PanicAttack
The village trap.
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- Apr 22, 2007
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Chapter 1: Shipping the Cast [Bryan]
A good day. My name is Bryan Hayward, known as the Spirit of Slateport. I’m a Pokémon Trainer and Coordinator and, as the nickname some have given me might have hinted at, I am from Slateport City, Hoenn. Recently, I competed at the Johto League, having had a stab at glory in my home region, coming first in the Grand Festival of Hoenn, as well as third in the league. My achievement in Johto was a tad more modest, coming fourth overall. I guess I owe some of my success to my knowledge of some of the fighting arts.
It was at the Johto League that I met my companions. There are four of them, each of them from a different region. Where do I start? Well first there’s our resident techie. Shannon Beck, a true beauty from Olivine City, the main port town in the Johto region. That’s right – geeks can be beautiful too! You should see her, a red-haired maiden whose rouge locks flow down her back, with her brown eyes framed like a painting by her black-rimmed glasses. She’s about six feet tall and while she may not be very well-endowed (if you get my meaning) and her pale skin might not be blemish-free (okay, she’s actually got a fair number of blackheads), but I like her. She’s probably my favourite of my comrades. She’s not only beautiful, but she’s an expert and fixing anything that needs fixing. TV sets, motor engines or even my PokéNav! (For the record, it was because my Exploud stood on it.) She mends things, and they are truly of high quality! Much like the Pokémon she took with her for the mission we’ve been sent on, a Magnezone.
Another girl of the three in our group is Midori Fujioka, who seems to act as our leader. Well that’s fair enough – she’s a native Orrian, after all. She trains an Infernape, a powerful Pokémon with a fighting spirit to match that of his trainer. She’s a little bit shorter than Shannon, with a bigger cup size (although to be fair, Shannon’s as thin as Yanmega’s tail) and shorter, bleach blonde hair and tanned skin with the occasional freckle. Like me and my martial arts and Shannon’s technical wizardry, she’s got a talent of her own. She’s a musician, specifically a guitarist and singer. She used to be in a band called The Green Mist Audio Experience but apparently they split up when the drummer and keyboard player got together which to me sounds a bit odd. I mean, this was an all-girl group. Although she’s an Orrian, she lived in Goldenrod for a while. She sometimes uses a few words I don’t understand, but she’s nice enough. A bit of a romanticist, she’s pretty much spent the boat trip to Orre sitting in her room and sighing, looking at pictures from her older sister, Akane’s wedding. Her sister’s got a pretty funny name now. Akane Hildebrandt-Fujioka. Quite an odd combination, I think. Why do you suppose Akane and her husband Ansgar chose to use a double-barrelled name?
I’ve spent enough time talking about the two loveliest members of the troupe. I really should tell you about the mission. I’ll tell you about Michelle and Nigel later. Alternatively, I could let someone else do it. Anyway…
Orre’s a region that has had its fair share of crime in the past, mostly coming from the syndicate “Cipher”, infamous for their Shadow Pokémon operations. There’s also Team Snagem and Team Miror. B, who were also at one point affiliated with them. Kind of makes the eco-terrorism of my regions local terrors Team Aqua and Team Magma look like little more than a pair of rival graffiti gangs, I think. Recently, something else has been happening. Pokémon have been going missing all across the region. From our experience and talent, we were selected for the mission. In order to avoid thefts, we were only allowed to take one Pokémon each. I took Exploud, in order to offset the rest of the team’s focus on physical attacking.
Our story starts on the boat. We had set off from the port in Olivine and had covered most of the distance of the journey. The five of us had been forced to share a cabin due to the amount of people on board. But that was fine, seeing as it meant plenty of potential battles. Personally, I wasn’t too bothered about that since it meant that I could be more focused when we arrived on land. After all, why waste too much effort now? Instead, I was on the main deck, watching the battles. In particular, I was watching Nigel and Shannon doing battle.
