Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Pokemon Quest ❯ Manfred's Evil Scheme ( Chapter 43 )

Pokemon Quest

 

Harold immediately left the battle area after he and Jacob were announced the winners. It wasn't that he was too shy to accept cheering from the crowd but rather that he was looking for a certain cloaked figure.

 

But at the same time, Harold was feeling a strange pain where his kidneys were. He blushed, knowing this meant he needed a quick bathroom break.

 

“I must say, that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be,” a voice said from behind the boy when he entered the men's facilities, turning towards the source. The cloaked man stood there and looked down at Harold adding, “But that Jacob guy is clearly too skilled for you.”

 

Harold looked at the man with a nervous look and shakily said, “Uh, I actually wanted to face Jacob and win fairly...”

 

“SILENCE!!!” the cloaked figure retorted, Harold more scared than ever before, “I am the brains of this outfit, and I will personally see to it that Jacob doesn't make it to his next battle.”

 

Harold bit his lip as nervous sweat poured down his face. He was feeling a lot of anger towards this mysterious man right now.

 

“I'M TIRED OF THIS!!!” he snapped, the stranger's eyes widening under the cloak, “Every time I'm about to have a trainer battle, you always do something to make sure I win without having to battle! Can't I have a fair victory on my own for once in my life!?”

 

The cloaked figure sighed before leaping in front of Harold. The glare in his eyes underneath the cloak struck fear into Harold as his tough guy attitude had left him. Now Harold felt all of his confidence leave him and all of his courage was replaced by doubt.

 

“You and I both know that you cannot win by yourself!” the boy snapped as Harold bit his lip, letting down tears, “I mean, look at your Pokemon team! Meganium is the only strong Pokemon you have, and even he can barely stand his ground! I ask you, have any of your other Pokemon won a battle? Better yet, have they even so much as evolved!?”

 

Harold wanted to strike the cloaked figure so badly right now, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good. It was quite sad that the stranger was right. Harold was weak. He wasn't a professional trainer, and he knew very well that he hadn't earned his right to be in the tournament. However, there were two reasons he had ignored this fact and cheated his way into getting eight badges to be in the tournament.

 

Harold's mother had caught a fatal illness prior to this. It was said that without proper treatment, she would die in six months. Harold then heard of the Ultimate Pokemon Challenge and heard that there was prize money along with the obvious medal. When he saw that first place was 900,000,000 yen, he had to join to earn the money to pay for his mother's operation. And it was all thanks to this mysterious stranger's dirty and underhanded tactics that he had made it this far.

 

It was dishonest, it was cruel, but it was all for the sake of his mother. Harold deeply regretted it and wished it didn't have to be this way, but what choice did he have? Was he just going to let his mother die?

 

“I see you understand perfectly what I mean,” the man stated with a wicked grin, “It's good to know that you've come to your senses. You know that you can't do anything on your own.”

 

Harold looked down and sighed, “You're right. I can't beat Jacob. Please, do whatever is necessary to remove him from the tournament so that I may advance to the next round.”

 

The figure grinned wickedly and patted the kid on the head. When Harold looked back up, the figure had vanished. He seemed to have a tendency to do that.

 

And so the last few rounds went by, and in the end Janette won her battle with ease. As she and her team mate gave one-another a high-five, Izy looked at her and said, “There's something odd about that girl but I don't know what it is.”

 

And so the trio and Lucario enjoyed a free lunch from the lounge in celebration. Jacob was moving onto the third round and he couldn't have been happier.

 

“You know, you're facing Harold in the next round,” Izy said, “Are you sure you won't go easy on him?”

 

“Hey, he may be a friend, but I'm not going to let him win,” Jacob said as he took a bite out of a sandwich, “I've come too far to throw this away.”

 

Anna still wasn't as cheerful as the others were used to her being. Something was wrong and Izy was going to get to the bottom of this whether Anna liked it or not.

 

“Okay, Anna, explain yourself!” the girl snapped as Anna looked up from her rice cakes and blinked.

 

Izy glared at her and said, “Don't play dumb with me, Anna. You've been looking extremely under the weather since the first round ended. What's going on?”

