Hell Hath no Fury: An Ice Queen's Saga

[Ash_Junior]

Hell Hath no Fury: An Ice Queen's Saga Table of Contents

1. Author's Note MUY Importante!!!!
2. Chapter 1 A Date with Destiny
3. Chapter 2 A Journey of a Thousand Miles...
4. Chapter 3 ...Begins With One Step...
5. Chapter 4 On the Road Again
6. Chapter 5 Orpheus
7. Chapter 6 Requiem
8. Chapter 7 Cry Havoc...
9. Chapter 8 ...And let Slip the Dogs of War!
10. Chapter 9 Outside Interference
11. Chapter 10 Lost in Snow
12. Chapter 11 Reunions
13. Chapter 12 The Board is Set...
14. Chapter 13 ...The Pieces are Moving...
15. Chapter 14 ...And Now we Have Come to....
16. Chapter 15 ...The Great Battle of Our Time.
17. Epilogue al Fine
    

Hello, and thank you for reading. Due to my recent absence, I decided to repost all my stories in chronological order so I don't have as much pressure to write so I can work on my website AND write, and do other stuff (like Guild Wars and WoW ).

Now, I thought I'd introduce you that are new to the story with a brief intro that tells my take on the history of the Pokeworld. Also, I'm planning on having a table of contents. If I'm ever lazy and don't update it, whap me in a reply (and maybe you could attach a review to it too )

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So you are here to hear one my tales, eh? Have you heard the tale of Lorelei Belle Winters? No? Well, let me tell it to you, then. I have collected the first part of her life in a story that I call Hell Hath no Fury: an Ice Queen’s Saga. I suppose that I should tell you the basics of what happened to her in that tale. Before I begin that summation, however, I must inform you of certain things that appertain to the proceeding tales.

First and foremost, I shall tell you the tale of Lokrye. It is not a tale to be told simply, nor lightly.

In time out of mind, he had grown powerful and he had grown greedy. He wanted to rule the entire world. The rest of the Titans could not defeat him. The other Titans turned to the humans and Pokemon of this world, and convinced them to join the fight against Lokrye.

But Lokrye had turned some of the Pokemon against the others. He twisted them, in whatever fashion he had twisted himself. They were powerful, but not very much more powerful than they were before. This was the origin of the Dark Type.

Back then, you have to remember, the Psychic types were still in their homelands—what is today the Engaran Islands. Only the Menill had traveled away from the Engaran Archipelago. No one today is quite sure why they left, but I’m sure that you know that they are the guardians of the shrines of Allnian, Lokrye’s chief lieutenant.

Anyway, I suppose I should get back to the story. Lokrye had gathered up his forces, and attacked the Psychic homeland, and drove them out, knowing that they were the only real type could be a real threat. The invasion was greatly helped by a particularly famous Hypno, Engaratronley, a Psychic that Lokrye had convinced to join his side. In return for his help, Lokrye named the Engaran Archipelago after him.

After constructing fortresses on the major islands, Lokrye turned his sights back to the world, and saw the forces arrayed against him. He knew that if the humans were united against him, he stood no chance.

So he stole away to the mainland, and convinced several thousand to join his side. These men he took with him back to the Engaran Archipelago. Once there, he saw how agile the human mind was, and appointed them as commanders over the Pokemon.

Then he turned his attention to Kanto and Johto. He sent his forces against what is today Kanto and Tintia, and tore his way to what is now Lavender Town. At that time, Lavender Town was the major city of the area, and massive fortifications dominated the landscape. It was there that the Battle for the Ages was fought. The Titans, led by Colleon, the leader of the Titan Council; the Pokemon that had been convinced to fight by their side, led by Lugia and his legions; and the humans, led by a large, strong man by the name of Gerahid fought Lokrye and his minions for two weeks. After the battle, all that remained of the fortifications was a single tower. Today it is called the Pokemon Tower.

In the battle, millions of Pokemon, humans, and Titans fell. But Lokrye was eventually defeated by a mere human—the Gerahid of whom I have spoken before. But Lokrye was not killed—he was far too powerful for that. The remaining Titans banded together, and banished the Corrupted Titan to a nether-realm—neither here nor there. Lokrye’s twisted creations were banished to an island north of what is today Tintia, near the island of the Dragons.

Gerahid and his men traveled with the Psychic Pokemon to attempt to retake their home islands, but Lokrye’s minions, not knowing that their master had been defeated, stood their ground, and repulsed Gerahid and the Psychics. Of these battles, many tales and songs have been made, so I do not feel that I need to say anything more of this.

For several thousand years, there was relative peace. The Titans left this world not long after the battle, but not before bestowing special gifts upon the humans—powers like those of Pokemon.

These humans were known as Elites. Their powers were kept hidden, except in time of greatest need. In fact, not even the Elites would know that they had the power unless it was a time to be used. The Titans created the Elites to be sure that if Lokrye ever escaped, they would have a better chance of defeating him again if there were non-Pokemon that had powers above that of the Pokemon that we now call Legendaries.

But I would be remiss if I were to continue on without telling you of Allnian the Powerful—she was by far more powerful than the five Immortal Birds combined. Allnian had the gift—and the curse—of healing. Wherever she went, she could heal whomever she wanted to—or strike down her enemies with virulent diseases.

We do not know exactly what her allegiances were in the afore-mentioned battles, as she changed sides on a whim. What we do know is that after the battle, she was banished to the ice and snow of Nuschantz, and was warned by the Titans to never return to Alto, where she had coerced the islanders to worship her as a god and had many shrines built in her honor that are today attended to today by the Menill.