Nigel’s the youngest member of the group, but he’s one hell of a trainer. He’s a bit shorter than the rest of us with brown hair which has been compared to a Spearow’s nest. He was wearing a black t-shirt and white trainers with blue jeans, carrying a large rucksack full of various provisions. He’s not exceptionally well built, I mean given the chance I could probably knock him down in a single shot. Lucky for him we usually have our Pokémon do all the fighting. But anyway, there he was, letting the sea breeze blow through his hair, occasionally picking out the leaves his Torterra had shed. His opponent, Shannon was dressed similarly. Blue jeans, a white, sleeveless t-shirt and blue flip-flops. Midori was acting as the referee for the battle.
“She’s using a Magnezone, huh? Earthquake, Torterra!” Nigel called, pointing forwards as he gave the command.
“Magnet Rise,” Shannon smirked, expecting Magnezone to be able to dodge in time. Sure enough, Torterra sent a shockwave through the floor, shaking the boat. Magnezone, however, was able to outrun Torterra and glowed yellow, managing to avoid the attack altogether.
“You…” Nigel grumbled as his Torterra stopped the attack. “Why didn’t you tell me it could do that?!”
Shannon just grinned. “Because. Now what are you going to attack me with?”
“Seed Bomb!”
“Magnezone, Rain Dance.”
Magnezone twisted its front-mounted magnets, one clockwise and the other anti-clockwise, summoning storm clouds which burst into a thick drizzle. Torterra roared and spat a stream of explosive seeds at Magnezone, which bounced off its thick shell and shattered, leaving Magnezone relatively unharmed.
“So why did she make it rain?” Nigel thought. “Magnezone can’t use Water attacks and Thunder’s useless on Torterra… Unless maybe…”
“Torterra, we’ve got to wrap this up! Frenzy Plant!” he called out, trying to think of some way for Torterra to win and all he could come up with was sheer firepower.
“Use Flash Cannon next,” Shannon commanded, feeling confident of victory.
Magnezone’s red central eye began glowing white and its two front magnets began pointing at each other, creating a large ball of light, from which a beam of lustrous energy was shot at Torterra, who countered by glowing slightly green and stomping the ground. A large bunch of roots shot out of the floor and hit Magnezone, tying it up and wrapping it. Torterra began breathing heavily to conserve his energy.
“Is that it?” Shannon taunted. “Your Torterra looks pretty beaten up and exhausted.”
“It was just one Flash Cannon,” Nigel shrugged.
“No, it was two,” Shannon retorted. “Go on Magnezone!”
Repeating the motions from the last attack, Magnezone began powering up and fired another Flash Cannon attack at the weakened Torterra, who roared in pain at the attack. Nigel chewed on his bottom lip, worrying about what to do next as Torterra fell to his knees. Midori raised a hand and was about to declare Torterra out of the battle when it began glowing, the leaves on the tree on its back growing broader and thicker. Overgrow had set in, and was going to make the battle a lot more interesting.
“Frenzy Plant!” Nigel called out, recognising that although he could heal up with Synthesis, it would never work due to the rain. This was his last chance, and I couldn’t help but watch to see how it would play out.
“Flash Cannon!”
Torterra began glowing green again and stomped the deck, creating some truly enormous roots which went up and tried to wrap Magnezone, but it wasn’t enough. A third Flash Cannon blasted through the roots and hit Torterra head-on, knocking it out for the count.
Midori raised her right hand and announced the result. “Torterra is unable to battle. The winners are Shannon and Magnezone.”
Nigel recalled his Pokémon, looking quite disappointed with the result of the battle. I had to admit, that Magnezone was very well trained and love of my life Shannon was fantastic at strategising. Midori walked up to me and popped a question to me. “So Bryan, do you want to battle me or Shannon?” She spoke softly, her voice having a certain foreign air to it. But then, really it’s me whose voice is the foreign one. The boat was headed to Gateon Port, Orre after all. I looked over the side of the boat and answered.
