It seemed natural, but he knew that it had all been carefully planned and plotted out, rather than the haphazard happenstance with which Mother Nature usually applied her touches.
The doors parter to reveal the usual hustle and bustle of the Pokemon Center. Making his way over to the front Desk, Tag neatly deposited his five pokeballs on a tray, handing it to one of the Nurses as he filled out his form.
He looked around for Raven, and noted, alarmingly, that she was nowhere to be seen. She'd been kidnapped!
"Oh, you're Mr. Taggarty Lee." He snapped his head around to see a familiar face; Nurse Joy. "Miss Raven asked me to inform you that she headed over to the Circus."
At times like this, Tag wished he had one of those newfangled Pokegears or even an X-Transceiver. He just had his plain old Pokedex, which while a marvel in itself, could not make a phone call. He had recently installed Angry Birds on it though, but had yet to find the time to play it.
Tag received his healed pokemon in short order, and proceeded to make his way over to the Circus. It would be a pain in the butt to find one girl in all that hubbub. Why would she do that to him?
A massive grin was plastered on his face. Gigarte. An underground home. What a great and unique place to have himself an introduction concert?! Adjusting the guitar strapped over his shoulder and onto his back, Seican explored the town a bit, looking for the best place to do an opening concert, or in his mind, a Contest Hall. Sure, it took some time, but he soon fiound it and entered, getting himself ready to sign up.
Looking around, he saw many people prepping their Pokemon to be beautiful, gorgeous, and what naught. Seican felt like he was going to stand out big time! He was not for the pretty. He was here for the awesome! He was going to be so awesome, he will be in insta-star. "Let's get this show on the road!"
Heading over to the counter, he met up with the clerk and leaned up on the counter with a grin on his face. "Hey there. Seican Serroc. You may not know me yet, but you soon will when I dazzle our audience today."
The woman blinked at the man's postured and sighed, thinking We got another one here, before looking back at him. "Well them, Mr. Serroc. If I don't know you, you must be new then, am I right?" A nod from Seican. "Well then, guess I should go over a few things. As I go over them, please fill this out for your ID." With a notepad handed, Seican began to work on the basic registration. "Now then, first off, this is how things are ran in Furoh. You have the Appeal round to please the crowd and judges while using one Pokemon. Now, I am sure you know this, but a crowd does not get pleased with one move." Seican nodded at the information, filling out more info. "If the judges enjoy it, you enter the battle phase with two other Pokemon." This made the pen stop moving.
"Wait, two other Pokemon? As in, three total?"
"Yes. Why? Is there a problem?"
"Well, yeah. What if I only have two?! Can't I use one in both Appeals and battles?"
"We do not want to see repeating appeals, Mr. Serroc. So if you only have two Pokemon, you may not enter unless you can catch, teach, practice and get ready in..." She turned to look at the clock behind her, "Five minutes." Those words stabbed him in one ear, through his brain, and out the other, before his head dropped. As he stood there, motionless, the clerk took the keyboard and looked it over. "Now then, if you wait a moment, we will have your ID card set and ready to go.
-------------------------------------------
After the time to get the ID, Seican walked out, sighing, looking at the card. "Well, looks like my opening night won't be here after all," he said, sighing before pocketing the card. It didn't take long, however, to be ushered by someone in a funky gimmick.
"Hey you! With the guitar!" Cursiou, Seican walked over to see what was up. "You are good with that, right?" A nod. "Great! You see, one of our musicians for our circus seemed to have caught a cold and can't play, and wondering if you can replace him. Now I am sure a guitar can't replace a trumpet, but we can work something out." Seican stared at him. "What? You expect me to have you do this for free? Nah! I am not that evil. I will pay up for your work. Only for tonight!'
Justin Smart and Nate Guzman, a rag tag duo of trainers working for Team Deception, traveled north from Lenoilia to get to the underground city of Gigarte. As low ranking members, they did not expect their supposed mission to be very difficult or important. They tended to act as bodyguards, grunts, peons, henchmen and such. They were used to it by then, though, and the pay was still acceptable, so they continued. The only real problem was the hours and how demanding their bosses tended to be. Justin hadn't been home in quite some time, and travels were making him grow weary. More specifically, travels with Nate. Even more specifically, travels without Pan.
"Sorry about Pan," Nate said as they walked.
"Shut up," Justin sighed. "You couldn't give me five fucking minutes to talk to her?"
"No," Nate shook his head. "And that was for your own good,"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"If you had five minutes to talk to her," Nate began. "What do you think you would do?"
"I'd-"
"Fuck it up?" Nate suggested. "That's definitely what you'd do. It had been a long day, you got beaten up, we all almost died, and you were emotional and crabby. You would have either broken it off with her and immediately regretted it, or you'd have told her you were in love with her or something equally stupid, and immediately regretted it. You weren't in the emotional place to have a real conversation with her, and you weren't smart enough to realize that. So, yes, it was my fault that we left so soon, because I didn't want you to mess up the only good thing in your whole goddamn life,"
Justin stopped walking and just looked down, sighing. "Really, Nate?"
"Yes," Nate stopped and looked back at Justin. "Come on, we're Unit 101. We're not that important." Justin still looked really mopey. "Look, I'm sorry I did-"
"No," Justin shook his head. "You're right. You were so right. I would have done something really stupid, and I'm glad that you stopped me. I'm just surprised is all."
"Why?"
"Because I thought you hated me," he said. "I thought we hated each other."
"Dude, I don't hate you," Nate laughed. "Since I joined Team Deception, you're my only friend. Do you- Do you hate me?"
"I thought I did," Justin shrugged. "But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the only thing I do like about TD is hanging out with you. This job sucks, man. I think that's what I really hate."
"Yeah," Nate nodded. "Maybe when we get promoted, it'll get better, but I really kinda doubt it."
"Yeah..."
So they traveled and they chatted and, eventually, and probably inevitably, they ran into wild pokemon. Out from the tall grass came two Weepinbells and one Victreebel, and they were acting mighty territorial. Justin and Nate nodded at each other and each sent out a pokemon. Nate picked Ninja, his Sneasel, for its access to powerful Ice attacks which could bring down the grass types. Justin picked Sudowoodo, because he hadn't used him in a while.
"Dude, seriously?" Nate asked.
"What?"
"You're gonna use your only Rock type against three grass pokemon? You know they do critical damage to him, right?"
"Oh..."
"It's cool, check this out," Nate smiled. "Ninja use Ice Punch on the left Weepinbell," Ninja leaped forward, gracefully, and punched the left one, quite immediately knocking it out. Upon impact, however, the other Weepinbell and the Victreebel launched their own attacks at her. Victreebel used Leaf Tornado, a moderate attack which lowered accuracy, while Weepinbell used Stun Spore, severely limiting Ninja's mobility. "Oh," Nate sighed. "Ninja, try another one," She was really slow though.
"I think I got it," Justin nodded. "Sudowoodo, use Mimic. Copy Ninja's Ice Punch," Without missing a beat, Sudowoodo waddled forward quickly and smacked the other Weepinbell with its green fist, which exploded into ice. The ice was much less powerful than Ninja's, but it certainly gave her the opportunity to use Ice Shard, which was so fast it didn't matter that she was paralyzed, the Weepinbell was finished off. Victreebel took a few hops backwards and retreated into the grass, now that it was faced against two powerful, ice wielding foes.
"Nicely done," Nate smiled. "You know, I believe Sudowoodo has the capacity to utilize Ice Punch to its full potential,"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, in our next fight, try telling him to use Ice Punch, and see if he remembers," Nate said. "If not, I'll have Ninja use it again, and he'll learn it eventually. It'll be a good move to have, since Ice counters Ground and Grass, two types which pose a threat to Rock."
"Alright," Justin nodded. "Thanks,"
"No problem, man,"
Finally, hours later, they arrived at Gigarte, tired and hungry and whiny, but they had a job to do. "So where do we go?" Justin asked.
"There's a circus in town," Nate said. "The whole thing is organized by Team Deception, and they got us working with some of the caged pokemon they got."
"Caged pokemon?"
"Hm?" Nate asked.
"Our very first mission," Justin recalled. "You remember it? We caged a wild Seviper for Team Deception. Do you think this was the reason?"
"Probably," Nate shrugged. "Anyway, I think our job is to stand there and make sure nothing crazy happens,"
"Easy," Justin smiled. "And I'm sure nothing unexpected will happen to ruin our easy and boring job. Nothing ever does, right?"
The Circus was gaudy and loud. Tag hated gaudy and loud, therefore he hated the Circus.
All around him, people were pushing around him. To top it all off, they were having far too much fun to be intimidated by his intense glares. Realizing that he was getting nowhere by being curmudgeonly, Tag stopped glaring, and simply sulked his way through the crowd.
He really wanted to find Raven and get the hell out of there.
Then, it caught his attention.
"Move Master! Pokemon Moves, tutored to your pokemon."
Tag approached the stall and blinked awkwardly at the computer. It had no keyboard. It was just a screen. After a moment, he reached out to touch it in what would've been its face, were it a person. To his surprise, it blinked on, and prompted him to type in a Pokemon name. It even had a keyboard on the screen. Ever so tentatively, he reached out and tapped the screen, producing a very proud "L". As he did so, the screen opened up a new window, with a list of pokemon with the letter "L" in their species name. "E". Ledyba. Ledian. Excellent. He punched in Ledian, and a list of moves that could be taught to Suzu appeared on the screen.
He repeated the process over and over until he had filled out the form for his entire team of 5. With a whirr and a click, the computer printed out a sheet, and a price.
"So, what've you got to offer me."
Tag's head snapped over, and his eyes widened in surprise as a man virtually materialized right in front of his face. Seriously, the man had come out of nowhere.
"Says here you'll take...stuff."
"Indeed I do."
Tag rummaged through his backpack. "I've got...Water purification tablets...a mirror...soap. Uh, some Jerky, a Swiss Army Knife, a hot plate and a flare gun."
"Okay, I'll take the Knife, Hot Plate, Flare Gun, Mirror and some Jerky in exchange for the five moves." Tag hadn't used the Flare Gun in forever. The knife was useful, but easily replaced, and he had no sentimental attachment to any of those things.
"Uh. Fine." He pushed them over to the quirky gentleman, who shoved them into a sack. Tag appeared visibly miffed that his former possessions were treated with such disdain; He'd been far more meticulous about their care. After all, he had needed them functional on the road.
"Right this way!"
Tag walked into the stall, and realized that it had been attached to a much larger tent. Inside was a battlefield of the plainest most ordinary variety. The odd man rummaged through his things and pulled out a what appeared to be binoculars, but the kind that should you pictures in slide-show form rather than the kind that showed you things at a distance.
"Summon your pokemon." Tag summoned his team, who immediately looked about, somewhat confused as to why they were at a battlefield with no one to battle. The odd man moved up to Suzu and placed the goggles in her face, inserting a disc, labeled "Acrobatics." Within moments, a chime went off, and Suzu seemed visibly pleased with herself. With that, the odd man went down the line with discs for "Hone Claws", "Toxic", "Magic Coat - MT", and "Attract" and within no time flat, each of Tag's pokemon had learned a new move.
"Thankee Sir! G'bye!" With that, Tag recalled his pokemon and moved out of the tent, still somewhat confused as to what events had just transpired.
However, even more confusing still was the fact that he was now face to face with a cage that contained a Seviper. For some reason, the snake was eying him oddly.
