Pokemon Adventures: Soul Ch06 Grand Chase!

Chapter 6: Grand Chase!

I carried Emperor on my back all the way back to the Poke Center. Groups of people swarmed all around me, clapping and cheering. They acted as if I won the world cup at a champion's banquet. All they did was get me irritated; I simply wanted them to leave. "Great battle, Soul! You'll definitely make it to the top" people said as they cheered. When I finally reached the Poke Center, I requested immediate medical attention for Emperor.

"You worked hard out there…" I said to him.

He grabbed my hand, "I owe it to you, for not giving up and respecting me as a te-"...

He finally passed out on a stretcher that the nurses brought out. The Nurse, and her chansey, carted him away quickly. People were still approaching me for autographs and such, but I broke free from them and quietly disappeared. I went back outside, behind the Pokemon Center, and leaned against the wall.

"What's wrong Soul?" asked Huntress, as she broke out of her pokeball.

I was about to respond, until I heard someone clapping. I stood up straight, ready for a fight, but it was only Psyche approaching me, still clapping.

"Very nice…you won that one pretty smoothly" he said in a mocking tone with a grin on his face.

My face darkened as I stared him down, "What do you want?" I growled.

His grin disappeared, and his tone became more serious.

"I wanted to say your skills as a trainer are good, but could use some work." he said.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed me the envelope. I glared at him as I took it. I opened it up, and read the context:

Dear Soul,
Complete your badge collection and come in first place at the Pokemon League Cup. Only then will we, the Elite 4, accept your challenge. Before you continue, there is a special microchip I left in this envelope. Bring it with you to Floaroma Town. I will wait for you there to train you, and help hone your skills. Keep the microchip safe at all costs.
-Cynthia, of the Elite 4

I looked back at Psyche.

"That Gabby woman gave that to me so I could bring it to you, but that isn't why I really came here," he began, "I know it was you who stopped Syndicate a few days ago…" he said.

"Yea what about it? You want to give me a medal…" I responded sarcastically.

Psyche began to get frustrated.

"NO! You idiot!" he yelled, "You're a target now! Syndicate will hunt you down, and kill you! You interfered with them not only once, but two times now! They won't let that pass without some kind of aggravated assault!" he said.

Psyche grew silent.

I closed my eyes and chuckled, "You really think I'm scared of some Syndicate thugs?"

Psyche hesitated to answer, "Yes…I do" he said calmly.

My eyes widened with rage, and I ran up to him, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him up off his feet. I then pushed him against the wall, firmly holding him in place as I pushed up against his chest.

"What did you say? I'M NO COWARD! I won't die as easily…as easily as…" I let him go, and backed off.

I thought about parents. How my mom was too weak to stay alive after giving birth to me…how my father tried to save those people in that burning building. How I was unable to do anything about it. I couldn't save them, because I was young and weak. I clenched my hand into a fist,

"My parents…" I clenched my fist and gritted my teeth in anger, "They were too weak! That's what life is! Only the strong have the right to live! Without power, you can accomplish nothing! This is why I," I turned to Huntress, "No, WE will be strong! My team and I will become powerful enough to destroy any threat that appears before us!"

I faced Psyche again, staring him in the eye, "Am I scared? Yes! But that fear…death…and failure…That's what makes me strong!"

I stopped talking, as anger rushed all over me. Psyche just stared at me, and at Huntress.

"You are absolutely right, and you are strong Soul, that's why I want to recruit you to the Pokemon Elite Action Center Enforcement; or PEACE for short." He said.

I looked at him carefully, "No. I don't want to join your fan club...We had this discussion before...My team is all I need," I declared as I pointed at Huntress.

Psyche brushed me off of him, shoving me backwards, "Yea! What about your little heroics when Roark and I were attacked!" he responded.

"Greiger was there, I wanted to show him that I wasn't scared to oppose him. I wanted to show him I was ready for him, any time anywhere!" I retorted.

Psyche walked forward to me, and just decked me in the face. I fell over from the impact of his fist, tripping over my own feet. I accidently dropped the letter that he gave me, with the microchip still inside.