What? You do not know of Alto? My, my…I can not believe this! I must tell you all about her. Formerly known as the “Jewel of the North,” Alto is the Avian capital of the world. What? You don’t know what an Avian is? An Avian is a bird! Big birds, little birds—from Pidgey and Dodrio to Altaria and Tropius—if it’s a Bird-type Pokemon, or if it can fly, at least two hundred of the breed live on the island. Legend tells that Alto is also where the magnificent Ho-oh the Vengeful, the Light-Giver, first appeared, and it is well known that the other four immortal birds—Articuno the Wise, who, as I’m sure you know, originated from Nuschantz, Zapdos the Peace-Bringer, Moltres the Light-Bringer, and Lugia the Water Warlord—took roost there in the times before man subjugated their Pokemon brethren.

Alto is a wonderful place, and holds the distinction of having the second Pokemon League ever. Five months after Kanto established its League, Alto established its own, and was followed closely by Johto. The Pokemon Leagues distinguished themselves as the ultimate rite of passage. Those who thought that they were ready would set out on a Pokemon journey with but a single Pokemon companion (in those days, the starter Pokemon were merely friends of the PokeCatcher, not a slave), and traverse the entire country to collect a series of 8 devices that were the forerunners of Pokeballs, using the same basic technological concept that we still do today. Those that attempted this challenge were called PokeCatchers. With these horribly expensive devices, the early trainers would capture additional Pokemon. This was before Pokemon developed resistances to PokeCapture technology. Back then, if a PokeCatcher hit a Pokemon, it was instantly caught, unless it was impossibly strong—in which case it would tear you to shreds before you could run five yards.

The early trainers who collected and used all eight PokeCatchers, as they were called, that they were given, would then be inducted into the League of Pokemon Masters. Hundreds of young men set out on the journey each year—only a handful survived the journey.

Pokemon training was viewed as too dangerous for any real use. Back then, it was. But this was before the Psychic Pokemon traveled to what is today Kanto and Johto—before then, most of them had lived in the Orange Islands with Grass and Water-type Pokemon. These powerful beings upset the fragile balance between the humans and the Pokemon that had ensued, and thus began the second Great Pokemon War, the first being the War of Lokrye, nearly a millenium before.

There are many tales I could tell you of the interceding period, but my purpose is to give you information about Lorelei, as she was a very important person in recent history.

The war stalemated—led by the Psychics, the Pokemon were held at bay by the technology that humans had at their disposal. Though limited, it was enough. Then the war turned against the Psychics, as a new form of Pokemon, the Steel type, was discovered by a group of humans that had been driven North to the very Ocean that separated them from Alto. The Psychics had hoped to trap them between themselves in the South, and Dragon Isle in the North. But they had forgotten about another island just north of what is today Kanto. They had forgotten about Dark Isle.

You have to remember until very recently, all the different types were separated, and didn’t mix well with each other. Only the Pokemon League, and the catching and releasing of Various Pokemon into alien environments changed this. It is rumored in legend that Dark Isle was the birthplace of Lokrye, the Dark Titan and now it is forever tainted.

When the humans, trapped on the Northern shore, traveled out into the sea to find what refuge they could, they found two islands. Dragon Isle—all who tried landing there were killed—and Dark Isle. A Psychic Pokemon attack caught the humans just as they were landing, but the Psychics were repulsed by the Dark-types that inhabited the islands.

The humans formed an alliance with the Dark-types, and together, the humans and the Dark-types left the island and began a counter-attack. The human technology, combined with the Dark-type ability to resist Psychic attack, decimated the Pokemon forces. The Psychics and the other Pokemon negotiated a Peace Treaty, the bulk of which is what is now known as The Agreement—ten rules that Pokemon Masters, and anyone else with a PokeCatcher had to agree to, or they were fair game for all Pokemon to kill.

Since then, not much has happened in the arena of human-Pokemon relations. However, the humans in the country of Effeular and the Pokemon therein never agreed to The Agreement. The country has been at war for more than a century, and shows no sign of stopping.

Whenever the humans discover a new form of technology to fight against the Pokemon, the Pokemon invariably get more support from their brethren, and the table evens out, and the balance of power sometimes even turns back against the humans.

However, as amazingly resourceful as humans are, they are also all inherently greedy. And that greed causes them to form alliances against one another and claim territory. This has caused numerous inter-human wars, and also many difficulties.

One such division exists in the icy nation of Nuschantz. Known as the Skiing capital of the world, Nuschantz is a mainly frigid nation on the northern part of the continent of Multipol. However, having a coast, some of the coastal areas are temperate, or even tropical right on the ocean. Nuschantz, as mentioned before, is the home of Allnian the Powerful and the birthplace of Articuno the Wise.

However, it is also home to two rival human factions—the Resorters and the Nomads. The Resorters, as is self-explanatory, have set up and run a series of retreats around the nation for the enjoyment of tourists who come to the country to ski and enjoy the snow and cold. These bastions of what the Resorters call “culture” are massive, sometimes miles in diameter. In addition, they also have tropical resorts on the northern coast for tourists that prefer a balmier setting. In fact, a Tropical Resorter (a faction to themselves within the Resorter faction) owns the Sea Princess Cruise Line, who owns such ships as the S.S. Anne, the S.S Abigail, and others. The Resorters as a whole believe that because they are richer in international currency, they have the right to be the recognized government.

