From: Karnivax <karnivax@my-deja.com> Subject: [PW!] Rival Date: Monday, May 31, 1999 3:02 PM Karnivax's PokéWars story numero quatre... --RIVAL-- Part 1 by Karnivax "Yee-haa! That's it, Rocky! Squash that jabroni with the People's Elbow!" Torrasque the talking Scyther sat in the Pewter City Gym, watching his battery-powered mini-television with undivided attention. "Hey Kyle, couldja pass the popcorn?" "Will you pipe down, Torrasque?!" growled Kyle Richter, the insect's trainer. "You're screwin' up the match!" "What are you talking about, Kyle? The Rock's layin' the smack down on Triple H! Just the way it's meant to be!" Torrasque cried. "HEY, YOU IN THE BALCONY!" shouted a voice from the gym arena. "SHUT THAT SCYTHER UP!" Torrasque lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned over to Kyle. "Oh, you were talking about the *Pokémon* match! Man, is my face red..." Torrasque turned down the volume on his portable television and went on watching, cheering softly as he watched the wrestling match unfold. Kyle rolled his eyes back and sighed. "I can't take you anywhere, Torrasque..." he grunted, a glare in his eyes. Kyle continued watching the battle that was going on in the gym arena. The Pewter City Gym leader, Brock, was taking on a young challenger from Pallet. The challenger had a Charmander and a Butterfree, and was not faring well against Brock's monstrous Onix. Already the Butterfree was down for the count, and the Charmander was slowly getting the vitality squeezed out of it by Onix's Bind attack. Eventually Brock ordered Onix to release the stunned Charmander, not wanting to hurt it any further, and the Charmander's disappointed trainer was forced to recall his Pokémon and leave the gym in silence. _Interesting,_ thought Kyle. _Dad told me that Brock's Onix wasn't very strong. But apparently Brock's toughened his pet snake up quite a bit in recent years. I'd say the rocky reptile's at least at level thirty..._ "Bring on the next challenger!" Brock called out, a look of utter seriousness, not cockiness, on his face. Kyle arose from his seat in the gym's balcony and said to Torrasque, "I'm on. Wish me luck." Torrasque did not take his gaze away from the television. "Yeah, you do that," he murmured. Kyle left the balcony and descended to the gym's stone battleground, where a coiled Onix awaited its next opponent. Kyle took his position on the side of the rocky Pokémon arena opposite from Brock, and removed a Pokéball from his belt. "Let's get this show on the road," said Brock. "Dragonite, I choose you!" shouted Kyle, and set free his powerful Dragonite, Leviathan. Leviathan removed the electronic language translator that he usually carried around from his neck and did some quick pre-battle stretches. "I've heard the legends, but this is the first time I've seen a Dragonite in person," remarked Brock. "This should be a good chance to test out the new moves I taught Onix last week. You ready?" "Naturally," replied Kyle. "Okay then. Onix, Bind attack!" Before Leviathan knew what was coming, Onix quickly coiled its tail around the Dragonite and proceeded to constrict the dragon Pokémon. Leviathan used his massive strength to push himself out of the giant snake's grasp, then flew into the air. "Rock Slide, Onix!" Brock commanded. Onix paused for a few seconds, seeming to be gathering power. Then three giant pieces of rock broke off from the stone battleground, floated into the air, then rocketed toward Leviathan. The rocks each scored a direct hit on the Dragonite, but due to the fact that Leviathan was at roughly level seventy, the attack failed to do much damage. "Dragonite! Ice Beam!" ordered Kyle. Dragonite saluted to show his acknowledgment, then opened his jaws wide. A blue-white energy beam shot out of his mouth and struck Onix in the head. Over the course of the next several seconds, Onix's entire body and the rocky Pokémon ring became encased in a thick layer of ice. Onix was totally immobilized. "Onix, return," commanded Brock, and the frozen Onix was returned to its Pokéball. Brock's brothers and sisters were sitting in the balcony, looking shocked. Brock, who seemed to be taking his defeat with dignity, re-attached the Pokéball to his belt. "It could've been worse," he said softly. "I could've been whooped by a Magikarp again..." _This guy got beat by a Magikarp?!