Psyche walked over to me, and held me up by my collar, "YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME?!" he bellowed. Huntress was about to attack Psyche, when his Gengar popped out of Psyche's shadow ready to oppose her. I held my hand up to stop Huntress from fighting Gengar.

"DO YOU know what Syndicate is!? They are a group of terrorists who use stolen pokemon to smuggle weapons into Sinnoh, and sell them off to different regions! THEY HURT people Soul! I was just like you before. I was alone, and extremely cocky. And what happened to me? They stole my Sceptile, and left me in a ditch to die! If my boss didn't come when he did…"

Psyche let go of my collar, and held out his hand to help me up.

"Your decision is yours "hero", when you're done joking around and actually want to do something worthwhile with your life-" he began, but suddenly there was a flash of bright white light.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!" I exclaimed shielding my eyes. Psyche quickly put on his goggles to shield his eyes from the bright light. The flash started to wear off but my eyes were still seeing doubles.

"Soul! Are you ok?" asked Psyche.

"Yea..was that a flash attack?" I asked him.

"Yea, I think so…When I punched you in the face, you dropped that letter with that stupid chip!" he said, as he quickly surveyed the area. Psyche spotted someone fleeing in the distance, and pointed them out.

"That guy is in an awful hurry, huh Soul?" He said.

"Yea, well let's go introduce ourselves…" I said remembering that the letter said keep the chip safe. Psyche and I returned our pokemon to their respective poke balls, and we immediately gave chase to the fleeing suspect.

Psyche took the lead as we sprinted at top speed.

"I can handle this myself!" I said to him looking back as I ran.

Psyche grinned, "Sorry, but there is no way I'm leaving now! That guy was wearing a gray mask!" he responded. I shook my head "Syndicate!" I said in an angry tone.

The culprit took many sharp turns trying to lose us in the crowds of people in the city, but we were too quick to be shaken so easily. He hesitated mid sprint, and made a left turn up a dead end alley way.

"We got him now!" yelled Psyche, but as he said that the criminal ran straight up a brick wall, and flipped off of the wall backwards whilst grabbing a nearby fire escape of a 3 story building.

"Psyche! Shut the hell up before you jinx it any further!" I yelled.

I stopped before I got to the wall.

"Great!" I said angrily.

Psyche ran straight up the wall, emulating exactly what the culprit did, grabbing the fire escape.

"Look live!" He yelled, as he held out his hand.

I jumped up and grabbed his hand, and he threw me up toward the roof. I just barely grabbed the ledge of the fire escape and pulled myself up and secured my foot on a nearby window. I held out my hand for psyche, and he launched himself upward, grabbing my hand.

"RAWR!" I grunted, as I threw him over my head on top of the roof.

He quickly helped me up, and we resumed the chase. We were hoping roof top to roof top now, trying to catch up, when we jumped onto the last building.

"END OF THE LINE! Just hand over the letter!" I called out to the suspect.

He wore a gray mask just like Psyche said, similar to Greiger's, but it looked dull. I guess the grunts wear the grey masks I told myself.

"You don't know what this is, do you kid? Wait till the boss finds out I nabbed it off of you! I'm do for a major payday haha!" the suspect said. Psyche and I kept taking small steps forward.

"No," said Psyche "but I'm sure you're gonna tell us what it does"

The suspect laughed, "You want me to tell you what this is? Ha! Figure it out your selves!"

The Syndicate reached into his back pocket and threw 3 shuriken at us.

I jumped in front of Psyche as I grabbed 3 empty pokeballs off my waist, and threw them at the incoming shuriken, effectively deflecting them. The culprit then pulled out a black ball and threw it into the air. With a puff of smoke, a gliscor appeared. He was about to use gliscor to kite his way off of the roof, headed toward a further off other building. I ran off of the roof behind him, and grabbed hold of his leg. My weight caused him to slip, and he accidentally grabbed one of gliscor's wings. It lost balance, and we began to fall toward the ground.

Crap! This is gonna hurt like hell I thought.