However, the other faction, the Nomads, are a more traditional people, and actually the original inhabitants of the mountainous region. They live much as their ancestors did for centuries—by subsistence on what little natural resources there are available. When the Resorter's predecessors first came north from Effeular, Acquar (a desert country that is almost completely below sea level), and Sintaur (a country populated almost entirely by horse lovers and horse Pokemon) the Nomads welcomed them and gave them land. But when the massive resorts were built, the Nomads became more and more uneasy.

When the Resorters declared that they ran the country, the Nomads were enraged, and declared war on the Resorters. A long and bloody war followed, but the Nomads just didn't have the technological advantages that the Resorters did. The Nomads then split into two camps—one, the conservative Nomads, and the more radical Nomads. The conservatives retreated deep into the mountains and lived as best they could between the ever-expanding Resorters and Pokemon too powerful for the Nomads to handle. The radical Nomads travelled to other countries to garner support for their cause, and tried to form a political party called the Blizzard Party. However, the Resorters refused to recognize them, and this drove most of the radical Nomads, after a decade of being ignored by the Resorters, decided to take back the country by force. Those that were outside the country and had worked for some time and some had amassed a large amount of money. Those that had formed an organization, based in Hoenn, called Devon Corporation, named after a famous Tintian woman, whose story will not be told here. This broke the monoploy that Silph Company had enjoyed previously, and the two organizations battled each other, figuratively, of course, to see who could make better products.

With the revenue from Devon Co, the Blizzards bought weapons and technology equal to and, in some cases, greater than the Resorters, and formed an organization based on the old standings of the former Blizzard Party, and called themselves Team Blizzard. They dedicated themselves to freeing Nuschantz from what they called “the oppression of the Resorters” and declared war on the self-same group.

The Resorters branded them terrorists, and returned the declaration. The Blizzards, however, managed to push back the Resorters out of an area nearly fifty miles in area before their advance stalemated. That was fifteen years before the start of my story. Since then, the Blizzards have withdrawn into the territory that they now have, planning an even bigger offensive to retake all of the country that had been theirs.

Devon Co, once just a front for Team Blizzard, is now a highly successful organization in tight competition between themselves and Silph Company. However, there is a new player to the mix—Specter Corporation.

Specter Corporation was a new company in the period in which most of the story takes place. Five years before the second and main part (I won't say what differentiates it, only that the differentiating event happens early—I don't want to spoil it for you, after all), Specter Corporation was a small company operating out of Lavender Town. Then a pair of partners named Blade Starr and Tyrell Dugan bought the company, and within a year its sales had matched those of Devon Co and Silph Company.

There are dark rumors whispered in the night that Silph Company, like Devon Co, is merely a front for another organization with much different intentions. No one has any proof of this, but some believe that a group of individuals calling themselves Specter Shadow Warriors engage in corporate espionage. No one knew then the scope of the Shadow Warrior's true intentions.

And even today, not many do.

Well, I believe that I have supplied you with enough information for you to enjoy my story. Please enjoy.

—Merlindros, the Psychic Titan

 

[Astinus]

And so, HHNF has returned! Fwee!

Let me ask you... Are you going to post the rest of this? Because if you do, that will make me really happy. Because, you know, I just love this series!

As before, your own take of the history of the Pokémon world is so richly detailed and thought out. It's like real-life history.

I'm just going to sit here, and wait to see if an update comes.

 

[Hahahabvc87]

Warning! Warning! Information overload! Systems shutting down....
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Systems restarting... Hahahabvc87 is now online...

Argh... That's a lot of information for a starting prologue...
What a richly detailed world! It almost seems real since there is so much background into the events that occured... though I have to say, history was never my strong suit... >_<

Here are some mistakes that I spotted:

When the Resorter's predecessors first came north from Effeular, Acquar (a desert country that is almost completely below sea level), and Acquar (a country populated almost entirely by horse lovers and horse Pokemon) the Nomads welcomed them and gave them land.

Effeular, Aquar and Aquar?

Gerahid and his men traveled with the Psychic Pokemon to attempt to retake their home islands, but Lokrye’s minions, not knowingi that their master had been defeated, stood their ground, and repulsed Gerahid and the Psychics.

Obvious enough

A catchy title for an awesome novel! Now, I have to read it again since I kinda got lost in the middle...

System check started... Error detected... Attempting repair... Repair failed... System crash imminent in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Have a nice day! *Shuts down completely*

 

[Ash_Junior]

whoops, thanks for catching those mistakes.

Sintaur is home of the horse lords, and the continent of Nuschantz, Effeular, Sintaur, and Acquar is known as Multipol (multiple spelled slightly differently )

And yes, Hanako, I AM posting all of it. This is just a different thing than my author's note prologue where I gave out information about the different countries and organizationsthat we'll meet up with.

and then after this is done, Operation: Celebi will be posted (and Johto: A New Beginning and maybe Bugsy: The Johto Reconquista, both of which are spin-offs of this fic ). Chapter 1 of HHNF will probably be posted tonight, so I can go through it and streamline it.

oh, and btw, there's a lot of stuff in there that I left out. Like Stephen the Pillar, the Titan Council (inspired by the Wings of Council, created by Topaz/Tezza), the Lunar type, the Solar type, the Wind type, and I think another type or two....



creativity is definitely my strong suit.

 

[Kamex]

Whoops! ^^; I forgot about this again. Well, just let you know, I'll try for the millionth time to remember and find good timing to read this fic again. Or at least Retribution - which is where I left off - when you repost that.