Tag approached the cage, tilting his head to the side, as a bird does when investigating something. The Seviper seemed to be...pleading? Why was it pleading with him? Why did it look at him as if the snake had known him? None of this really made any sense.
After a while, Seican was taken over to the band as they were practicing up on a song. "Good news, everyone! I found a member to help replace Chuck. Now, I trust you guys can do a quick fix to fit his style. And remember, you only get one song, so let's make it count!" With that, the man left, leaving Seican with the band members.
The band mainly consisted of five guys and a girl. Three of them used guitar, one was at drums, one had six sets of keyboards, and the girl had a synthesizer pad. "I was told I would be replacing a trumpet guy, so what's with all the rock gear?" He was honestly be expecting an orchestra.
"Well, our trumpeter was more of an experiment for another song. He mainly plays bass himself," said one of the guitarists with a Japanese accent. "Still, we got something that may be able to suit your style. Care to listen?" With a nod, Seican watched the drummer count them down before giving a quick demo of that they had planned. "So kid, how about it? Think you can keep up?"
An a quick moment, Seican was set up, ready to be taught his parts. showing him the notes, he went to memorize the "stanzas" (since he had no paper to read), following along before being told where each part was. Within the hour, he got the hang of things, and the band got to work mixing it all together.
"Me? Keep up? You are talking to the son of the legendary band, The White Knights! This will be no sweat!" Rolling the guitar over to his front, he gave them a taste of his style. "now then, think you can keep up with me?"
This got the group laughing, glad to hear his ability. "Alright," said another guitarist, "I'll show you your parts, and cue you when to go. If you can memorize it in the two hours before we stage, then we should be golden."
Shortly after Tag walked away from the Move Tutor, Justin and Nate found themselves flinching at the loud noises of the circus. "Learn Pokemon Moves! Your pokemon will become stronger than ever for a non-nominal fee!"
Justin's head whipped over to the stall, his eyebrows raised. "Dude, we don't have time," Nate sighed.
"Sure we do," Justin smiled. "Hitmontop needs some new moves. All his attacks are Fighting type. Trust me, it's worth it."
"Hitmontop, eh?" the man at the counter smiled. "Got quite a few moves to choose from for that pokemon,"
"Awesome," Justin smiled. "Quick question, what did you mean by non-nominal? Was it like a studder or-"
"No sir," the man shook his head. "I take more than just money. If you've got wares that you don't need anymore, or any useful trinkets I might find useful, I'll take those as currency,"
"Right," Justin nodded, awkwardly. "What if I do have money?"
"Then I suppose I can make that work," the man smiled. "How much do you got?"
"Uh," Justin stumbled, "No. How about you tell me how much it's gonna cost, and we'll see if it works out,"
"Hmm. How about...1000 dollars a move?" Justin just stood in front of the stall, looked over at Nate for a second, and casually turned around to begin walking away. "500!" He turned his head and then shook it. "350. That's as low as I go. These TMs are expensive!"
"300, and we'll make it work," Justin nodded.
"Fine," The man sighed, pulling out a piece of paper. "Here's a list of moves Hitmontop can learn." It was a pretty big list, and Justin had basically no idea what to do.
"Uhh," he began, looking over to Nate, with his eyebrows raised. "Help?"
Nate sighed and looked at the paper. "Well," he said, "Hitmontop is all about doing a ton of damage as fast as possible, right? Well, yours is at least. Most people play him a little more defensively, but it seems to work for you. I might give him Earthquake, since it's a ridiculously powerful attack. There's Bulldoze, which would work great with Technician, as well as Bullet Punch. Bullet Punch won't really add much coverage, though, and you already have both Fake Out and Mach Punch for priority. Bulldoze is really great, but Earthquake is still stronger, and you don't really need the speed reduction, since you have Mach Punch to finish them off. I'd go with Earthquake."
"Earthquake it is," Justin nodded to the Move Tutor.
"Earthquake it is," The Move Tutor nodded. After Justin handed over his 300 dollars and called out Hitmontop, the Move Tutor put the goggles on the pokemon (after Justin got him to sit still for a second). He did the same thing he did to Tag's pokemon and, presto! Hitmontop learned Earthquake. "Careful with that move, kid," the Move Tutor said. "He didn't learn it naturally, so it'll take some getting used to. It's a really powerful move. Don't get anyone killed, alright?"
Justin rolled his eyes and called back Hitmontop before they went on their way. Once they walked outside of the tent, they saw the same cage Tag saw with the same Seviper. They also saw Tag from behind, and so didn't recognize it was him. "Isn't that Tag?" Nate asked. Okay, so Justin didn't recognize him.
"Uhh," Justin walked over next to Tag and recognized the tattoos. The Seviper seemed to react very negatively to Justin's presence near the cage as it moved to the back corner of it. Something told him this was a familiar Seviper. "Yo,"
"Isn't that Tag?"
Had it been the mellifluous dulcet tones with a slight southern twang, Tag would've been much more receptive to the following greeting.
"Umm. Yo." With all the usual awkwardness of Justin's presence, Tag decided for once to turn his head and offer a smile.
"Hello, Justin. Hello, Nate." There. That wasn't so bad. His smile swiftly faded back into his usual icy demeanor as he sized the two up. "I can't help but feeling that the two of you have been following me." He wasn't trying to intimidate them, despite his fairly intimidating countenance.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the Seviper retreat towards the back of its cage. He looked up at Justin, meeting him square in the eye. With the same intent, he did the same to Nate (except that Nate was more eye level with him). Then, once more he looked back to the Seviper. The gears behind his eyes seemed to whirr and pop for a moment as his brain slowly put together the pieces.
Something similar to a geometric proof applied.
Justin and Nate stood awkwardly for a moment, trying to assess the situation in their tiny, teenage brains. Technically Nate wasn't a teenager, but he kinda was. "Uh," Nate began, quite articulately, "Yes," Unlike Tag and Justin, Nate was a fairly profound liar. Justin looked at his partner for a moment, an eyebrow raised, but then crossed his arms and looked back at Tag. He figured Nate knew what he was doing, something he would not have simply assumed a week earlier. He'd grown to trust Nate's judgment.
"Yes, Team Decryption has conquered the world of crime and with all this extra money they got, hell, why not open a circus? It's always been a dream of our leader, the Great Serpentarionus, to ride a Donphan, and so that's what we do now. We work at a circus. We're clowns."
It took a moment for Nate's sarcasm to hit Justin, but it wasn't aimed at Justin anyway. It was aimed at Tag, who was a bit more perceptive. "In other words," Justin added. "No. This is not our circus. As for the Seviper..."
"It definitely could be the same one," Nate continued. "How are we supposed to know? It makes sense, the logic you used to conclude that this was Team Decryption's circus. That Seviper seems to recognize us, and so yeah. But the truth is, they don't have us running around the world capturing pokemon so they can have cute little pets. It's so they can be sold. Apparently this one was sold to a circus."
Before Justin could consider how effective the lie was, Nate surprisingly continued. "I'm kinda sad that you're still so pissy at us, Tag. I mean, Justin's still a dick, but I thought we were passed the whole 'You kids are so dumb and evil and I hate you' thing."
All the while, Justin noticed that Tag's hand was sitting dangerously close to his pokeballs, and so Justin's moved to his as well: Hitmontop's specifically.
After a few hours of practice, they were about time to get ready. It was time to move. Luckily, they had another set of equipment over at the stage. All they had to do was program the piano to the sounds they needed. To think, it was now that he caught up to the timeline of now, where Tag and Justin are talking.
There was a stage set up in front of the tent, which drew quite the crowd. Currently on stage, there was a sword dancer, giving an imitation sword fight with a Gallade with fancy moves. Though the fight was the end as soon, the crowd bowed and the man Seican met in the first place took the stage.
"Give it up for them, will ya?! Now, I know you are all eager to see our circus performers do their thing, but we still have three more shows to go! And remember to vote for your favorite, because a winner will be announced at the end of our show, and the winner will receive 50,000 Poke!" This got the crowd cheering as the new contestants began to get set up: the band, Seican taking the center-right of the stage. "Now then, let's have our next performers take the stage!"
When the announcer left, the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJypM3gww4k, getting the song set up to begin playing. As they did, one of the other grabbed the mic ad called out, "Hey everyone, how's it going?!" With a cheer from the crowd, a projector turned on, displaying behind them a fireplace on a beach. next to it was a cooking fish on a stick as the sun began to set in the background. "I am Jake, and we are the Grand Merging! Just sucks one of our members was sick, but luckily, we manage to get a replacement member. Meet Seican Serroc, the alleged sun of a band called the White Knights. Honestly, I never heard of them."
Seican, without a mic, looked at Jake and held out his arms, like saying, "What's that supposed to mean?!" This got a small laugh out of the crowd as he replied, "Hey, now, be cool. I am sure you are scared for your first showing. We all were at once." The coordinator pointed at him, as if saying he was completely ready. "Oh? You think you can go just fine? Prove it!" There, the piano rang its last note, leading into a moment of silence.
Grabbing the neck of the guitar, Seican opened up the song with a short solo, getting everyone into the rhythm, and throwing off the crowd from the soft feeling and into more of a rock/medal stance. As the screen turned around, it showed a female wanderer, petting a Doduo as it rested as she looked up at the flames. And not long after that, the drums kicked off in a random beat, the screen did a set of flashes to zoom into her eye, showing the reflection of the flames as the singer began to open up.
"Sparks from the fire rise up to the sky
Higher and higher, oh I want to fly
Out of the story this time I'll be free
Wake up for a moment from this dream of me."
The singing was an interesting mix to the rock style, as the man with the mic was singing in an opera-kind of voice. As he sang, the projection followed along with the words. Through the reflection of her eyes, she watched the embers rise up to the sky where the moon stood in the sky. The camera then panned around to the side of her face, showing a smile as the Doduo got up from its slumber.
"Just a legend, cold words on a page
Lift up my eyes and I'm soaring away
On silver wings spread out to the sun
I'm leaving this city for the skies above."
With the female in the group taking a background echo with the singing, the video showed a giant white bird with blue decals fly across the water, pass the sun and to the moon. Intrigued by the site, she got up and ran past the fire and into the shallow edge of the ocean, trying to get a better look at the Lugia that passed overhead.
"O'er the ruins and ancient light
Never lost, never failing
Follow me on my path to the heights
Before the shadows fade into night "
Full of excitement, she hurried for the Doduo to get up before hopping on, the bird going for a straight dash in the Lugia's direction, leaving her small campsite. She was managing to keep the Lugia within eye-sight as the sun began to set over the horizon, turning Dusk into night, only using the moon's glow to see the legendary being.
the Piano picked up to let the singer take a break, seeking the scene of the chase up as each guitar member took a moment for a solo. As they played, each one looked at the others as if they were competing for the best. even the pianist joined in before taking the finisher with everyone conjoined. And soon, with one final clash of the symbol, the song reverted back to the opening tune, as the screen soon showed the Lugia going to land. In a desperate measure, the wandering hurried her companion to catch up before standing in front of the legendary bird, being only a few feet from the Lugia's majestic stance.
"Running back, but I'm out of time
I could tell everything
Hear the words that fill my mind
How can I say "she was mine"?"
In a flash, she was heading back for her camp, a smile on her tired face as the nearly fell asleep. The camera panned to her hand, as a Silver Wing sat there as a momento to her encounter with the ruler of the Bird Trio.