"Not on my watch!" Psyche said to himself, as he ran at full speed grabbing the black ball the Syndicate Grunt dropped.

Psyche then he jumped off of the roof after us. He threw the black ball at the gliscor, catching it in midair, and caught me. We both landed on another nearby roof, hitting the roof hard with a loud THUD; rolling to a stop. The black ball landed on the roof after us, and it rolled toward us, as Psyche and I laid motionless.

"ugh…you alright…" I asked him.

Psyche, almost immediately got up, shrugging off the pain as if he did that on the daily.

"Yea man I'm good" he said stretching out his hand to help me up. The black ball that Psyche threw to catch the gliscor burst open. Gliscor popped out of the ball, although it appeared to still be injured from when the grunt grabbed its wing.

We both jumped backward to put some distance between the Gliscor and us.

"It's a wild pokemon! Huntress, come out of your hiding spot and use Will-o-Wisp" I shouted. Huntress materialized herself and shot out wisps of fire, burning the Gliscor. I threw a newer pokeball at it, and it disappeared inside with a puff of smoke. The ball wiggled three times, and a dong confirmed its lock. I walked over and picked up the pokeball, and examined it to make sure it wouldn't randomly burst open.

"How was it wild?" I asked Psyche.

Psyche walked over and picked up the black ball the culprit used.

"It appears to be a pokeball. Here check it out" he said tossing me the ball.

I closley examined it. It was made out of a black and white apricot, but the colors were dark grey and black. It oddly looked exactly like a regular pokeball…I chewed a piece of the dark ball to get a taste.

Psyche gagged, "Ew bro you don't even know where that's been!" he said disgusted.

"Shut up," I grunted as I spit out the pieces.

"It's made from a black and white apricot for sure; the technology in it is far superior than that of a regular pokeball though. Based on the nature of it…it seems to be able to override a trainer's signature to caught pokemon, basically making them wild again…"

"That explains a lot…So that would mean that microchip you got…may be a form of a new energy source, so Syndicate can make more of these. They somehow found out about its existence, and attempted to steal it!" said Psyche, trying to visualize a motive for Syndacite's interest in the microchip.

We ran down the fire escape on the side of the building to find the villain lying on the floor unconscious. Psyche called in some reinforcements on his radio. I took the microchip back, and took another one of those black pokeballs off of the culprit's waist. The other one was empty, which meant he planned on snagging another pokemon on the way back to his HQ.

"I'm taking one of these with me…" I said to Psyche.

He grabbed my shoulder, "You're not an agent of PEACE, nor are you a police officer. I'm not supposed to allow you to take that…" he said sternly.

I turned to face him with a serious look.

"I won't join your group directly…but you may consider me an ally, for as long as our goals are the same…" I said to him.

He grinned, "What goals might that be?" he asked.

I looked at the black ball in my hand.

"I think it's cowardice to steal pokemon from people…I also believe that these Syndicate thugs are tough to fight against…They will keep me and my team on our toes and teach us how to get stronger, and as I oppose them I can possibly halt their small scale operations."

I looked at gliscor's black pokeball.

"I don't know who the former trainer for this gliscor was, but I'll take care of it, and keep it with me as a part of my team." I said.

Psyche nodded, and walked over to the villain, sitting him up and putting him in cuffs.

"Get to Floaroma Town, I think Cynthia owes you a few explanations. I'll meet up with you there later. And Soul," he turned to face me "Don't forget you and I have unfinished business" he said with a scowl.

"Yea, don't worry, I'll buss your ass in a battle one day," I said with a smirk.

"Let's go Huntress," I waved her over, and we both left Psyche behind.

We returned to the pokemon center later that evening. It grew real dark out, and the wind air cold. Emperor was waiting for Huntress and I by the door to our rented room.

"I see you guys had some fun without me!" he protested.

Huntress giggled, "You shoulda seen it all! We had a fight, someone stole some stuff! Then a chase! And oh! We had another fight!" she said excitedly.

"Huntress, we are about to move out," I said pulling out her pokeball, "Take a rest for now."