BTW, I understand if I'm losing my credibility about coming back to post.

 

[Ash_Junior]

don't worry about it, Kamex. I don't have many reviewers, lol....usually I'm glad to get even one review, so it's nice to have four for a prologue, lol....

without any furhter ado:

Chapter 1.

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A dark figure crept into Silph Company’s headquarters in Saffron City, making sure that he wouldn’t be discovered by any of the graveyard shift employees. He wasn’t worried that he would be observed, his Porygon would take care of that to that. He just had to make it there, use the disk to reprogram the personnel files, and get out. All, of course, without being caught. If he were so much as spotted, then people might recognize him, and that would likely upset the timelines, possibly even destroying the time-space continuum. Of course, he wouldn't become famous for several more years, but time travel, Celebi had told him, was ALWAYS terribly risky.

Especially with one of the Pokemon that he carried with him. It was a Porygon. These people would know about it, of course, as the Porygon Project had taken a good twenty years to develop a working model, but at this time period, they were halfway through, and the Porygons were still being programmed, and the specialized holographic emitters were still experimental. They wouldn't have a fully three-dimensional Porygon for another ten years or so. Once again, if they saw HIS Porygon, they would be suspicious, and would undoubtedly call for an investigation that would, he was pretty sure, mess up the time line a lot more than he was planning for.

It was hard to believe that he and his partner were the only surviving humans. Aside, of course, from that traitor. She had become more powerful than the Legendary that had called upon her talent. The great Pokemon had been overthrown, and SHE had insinuated her way to power. The very first thing that she had done had been to declare war on all of the legendaries, because, she said, they were far too powerful. This had launched a full-scale war across the planet, which she eventually lost. The last remaining humans, along with the Pokemon Celebi, created a time machine that would transport two humans back in time to attempt to repair the timeline. The remaining humans would remain behind and destroy the time machine and Celebi would allow himself to be killed so that no further time travel would be possible.

He understood what would happen if he failed. Humanity would die, maybe not as he knew it, but it would die, or just end in a series of time leaps to the past, attempting to change the future. He was humanity's last hope. Well, he and his partner. He could not allow the Dark Queen to rise to power. The Altan would tear apart everything his masters in what had been Kanto had striven to protect.

No, he would not let that happen. He had to kill her. He had to kill the Dark Queen before she could even begin to consolidate her power on the Twin Leagues. Of course, the Twin Leagues were still referred to as the Johto and Indigo Leagues here, eighteen years past from the year he had come. According to history, this was the only way to change the course of events.

It was his job, and that of his partner, to make sure that that wouldn’t happen. It was harder for her, though, because she was more widely known, even in this time period. In a way. If anyone were to see her, that person or persons would have to die, because if they got word out, the game would be up, and the Invasions would begin.

That could not be allowed.

The boy crept to the door, and, without a sound, it opened under Porygon’s electronic command, and the brown-haired teenager passed through. He cast about, looking for the computer that he would need, went over to it, and activated it. He heard a soft click as Porygon closed the door, and then the lights came up. Quickly, the boy’s hands moved over the keyboard, inputting the necessary commands to transfer a particular person to a particular place. Within five minutes, it was done. Poprygon appeared from the computer monitor, and coalesced into its battling form, only to be dematerialized by the Pokeball that the man held in his hand

In another ten, the boy was outside of the city, and moving at a dead run for the Saffron City’s outskirts, his weathered hat pulled low over his face. He smiled beneath the bandana that hid the lower half of his face. He’d have six years to plan the next operation. He only hoped that it took longer than that for the changes to filter through the time line, or he and his partner would both vanish, as if they’d never been.

According to the scientists who’d studied the temporal sciences, he’d have six and a half years to continue his existence, if he took the path upon which he had just begun irrevocable changes. There was no going back now. There was just the road ahead, and the hope that they’d be able to change the future for the better.

If they failed, however…

The boy shook his head, not wanting to think of such things. He would succeed. Failure was not an option. He WOULD complete his objective, or die trying.

Lorelei Belle Winters had to die.

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As everyone knew, Pokemon battling came from the ancient hunting skill that hunters used using domesticating the wild creatures of the same name. Eventually, technology became available that lowered the need for Pokemon in nearly all areas life except for the military. Pokemon were used mainly as creatures of war, and, to train new recruits, the instructors had the people controlling the Pokemon battle each other. Eventually, as things settled down, the general need for a military relaxed, and Pokemon training fell into disuse.

Of course, as with a lot of things, old things become popular again, especially with the release of a specially designed, Psionically tuned piece of equipment that allowed it to capture entire Pokemon within the device. These were usually clunky, and difficult to use. Eventually, someone came up with the idea to put it in something, as the shape of the device could not be changed, or it would not work. They found a nearly round Acorn, and began implanting the device into them. These devices were difficult to make and tune, however, and always had the chance of simply killing the Pokemon, so they did not find much use, especially as a Psychic willing to allow humans to enslave its fellow Pokemon was extremely rare.

Eventually, technology caught up, and a technological equivalent came into being, one that guaranteed the health of the Pokemon. These became known as PokeCatchers, and the Pokemon training movement was born. Pokemon, up until then peaceful neighbors with humans, were suddenly being hunted, and pitted against each other against their will, due to some quirk in both the technological Pokeball and its Psionic predecessor. Humans and Pokemon went to war. It quickly stalemated, and the two sides formed a tentative peace, with an agreement that had ten major points, known today as The Agreement. In the agreement, Pokemon were granted certain rights, namely that of free will, and, in return, humans would not catch too many Pokemon, and respect “catch-free” zones, where Pokemon that did not want to be captured with Pokeballs could retreat to safety. In return, Pokemon wouldn't try to annhilate humanity.