As the piano once more came back to the opening beat, she was dropped back at the make-shift camp, the flame nearly dead, where he went and got ready to sleep, holding the momento in her hand. On the final ring, the flame vanished, and the screen turned to black.
With the cheer form the crowd, everyone waved them off, as the announcer took the stage. "What an amazing song! Now, next up, we got ourselves a magician!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometime later backstage, Seican stood in the back, waiting for the announcer to make his return. When he showed up, he told him, "I thought you said i was going to be paid!" When talknig to the band afterwards, he was told that, even though he participated, he wouldn't get anything of the reward profit.
"Now, now. I told them I would give you something if you helped them out. Even if they lose, at least you get a consolation prize! Now, come with me." With a wicked grin on his face, he head Seican to a large basket full of Pokeballs. "I say the best kind of payment for a trainer like you would be a Pokemon, right? Just choose whichever one you want, and it is yours. However, we won't let you see what is inside. We enjoy the thought of a game in these situations. This means what you pick is what you get." In the back of his mind, he had a crazy grin. All of the Pokeballs on the top layers were Magikarp, and at least half of them were force-fed an Everstone diet. To him, he was going to take a top Pokeball and be stiuck with a terrible fish.
This did not happen as Seican dove his hand right through the top and dug his way inside. Reaching for the bottom, he pulled out a ball, and said, "This one!"
"A-Alright then," he said, a bit shaken, since the plan did not work the way he thought it would. "Now let me add your registration to this POkeball, and done! Off you go now, shoo!"
"Whoa, hold on," he said, taking the new Pokeball in hand. "I want to see what I got first." Tossing it in the air, a green cactus popped up, her body rattling as she moved. "What is this?!" Living in Johto, he never did see anything from Unova.
"Well, it seems you got a Maractus. They make the sound of a maraca to scare off predators." In the inside, he was beating himself up.
"SWEET! Maractus, eh? Maractus.. Maractus... ! I know, I'll call ya Mara! How about it." With a shy cheer form the cactus, he returned her back before adding the Pokeball back to his belt. "Later!"
And with that, he was back in public, guitar on his back, and three Pokeballs at his waist.
Just like Justin, it took a second for Tag to recognize the sarcasm. His brow furrowed with confusion as Nate rambled on. Once the part about the Great Serpentarionus appeared, Tag realized that Nate was simply being facetious.
With the sarcasm of Nate's initial response still stingingly fresh, Tag was unable to discern Nate's next few lines. He should've been looking for signs of untruth, but he found himself mostly annoyed that Nate had spoken to him in such a way. He missed any telltale signs of lying completely, and therefore had to assume that Nate was, in fact, telling the truth.
Then, Nate, like a true debate artists, proceeded to attack Tag in a very gentle, but still somewhat acerbic manner.
Tag's hand visibly relaxed from the pokebelt as he moved to cross his arms back over his chest.
"Can you blame me for being 'pissy'?" Tag tilted his head slightly to one side, meeting Nate's eyes with his own, slightly more intense gaze. "Every time you two appear, trouble follows shortly thereafter. I never know what to make of you two, that's all."
Tag still had his doubts concerning the legitimacy of the underground circus, and he looked sadly over to the Seviper. Even if the circus was not run by a criminal organization, it was still receiving aid from those. Therefore, there had to be something he could do. The last time he had mounted a full-frontal assault, he had the aid of two inexperienced trainers, and had wound up with a bullet wound. This time, he was by himself. In front of him were two...friendly-neutral-hostiles. He couldn't be sure if they'd help him out, and he couldn't be sure if they'd attempt to stop him. This meant, strategically, he was at a profound loss. He'd just have to snoop around some more.
"Well, I was supposed to meet Raven here." He shrugged, changing the topic away from that awkwardness. "If you see her, tell her I'm here at the circus. Take care."
With that, he turned and left them. He wasn't about to let himself be ridiculed by Nate some more, nor was he willing to sit there and talk awkwardly with the duo any longer. He still had his apprehensions, so while he was waiting for Raven, he'd do some investigation.
* * *
The Circus appeared, unfortunately, mostly legitimate. That stood to sense, despite the fact that Tag severely wanted a reason to burn the whole thing to the ground. Not finding any clues as to the illegal nature of the pokemon supplied to the operation, Tag found himself in a very sour mood. He didn't like being wrong.
As he passed through an area with many stalls, he looked between them to see a rather large, inconspicuous tent. The only reason it stood out, was because it's inconspicuous appearance was what set it apart from the rest of the gaudy, loud circus. Tag moved his way between two of the stalls, walking slowly towards it.
As he approached, a man burst out of the tent, tugging a Luxray on a leash. The fierce looking pokemon looked unwilling to go, and dug it's paws into the ground in protest. The man merely dragged it along, muttering profanities under his breath. Tag watched them go with a mixture of curiosity and sadness before they rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.
However, Tag was convinced he'd found something. Had it been perhaps a tame Luxray, it might not have protested in such a way, nor required a leash. He wondered if perhaps this non-descript tent was a holding pen?
With that, he glanced furtively around, then over his shoulder to see if anyone was following him, then proceeded to stroll into the tent, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do. Within, he saw stacks of empty cages. This was nothing new. He had seen cages in Lenoilia, but with the suspicious men running the scene, he had been able to tell that it was black market. This...this was nothing out of the ordinary for a circus. The drab conditions tugged at his heartstrings a bit, but he knew that this was just how circuses were run. The circus was nothing more than a circus.
"Po?"
Tag's head snapped to one side, where he saw that one of the cages had not, in fact, been empty. In fact, there was a rather obvious looking Slowpoke laying right in the center of it, his big dopey face looking directly at Tag's own smaller, less dopey face.
"Po?"
It was love at first sight. Tag found himself stunned at the adorable, slow and almost vapid face. Slowly, he gathered up the strength to walk over and kneel down in front of the cage.
"Slow?"
"Hello." Tag nodded at the pokemon, who in turn, slowly, very slowly, turned his head to one side, giving Tag an even more confused and vacant look than before. The trainer reached over and picked up a clipboard from the top of the cage, reading over the writing there:
"Slowpoke. Poor performer. Does not draw crowd or attention. To Be Discarded"
Tag could not believe his eyes as he read over the words a few more times. He wasn't precisely sure what they meant by 'discarded', but he knew that the particular word should never be used in conjunction with Pokemon.
Looking around the room, he noted that there were no pokeballs. Perhaps, like in Lenoilia, they were kept in a brief case, but he remembered that the Seviper back out there had been caught without a pokeball either.
Plucking an empty pokeball from his backpack, he reached into the cage, expanding it in front of the pokemon. The Slowpoke eyed it, his expression unchanging. Without hesitation, the slowpoke reached out his front arm and tapped the ball on the button. Within an instant, the ball popped open, sucking in the Water Pokemon. The ball didn't wiggle even once before making its celebratory ping noise. Tag smiled, reducing the pokeball's size and clipping it to the sixth slot on his belt.
At the very least now, he'd have to go rescue the Seviper too, since now he knew it was possible.
Tag swiftly exited the tent, and found himself face to face with the man who had dragged off the Luxray earlier.
"Hey punk, what were you doing in that tent?"
Tag wasn't exactly sure how to deal with the situation, so he simply moved to brush past the man. However, the man reached out and placed a heavy hand on Tag's shoulder. "Hey, I asked you a-"
Completely not sure how to handle the situation, he pulled a move that was really more characteristic of Justin or Raven.
"Sucker Punch" Tag muttered, as if commanding himself, and simply spun around and socked the man in the face. The man went down, but Tag's hand stung like crazy! Why were his comrades so intent on punching everything all the time if it made their hands feel like that afterwards!?
A look of disdain crossed Tag's face as he looked down at the now unconscious man. In a rare moment, a smile crossed Tag's face: "It's super effective, bitch."
He hurried back onto the main path, to disappear into the crowd. Which was difficult, because Tag always stood out. At the very least, he felt really, really good about saving a pokemon and knocking out a jerk who handled pokemon poorly. However, upon return to the Move Tutor stall, where the Seviper had been caged, he noted that the Seviper was no longer there.
Sadly, he looked around, wondering where or why they'd already taken it away. As he turned to walk back towards the holding tent, he walked straight into a kid with long black hair and a guitar, knocking the two of them to the ground.
Justin and Nate stood as they watched Tag walk away, right around the time they heard the announcer at the main stage introduce Jake and the Grand Merging. "Oh yeah," Justin sighed. The sound of music tended to not make people sigh, but it just reminded Justin that he wasn't there to enjoy the band. "Aren't we supposed to be working?"
"Yep," Nate was grinning for some reason.
"What?"
"We're doing security backstage,"
"We're-" Justin began, but stopped himself from getting all giddy. "Cool."
So they made their way to the stage area, where the crowd was just beginning to get excited. The piano intro was building up and the band members looked like they were just about to get really into it. They pushed their way through the crowd and finally got to the backstage entrance on the side. There were three guys standing there, looking somewhat upset. "Y'all need to step away," one of them said.
"We're actually here for security," Nate said, pulling out his wallet. From it, he showed the man his ID Card, proving his membership of Team Deception, a card which Justin did not have. He had already been somewhat used to Nate being the leader of their unit. He still didn't agree with it.
"Alright cool," the same guy nodded. "Wait, is this- Where's your third?"
"Only two in this unit," Nate said.
"Oh," the man laughed. "So you're Unit 101?"
"Yeah," Justin rolled his eyes. "You guys about done here?"
"Yep," the man kept laughing. "We're gonna go laugh at your failures some more. If you wanna join us, you're more than welcome to."
"Hey, if you wanna have a pokemon battle, I'd be more than happy to-" Justin began.
"It's unfortunate that pokemon strength isn't the only thing that matters," the man said. "We've all heard about your overpowered Hitmontop. You still keep failing your missions, though."
"Okay, Greg, we're done," one of the other guys patted him on the shoulder. "See you kids later," And with that, the three left the area and allowed Justin and Nate to stand in front of the door leading backstage. A few people asked to go backstage, and Justin and Nate were extremely effective in saying "No." For the most part, they got to just listen to the music. From the side, they couldn't really see the show, but it didn't sound very produced anyway.
"You know, it's not that bad," Justin said.
"Really?" Nate asked. "Sounds like balls to me."
"The guitar's good," Justin shrugged.
When the show ended, Justin and Nate watched Seiccan come out of the door they were guarding and make his way out of the crowd. While Nate leaned lazily against the wall, Justin watched the guy long enough to see him bump into Tag, which elicited a little smile.
As he looked about, fist checking out who was going on stage next, his stomach let out a bit of a grumble. "Food does sound like a plan. Now, where's the concession stand?" That was when someone walked into him, knocking him on his butt. If it was the stall runner, then he would of ran into a miracle, but nope. he was ran over by a man with tattoos crawling over his face like a tiki. But that was the least of his worries.
"Oh man!" Whenever Seican was not playing or messing with his guitar, he had it rolled over onto his back where the neck pointed downward, making it easy to roll over to a normal position. It was comfortable for him, but such falls like that endangered the neck, which was a danger to the entire guitar, which made Seican quickly roll it over and inspect any damage. With his fingers checking the neck for cracks, he eyed the strings for breaks before heading for the headstock for scratches. After a quick moment of inspection, he let off a sigh of relief. Damage avoided.