Huntress nodded and retreated back to her ball.

"Where to?" Emperor asked.

I checked my watch for the time, "6:30, it's not too late. We're gonna head over to the orphanage, I just want to pay the kids a quick visit, after we get this Gliscor treated. Then we head out to Floaroma town" I said coldly. Emperor nodded, as we made our way out of the pokemon center.

-Jubalife City, Half Hour later-

I knocked on the door to the Little Rock orphanage. The woman from earlier answered the door.

"Oh! hello there, Soul" she said with a warm welcome.

She opened the door, "Please, come in!" she said.

I nodded to Emperor, and we both walked in. It was a pretty spacious home. There was a wooden floor with antique furniture everywhere. It looked like a top dollar place to live, as if it were the inside of a small mansion.

"Nice place you got here…" I said to her.

"Thank you! The kids all went to sleep, so sorry if you came to see them!" she said.

She left the room into the kitchen. I could hear metal clanking and pots moving around in the kitchen; then she finally walked out with a tray of food.

"You looked hungry, so I got some of the leftover dinner for you, and some pokemon food for your pokemon." She said with a graceful smile.

I let Huntress and gliscor out of their respective pokeballs, and we all sat down in the living room. As I started eating, I really took a good look at the woman. She was wearing a see through white gown, and a pink robe. I swallowed some of the food, almost choking because I didn't think she realized she wasn't wearing a bra.

"Oh? Something bothering you, Soul :o ?" she said completely clueless.

I shook my head no, "Thank you for the food…" I said politely.

The woman just watched us eat, not saying a word but still wearing that graceful smile. It was odd, because she gave off such a loving motherly aura, and it was making me feel a bit awkward. A few moments passed by silently, so I thought about what I should say to her.

"Not to be rude, but I never did get your name…" I said, finally thinking of something to her.

She appeared to have dosed off suddenly, and just woke up as I said something.

"Oh, my! Where are my manners! My name is Hope, and I'm sure you remember the kids!" she said with a sweet voice.

I nodded, and looked at my pokemon. They were all staring at me with these conceded looks and huge grins.

"Keep eating!" I barked at them angrily, and they turned away giggling.

Hope yawned and stretched her arms up, completely exposing her bosoms to me. I looked away,

"Well ma'am! Thank you for the food, please tell the kids that I stopped by!" I said in embarrassment. I got up to leave, with my pokemon following me.

"Soul wait," she said, "I wanted to ask you for a favor."

I stopped moving, and turned around to face her.

"My daughter, her name is Spirit. She left for Floaroma town a couple of days ago to meet up with some people. She's been doing some training with her Budew over there, would you be a doll and go see her? She's been there for quite some time and I am a bit worried about her…See if you can get her to come home, ok?" she asked with a smile.

I was a bit confused as to why a woman would willingly send a young male to look for her daughter. "How can you trust me so easily?" I asked.

She let out a soft laugh, "Well for starters, you didn't try to come onto me at this time of night, even though I look pretty ecchi right now," she began, "And your pokemon, they looked so happy, and I could tell they trust you, even that gliscor is starting to trust you a little, and it appears you both just met!"

I was startled to hear that second part, "Can you tell what a pokemon feels or something" I asked, but she shook her head no.

"No! Not at all! Teehee!" she stammered in a sweet voice.

It seemed like she was hiding something.

"Yea, I promise…whatever" I grunted.

The mom giggled softly, "Good night soul!" she said as she walked me over to the door to let me out, "And I will be sure to let the children know you stopped by! Try actually visiting in the morning when they are up next time!" She said with a smile.

I nodded to her and took off for Floaroma Town with Emperor by my side.

-From Hope's perspective-

Soul walked out of the front door, and took his pokemon, Emperor, with him by his side. I let out a sigh, and looked over at a picture of myself and my children.

"I almost got caught haha-" I laughed to myself, shaking my head.

I can't tell Soul how I can read the thoughts of his pokemon just yet...but one day there will come a time that he will need to learn everything about my, and my daughters, "abilities"...till then, take care of him, Spirit.