_ thought Kyle. _He isn't as good as I'd thought..._ "Well, nice doing business with you, Brock," Kyle said. Leviathan reclaimed his language translator, and then returned to his Pokéball. Kyle headed toward the exit. "C'mon, Torrasque," Kyle shouted into the stands. Torrasque paid no attention. There was a long pause. Finally Torrasque jumped up from his seat. "One...two...three!!! YES!!! Triple H is DOWN!!!" he shrieked, doing a wild victory dance. He then noticed everyone else in the gym staring at him. He slowly stopped dancing, turned off the portable television, descended from the balcony with his head lowered and followed Kyle out of the gym. "Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself," snorted Kyle, as he and his Scyther headed down the relatively empty streets of Pewter City. Torrasque beamed the portable television into what would normally be his Pokéball and frowned. "Aww, too bad you lost," Torrasque said. "But hey, there's always next time." "Umm...actually, I won," Kyle snapped, displaying the Boulderbadge. "Won, lost, what does it matter? I'm there for ya, man," Torrasque replied. Kyle turned and backhanded Torrasque in the head. Torrasque rubbed his aching cranium and grunted, "Thanks, I needed that. So, where are we going now?" "We're going to fly to Cerulean City next," Kyle answered, as he removed from his belt the Pokéball containing Grendel, his Aerodactyl. "Torrasque, I trust your wings have healed up since the battle against Rapidash?" "Yes. Of course they've healed," Torrasque lied, trying to get out of having to be detained in a Pokéball for the duration of the flight. Kyle grinned and gently tapped a burned area of Torrasque's left wing. "OWWW!" cried Torrasque, wincing in pain. "Uhh...I mean...OWWWtside! It's so good to be outside on a nice day like this!" "Sorry, Torrasque. It's one more flight in PokéCoach for you." Kyle spun Torrasque's Pokéball on one index finger. "Grrr...so help me, some day I'll get my revenge on the schmuck that invented the Pokéball..." Torrasque muttered. "When I'm done with 'im, they'll have to carry him away in a sponge!" Torrasque slashed at the air a couple of times with his razor-sharp blades just to make his point. Kyle unleashed Grendel the Aerodactyl and gave the prehistoric Pokémon the flight plan. "We'll be leaving for Cerulean shortly," announced Kyle, climbing on to Grendel's back. "E.T.A. twelve-thirty P.M. Please make sure that all seatbelts are buckled and all tray tables are in their upright and locked position." Torrasque's head drooped as Kyle prepared to beam him into a Pokéball. "Wait!" came a voice from behind, just as Grendel was about to lift off. A girl roughly Kyle's age came riding up on a mountain bike, holding a single Pokéball. She had long brown hair, blue eyes, and lips that were colored with pink lipstick. Her body was lithe and curvaceous. Her legs were muscular, like a track athlete's. She was wearing a plain gray tank top and denim shorts, as well as a leather belt for storing Pokéballs. "Before you go anywhere, would you be up for a quick Pokémon battle?" Grendel, seeing an unfamiliar human, was about to fly away in panic, but Kyle was able to recall Grendel before he could get away. Kyle froze up as he turned to answer the girl's question. His eyes widened, and his jaw nearly dropped open. His mouth said "Of course," but his brain said _Holy crap, she is *hot*!