 

Anna simply smiled and said, “Nothing's wrong. I'm just concerned about Jacob is all.”

 

Jacob smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder saying, “You're just worried I won't win. It's okay. That's nothing to keep secret.”

 

Izy narrowed her eyes in response to this. Jacob was right. Such a thing wasn't worth keeping secret, and Izy had a feeling Anna knew that too. What was she hiding?

 

Now, one might be wondering why Anna was so hesitant to reveal information on Sampson's Spiritomb. It wasn't because she was afraid to reveal this information. It was because she didn't want to tell Jacob until the possible moment when the boy would have to face Sampson.

 

She figured that if she told Jacob now, he'd be too focused on Sampson and his ultra rare partner to care about his next tournament battle. She felt that telling the boy about Spiritomb would break his concentration and cause him to lose before he got a chance to battle with Sampson.

 

Meanwhile, Janette was preparing for her next battle, which would be against her partner in the second round, Joseph. She had learned from fighting alongside him that he used ice and fire types, so she picked up three certain Pokeballs saying, “You guys are perfect.”

 

Sevanne gulped while standing in front of a mirror in the women's bathroom. She let out a sigh saying, “I can't possibly beat Sampson.”

 

She let down tears thinking all of her hard work had been pointless. Her plan had been to make it to the forth round so she could at least win a third place medal and the prize money added to this.

 

See, much like Harold, she was battling for the sake of her family. But unlike Harold, she was aiming for third rather than first. This would have been simple were her opponent not someone like Sampson.

 

Third prize was a bronze medal and a cash prize of 60,000 yen. Her intention was to use that money to help pay for her family's most common needs. See, growing up, she and her family were poor. They could barely afford to eat let alone have comfortable beds to sleep on at night. The reason Sevanne needed the prize money was so at the very least, they may be able to afford a more livable environment and some more high-class food. She didn't want too much, so she only went for the smallest amount of money offered.

 

The girl let down a tear, knowing she had to defeat Sampson at all cost. That's right... she had to win.

 

Knowing this, Sevanne wiped the tear from her eye and stood strong and proud. She gulped down a large amount of saliva before saying to the her reflection, “I am going to defeat Sampson no matter what happens!”

 

By the day's end, all guests and trainers were ready to pack it in for the night. They needed to rest up for the third round. But when Jacob was just about to crawl into his personal bed provided by the staff, he noticed a slip of paper on top of it.

 

'I wonder what this is,' he thought as he picked up the slip of paper. He looked over the words as his eyes went wide.

 

Lucario, who was always lying on the bed, looked over at Jacob with a confused look. The boy slammed the paper down and said, “Lucario, mom's been kidnapped! This is a ransom note! We need to hurry back before they do something awful to her!”

 

Lucario's eyes went wide as Jacob turned for the door and said, “It's a good thing the staff provides transportation otherwise we wouldn't get back in time. Come on!”

 

Lucario looked over the paper with confusion. And could you blame him? It wasn't like he could read human text. However, he had a very suspicious feeling about this, but if Jacob wanted to leave before his battle, the infant had to follow.

 

'I hate to do this,' Jacob thought as he and his partner ran through the hallway, 'but I must for the sake of my family.'

 

Unbeknownst to the boy and Pokemon who were in too much of a rush to notice, the cloaked stranger had been resting his back against the wall next to Jacob's door. He laughed wickedly saying, “Yes, what a good boy you are, returning to save your mother even when she's not in any real danger.”

 

The boy removed his hood revealing green hair and a tough face saying, “No one is going to defeat my little brother.”

 

Just as Jacob was about to reach the door, a young girl's voice entered the area asking, “Where are you going?”

 

Jacob froze and turned his attention to a young girl standing right behind him. It was Janette, but what was she doing out so late? Well, that didn't matter to him right now.

 

“You're Janette, right?” Jacob asked as the girl nodded, “Look, I have to go. My mother's been kidnapped and I need to save her.”

 

Janette looked at his suspiciously as she asked, “How do you know this?”

 

“This letter was on my bed,” Jacob said handing it to her.