After a few tenuous years, and more than a few battles and wars between the humans and the Pokemon, the Tenfold Agreement took hold of both sides, and things began to accelerate. Pokemon began to tentatively enjoy battling other Pokemon, and being able to be healed immediately, and humans immensely enjoyed the newly rejuvenated art of Pokemon Training.

Over the years, various leagues and conventions bloomed in various countries, and even common rules became common throughout the civilized world. More and more Pokemon began to emerge from the “catch-free” zones to be caught, and participate in tournaments.

Scientists, with the Pokemon's permission, of course, began studying these powerful creatures, and made a discovery. Pokemon's tremendous powers, both offensive and defensive, were made possible by a unique organ known as the Carentamous Assembly. Generally, there were seventeen variations, and they were given names by what it appeared their abilites were. As scientists studied further, they discovered that some Pokemon had affinities for techniques that were not of their “type.” Thus, scientists began to categorize Pokemon as having two types. Some scientists argue that while the majority of Pokemon have only two classes, some have one or two additional “minor” types, which were designated as tertiary types. However, not all scientists agree with this assessment, so Pokemon are classified with only two types.

But most Pokemon trainers don't care about the scientific aspect of Pokemon training, and simply enjoy battling each other, sometimes in front of massive crowds.

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The glare of the lights, the roar of the crowd, the feeling of the rough padding underneath of her. It was enough to make a girl cry, Lorelei thought. She watched her opponent carefully, not wanting to let her opponent get the best of her. She had trained hard all year for the tournament, and she wouldn’t let him take it away now.

She was Lorelei Belle Winters, three-time champion of the tournament in the five to ten Pokemon Battling category of the Allnian National Tournament. If she won this match, then she would have broken the record for the number of consecutive wins by a person in her age group.

As almost everyone in the non-League countries knew, the Allnian National Tournament of Alto was a very elite tournament. One in which only a small percent of those that attempted to enter would actually be able to compete. Once there, the competition was stiff, and only the best would make it past the first round. The final round, as all hard-core fans of the Tournament knew, was a no-holds barred, knock-out, drag-out fight. Once all of one person's Pokemon were fainted, then the other trainer had to recall his or her Pokemon, and then the two would fight each other hand to hand. Some considered this barbaric, but there was really no risk of injuries, because with Chansey and Psychic teleporters, a person could be healed almost instantly. After the fight was over, of course.

Of course, this was an option that people generally avoided, if it was only one or more pure Pokemon Trainer, but if both were generally competent hand-to-hand fighters, the dueling was usually expected. The founders of the Allnian National Tournament did not want it to be just another contest that tested a person’s knowledge, strategic prowess, or being able to shout orders quickly; they wanted it to be an evaluation of the individual’s physical prowess.

While the competition was open to anyone from abroad, those who entered the contest were generally from Alto. The handful that made it into the tournament internationally were generally excellent scrappers. Sometimes they were boxers, and sometimes they were wrestlers, but only rarely were they purely Pokémon Trainers.

Lorelei stared at her opponent, feeling her lungs gasping for air. It had been a long match, and she wasn’t sure if she could win. If she timed everything just right, and didn’t make too many mistakes, then maybe she’d be able to win. But then again, maybe not. She noticed the gleam of determination in her opponent’s eyes, offset by the mixture of sweat and blood that poured down his face, like, she knew, the fluid that was dripping down her face as well.

Her opponent’s name was Bruno. Apparently he was a superb Pokemon fighter, specializing in Fighting types. He probably trained with his Pokemon, Lorelei guessed, or he probably wouldn’t have such quick reflexes. He had surprised her in the beginning of the match because of his sheer power. That was, really, his only weakness. He’d trained up, and now he was strong, true, but he couldn’t move as quickly as she could. She’d managed to take advantage of that, but he’d landed quite a few good hits on her.

Now it was an endurance contest. Who could last the longest. They were both losing blood, and within ten minutes, Lorelei guessed, neither of them would be able to fight anymore. But that was all right, the battle would be decided long before then. In a match like this, ten minutes was an eternity.

She didn’t have to look around to remember what the battlefield looked like. It was a raised fifty square-yard square, with steps going up to the raised area from all four sides. If either she or Bruno were to step off of the raised area (or any of their Pokemon, back before they had all fainted), they would lose.

Suddenly, the boy was charging at her. Lorelei tried to dance out of the way, but the boy was too fast. His fist struck the side of her jaw, and she flipped in the air, and came crashing down onto the ground, but was already moving her feet, trapping his legs between hers, and taking him down with her.

Lorelei rolled away, and got up, wincing as her jaw popped. She raised her fists wearily, and darted forward. Bruno was getting up, and raised a fist towards her. Lorelei, unable to slow herself down, ran directly into his outstretched arm, and was knocked down again.

She gritted her teeth, and rolled backwards, narrowly missing Bruno’s kick. When her weight came fully onto her hands, she pushed off, and, executing a flip, landed on her feet in a defensive position. Lorelei swallowed, and hoped that she was standing where she was hoping she was standing. It had become obvious to her that she wouldn’t be able to beat Bruno by martial arts, the kid was just too good. But maybe, if she used some non-standard tactics, she might have a chance at winning the title again this year.