“I’ll pass. We’re almost at there now and… hang on.” I had noticed that out of the four of us, two were missing. “Where are Nigel and Michelle?”
“Don’t worry about them,” Shannon reassured me. “Midori, what can we expect to see in Gateon?”
“Well it’s a port, obviously. Uhm… what is there… That’s a good question, Shannon. Well, there’s a lighthouse. You can see it from here,” Midori said, pointing at a large tower in the distance. “It’s the one on the left.”
“The one on the right being…?” I asked, rather intrigued.
“I think that’s Realgam Tower, a Pokémon Colosseum,” she explained.
“Colosseum?” Suddenly, Shannon was the unsure one.
“Yeah, battle competitions are held there. There used to be a Colosseum in Phenac City but when Realgam Tower became open to the public, they shut it down. There were also two more in an underground town called The Under, my sister’s hometown,” Midori explained.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The town’s gone. It was sealed off after the citizens moved to the surface,” Midori told us. “And with it, so are the Colosseums.”
“Oh…” I sighed, disappointed with the fact that many of the Colosseums were now closed.
A few minutes later, the boat arrived at Gateon Port. The five of us reunited and left the boat and headed for the Pokémon Centre. For tonight, we were going to rest and take in the best of what Gateon Port had to offer, the mission beginning tomorrow.
----
Author’s notes: Yeah, this is the first chapter of many. A little quirk of this fic is that each of the five main characters are also the narrators, with each chapter being narrated by a different character. As you can tell, this one was narrated by Bryan, hence why it’s called “Shipping the Cast [Bryan]”. Each chapter will have the narrator’s name in square brackets.
I know that not much happened in this chapter, but really it was an introduction to most of the characters.
The main worry with this chapter that I have is that I portrayed Shannon as being TOO good. That’s probably because I deliberately gave her introduction from a biased POV, although I fear that I may have overdone it and made her a borderline Mary Sue. The fact she utterly whooped Nigel’s backside might not have helped matters. Ah well.
Coming next: We Split [Midori].
A good day. My name is Bryan Hayward, known as the Spirit of Slateport. I’m a Pokémon Trainer and Coordinator and, as the nickname some have given me might have hinted at, I am from Slateport City, Hoenn. Recently, I competed at the Johto League, having had a stab at glory in my home region, coming first in the Grand Festival of Hoenn, as well as third in the league. My achievement in Johto was a tad more modest, coming fourth overall. I guess I owe some of my success to my knowledge of some of the fighting arts.
It was at the Johto League that I met my companions. There are four of them, each of them from a different region. Where do I start? Well first there’s our resident techie. Shannon Beck, a true beauty from Olivine City, the main port town in the Johto region. That’s right – geeks can be beautiful too! You should see her, a red-haired maiden whose rouge locks flow down her back, with her brown eyes framed like a painting by her black-rimmed glasses. She’s about six feet tall and while she may not be very well-endowed (if you get my meaning) and her pale skin might not be blemish-free (okay, she’s actually got a fair number of blackheads), but I like her. She’s probably my favourite of my comrades. She’s not only beautiful, but she’s an expert and fixing anything that needs fixing. TV sets, motor engines or even my PokéNav! (For the record, it was because my Exploud stood on it.) She mends things, and they are truly of high quality! Much like the Pokémon she took with her for the mission we’ve been sent on, a Magnezone.