"What the hell, Tiki-man?" He yelled at Tag, getting back at his feet. "You nearly broke her, ya know! Do you know how long I have had this beauty, and how much I have placed in to keeping her in top shape?! You should be glad she is still in one piece, or you would be in so much trouble! Now then, Tiki-man, what do you have to say for yourself?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With a grumble, the announcer walked out the backstage door, muttering something about, "It is only a simple loss. I am sure we can get more," or something along those lines, before turning around to the two security crew members.
"You two! I am heading off to let off some steam. Make sure no one enters that isn't on the list. Clipboard is inside. Then, when you are done with your shift, make sure you inspect the grounds to make sure we don't lose any more merchandise! Got it?!" With steam coming out of his ears, he walked off in rage, muttering to himself some more.
Tiki man?
This was, by far, the most disrespectful anyone had ever been to Tag. He'd faced all sorts of people, but none had resorted to name calling. Tag had been on the verge of apologizing, but he retracted all thoughts immediately as he got to his feet, dusting himself off. As Seiccan got up to yell at him, Tag didn't retreat in the least. In fact, it was quite the opposite. His feathers ruffled, Tag actually stepped forward, leaving his face dangerously close to Seiccan's.
"I could care less." Tag growled in response to Seiccan's inane questions. One of his more dangerous glares lighting up on his face. The kid had rambled on a little bit about his guitar, and while Tag could somewhat understand the importance that he placed on it, Seiccan was just pushing all of the wrong buttons.
Tag usually figured that a glower or two was enough to send most kids running. Seiccan proved rather different insofar as he was unaffected entirely. While the tattooed trainer wasn't exactly the most preachy of fellows, he really, really wanted to teach the guitarist a lesson. He'd been pretty grouchy, what with the disappearance of Raven, the inability to save a Seviper, and Nate getting the best of him in a contest of wits. Now was really not the time to get on his nerves about an accident. It was even moreso not the time to refer to him as "Tiki-Man", regardless of his image.
He wasn't quite sure where to go from now. Pride was clearly preventing him from backing down, now that Seiccan had essentially challenged his dignity both by knocking him over, and by calling him by a rather stupid nickname. He was loathe to punch anyone again, as it rather stung, but was not above duking it out with pokemon. With that in mind, his hand dropped down to his belt, a finger resting on the pokeball for Suzu.
"Back off, or I will end you." Tag's voice growled out from his chest, low and dangerous. Seiccan, in his brash, obnoxious manner, was really not doing anything to lighten Tag's already upset frame of mind.
Catching the movement of his arm, and his hand placement, a grin came across Seican,'s face. "End me, eh?" he snickered, hopping back a couple times, gaining distance on him before rolling the guitar over to his front. As it rolled, the headpiece too a hold of one of the Pokeballs on his belt and launched into the air. "You don't get it, do you?!" Catching the mid-air Pokeball, he held it out in front with a stupid grin, not realizing how screwed he would be if he actually did battle with the tattooed man.
"I am Seican Serroc, the leading heir of the greatest band ever: the Royal Knights! All you can do is bow before my greatness! Now then, time to set up the rhythm, Drummer!" With a wild throw, the Pokeball was sent forward, releasing the Makuhita, staring at the newcomer. "Alright, Drummer! Time to get things right! You are going to knock him into the next century! You are going to slap the tattoos off his face. You will take center stage with your awe-inspiring beat and drum it into their heads!" With every sentence getting louder, a bigger vein popped up on the Makuhita's head before it held up a hand to Tag, as if asking for a moment with his trainer.
Turning around, Drummer walked forward to Seican's feet and stared at him through the squinty eyes. "What is it little buddy? Oh wait, I know. You want to fist pump!" Kneeling down, the trainer got his fist ready to connect with the Makuhita's as if trying to look cool. However, the Guts Pokemon just popped up and slammed an Arm Thrust into Seican's face, making him fall over.
"GYAH! WHAT THE HELL?!" Luckily, the guitar was rolled over, so he didn't complain about the guitar being damaged. Now he had to worry about his nose as the Makuhita walked up to his Pokeball and pushed the button, returning himself.
"Tsh, no matter," he said, trying to look cool by brushing it off. "He was just having a bad day is all." Happing back to his feet he grabbed another ball of his belt and held it out. "I want to try out this POkemon, anyways! Go, Mara!" And with another toss, a Maractus popped up, who gave a shy bow to Tag, shy blush included.
Tag had prepared to summon Suzu, and his choice was essentially confirmed when the fighting-type Makuhita appeared. The tattooed trainer stared at the plump little fighter, his eyes glossing over in a moment of cute-overload. He had forgotten just how cute he thought the little fattypoop was. However, his hardened glare returned the instant Seiccan began speaking again. Throughout his speech, Tag interjected with a few lines of his own, that got glossed over entirely in the process of the rant.
"I am Seican Serroc, the leading her of the greatest band ever: The Royal Knights!"
"Don't care."
"All you can do now is bow before my greatness!"
"No Thanks."
The kid continued on for quite a bit. Tag found himself slowly tilting his head, listening and listening, simply because this Seican didn't know when to shut the hell up. He could barely suppress his own laughter as the kid's pokemon essentially face-palmed him to the floor. Served him right. At least his pokemon had some semblence of sensibility. Tag gave the Makuhita a little salute before it disappeared into his pokeball.
The next thing he knew, however, was that a bizarre new pokemon was on the field, the likes of which Tag had not seen. This had to have been one of the Unova pokemon that had been getting around Furoh now. Unova Pokemon had rarely been seen outside of their native region, but here they were, and it would take Tag some time in getting accustomed to them.
In lieu of flipping out his pokedex, he simply reached down and plucked out a pokeball of his own. Tag had originally planned on summoning Suzu, but it seemed almost unfair to send his most experienced pokemon up against one that was evidently untested.
He had a pokemon of his own that was untested, since it had just been acquired. It seemed the most reasonable choice. It was one that would at least give this kid a fighting chance. After all, Seican was all about the guitar, and a band that Tag had never heard of. There was no way he applied the same enthusiasm to pokemon battles.
"Tonbo." Tag blinked. The name had just rolled off of his tongue, and the next thing he knew, Slowpoke had appeared on the field, looking back over his shoudler at his new trainer. On the Slow Pokemon's vapid eyes, there flashed a hint of confusion. "It's your new name, for your new life. Hope you like it." The creature nodded slowly before turning to face his opponent, standing himself up from his otherwise prostrate position on the floor.
Tag looked defiantly over at Seican, his deep, calm glare meeting Seiccan's wilder, more passionate one.
"First move is yours, idiot." Tag growled, ready for the battle to begin in earnest.
"You are going to regret that, bub! You see, me and Mara are going to cream you and that air head! Now watch as Mara pulls off a miraculous opener! Mara, use..." Although he psyched himself up in the entrance, and over exaggerating the opening, he paused suddenly for a couple seconds because asking the Cactus Pokemon, "What moves do you know?" in the quietest tone he had said (which is still normal speaking tone), causing the Maractus to nearly fall over, tilted over as her arms tried to balance out herself.
Straightening back up, the Maractus turned about and started complaining with a random wall of full and partial names, as if humans could understand her. With her body shaking nervously, she let off the maraca rtattle, and Seican scratching the back of his head. "Whoa, whoa! Calm down, Mara. I never seen your species, and I don't got any information besides your name. I am sure to do my research later." As if later was going to help now. "Why not roll with the punches, and I go from there, alright?" With a soft sigh, the Cactus Pokemon sighed in acceptance before turning about, giving an apologetic bow.
Since she had to show her new master what she was capable of, she took in mind to do things on her own. Lifting her arms up, she pointed at the Slowpoke. With the barbs glowing brightly, needles began flying in the the water type's direction, as the sound of the maracas was added along with the Pin Missile.
The trainer didn't know what moves his pokemon had. Feeling almost sorry for the kid, Tag felt like pointing and laughing at the headstrong idiot. Then he realized, he didn't know his new pokemon's moves either. Dodging didn't seem like a good command to issue such a slow moving pokemon, so Tag decided to go with a move that most water pokemon had at their disposal:
"Tonbo, Water Gun!"
Unbeknownst to Tag, two of the abilities Maractus could potentially posess were Water Absorb, which would heal it, and Storm Drain. Either way, neither attack would actually inflict any damage whatsoever on the rattling grass pokemon. Even still, Tag's new friend fired off a surprisingly powerful water gun attack, dispelling a majority of the incoming pins. One or two go through to Tonbo, but he made no indication whatsoever that he had been hurt by them. Tag watched to see just how powerful the impact of the water gun attack would be, and mentally attempted to recall other moves he'd seen the species perform.
The water struck the Maractus, but she only let off a small giggle as she danced in the water, her body growing slightly from the moisture. However, the more interesting part was not because it was doing nothing, but it seemed more like the water was being drawn to her. "Hey' I've seen this ability before. Storm Drain! Yeah, I remember watching this one show about how some abilities were somehow improved. Something about evolution and other boring crap." It was a miracle that he even paid log enough attention to know this! "Anyways, it seems like Mara here has Storm Drain!" Pointing at him, he grinned wildly once more as he yelled once again, "There is nothing you can do about it! There is no need to dodge water attacks because she will bring them all to her and just make her stronger!"
And speaking of stronger, her body began to glow green, growing bigger once more. it was Growth, and she was getting herself pumped up, and Seican thought this would be the best time to catch her rhythm now. Taking the neck with his left hand and his right at the body, he began to play along with the movements of the Maractus, going through chords as her body rattled with her movements.
With the green energy faded, and her stats nicely boosted, she held her hands out once more, launching a red beam at the Slowpoke, using Absorb this time to sap away at the enemy's energy.
Perhaps summoning this brand-new pokemon to the field had been a poor decision. Tag hadn't exactly given himself time to figure out just what Tonbo's capabilities and parameters were. Somehow this idiot kid's pokemon was giving Tag's the run-around...and to add insult to injury, the kid didn't even know what his pokemon's moves were either. He was just letting the Maractus do as she pleased.
Tag was not nearly so inclined to follow the same tactic. Resignedly, he flipped out his trusty pokedex, and scanned his own pokemon. Not the enemy pokemon, because he somehow felt that it was cheating to do so. He did a quick scan of the moves as Maractus' red beam impacted with Slowpoke, sapping a nominal amount of health away. Yet despite clearly taking damage, Tonbo merely seemed to shrug it off, looking over his shoulder at Tag, his tail wagging ever so slightly, like a very slow puppy's.
Tag's eyes tore through the list of techniques available to Tonbo, and smiled as he came upon one he both liked and was familiar with.
"Disable." The eyes of the aptly named "Dopey" Pokemon glowed a bright red in response, effectively shutting off Mara's access to the move. It appeared, for the time, as if she'd completely forgotten it. "Zen Headbutt." Summoning up his motor skills, Tonbo moved into a crouch before throwing himself forward. The topmost point of his head glowed with brimming psychic energy as he flew through the air, which would burst forth upon impact in a surprisingly powerful and surprisingly quick move from the very slow pokemon.
Now the battle was turning back in his favour, and perhaps after a powerful hit from the Zen Headbutt, Seiccan's annoying pokemon would hopefully crumble.
"Yo, Justin," Nate interrupted the silence which Justin had created for himself. The area was far from silent, but in his own world, leaning up against the wall, arms crossed, eyes fixed on a meaningless spot on the floor, it might as well have been. At least, of course, until Nate decided something was worth their attention.