All she needed was Bruno to attack her. She didn’t have long to wait. Within a second of her having gotten back onto her feet, Bruno was charging her. She waited until he was nearly upon her, then moved out of the way, and gave him a push. Surprised, Bruno’s momentum kept him going, and he tumbled down the stairs, and onto the ground.

The buzzer sounded, and Lorelei smiled. She had won! For the fourth year in a row! She looked over at the Pokemon enclosure, and saw the force fields drop, and her Sneasel, followed closely by the rest of her team, ran towards her. She looked towards her opponent, and found him glowering at her. Somehow, she had the feeling that some day, they would meet again. She heard some people booing her from the stands mixed in with the cheers. Yes, it had been a dirty move, but she had still won.

Then, suddenly, she was out of breath, and she could feel the impacts of the blows that she had taken throughout the battle. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire, her stomach as if someone had just run over it, and her jaw was so sore that she wasn’t sure if she was able to talk.

Then her legs gave out, and she fell towards the ground, but soft, furry hands caught her, and helped her back to her feet. She looked at her Sneasel and gave him an appreciative smile, then turned shakily to the crowd, and raised one aching arm, to their—for the most part—approving roar.

“And the winner of the Five to Ten Age Category in the Altan National Allnian Tournament is,” she heard the announcer say over the loudspeaker, and smiled, knowing that she’d just gone down in history, “for the fourth year in a row, Lorelei Belle Winters!” The girl heard the loudspeaker boom, and heard the crowd roar even louder, and she smiled as best she could. “That’s a new record, folks,” the announcer continued, “No one has ever won four consecutive years in a row in the Five to Ten Category.” She wasn’t smiling because of them, it was because once again, she had beaten the odds, and won the National Championship.

Even if she hadn’t exactly beaten Bruno. But that was how she did things. She didn’t approach things head on. She came in from the side, figured out how to beat the system, and took advantage of any minor advantages she could get. Only if there weren’t any other options, would she take a frontal approach.

And, once again, her philosophy had allowed her to carry the day. She smiled, basking in the moment. She couldn’t really enjoy it, however, because somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered when the way she lived at her life would get her in trouble.

+++++

Lorelei looked up from her bandaged arm, and up at her family’s doctor. He’d actually been assigned to her the first year she’d competed, and, since then, he’d been hired full-time. He was one of the best doctors in Alto, and had been working for the Tournament for most of his career.

True, Doctor Strobold wasn’t THAT old, she thought to herself, probably somewhere in his thirties. He was pretty tall though, but Lorelei didn’t mind that much. He was a good doctor. “There,” he said, smiling at her, “In a week or two, you’ll be as good as new. Except for the cut you got from that roll you did towards the end.”

Lorelei looked over at the large mirror in the room, and smiled at her reflection. She had bruises all over her face, her left arm was in a sling, her right was bandaged, and she had a nasty cut along her cheek. She couldn’t remember feeling it open, but Strobold had insisted that it had occurred when she had gotten into position to beat Bruno. “Is it gonna leave a scar?” she asked, raising her right hand up to touch the line of dried blood, as if fascinated by it.

Strobold shook his head, “I’m afraid it will,” he said, “There’s nothing I can do about that. If you let me get a Blissey or a Healtia in here, you’d be back to normal within a week.” He said, looking slightly annoyed that she had refused any treatment except what he could do by himself. Lorelei stared at him for a couple seconds. She didn't like Pokemon healing her, and he knew it. Strobold shook his head and chuckled, “Ah well. I don’t think there’s anything else I can do. You better get going,” he said, smiling, “You’ve got a press conference to go to.”

Lorelei grinned. Of course. She’d nearly forgotten about the Tournament Press Conference. The winner of the tournament’s age groups would host it. The Five to Ten category was the first age division to finish, so she’d kick things off. She’d have about an hour until the Eleven to Fourteen age category finished their championship, if the last several years were any indication.

+++++

Lorelei tugged at her jacket over her right arm, trying to hide as much of the bandage as she could. She hated that her left arm was in a sling, but there wasn’t much that she could do about it. She wasn't, after all, about to let a Chansey work on her. She couldn't even understand it. Unless a Psychic translated. And who knew if they translated correctly. She sat in a limousine, which was taking her back to her house. It wasn’t as much a house as a mansion, really.

She didn’t really like it, but it was a place to call home. It was the largest house on the largest spread of privately owned land on the island of Alto, but Lorelei didn’t really care. True, it was nice that she had the equivalent of her own apartment to call her own, and the mansion had its own Nurse Joy and Pokémon Professor to help her with the Pokémon she was raising.

Within a few years, she was sure, she’d be allowed to set out and try to defeat the gym leaders of the Altan League. Maybe then she’d be able to join the elite group of trainers within Alto known as the Skye Isle Club. True, she wouldn’t be truly be able to be a member until she was eighteen, but it was most definitely a worthy goal.

She glanced down at the open book on her lap, made a face, and slapped it shut. The red hue of the back cover of the Indigo League Rulebook stared up at her, and she sighed. She would have gone to Kanto in a few days if it hadn’t been for that stupid rule. She’d been catching and training Pokémon for the last several years, and now she’d discovered that the minimum age for Pokémon training was ten! Further, any Pokémon she would have caught before she was ten, she wouldn’t be able to use in the League. That meant that she’d have to start completely over, with an entirely new team.