Another girl of the three in our group is Midori Fujioka, who seems to act as our leader. Well that’s fair enough – she’s a native Orrian, after all. She trains an Infernape, a powerful Pokémon with a fighting spirit to match that of his trainer. She’s a little bit shorter than Shannon, with a bigger cup size (although to be fair, Shannon’s as thin as Yanmega’s tail) and shorter, bleach blonde hair and tanned skin with the occasional freckle. Like me and my martial arts and Shannon’s technical wizardry, she’s got a talent of her own. She’s a musician, specifically a guitarist and singer. She used to be in a band called The Green Mist Audio Experience but apparently they split up when the drummer and keyboard player got together which to me sounds a bit odd. I mean, this was an all-girl group. Although she’s an Orrian, she lived in Goldenrod for a while. She sometimes uses a few words I don’t understand, but she’s nice enough. A bit of a romanticist, she’s pretty much spent the boat trip to Orre sitting in her room and sighing, looking at pictures from her older sister, Akane’s wedding. Her sister’s got a pretty funny name now. Akane Hildebrandt-Fujioka. Quite an odd combination, I think. Why do you suppose Akane and her husband Ansgar chose to use a double-barrelled name?
I’ve spent enough time talking about the two loveliest members of the troupe. I really should tell you about the mission. I’ll tell you about Michelle and Nigel later. Alternatively, I could let someone else do it. Anyway…
Orre’s a region that has had its fair share of crime in the past, mostly coming from the syndicate “Cipher”, infamous for their Shadow Pokémon operations. There’s also Team Snagem and Team Miror. B, who were also at one point affiliated with them. Kind of makes the eco-terrorism of my regions local terrors Team Aqua and Team Magma look like little more than a pair of rival graffiti gangs, I think. Recently, something else has been happening. Pokémon have been going missing all across the region. From our experience and talent, we were selected for the mission. In order to avoid thefts, we were only allowed to take one Pokémon each. I took Exploud, in order to offset the rest of the team’s focus on physical attacking.
Our story starts on the boat. We had set off from the port in Olivine and had covered most of the distance of the journey. The five of us had been forced to share a cabin due to the amount of people on board. But that was fine, seeing as it meant plenty of potential battles. Personally, I wasn’t too bothered about that since it meant that I could be more focused when we arrived on land. After all, why waste too much effort now? Instead, I was on the main deck, watching the battles. In particular, I was watching Nigel and Shannon doing battle.
Nigel’s the youngest member of the group, but he’s one hell of a trainer. He’s a bit shorter than the rest of us with brown hair which has been compared to a Spearow’s nest. He was wearing a black t-shirt and white trainers with blue jeans, carrying a large rucksack full of various provisions. He’s not exceptionally well built, I mean given the chance I could probably knock him down in a single shot. Lucky for him we usually have our Pokémon do all the fighting. But anyway, there he was, letting the sea breeze blow through his hair, occasionally picking out the leaves his Torterra had shed. His opponent, Shannon was dressed similarly. Blue jeans, a white, sleeveless t-shirt and blue flip-flops. Midori was acting as the referee for the battle.
“She’s using a Magnezone, huh? Earthquake, Torterra!” Nigel called, pointing forwards as he gave the command.
“Magnet Rise,” Shannon smirked, expecting Magnezone to be able to dodge in time. Sure enough, Torterra sent a shockwave through the floor, shaking the boat. Magnezone, however, was able to outrun Torterra and glowed yellow, managing to avoid the attack altogether.
“You…” Nigel grumbled as his Torterra stopped the attack. “Why didn’t you tell me it could do that?!”
Shannon just grinned. “Because. Now what are you going to attack me with?”
“Seed Bomb!”
“Magnezone, Rain Dance.”
Magnezone twisted its front-mounted magnets, one clockwise and the other anti-clockwise, summoning storm clouds which burst into a thick drizzle. Torterra roared and spat a stream of explosive seeds at Magnezone, which bounced off its thick shell and shattered, leaving Magnezone relatively unharmed.
“So why did she make it rain?” Nigel thought. “Magnezone can’t use Water attacks and Thunder’s useless on Torterra… Unless maybe…”
“Torterra, we’ve got to wrap this up! Frenzy Plant!” he called out, trying to think of some way for Torterra to win and all he could come up with was sheer firepower.
“Use Flash Cannon next,” Shannon commanded, feeling confident of victory.