"What's up?"
"There's a pokemon battle up there," Justin looked up to see Tag and Seiccan in the middle of what looked like a fairly heated battle. "Pretty sure that's Tag'," Nate continued. "Right? I can't really see from back here, but that's Tag, right?"
"Yeah," Justin nodded, standing up straight now, arms still crossed. "And Seiccan,"
"Who?"
"Seiccan, the kid who played guitar a few minutes ago,"
"Oh, in that shitty band?"
"Yeah in the-" Justin began. "Shut up."
"Well, are we gonna do something about it?" Nate asked. "We're security right? And there's a fight going on right in front of us."
"It's not a real fight, Nate, it's a pokemon battle."
"Right, it doesn't count as a real fight because it's being done with monsters who can use magic and move the earth and shoot fire," Nate sarcasmed with full knowledge that sarcasm was not a verb. Was being the key word. It is now. "Go do something about it."
"Why don't you?" Justin asked. "Tag seems to respect you for some reason,"
"Nah," Nate shook his head. "It's gotta be you. I'm staying back here to keep protecting backstage. Get out there, Smart."
"You're not my boss."
"Just go, dude,"
"Fine."
He pushed his way through the crowd to get to Seiccan and Tag. He didn't even know what his plan was to stop them from fighting. What was he gonna say? "Hey you guys stop fighting this is a family circus respect my authority!!" No, probably not. He sighed as he approached, but as he did so, he was approached by another man.
"Yo." the man, whose face was notably beaten, said, putting his hand on Justin's right shoulder.
"Yo?" Justin quickly pushed the man's arm away. "Do I know you?"
"That guy right there," he pointed to Tag. "He stole that Slowpoke."
"He stole a Slowpoke?" Justin raised an eyebrow. Tag wasn't a thief. "Whose Slowpoke was it?"
"Well, we was gonna discard it," the guy said. "But still, we can't just allow people to do whatevers the fuck they want. It's all about respect, you know what I mean?"
"Discard it?" Justin asked. "Meaning?"
"We was gonna release it back into the wild,"
"Well then who gives a shit?" Justin asked.
"I fuckin' do!" the guy yelled. "That asshole punched me in the face!"
Justin chuckled. "I wasn't gonna say anything. But what's your plan? You're gonna fight him? A pokemon battle? Look at him, bro. He knows how to fight and that Slowpoke looks a little stronger than you gave it credit for. So why don't you run your plan by me and we'll go from there?"
"We fight him, a pokemon battle," the man said. "My pokemon are strong. I can take him. If I wait for him to finish up with this kid, it'll be easy. You don't even have to help."
Justin sighed. "I probably wasn't gonna anyway,"
His thumb seemed to of been caught on the string through the command of "Disable," which locked away Mara's Absorb attack. In his mind, he compared it to forgetting a chord or a stanza, and taking the time to remember it, a few more stanzas would be missed, throwing off the rhythm. It was that amount of time that made her open for a Zen Headbutt.
"Alright, shake it off, shake it off," he called out to the rattling cactus as she struggled to get back up. "I think I get some of your moves now, and if I am right, those flowers are there not to just make you look pretty." This made Mara fall over again, her face red from the comment. "Yeah, i am sure you can sweeten things right back up. Now let's go! Sweet Scent!" With her back on her feet, the flowers on her head began to spin, surrounding her in a cloud of clear pink dust, spreading it over to the Dopey Pokemon. "Alright! Now, let's fight back with another Pin Missile!"
It was a good thing he remembered a Pokemon can only forget one thing at a time, so he couldn't use Disable to seal away every move (unless it was only the one). So, with the command on hand, the Cactus Pokemon held out her arms once again. The thorns on her body began to glow brightly before firing yet another barrage of pins.
It seemed that Tonbo's Zen Headbutt was a surprisingly powerful attack. That, or Mara the Maractus was really quite weak. Tag looked closely at his new Dopey Pokemon, who, despite his vacant expression, seemed to be enjoying the battle. Perhaps Tag imagined it entirely, but he at least felt some sort of joy emanating from the Slowpoke.
Then, a Sweet Scent followed up by another Pin Missile set in. The Sweet Scent would lower the Slowpoke's already very low evasion, which seemed rather pointless. However, the Pin Missile was a super effective move. This time, unlike the first two direct attacks, Slowpoke seemed to be showing signs of pain, meaning that it had connected, perhaps critically.
Since the trainers were issuing two moves at a time, Tag had no problem continuing the trend, in order to expedite this victory:
"Tonbo, Curse." Tonbo yelled a swear word. Obediently, the Slowpoke closed his large eyes, steadying himself. He glowed briefly with some dark energy, increasing his attack and defense capabilities at the cost of his speed. Fortunately for Tag and Tonbo, the Slowpoke was true to its namesake, so the loss in speed made little difference.
"Zen Headbutt." Summoning the psychic energies to the crown of his skill again, the Dopey Pokemon launched himself forward once again into the Maractus. She had had a difficult time earlier in dealing with the attack, Tag wondered how she would handle the boosted one.
"Aw, crap..." Seican muttered as he watched the Dopey Pokemon's head glowing a bright blue before slamming into the rattling cactus in a huge puff oh smoke. When it all cleared up, the shy Maractus' eyes were replaced with a pair of swirls. One of the most obvious signs she was knocked out besides the fact that her last bit of energy was muttering a part of her name.
Letting out a heavy sigh, he returned Mara as his head stayed drooped. There was a small pause as he tried to get his mind back straight. However, it just lead to more yelling. "Good going, Tiki-man! How do you feel about kicking the ass of a Pokemon I was not familiar with, huh?! I bet you and that mindless pink salamander thing enjoy your victory!"
However, one thing cross his mind. Would his Pokedex possess data on Maractus? Curious, he pulled out the red box, and man, was it in bad condition. the frame was tattered, dented, and the color was faded. There was even a bit of duct tape at the hinge to keep it held together. Skimming through the data, he went Alphabetical search and found... nothing. "Well, shit..." he knew it had data on Makuhita and Whismer, so it was at least on Hoenn setting. However, that was it. It even failed to process Pokemon from Sinnoh. "Stupid piece of hand-me-down crap!" Throwing the dex on the floor, he stomped the living daylights out of the poorly treated machine until it was broken into multiple pieces. Good luck trying to salvage that.
With the frustration spent, he looked over at the man, still standing there. "Let me guess, you want your prize money, eh?" Pulling out a few Poke' from his pocket, he walked up to the tattooed man and held it out to him. "Don't spend it all in one place... I will be sure to earn it back later."
Tag watched as the rattling cactus pokemon met the top of Tonbo's glowing head. The collision was rather fantastic, even going so far as to throw up a big dust screen. Even Tag hadn't anticipated his Slowpoke's attack power increasing that much from a single Curse-boost. Either way, Mara was defeated, and found herself recalled back into Seiccan's pokeball.
"Good going, Tiki-man! How do you feel about kicking the ass of a Pokemon I was not familiar with, huh? I bet you and that mindless pink salamander thing enjoy your victory."
Truth be told, Tag really wasn't enjoying the victory all that much. Even though he'd had trouble in the initial stages of the battle, Tonbo was, evidently, a very powerful pokemon. Mara had most likely been a fairly inexperienced one, considering the low spectrum of techniques she knew. If anything, this really made him feel worse for picking the fight in the first place. However, all that did was make him feel more ambivalent on the matter. Though Seiccan deserved a thorough beating, his pokemon, Mara, certainly didn't. Tag contemplated, briefly, punching the boy. Repeatedly.
He didn't, however, take kindly to his new friend being insulted.
"Listen, blockhead. That was the first time Tonbo and I had battled, just like you and your Mara. It was clearly a learning experience for both of us." Tag crossed his arms, "And I'll thank you not to speak ill of my friends." He knelt down, placing a hand on the Slowpoke's head.
The Slowpoke, in turn, looked up at Tag with his large, vacant eyes. In truth, he hadn't been used to this sort of respect from...well...anyone. Here was a human stooping to defend him against even a verbal slur, and was a good enough trainer to help him against a Grass Pokemon. Perhaps the name 'Tonbo' came with a good trainer, and the good start to a new life after all.
Tag watched as Seiccan pulled out a tattered old pokedex. It seemed to have seen years of mistreatment and neglect. Then, in something of a tantrum, the kid threw it on the floor and stomped it to kingdom come.
"Let me guess, you want your prize money, eh? Don't spend it all in one place...I will be sure to earn it back later."
Tag frowned, eying the money almost disdainfully. The kid was essentially shoving the cash directly in his face. Even having defeated the kid, Tag felt that Seiccan hadn't learned even the slightest lesson in respect.
"Keep your money, imbecile. You'll need it to buy a new pokedex, anyway." He felt his hands balling into fists as he spoke. Absolutely EVERYTHING about this ignoramus made Tag want to hit him. "In any case, I admire you. I've never had the courage it takes to be loud, obnoxious and stupid like that."
"Did you enjoy your battle?" the guard walked up to the two as Justin stood back, arms still crossed, hidden from sight within the crowd who had gathered to watch the fight. Of course, Tag would likely immediately recognize this guard as the man whom he had punched in the face. "Get outta here, kid," he said to Seiccan. "It's my turn."
Noting that Tag's current pokemon was part Water, part Psychic, the man summoned his only Dark pokemon, Skuntank. The moment it made its appearance, the area stunk up something fierce. Justin was reminded of a bad encounter he had somewhat recently with a stunky who poisoned both Hitmontop and Pinsir. "Pinky, use Night Slash!"
For those of you keeping track (Justin sure wasn't), Night Slash is a very powerful dark move and Skuntank doesn't learn it until fairly high level. Here's where Justin was keeping track: It was going to hurt Tonbo. As the pokemon moved quickly towards its prey, who had already been slowed by its own Curse, it found itself cut off as Hitmontop joined the fray with a Fake Out.
"The hell?" the man took a step back as Pinky joined him in fear of the intimidating and spinning Hitmontop before him. Then, Justin walked into the circle from outside of the crowd. He didn't look at Tag or at Seiccan.
"You're a dick," Justin shrugged at the guy, "That poor Slowpoke has had the most miserable life because of you. Then you were just gonna discard it, and now you want it back just 'cause it was stolen? And in order to do this, you figure your best course of action is to attack it while it's weak? I dunno what else to say, so I guess I'll just say it again. You're a dick."
"Alright," the guy nodded. "Okay. So you think you can take me? You think your Hitmontop can win? Pinky is part Poison, you'll have a tough time doing a lot of damage with Fighting at-"
"Hitmontop, use Earthquake."
"Tacks?"
The move was powerful. Hitmontop was very powerful. The combination thereof? Holy shit. Maybe too powerful. It felt like the entire earth was...quaking. Okay, well, I guess that makes sense. Still, it wasn't a focused attack. Skuntank seemed to be particularly affected by it, running around, fearful of random spikes shooting from the ground or something. But it was affecting everyone around. Even Justin became scared as it seemed like buildings were about to collapse. Many tents in the area were already falling over, people were losing their balances and falling all over each other. Hell, Even Hitmontop almost had to stop spinning. He didn't, though.
The pavement underneath Pinky began to crack and dirt just burst forth from it, completely covering the poor skunk pokemon. During its extreme confusion, Justin did the only prudent thing. "Follow up! You know what move!"