She would enter the Indigo League, Lorelei thought to herself, but not until she was ready. She glanced across the limousine at her Sneasel, who stared back at her. He had, according to both Nurse Joy and Professor Silph, grandson of the founder of Silph Company, chosen a mate from one of the Professor’s Sneasels, and that it would be a matter of time before Sneasel’s mate had little Sneasel running around.

She shook her head, and grinned. Whoever had started that “Pokemon hatch from eggs” theory was definitely mistaken. Well, for most Pokemon, anyway. Some, such as birds and reptiles, did hatch from eggs, but the vast majority of Pokemon were born as miniature versions of their parents, with some minor exceptions.

It would be nice, she considered, to have little Sneasel. She could start up an all-Sneasel team, and have them be her starters. True, she’d have massive weaknesses to Blaziken, and other Fighting or Fire types, but for the first few gyms, she probably wouldn’t have any problems. Kanto’s first three gyms in Viridian City, Pewter City, and Cerulean City were, after all, Ground, Rock, and Water, respectively. The Cerulean Gym Leader, or, rather, the best Cerulean Gym Leader used Starmie and Staryu, so she’d have an advantage, at least for those Pokemon. Whether she’d be able to beat the others would depend upon her skill as a trainer, and how well she’d trained her team by then.

She smiled, and leaned back into the soft leather of the cushions, and closed her eyes. She tried to ignore the aching from all over her body, and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of battles in Kanto, with an all-Sneasel team, defeating trainer after trainer. She had made it to Cerulean City, and was just about to challenge the gym leader when her driver woke her up, and told her that she was at her house.

+++++

Lorelei heard her mother call her for supper, and sighed. She had just gotten started reading the rules of the Johto League, and she had wanted to get a good distance into it before she put it down. She sighed. The Altaln League would only let her use two of her five-Pokémon team, but it was better than nothing, especially because she got to choose which two to use in competition, but the Johto League, like the Indigo League, wouldn't let her use any of them.

She looked at the ceiling. Obviously, she’d choose Sneasel, but which other Pokémon? Entrophen, Duskull, Haunter, or Graveller? She’d have to think about it.

Lorelei started as she suddenly remembered that her mother had called her to supper. It would be a special supper, too! Her brother would be there. He’d been gone for several months, attending a business college. He’d graduated a week previously, and had returned to Fogh for a celebration and her tournament.

As she hurried down the staircase, she considered how amazing her brother was. Somehow, while studying hard in business college, he’d somehow found the time to get a job at Silph Company’s Management branch, and have an active social life as well, all the while maintaining a good grade point average. Brandon was a fun brother. He always brought her home something nice from his school in Hoenn, plus, the one time she’d visited him in the archipelago country, he’d let her drive his car around a parking lot. That had been lots of fun.

Now he was home, and he was going to stay home. Silph company had approved his transfer request to Alto, and he had worked his way up to nearly her father’s position. It was really quite an impressive achievement.

Lorelei heard what sounded like Nurse Joy and Professor Silph talking in the Pokemon Center, and glanced in quickly as she passed it, and grinned as she saw both of them sitting down across from each other, drinking coffee. Their relationship had been progressing romantically for several months, now, though neither apparently realized it, but this was the first time she’d actually seen them talking with each other outside of what their professions demanded of them.

Nurse Joy actually worked nearly full-time, due to her handling a fair percentage of all the non-critical cases that came into the main Fogh Pokemon Center, and it’s outlying Centers. When she had gotten back from the tournament, Silph had told her that Sneasel’s mate was pregnant, and it would be about a two months before the Sneasel babies would be born.

Lorelei couldn’t wait. She’d be out of the sling and bandage long before that, so she’d be able to take better care of them. From what she’d heard, Sneasel were the best Pokemon for getting out of enclosures. She’d have to be at the top of her game to keep track of them all. Either that, or get Professor Silph to inject sub-dermal locater chips into each one.

Lorelei jumped down the last several stairs, and hurried around the last corner to the dining room. What she saw was far beyond what she had ever imagined. Her mother and father were staring at Brandon, who was glaring at her father. Nobody moved, and Lorelei thought of the old expression about cutting tension with a knife. It was certainly accurate now.

She cleared her throat, and her family jumped, then looked at her. “Um,” she asked quietly, “Did I miss something?”

+++++

Lorelei looked around the table suspiciously. No one was making eye contact with her. Well, Brandon was, but not for very long. Something was up. The excitement that she'd had was quickly quashed by the tension. Even the prototype “Pokedex” couldn't make up for the tension. She quietly shoveled another mouthful of rice into her mouth, and reached for her glass of water.

This was very odd. The tension hadn’t let up when they had sat down to eat. If anything, it had increased. That meant that whatever was going on involved her, she guessed. But what exactly could be this bad? It was like the time her then-Geodude, having just learned Dig from an experimental Technical Machine, had dug up her mother’s flower bed.

Except then she hadn’t been quiet. She’d just yelled at her for just under a half hour. So it was something more serious, then. What could that be, though?

Lorelei swallowed the rice, took a drink of water, and glanced at her father, and noticed that both he and her mother were looking at her, but both quickly looked away. She sighed and slammed her glass down onto the table. “All right,” she demanded, “What did I do?”

Her father grimaced, and glanced at her mother. Brandon shook his head, and blurted out, “They’re moving, Lorelei. That’s what they don’t want to tell you. They’re leaving Alto behind.”

Lorelei felt her blood run cold, and looked to her father, “Is this true?” she asked quietly, forcing herself not to shout about how unfair it was until she knew whether or not it was true.