_ Torrasque had never before witnessed such behavior in Kyle. He waved one blade in front of Kyle's face, getting no reaction. "Crap, we're losing 'im!" Torrasque shrieked. "Gimme a hundred units of O- Neg, STAT!!!" "You can talk?" the girl asked Torrasque. Torrasque then turned toward the girl with a look of complete innocence on his face. "Scy?" he chirped. "Ther?" "Maybe I came at a bad time," the girl said, and started to walk away. Torrasque whacked Kyle in the head with the dull end of one of his blades. Kyle snapped out of his trance. "No! No! You couldn't've come at a more perfect time!" Kyle said. "C'mon, we'll battle!" "Great," said the girl. "By the way, I'm Jessica Sullivan. You?" "My name? Uhh, I used to know this..." stammered Kyle. Torrasque hit Kyle in the head again. "...it's - it's Kyle Richter." "Pleasure to meet you," Jessica said. "Let's get to it, shall we? Magmar, I choose you!" Jessica went into a Nolan Ryan-like windup and pitched the Pokéball she was holding. Right before the device landed on the ground, out came a rotund Magmar, its skin glowing bright orange and its tail blazing with a white-hot fireball. "Scyther, go!!!" shouted Kyle, pointing Torrasque in the direction of Magmar. Torrasque simply stood with his scythes crossed and his scaly muzzle pointing skyward. "Scy!" Torrasque snorted, still trying to keep up the guise of an average speech-less Pokémon. _Oh, that's right,_ Kyle remembered. _I said I wouldn't force him to fight for me any more..._ Kyle discreetly walked up behind Torrasque and gently kicked him toward Magmar. Torrasque roared at Kyle, "Why you dirty, two-bit, double- crossing, back-stabbing bas-" He then stopped himself when he realized his cover was blown. "Look at her," Kyle whispered. "Girls like those don't come by every day. If you show her how well I've trained you, maybe it'll really knock her out." Torrasque glanced at Jessica's shapely upper torso, then asked, "Why would you need to do that? She could probably knock *herself* out runnin' around with those two coconut-lookin' things." "I didn't mean it lit-" Kyle began, sighing a bit at the futility of trying to explain the concept of "love at first sight" to a Scyther who had never seen a Scyther of the opposite sex. "Look, Torrasque, just do this for me. I'll make it up to you, I promise." "Let me think about it," Torrasque whispered back. "Nahh." "So your Scyther really does talk," Jessica broke in. "How does that work? Does he just mimic words, like a parrot?" "Parrot?! The nerve! Associating me with some feathered freak!" Torrasque grunted. "Okay, you got me in a fightin' mood. As Mills Lane says, 'let's get it on!'" Torrasque quickly took a fighting stance, and the battle begun. --RIVAL-- Part 2 by Karnivax "Torrasque, don't let Magmar get a hit in! Give him your Slash attack!" Kyle commanded. "I'll do even better than that!" Torrasque announced. "I'll give him...the People's Slash!" "The *what*?!" Before Kyle's question could be answered, Torrasque did a wild and very brief Swords Dance, then hit Magmar with a right scythe-jab, a left scythe-cross, and topped off his combo attack with a right scythe- uppercut. Magmar was launched some ten feet into the air by the uppercut, and he backflipped three full times before crashing to the ground with a pained cry of "MAG!!!" Jessica hardly even blinked. "Interesting how your Pokémon puts new twists on old attacks. Still, you can't beat the classics. Magus, Fire Punch," she commanded. Magus the Magmar righted himself and brought back one flaming fist. He rushed toward Torrasque and gave him a mighty jab. Torrasque was sent flying backwards, and crashed into Kyle, knocking the trainer over. "Torrasque, speak to me!" Kyle cried, rolling the scorched, half- conscious Scyther over on its back. "It's two...two...two mints in one..." Torrasque grunted, staring off into space. "You got enough strength left for a Hyper Beam?" Kyle said, pouring water from his water bottle on Torrasque's head. Torrasque leaped to his feet, suddenly revitalized. He had a look of madness in his eyes. "Oh yeah!!!" Torrasque then dug his scythes into the ground to brace himself. He proceeded to take in a massive amount of hydrogen, on which the Hyper Beam attack relied. "Quick, Magus, counter it with your Psychic attack!" ordered Jessica. Magus started meditating intensely. Finally, Torrasque opened his mouth wide and unleashed an earthshaking blast of plasma energy, which blazed toward Magus like some low-flying comet. Before the Hyper Beam could hit, however, Magus responded by firing off a massive, multicolored