 

The girl looked it over. It said the following:

 

“Dear Jacob,

I am being held captive against my will! These men won't let me go unless you give them those badges you were collecting for that tournament. I don't know why they want it, but they say they'll kill me if they don't have them by noon tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Mom”

 

Janette had a rather suspicious look as she said, “According to this letter, your mom wrote it, correct?”

 

Jacob nodded as the girl asked, “Does this look like your mom's writing?”

 

Jacob looked it over and gasped. In his state of panic, he had completely ignored the fact that this writing looked nothing like his mom's.

 

Janette proceeded to ask, “Does your mom have a full understanding of what you're even doing in this tournament?”

 

Jacob thought hard about that as his eyes widened, the boy saying, “As a matter of fact, she didn't even understand completely why the badges were needed. And now that I think about it, how did this letter get from Redwood to here?”

 

Janette nodded and placed a hand on Jacob's shoulder saying, “This letter is fake. There's no doubt someone sent it to you forging your mom's name so you would be disqualified from the Pokemon Challenge.”

 

Jacob bit his lip letting down tears as he embraced Janette, Lucario's eyes going wide from the suddenness of it. “I almost made the biggest mistake of my life!” he shouted as Janette patted his back and said, “You'd better get back to bed.”

 

Jacob nodded and walked back toward his room with a big smile. It was nice knowing there was some good in the world. Janette didn't even know Jacob. She could have just ignored him and accepted less competition. But rather than doing that, she selflessly came to his aid and prevented him from making the biggest mistake of his life.

 

Meanwhile, Harold was having trouble getting to sleep. He believed that cloaked figure's plan had worked and it was eating him up inside. He wished he had stood up for himself, but unfortunately, he knew that he was incapable of such a thing. As disgraceful as it was, he needed this victory and he and the stranger both knew that couldn't be done fairly.

 

The only one left who wasn't asleep at the moment was Anna. She was up secretly doing research on Sampson's Spiritomb. What she found made her gasp.

 

'This isn't good at all,' she thought with a look of concern, 'Spiritomb has no weaknesses and has many immunities and advantages.'

 

She looked over the list of moves that did harm Spiritomb and sighed with relief thinking, 'At least beating him isn't impossible. Spiritomb also can't move because of the keystone he's bound to, so the only way he can avoid taking in damage is to counter attack. That can be used to one's advantage.'

 

After a few more hours, Anna found all the information she needed and shut the computer down. Anna was, after all, human and she needed her rest too.

 

Soon enough, morning came and the stands were once again full. Moro stood up tall and proud and shouted, “Since you all seem to hate my speeches, we're just going to hurry onto the first battle!”

 

The crowd cheered as Nurse Boredom let out a weak “yay” Moro glaring at her. A familiar cloaked figure sat in the crowd with a grin on his face thinking, 'Manfred, you are a genius.'

 

When Izy entered the audience, she looked over at Anna and was quite surprised to see Anna acting more natural today. This was refreshing but at the same time confusing. Why had Anna been acting so weird the previous day?

 

The crowd cheered when Sevanne entered the battle area. Sevanne took a deep breath and put on a serious expression. She had to win at all cost.

 

Sampson followed suit and entered the battle area with his typical serious look. The crowd didn't know whether to cheer him on or not. On one hand, they admired his skills as a trainer but on the other hand, some audience members were scared of that Pokemon he had used for both battles.

 

The gym leaders didn't seem to respect him much either but they had different reasons. Kevin glared at Sampson saying, “There's something wrong with that man... I don't know what it is... there's just something about him I don't trust.”

 

“You're worrying too much,” Aragon replied, patting the man on the back, “Calm down and enjoy yourself, Kevin!”

 

“For once, I agree with the idiot,” Sarah replied as Aragon snapped, “HEY!!!!” but Sarah put her finger on his lips to quiet him down and stated, “I don't much like this Sampson guy, but he hasn't done anything illegal. Sure, even I don't know what his Pokemon is, but...”

 

“That Pokemon is a Spiritomb,” Kevin remarked as the other gym leaders gasped. Even Clarissa was in shock. She may have been a little too trusting and positive around others, but even she knew that Spiritomb should have been gone from the world. Just what was Sampson doing in possession of such an evil Pokemon?