Mach Punch. Combined with Earthquake, it pretty much did the pokemon in, but Hitmontop's decision to switch to a different attack didn't stop the ground from trembling. Pinky was knocked out. Justin had just engaged a fellow Team Deception member in battle. However, that would be nothing compared to the punishment he'd receive for destroying the whole circus.
"Hitmontop!" He yelled over some of the panic. "Stop the Earthqake!" Hitmontop just looked at him confused. He didn't know how to do it. That was about the time when Nate walked up next to him and summoned Da Bomb, his trusty Numel.
"Da Bomb, use Magnitude to neutralize the the quakes." As the Numel concentrated, the ground began to move a little less slowly and then, finally, it stopped moving.
Tag turned, wide eyed as the guard from earlier approached. He clearly didn't have enough force in his punch to down the guard for very long. That, and the battle with Maractus had problem taken a bit too long.
The guard summoned a Skuntank to the field, which would most likely indicate doom for his poor Tonbo. However, the Slowpoke turned, ready to face the man who kept horrible watch on him. His incarceration hadn't been quite dignified, and the Dopey Pokemon was ready to fight for his new trainer quite eagerly.
Tag's mind raced as the Skuntank charged forward, ready to inflict what would potentially be the first and only move in the battle. Before he even had a chance to order Slowpoke to retreat his partner into the pokeball, a very familiar Hitmontop exploded from the crowd, intercepting the Skuntank with a very effective Fake Out.
Justin had charged in all cavalry-like once again. Tag glowered at the young man for once again playing the Big Damn Hero and essentially stealing the scene. However, as Justin spoke, Tag's respect for the musclehead skyrocketed.
It quickly plummeted as Justin commanded Earthquake.
"You idiot!"
Earthquake was incredibly powerful, rocking the entire area, throwing the spectators about, Tag included. Tag fell to the ground with a thud and a loud "oof". He watched helplessly as his new pokemon was tossed helplessly about by the jutting earth. Several times, he shot out the recall beam from the pokeball, only to have it deflected by the chunks of ground shooting up everywhere. Slowpoke cried out in pain, landing on the ground landing next to Tag with a solid thud. Tag immediately recalled his unconscious pokemon, saddened that Tonbo's battle debut had ended in such an ignominious defeat by someone who was essentially a teammate.
Luckily, Nate stepped in and neutralized the quake with another familiar pokemon, Da Bomb.
"Justin!" Tag shot back up, his fists clenched. "Earthquake? Are you serious!? You just bludgeoned my Pokemon! Do you EVER think anything through!? Are there even brains in that fat head of yours?"
"Hey! What was that supposed to mean?!" he screamed at Tag, money still balled in his fist before a new voice entered thee fray. He wanted Seican to get out of there, wanting a fight with the man he fought himself. hell, he was still there and went straight for battle, targeting the Slowpoke he weakened a bit through battle with a Skuntank of all thinks. His nose was burning with the horrific smell! Covering it up, he watched as the giant skunk went for a very powerful Night Slash, but got quickly intercepted by a Hitmontop.
Listening on, he heard of the small background check of the Slowpoke he just fought. It seemed to of been treated like trash anyways, and good chance what he said didn't help in any way. Life hit him in the gut, telling him, "You were a complete asshole!" and was going to go and apologize to Tag for all that... if he didn't fall on his ass again by the powerful Earthquake. What wade it worse was the echoing ping.
To him, everything went quiet as the three got into arguments over what just happened. To him, hall he cared about was looking at his guitar where the D string broke. He would of honestly preferred forgetting a chord over a broken string, as one string missing would throw off EVERY NOTE PLAYED! Forget apologizing! echoed through his head as he took another Pokeball in hand.
"YOU ASSHOLE!" Seican screamed. "You just threw off my entire sound AND now I have to find out where to grab new strings!" Chucking the Pokeball in fury, a small pink Pokemon popped out: Whismer. Taking the neck in hand into a chord, he yelled out, "Speaker, E major!" With a powerful strumming motion, he played out the guitar as if playing the note, and the Whismer followed up with an Uproar within that pitch of the combined strings. If no one was going to calm him down, he was going to get his butt kicked by yet another powerful Pokemon.
"That's, uh," Justin began as the crowd immediately turned on him. They were applauding him for his epic heroism just moments before. "Yeah, that's my bad,"
"Shut up," Nate said to Justin. "Everyone, clear the area, nothin' left to see here. You," he then turned his attention to the very defeated and disgruntled guard whom had picked a fight with the wrong guy. "And you," he added to Justin. "Come with me,"
As the three followed Nate, who had stepped up in a pretty big way as of late, Nate turned to make eye contact with Tag. Indeed, it hadn't even been an hour since he had berated Tag for assuming that they were working at this circus and that Team Deception was running the show. There wasn't really much to say, but he couldn't really apologize either. So, he shrugged and turned to continue walking with Justin and Circus Guard #11 in tow.
They found themselves in the same tent from which Tag stole the Slowpoke. "A fight?" Nate asked the guy. "In the middle of the fucking circus? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Hey you're not my boss!"
"No, I'm not," Nate shook his head. "But I've fucked up enough times to know what not to do. This whole thing is a front. The whole point is that we don't draw attention to ourselves. We gotta seem like just a regular circus. And you," he turned to Justin. "That was pretty awesome,"
"Right?" Justin laughed. "Holy shit, Hitmontop almost brought the whole place to the ground. Speaking of which- Well, I guess it's not actually related, but whatever. What's with you lately? You're trying so hard to do what's best for us."
"Maybe I'm sick of being Unit 101," Nate shrugged.
"You guys are Unit 101?" Guard 11 asked. They should really have asked his name at some point; it just seemed so inconsequential. "Justin Smart and Nate Guzman!! You guys are fuckin' legends!"
"We-" Justin began. "What?"
"Notorious fuck-ups!" the guy laughed. "Idiots with crazy strong pokemon. I knew that Hitmontop seemed really strong. Of course! It's Justin Smart's!"
"Seems our reputation has preceded us," Nate sighed. "Get back to your job," he said to the man. "Me and Justin are going back to guard the stage. No more stupid shit."
As they left, Justin and Nate got a chance to talk. "I think we fucked up," Justin said. "Again,"
"You mean Tag?" Nate asked.
"Yeah," Justin said. "He knows now, you know? I mean, we were obviously acting on some level of authority back there, and then you stepped up and that guy just followed you. Tag is... He's gonna be mad that you lied to him. And I wouldn't be surprised if he went out of his way to disrupt this place and try to free the pokemon. You saw his face, right? When he saw the Seviper. In the very least, he's gonna try to free it since he feels responsible for it being captured."
"Yep," Nate nodded. "I guess it's our job to make sure that doesn't happen."
E Major was probably Tag's least favourite chord. He was more of a minor, diminished, and suspended 4 with augmented ninth fan. At least, he would've been a fan of those if he actually knew the terminology for it. Tag was no musician.
However, the Uproar hit nothing, as no pokemon were out on the field any longer. The waves of sound rolled around, doing essentially nothing except create a loud tantrum noise.
"For the love of Pete," Tag rolled his eyes, before allowing them to settle back down on Seiccan "Just shut up. No one cares." He was half tempted to draw out another pokeball and simply mop the floor with the Whismur, but the fight had deflated out of him for the moment. He had a wounded Slowpoke, who probably needed medical attention.
Yet, immediately, his battle instincts flared back up as Nate passed by him. Silence fell over him as he stared silently at the younger man. The whole thing was just a front, and he knew it. The guard was listening to Nate and Justin. Well, mostly Nate. Therefore, they were in cahoots. Nothing more to it. This place was run by gangsters and mobsters, just like the Black Market in Lenoilia had been.
Tag's mind flashed back to his attempted rescue of the Black Market pokemon. While it had been successful, he, his comrades, and all of their pokemon had the living snot beaten out of them in the process. Suzu had nearly been sliced in half by a Seviper, and Tag himself had been shot. There was absolutely no way to break all of the pokemon out of their cages, and lead a successful rescue mission here. He was outmanned and outgunned. Well, he had a potential partner...
No. No he really didn't. Once glance at the temper-prone Seiccan simply proved that rag-tag teams of people with common goals couldn't be properly formed. There would be absolutely no chemistry here. Cameron Ramirez had annoyed him greatly, but the kid had grown on him considerably. WHen it came down to it, Cameron had been right there with him on the field, launching what was essentially a suicide mission.
This kid...Seiccan...there was absolutely no way in hell Tag would attempt any sort of co-operative work with this kid.
"Seiccan Serroc." Tag spoke up, hopefully once the guitarist had calmed down. "Use the prize money to buy yourself a new string."
Hopefully, the guitarist would simply scamper off, on his own merry way to whatever it was he did. In the mean time, Tag had decided on his next course of action: He would free the Seviper himself, as he now felt the lingering clouds of guilt from abetting its capture. Then, he would report the circus to the authorities. They would never believe him; he looked like a common thug. Probably nothing would come of it, but he'd have tried in that regard. It was probably a smarter move than taking on the entire circus single-handedly.
"Excuse me." Tag brushed past Seiccan, making extra sure to shoulder bump him on the way past. He probably couldn't use any circus facilities; no doubt they'd been warned about his theft. It simply meant that poor Tonbo would have to remain unconscious for a spell, while Tag freed the Seviper and left.
Even though the small pink Pokemon was letting out a tantrum, she was able to quickly calm down when she noticed the lack of enemies. With a small chuckle, she soon relaxed and walked back over to Seican, who was, once again, getting a quick lecture from Taggery. After watching the three people walk off, he simply stared until tag went pass, bumping into him. He let off a small growl in responce, but simply let it pass by. "C'mon Speaker. We should take some time to re cooperate..."
It took him some time, but he was soon able to find a Pokemon Center Stand right next to a convenience stand. "Hey nurse," he said, walking up to the counter. "Think you can take care of my little friend here? I also want to know a bit more about her, like moves, if that's no trouble." With a smile from the nurse, she took the Maractus' Pokeball and waited by looking at the stand next to it. "Sweet! They got a deal on Revives!" Using the money that tag denied, he was able to grab a half dozen of golden crystals and a bottle of water for himself.
"Excuse me," the nurse said, looking at Seican. "You Pokemon is good to go. Also, this is what you wanted, right?" Heading back to the Center stand, he took he Pokeball alongside a small paper giving off what he requested. How the hell does a plant use Peck? echoed in Seican's mind before relieving his thanks and heading off.
With crystals in his pocket, he cracked open the bottle of water, and instead of drinking it, poured it over his head. It almost looked like he was trying to physically cool himself off from getting so steamed up. "What's with that Tiki-man anyways?" he muttered before looking forward. It was odd because he saw a Seviper being moved in a cage down away form the main tent. Clearly, this snake was not going to be a local attraction, and the rocker was curious on where it was headed. It didn't take him long to get curious enough to follow, not realizing his hair was still dripping from the water dump.
'That Tiki-man' was actually quite busy trailing the Seviper cart. In the time it had taken for Seiccan to find the Pokemon Center, Tag had found himself a mask that looked suspiciously it came from a Kamen Rider outfit. He'd also, conveniently, found a brown leather duster that looked like it'd been worn through a battle in a valley light years away. The main point was, Tag was now incognito. Most people probably wouldn't recognize him in passing without seeing his very distinctive tattoos.