Magnezone’s red central eye began glowing white and its two front magnets began pointing at each other, creating a large ball of light, from which a beam of lustrous energy was shot at Torterra, who countered by glowing slightly green and stomping the ground. A large bunch of roots shot out of the floor and hit Magnezone, tying it up and wrapping it. Torterra began breathing heavily to conserve his energy.
“Is that it?” Shannon taunted. “Your Torterra looks pretty beaten up and exhausted.”
“It was just one Flash Cannon,” Nigel shrugged.
“No, it was two,” Shannon retorted. “Go on Magnezone!”
Repeating the motions from the last attack, Magnezone began powering up and fired another Flash Cannon attack at the weakened Torterra, who roared in pain at the attack. Nigel chewed on his bottom lip, worrying about what to do next as Torterra fell to his knees. Midori raised a hand and was about to declare Torterra out of the battle when it began glowing, the leaves on the tree on its back growing broader and thicker. Overgrow had set in, and was going to make the battle a lot more interesting.
“Frenzy Plant!” Nigel called out, recognising that although he could heal up with Synthesis, it would never work due to the rain. This was his last chance, and I couldn’t help but watch to see how it would play out.
“Flash Cannon!”
Torterra began glowing green again and stomped the deck, creating some truly enormous roots which went up and tried to wrap Magnezone, but it wasn’t enough. A third Flash Cannon blasted through the roots and hit Torterra head-on, knocking it out for the count.
Midori raised her right hand and announced the result. “Torterra is unable to battle. The winners are Shannon and Magnezone.”
Nigel recalled his Pokémon, looking quite disappointed with the result of the battle. I had to admit, that Magnezone was very well trained and love of my life Shannon was fantastic at strategising. Midori walked up to me and popped a question to me. “So Bryan, do you want to battle me or Shannon?” She spoke softly, her voice having a certain foreign air to it. But then, really it’s me whose voice is the foreign one. The boat was headed to Gateon Port, Orre after all. I looked over the side of the boat and answered.
“I’ll pass. We’re almost at there now and… hang on.” I had noticed that out of the four of us, two were missing. “Where are Nigel and Michelle?”
“Don’t worry about them,” Shannon reassured me. “Midori, what can we expect to see in Gateon?”
“Well it’s a port, obviously. Uhm… what is there… That’s a good question, Shannon. Well, there’s a lighthouse. You can see it from here,” Midori said, pointing at a large tower in the distance. “It’s the one on the left.”
“The one on the right being…?” I asked, rather intrigued.
“I think that’s Realgam Tower, a Pokémon Colosseum,” she explained.
“Colosseum?” Suddenly, Shannon was the unsure one.
“Yeah, battle competitions are held there. There used to be a Colosseum in Phenac City but when Realgam Tower became open to the public, they shut it down. There were also two more in an underground town called The Under, my sister’s hometown,” Midori explained.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The town’s gone. It was sealed off after the citizens moved to the surface,” Midori told us. “And with it, so are the Colosseums.”
“Oh…” I sighed, disappointed with the fact that many of the Colosseums were now closed.
A few minutes later, the boat arrived at Gateon Port. The five of us reunited and left the boat and headed for the Pokémon Centre. For tonight, we were going to rest and take in the best of what Gateon Port had to offer, the mission beginning tomorrow.
----
Author’s notes: Yeah, this is the first chapter of many. A little quirk of this fic is that each of the five main characters are also the narrators, with each chapter being narrated by a different character. As you can tell, this one was narrated by Bryan, hence why it’s called “Shipping the Cast [Bryan]”. Each chapter will have the narrator’s name in square brackets.
I know that not much happened in this chapter, but really it was an introduction to most of the characters.
The main worry with this chapter that I have is that I portrayed Shannon as being TOO good. That’s probably because I deliberately gave her introduction from a biased POV, although I fear that I may have overdone it and made her a borderline Mary Sue. The fact she utterly whooped Nigel’s backside might not have helped matters. Ah well.
Coming next: We Split [Midori].
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