wave of psi energy from his hands. The two blasts connected, but it seemed that neither one was able to overpower the other. Eventually, Kyle noticed Torrasque beginning to slide backwards. The Hyper Beam was strong enough that Torrasque's scythes were unable to hold him in place. Finally Magus's psi-blast started to gain ground, and overpowered the Hyper Beam. Both the Hyper Beam and the Psychic attack rammed into Torrasque, and the mix of plasma and psi energies resulted in an explosion that was both fiery and colorful. Kyle turned away and shielded his eyes as blinding rays of light and flaming chunks of earth went flying in every direction. The ground rumbled with the force of the blast, upending Kyle, Jessica, and Magus. Torrasque had disappeared into the explosion. When the ground stopped shaking and the dust cleared, a blackened, seemingly lifeless Torrasque was clearly visible lying in the middle of a smoking crater. Both of his wings and his left scythe, though still intact, were severed from his body. And since his insect DNA rendered him a coelomate, all it took was one flesh wound to make him lose blood fast. Kyle leaped into the crater, looking totally panicked. "I never should've...I didn't think this would..." he stammered. "Torrasque, get up!" he pleaded, shaking Torrasque vigorously. He got no response whatsoever. Knowing there was little he himself could do for Torrasque, Kyle slung the fallen Scyther over his shoulder and picked up Torrasque's severed scythe and wings. He then released Grendel and tossed all the parts of Torrasque on to the Aerodactyl's back. "Grendel, fly Torrasque to the Pokécenter, and for God's sake, get the lead out!" Kyle commanded. Grendel got a running start and lifted off like a rocket, being careful not to drop any part of Torrasque. Once airborne, he turned and headed for the Pewter City Pokécenter. Kyle released his Arcanine, Fenris. Kyle leaped on to the canine Pokémon's back and directed Fenris to follow Grendel, not noticing that Jessica had recalled Magus and was cycling after Kyle. After a ten-minute flight, Grendel arrived at the Pokécenter and crawled inside. He shut his eyes and pretended there were no humans in the building. He headed straight into the lobby and nearly bumped into the main desk, behind which one of the incalculable Nurse Joys was sitting. She nearly had a heart attack upon seeing Torrasque. "What happened to this Scyther?!" she cried. Grendel, with his eyes still closed, merely shrugged as best he could. "Aero," he squawked. "This Pokémon's going straight to the emergency ward," Joy announced. She wheeled a gurney over to Grendel and placed Torrasque, along with his three severed appendages, upon the conveyance. She then wheeled the gurney into a room behind the main desk and locked the door. Roughly five minutes later, Kyle arrived, followed shortly thereafter by Jessica. As Kyle returned Fenris to his Pokéball, Kyle saw Jessica securing her bicycle to a signpost just outside the building and realized he had been followed, but he did nothing about it. He sat down in the Pokécenter's waiting room and waited for a long time in complete silence, staring down at the floor, hoping Torrasque was okay. After an hour passed, Kyle finally decided to find out why he had been followed. He looked up from the floor. He asked Jessica, "What are you doing here?" "Same reason you're here, I'll wager," Jessica, who had taken a seat across the room from Kyle, answered. "We're both partially responsible for what happened to your Scyther." Kyle looked down at the floor again. "No...you had nothing to do with this..." "How so? It was my Magus who took him down," Jessica noted. "Just yesterday I promised that Scyther that he wouldn't have to fight for me any more," Kyle pointed out. "But I...kinda...cajoled him into battling your Magmar anyway." Jessica looked confused. "And why would you do that?" Kyle glanced at Jessica momentarily, but did not respond. "No, wait. I get it," Jessica said, a glare all of a sudden forming in her eyes. "You're just some grand-standing show-off who wanted to flaunt his