He'd thus spent his time slowly following the Seviper cart, waiting with dedicated patience for the right moment to strike. The success of the moment depended on where the Seviper was left, and whether or not it was guarded by anyone. His mind was struggling madly to find a solution to the problem of freeing the charge from its probably untrained guard. Luckily, no one could see the utterly ridiculous 'thinking face' Tag was making, thanks to the equally ridiculous mask he was wearing.
Most likely, he'd opt for the straightforward attack, then opt for the "Run-Like-Hell" escape plan. He was well aware that he was risking his Pokemon, as well as potentially his own well-being, in exchange for this one pokemon. That meant that failure was simply not an option. Surely there were more options, but Tag's fairly black and white thinking on the matter was "Do or Die".
Then, in a total moment of sheer bad-luck, he noticed the idiot guitarist from earlier, Seiccan, step out of the Pokemon Center and follow the same cart. He looked like he'd run under a fountain, or something equally stupid, but after a moment it became expressly clear that Seiccan was following the cart.
Hopefully, Seiccan proved dense enough to not notice the Kamen Rider Browncoat purposefully stalking both him and the cart from a safe distance back.
Justin and Nate decided it would be best for one of them to remain on the duty to which they were actually assigned. So, Nate stayed guarding the door to backstage, even though he was a rather unintimidating bouncer considering his height (or lack thereof) while Justin went to protect the Seviper from Tag. Perhaps it should have been the other way around. Justin was actually a large guy and he would be much better at keeping people from even thinking about sneaking backstage, while Nate had proven that he was better at speaking to Tag.
Justin insisted, though. If things erupted into a battle, he trusted his own Hitmontop more than any of Nate's pokemon, and he didn't much expect either of them would be capable of convincing Tag to back off with anything less than a battle.
Sure enough, once he found the cart where the Seviper was being held, he saw a suspiciously clothed and even masked man about the size and figure of the very same Taggarty Lee. Part of Justin wanted to help Tag free the poor thing. It had been living in captivity for months and was taken directly from the wild and kept in a cage. He justified it to himself time and time again that a cage couldn't be much worse than a pokeball, but the truth was, he had no idea what it was like inside those little balls. Still, captured pokemon never seem particularly sad, but this Seviper looked like it had simply given up. He wondered, if Tag were allowed to free him, would he even be able to make it out in the wild again?
He didn't act; just watched. He wanted to know Tag's plan before he could foil it.
When it came to Pokemon Battle Strategy, Tag was pretty good. When it came to other sorts of strategies, Tag was not nearly as good. As the cart reached its destination, Tag drew a pokeball, almost casually tossing it forward.
The ball landed behind the mook moving the cart, who turned in surprise to see a Bellossom. Looking up, he saw a masked man in a trenchcoat?
"Who the hell are-" "Sleep Powder"
As the man reached for his own pokeballs, the pink spores shot up into his face, curling around him as he breathed it in deeply. A sleepy, happy look appeared on the man's face as he slumped to the ground.
Looking around, Tag moved forward, dragging the body aside and propping it up against some conveniently stacked crates.
All the while he was completely ignoring Seiccan. The kid was more of a hindrance than anything, but at the very least, he could be used as cannon fodder in case more grunts showed up.
Tag moved over to the cage, wondering exactly how to go about this. Part of him just wanted to release the Seviper, but it didn't seem to be in any sort of state to escape on its own.
Tag reached down to find an empty pokeball, so he could capture it like he had Tonbo...and to his dismay, there were no more! This was decidedly poor foresight, so Tag had no choice but to...
"Hey, Idiot Guitarist." Tag turned to Seiccan, who had probably been watching the hold time. "Capture this Seviper."
Huh?" That was a random command. Capture the seviper? Didn't it belong to the circus anywyas? And who was this strange masked man anyways. "You know that jacket does not suit that helmet, right?" Clearly, he was not connecting the heights of this guy and Tikiman. "You know if you try to cosplay, you need the full suit."
After a most likely barking from him Seican turned around and began to run forward, tripping over his feet nearly immediately, but caught himself and began running in the area with the Seviper like a dumb ass. Not only that, but he failed to realize that one of the golden crystals he bought fell out of his pocket, the Revive gleaming in the open to Tag.
While running past everyone, he soon got a mob of guards charging at him as he sent out his Makuhita. "Drummer, take care of these fools!" With a Arm Thrust to each face, he gave off a stupid grin before turning back around. "Now where the hell did that snake go?"
This, unfortunately for Seican, led him to the dude with the Hitmontop.
"You know that jacket does not suit that helmet, right? You know, if you try to cosplay, you need the full suit." Luckily Seiccan couldn't see Tag's face through the mask/helmet. It was one of utmost incredulousness, as if Tag's very face was saying: "Too stupid; Didn't Happen."
He wanted to yell at the kid. In fact, in most scenarios he would've yelled at the kid. In this rare occasion, Tag found himself utterly speechless. He had been stupified by Seiccan's response.
In that silence, Seiccan ran forward full tilt, engaging the remaining guards with the Makuhita he'd seen earlier. In the process, he dropped a revive.
Tag recognized it immediately, and stopped to pick it up. Sadly, the words "Good news! It's a suppository" repeated over and over in his head in a surprisingly old voice. Tag did not discard his newfound fortune immediately, mostly because it didn't belong to him. That, and reviving Tonbo in the presence of the guards would merely alert him to the fact that the trench-coated gentleman was in fact the thief from earlier that day.
While Seiccan engaged the guards, which was precisely the opposite of what Tag had commanded him to do, Tag moved over to the cage, where Kyoko stood waiting for him.
"Uh, Kyoko, break it open. Leaf Blade!" The Bellossom gave a quick smile and bow to Tag before drawing a thin leaf from her skirt, which she brandished with surprising gusto. With one fell leap, she met the cage head on, slashing repeatedly with her leaf rapier. Within moments, the cage bars burst apart, allowing the Seviper free passage into the open.
However, the poor broken creature remained huddled in the cage. Despite it's natural weapons, and despite the fact that a path to freedom had just been cut open for it, it remained curled up in its cage, unwilling to face the thought of freedom lest it turned out to be merely an illusion.
"C'mon, move." Tag ordered it, pointing out in a relatively clear direction. After a moment, it became evident that it probably wasn't budging, and that Tag probably needed to clear it a path anyways.
"Alright Kyoko, let's help out here. Hit them with Magical Leaf!"
With a graceful spin, Kyoko let fly with a barrage of glowing leaves, hammering the guards Drummer had hit with a furious salvo of, well, magical leaves.
Justin found his attention was distracted as Seiccan somehow attracted the aggression of some people. These were not guards, however. They had no reason to chase after the kid, after all. He hadn't done anything wrong. It was understandable how he may have been confused by this, as he certainly did have plans to do exactly as Tag had commanded.
It was two men. Perhaps it was their sharp dress that hinted at a thuggish nature, but that didn't really make sense. Maybe Seiccan was just on edge. One was an agent and the other, his assistant, and they liked what they heard. The agent, Jonah Ronn, was by no means big time. He was, after all, working a circus, but, hey, neither was Seiccan. He had a marketable sound, and Mr. Ronn wanted to sign him. That was, at least, until he and his assistant got Arm Thrusted in the face by the kid's Makuhita.
"Jesus," Justin sighed when he saw this. Justin knew nothing about Jonah Ronn or his assistant and what they did. He did know that they weren't guards. This was a place of business, a circus patronized by children. There were not masses of guards standing around, chasing after people simply for looking suspicious, especially not in the middle of a crowded area. The kid eventually ran into him. Justin just grabbed him by the shoulders in an effort to get him to calm down and quit running around like an idiot. "Calm the f-"
During this actually successful distraction, Tag had managed to cut the Seviper loose. Justin noticed this a bit too late, but was thankful that the snake was too scared to actually leave. Then he was upset that he was thankful, because that was a terrible thing for which to be thankful.
He tossed Seiccan nonchalantly to the side and approached the cage, his hand resting firmly on Hitmontop's pokeball, to confront Tag, but he hadn't yet summoned the destructive fighting pokemon. "Tag," he said, shaking his head. "What are you doing? Did you not think I was gonna come stop you? I kind of get why you're doing it. I do. I'm not happy with the fate of a lot of these pokemon. But do you really think that freeing one caged Seviper is going to solve anything? Will it honestly do anything besides appease your fucking guilt?"
He continued, refusing to allow his rival to speak. "I don't like what I do. And I hate that you look at me like you're so much better than me." He paused for a moment, but his heavy breathing indicated that he wasn't finished. "Because it's true. Because you're willing to risk everything for one pokemon. I hate that I have to be the one to stand in your way. But I will. Tag, if you don't walk away right now, I will take you down. Some day, I'm sure we'll have a battle, a real one. A good one. But this can't be it. It's not worth it, man. You need to pick your battles, and this isn't one of them.
"So I'm asking you," he continued. "Because I respect you. And because I like you. Walk away. Let me handle the Seviper and the cage. Let me handle the situation with the idiot guitarist," he looked over his shoulder to Seiccan, but then immediately back to Tag. "You saved the Slowpoke. He's yours. The Seviper is mine."
Tag stopped dead in his tracks as Justin called his name. The disguise, while paper thin, had been more than enough to fool Seiccan. While he figured a sharper person like Nate might've immediately seen through it, Tag had not expected Justin to have spotted him so quickly.
Justin's arrival, however, spelled the end of Tag's endeavour. If it came to a battle, Tag would lose, it was simple as that, and he had no desire to send his pokemon up against Hitmontop again, now that it had become such a powerhouse. The earthquake he witnessed earlier was enough to convince Tag that Hitmontop could probably OHKO his entire team. It was just that bad-ass.
Tag listened closely as Justin monologued at him. It was an interesting speech, to say the least. Tag couldn't tell if he was being respectful or condescending, and he wasn't exactly sure how to take it.
"Justin." He finally spoke. Stooping down, he picked up Kyoko, holding her to his chest. The Bellossom, in turn, looked at Justin oddly. While Suzu and Bachi had faced Justin in battle, at least twice prior, Kyoko had only ever been an ally to Justin, when Tag entrusted her as an Oddish to him in a battle many moons prior. She seemed bewildered that her friend Justin was opposing Tag.
"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life." Tag spoke slowly, and calmly, despite the fact that he was clearly in a losing situation, with Justin's weighty advantage. "This is one of them. Whether it's helping you escort this poor creature to your bosses, or trusting you in the first place, I'm still not sure. Either way, yes. Freeing Seviper will ease my guilt somewhat. Now that I know that I abetted you in getting this Seviper here, even if its arrival here was out of your control, will still bug me forever."
Then, before he realized it, he just continued talking, which was a fairly surprising move for Tag. He wasn't a big talker unless it was about Pokemon Battles, but this was probably the most vulnerable he'd felt in a very long time.
"The solution, to me, is simple. I'll walk away, on the condition that you take up the mantle of rescuing this Seviper. It doesn't have to be immediate, though sooner is preferable to later. You do that, and I'll know for sure that I can at least try and trust you once in a while. If you can promise me that this creature will ultimately be freed, then I'll gladly walk away."
Tag wasn't completely sure why he said that. It was a fairly desperate gambit, but using force was out of the question; he'd lose.
"If that's not possible, then we're at an impasse, and neither of us are ideas people, Justin. We're warriors, that's wherever we meet turns into a battlefield, either as allies or enemies. So these are our options: You let me get away with the Seviper. I leave, but you free the Seviper. Conversely, we fight here, and we're bitter enemies forever. Your call."
Taggarty Lee didn't like insurmountable challenges. He much preferred surmountable ones. But at least, in his mind, if he engaged Justin, he could get Seiccan to run off with the caged Seviper (and maybe as an added bonus, the Seviper would eat Seiccan in turn). The unfortunate truth was that Tag still didn't know if Seiccan could be trusted with such a weighty task. It made his third option the most shaky of the three, and one that the risk might not have been worth it for. That ultimately relegated the 'fight' option to the function of a bluff.
Justin sighed. He didn't want to be enemies with Tag. Truthfully, he always looked up to the man. "This Seviper matters a lot to you. But you're an idiot. It's ironic that you always call me an idiot." It wasn't ironic, but Justin barely graduated high school, so give him a break. It's one of the most incorrectly used words in the English language! "All the bad going on in the world, and you only care about this one Seviper. How selfish is that?
"But okay," he continued. "You walk away. You tell your boy, that guitarist, to stand down and stop attacking innocent bystanders, and I'll do what I can to help this snake."
He waited for a moment as Tag began to walk away, but then spoke again. "Tag, if you could do me another favor. What I do, who runs this circus. It needs to stay quiet. The only people who know are you and, uh, Raven. This is what I do. I don't need you to agree with it, but I'd really like for you to respect it."
So what if during that moment, he accidentally attacked mistaken bystanders and ruined a good chance to go to the top easily? Not like he knew. Well, maybe actually paying attention to those who were going after him instead of by him would of helped. Maybe he would of realized this if he actually went to pay attention.
It seemed it was the guy from before who released the wreckless Hitmontop, and was soon thrown down when the "Kamen Rider" popped up to encounter the guy, still aiming to free this Seviper. Now, Seican still had no idea it was tag, nor was he familiar with the background of the pair, so all he did was lay there on the floor, listening on as the Makuhita stared at the scared Seviper. It was only until he heard about the Slowpoke and freeing it did the ends click: The Kamen Rider was Tiki-Man!
Getting up on his feet, the guitarist stared at Tag before moving his gaze to Justin, and after a while of silence, he muttered loud enough to hear, "What the hell is going on here?"
"What the hell is going on here?" He heard Seiccan not-so-subtly mutter.
"Adults are talking." A hardened glare from Tag shot off like a laser beam at the young guitarist. Seiccan was more than likely of adult age, but Tag felt particularly inclined to be very demeaning to him. In the mean time, he turned back to Justin to continue their conversation.
"It's not selfish." Tag crossed his arms, almost poutily. "All the bad going on in the world, and I'm still doing something about it. You're merely contributing to it. So, in the same way I'm an idiot who calls you an idiot...you're selfish but call me selfish."
Tag was convinced that what he had just said wasn't entirely a sentence, but it would suffice. It seemed like the only way to vocalize the terribly complex rebuttal he'd crafted. He wasn't pleased with it, but it would suffice.
"But okay, you walk away. You tell your boy, that guitarist, to stand down and stop attacking innocent bystanders, and I'll do what I can to help this snake."
It was a compromise, and one that didn't end with Tag's pokemon as bloody smears all over the floor of the Circus. Slowly, the former Dragon Trainer nodded. He really didn't have much of a choice, so he'd have to accept. Unsure as to whether or not to trust Justin on this matter (or any matter, for that matter), he simply uttered:
"Thank you, Justin."
"Hey, idiot guitarist." Tag walked over to Seiccan, reaching into his pocket and holding out his hand. "You dropped this." On the flat of his palm was the revive crystal Seiccan had dropped earlier. "Consider my returning this your payment for helping me. Goodbye. Hopefully forever."
"Tag, if you could do me another favor. What I do, who runs this circus. It needs to stay quiet. The only people who know are you and, uh, Raven. This is what I do. I don't need you to agree with it, but I'd really like for you to respect it."
Tag stopped short in his walk, in that really cool way that people did in moves. He was still holding Kyoko, which made the moment less cool and a bit more adorable. Regardless, he turned back around to face Justin, as talking over his shoulder would render his words inaudible (albeit much cooler).
"Fine. You keep your word, and I'll keep mine."
Then, at the mention of Raven's name, he felt his throat clench up a bit. He attempted to be cool about the situation, but it was fairly obvious that he was a bit flustered about it.
"You...you haven't seen her around, have you?"
Justin just shook his head at Tag's question. "Sorry," he said, knowing that there was some sort of chemistry between the two of them, even if they didn't admit it to each other. Then, when the guitarist approached, Justin nodded his head at him. "Seiccan, right?" he asked. "I really enjoyed your show. Keep it up, alright, man? You're good. Tag. Uh. It was good to see you again. Good luck with Raven. I'll probably see you soon."
And with that, he closed the cage on Seviper and stood to watch Tag and Seiccan, who had given him more trouble than they probably intended, leave. Hopefully, they would leave. Otherwise, that heartfelt goodbye would have been pretty awkward.
With the dropped crystal in hand, Seican stared at Tiki man, telling him right up front that he didn't want to see him ever again. It will be your own fault, he thought, pocketing the golden Revive. When you hear I am famous, you will hope you my autograph now. Just sucks for him that because of the prior actions, a shortcut to the easy life was punched away.
Next to come up was Justin, who, unlike Tag, told him he enjoyed the show and wished him luck with his future performances. With him walking away with the Seviper, he still had no idea what was really going on. However, with them parting ways, worrying about it too much was going to be pointless.
"Ah well," he sighed, looking down at his Makuhita. "I guess we are done here, right? Once I get some strings, we are going to head out and see what we can do about our next show. I'm expecting great things from you, Drummer!" Giving him a thumbs up, the chubby yellow Pokemon sighed, hopping up to hit the Pokeball on his belt, returning himself.
With that done, he felt tired of the circus life. Too many things he wasn't apart of to make him shine. So, on his own, he did a quick tour of the town, found a store that had replacement strings (and so, bought and replaced the steel wires), and grabbed a small dinner. Feeling slightly better, Seican decided to leave the small, underground town.
"Don't worry," Seican said, even though no one was around. "I will be back, and I will rock this place loud."
Tag finally took the moment to recall the Bellossom in his arms as he continued his walk away from Justin and Seiccan. In his heart, he was still completely unsure as to what Justin's next move was, and if Justin was smart (like his namesake), he could easily trick him, since he'd have no real way of keeping tabs. He was a vagabond trainer, and had no contacts in Gigarte. He'd probably never know for sure precisely what Justin had done with the creature, as he had to rely almost completely on faith.
Nate would be the more worrisome of the two, being the quicker of them. However, Tag hoped fervently that he'd appealed to Justin's good nature, and something would be done.
In the mean time, Tag had to beeline it out of the circus. Not bothering to re-don his mask, he took a hurried walk back to the main Gigarte Pokemon Center.
Handing over the pokeballs to the Resident Nurse Joy, he took a seat on one of the benches, staring wistfully out the window. There was a small chance that the Circus security would be after him; after all, Guard #11 was probably looking for revenge. He'd have to leave Gigarte for now, despite the fact that he'd hoped to challenge the Gym there. It'd simply have to wait for another time.
At the very least, he figured he could check up on the status of the Seviper next time he was in town. Somehow.
In the mean-time though, there was the pressing matter of finding Raven Amaranth. She'd probably fled the city to escape from the growing trail of paparazzi, with little time to leave any clues for Tag.
"Mr. Lee?"
Tag raised his head, looking over to the Nurse Joy.
"Your Slowpoke is conscious, but he appears to be in very bad shape. As if he'd been malnourished for quite some time." She gave him a rather reproachful look, insinuating that he'd been the perpetrator of the crime of Pokemon Abuse.
"I've just caught him today." Tag explained, giving nothing away. "You can tell from the fact that the registration occurred today."
"Oh, poor thing." Nurse Joy sighed somewhat sadly. "Well, I don't suggest traveling around Furoh with him, in his current state. Would you care to transfer it via PC?"
"Oh, absolutely." Tag nodded, not exactly thinking the situation through. He'd never had to use the PC transfer before, nor had he ever had enough pokemon to warrant utilizing it for any means.
"Just give him plenty of time to rest in his Pokeball for a bit, maybe just a couple days, then you can call him back. Sound Fair, Mr. Lee?"
"Yes, ma'am." Tag nodded, taking the pokeball from her and heading over to the computer. He input his trainer information, placing the ball on the little circular indent, where the ball fit snugly. With the tap tap of a few buttons, the ball disappeared in a flash of electric-light.
Then, the former Dragon Trainer remembered exactly where the pokeball had gone: Johto, his home continent. Not having used the system before, Tag wondered feverishly whether the pokeball wound up at the Elm Laboratories, or in Blackthorn City, where he'd received his first pokemon.
Now, if it was the latter of the two, it meant that someone in Blackthorn would know of his existence, and a sharp pang of guilt crept through Tag's stomach.
It was really best not to think about it. Hopefully, Tonbo got some much needed rest.
As he moved back to his bunch, head swimming with new questions, Tag stared over at a sign on the wall.
"Poke-Con".
"Oh." Tag blinked owlishly at the flyer. Since he had no leads whatsoever on Raven's location, he figured he could scope around there. People were coming from all over the continent, so perhaps someone had seen her. She was a loner by nature, so it was not likely that he'd find her there, but perhaps, just perhaps he could begin his search anew there. After all, it wasn't like there was anything to take his mind off of her while he was there. How bad could it be?
He locked up the cage and looked into the Seviper's eyes. Though there was an inherent sinister quality in them, it did still seem scared and lost. Justin couldn't help but feel bad as he just stood at the cage, looking in to the pokemon he illegally captured on his first (and thus far most successful) mission for Team Deception. He promised Tag he'd get the pokemon out, but he had yet to figure out how or even if he planned on following through with the promise. "I'm sorry," was all he could bring himself to say.
"Yo," Nate walked up from behind. "You good? Been staring at this thing for about twenty minutes."
"It has a name," Justin said.
"Does it?"
"Well, maybe. I don't know what it is."
"Is this about Pan?"
"What?" Justin asked. "How the hell did you make that conclusion?"
"Well, ever since you met her, you've been bummed out all the time," Nate shrugged. "Figured this was just another one of those things."
"Well, it's not about her," Justin sighed, standing up straight and looking at his partner. "It's about..." he paused to think. "It's about everything. Tina left me, you know? And I haven't gotten a chance to get over it. Been so busy with this work, and I hate this job. And then there's Tag."
"Ahh," Nate nodded. "This is about Tag. He guilt tripped you about Tony Montana didn't he?"
"Tony Who?"
"Scarface?" Nate said. "You said he had a name, right? Well, that's his name. Officially."
Justin found himself at a loss for words. Nate was smart, but he did have a tendency to ignore whether or not his thoughts were followable to others. "Okay," he said. "Yes. He made me promise I'd free him eventually."
"How did he make you do that? Can he even enforce it?"
"That's the point of a guilt trip. He doesn't have to."
"Good point," Nate said. "Well, I'll leave that to you to figure out. The good news is, our shift's up and the worst thing that happened was a couple of guys were attacked by some kid's pokemon, but they're all healed up and they're not pressing charges."
He didn't say it, but they were both thinking it: Mission Accomplished.
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