Pokémon skills at the expense of his Pokémon." "But...that isn't the reason at all..." Kyle said. "Oh? Then enlighten me," Jessica snapped. "Tell me the *real* reason." Again Kyle said nothing. He sighed and continued staring at the tile floor. "Well, I hope you've learned a few things from your defeat," Jessica said. "For one thing, never use a Scyther to fight a level one hundred Magmar." Jessica arose from her seat and headed for the exit. "Don't go until you know the truth!" shouted a voice from behind the Pokécenter's main desk. A battered, blackened Torrasque leaped up on to the desk, his wings and his left scythe still detached. "Which is?" asked Jessica. "Kyle didn't push me into anything," Torrasque answered. "It was your comparing me to a parrot that got me riled up. Being part bug, I simply *loathe* birds." "Why should I believe you?" Jessica laughed. "You're probably loaded with anesthetics." Suddenly Nurse Joy appeared from the back room. "Scyther!" she cried, seeing Torrasque atop the main desk. "How'd you get out here? I was hoping I wouldn't need to administer anesthetics, but if you're going to be unruly..." "Did you hear what Joy said?!" Torrasque shouted at Jessica, as Joy carried the charred Scyther into the back room. "I'm *not* drugged...well, not yet, at least! And besides, I only lie to Kyle, because I know he's a good enough friend that he can tell when I'm lying!" Torrasque's voice trailed off as he was carried away for more treatment. The look on Jessica's face became a little more lighthearted. She turned towards Kyle. "Have you considered sending him to a Pokéshrink?" she asked. "Torrasque's an intellectual, or so he claims," Kyle replied. "He does his own psychoanalysis." "Well...I guess I owe you an apology," said Jessica. "I'm sorry about the animosity; it's just that I'd never heard of a Pokémon going into a fight without the order of its trainer. That Scyther of yours is definitely something else, I'll say that. He's also the first Pokémon I've seen to hold up against Magus for as long as he did. That so-called 'People's Slash' of his could've ended it all." Jessica paused for a moment. "For an intellectual, Torrasque is quite a fighter." "He's at level one hundred, just like Magus," Kyle pointed out. "Well. In that case, I hope we meet again," said Jessica, again turning for the door. "It's not every day I meet a trainer who can offer Magus a real challenge." "Oh, we'll meet again, I'm sure of it," said Kyle. "Torrasque isn't going to be happy until he has a rematch with you anyway." "Until then..." said Jessica. She exited the building, grabbed her bicycle, and rode away, waving goodbye. Another hour later, Torrasque emerged from the back room a second time, followed by Nurse Joy. Torrasque was still blackened, but his wings and his left scythe were repaired. Nurse Joy announced that Torrasque would heal by himself the rest of the way, that he was free to go, and that the anesthetics had had a potent effect on him. Kyle grabbed a limp, drugged Torrasque by one scythe and guided him to the exit. "Ooohhh...I can see the pre-Crisis DC comic universe..." Torrasque murmured, his eyes practically spinning around in his head. "Ya feelin' okay, slugger?" Kyle commented, snickering a bit. "If yer not down with X-Pac, I got two words for ya: tomato pie!!!" Torrasque said in a slurred, incoherent voice, nearly falling over on his side as he pointed at Kyle with one claw. "Well. Hope you won't mind if I carry you around in a Pokéball then," Kyle said. "You didn't let me finish," snapped Torrasque. "Then the seventy- eighth guy comes in, orders a beer and a cactus..." With that, Kyle returned Torrasque to his usually vacant Pokéball and headed outside, where he released Grendel. Kyle jumped on to Grendel's back and directed the Aerodactyl to fly to the next stop in their journey to obtain all eight trainer badges: Cerulean City. It's over...for now... -------------------------------------------------- Karnivax "You trolls are so headstrong and predictable...you are your own worst enemies." Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.