“Yes,” her father said, still not making eye contact, “We’re moving away from Alto. I can’t see us returning in the foreseeable future. I’ve been offered a job as a national supervisor. I had to take it.”

Lorelei felt the blood drain from her face, and actually hearing the words spoken from her father somehow took away all of her motivation to fight. “Don’t worry,” she heard her mother say, “It won’t be that bad. You’ll make new friends, and I hear the schools there are very good. And they have an excellent League.”

Lorelei gripped the arms of her chair to keep herself upright, and forced herself to ask the questions she’d been dreading, “How long?” she whispered, “How long until we move?”

“I gave me three week’s notice today. We’ll take a week to pack things up,” her father said, staring down at his plate, but looking as if he weren’t hungry anymore, “So just over a month.”

“But,” Lorelei said, “Sneasel’s children will be born in two months,” she whispered, “Will we be able to take Sneasel’s mate with us?”

Her parents looked at one another, but didn’t say anything. “Tell her,” her brother said coldly, “Tell her where we’re moving to, and why she can’t take any of her Pokemon with her.”

Lorelei’s head shot up at that, and her eyes were as wide as they could go. “What?” she demanded, “I can’t bring my team with me?”

Her mother took a deep breath, and replied, “Because we’re moving to Kanto.”

 

[Hahahabvc87]

Hm~...... So this was the ice queen before she was an ice queen..

Trainer and pokemon fighting? Wow, I never would have thought of that, especially the Lorelei Vs Bruno part.

She waited until he was nearly upon her, then moved out of the way, and gave him a push. Surprised, Bruno’s momentum kept him going, and he tumbled down the stairs, and onto the ground.

Lol, nice move!

BTW, is this Brandon the same one as in RSE? If he was, that would be a major difference from the game since they were about the same age in them...

Can't wait for the next chapter!

 

[Ash_Junior]

no. This is a completely different Brandon.

and this isn't the main time period.

and the Ice Queen thing is supposed to be a pun. She's supposed to be an aloof, uncaring, cold, you know, and plus she uses Ice types.

 

[Ash_Junior]

LOL.

when I said that I'd be satisfied with 1 review, that didn't mean that I was hoping for just 1 review, lol....

well, without further ado....Chapter 2!

“We’re doing what?” Lorelei asked in disbelief, not wanting to believe what she had just heard. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard them talking, but she was too overwhelmed to hear them. According to her parents, they were going to move to Kanto, a place where she could not use any of the Pokémon she had caught in the last four years, because her dad was taking a big pay cut, and wouldn’t be able to afford it.

If her parents did, in fact, mean what they were saying, then she would be moving away from everything she had everything that was familiar. The only life she had ever led. The only friends she had ever known. From the only Pokémon team she’d ever trained with. And that was the worst part.

“Can’t I just stay with Brandon?” she blurted, “He’s done with school, and he’s starting work for Silph! It would be easy for us to stay together!”

Brandon looked up and opened his mouth to say something, but their mother shot him a look, and started talking before he could begin. “Lorelei,” she began, “You can’t stay with Brandon. He’s going to be gone for most of the time at school, or work. Besides, he’s nearly twenty. You’re only ten.”

“It’s not my fault I’m ten years younger than he is!” Lorelei protested, but knew that it wouldn’t do any good. Her parents’ expressions told her that in spades. So that was it, then. She was being ripped from her life, and being set down in some Kantan town to try to put her life back together.

It couldn’t be. No. She’d worked too hard for this. She was in the running for the Internationals this year. If she moved to Kanto, she wouldn’t be able to participate. The Internationals, as almost every person in Alto knew, were a series of events such as boxing, melee scrapping, Pokémon battling, and others to test the abilities of each contestant. Obviously, she wouldn’t be able to enter all of the events, but she had been hoping—had been planning on attending to compete in one or two events.

“It’s not fair,” she said quietly, and realized that all conversation had stopped. Then she realized that she had said the words out loud. “It’s not fair,” she repeated, louder and more adamant this time, “I’m not going to Kanto. I’m staying here, and I don’t care what you say.”

With that, Lorelei got up so fast her chair tipped over backwards, and ran from the room before anyone could stop her. Brandon sighed and put down silverware with a clatter. “I hope you’re happy,” he said darkly, and got up, albeit slower than Lorelei, and walked towards the door. “By the way,” he said, looking back towards his parents. “I would have been happy to take her.” Then he walked through the door, leaving his parents together.

Lorelei’s mother sighed. “I wish that we could just tell them the truth,” she said quietly.

Lorelei’s father shook his head. “No,” he said adamantly. “I’m not going to tell them that someone hacked into Silph’s computer database, and deleted all of our financial information. That was my job…security.” He looked down at his plate, his appetite gone. “You know the choice that they gave me. Either move to Kanto and help them get set up in Saffron, or stay, be fired and be used as a scapegoat in the witch-hunt that’s coming up.” He sighed, “I just wish that there was another way.”

+++++

Lorelei walked along the path, glancing back at her house only once. She sighed angrily. All she had ever wanted to do was to try to join the Altan Pokémon League, and now that opportunity was being taken from her. There had to be some way that she’d be able to stay here in Alto. There had to be. All she had to do was find it.

She looked up at the sky, and admired the freshly darkened sky. Faint tinges of tangerine and ruby still graced the sky at the very utmost of the horizon, but, for the most part, night had begun its nightly march. She heard a movement to her right and turned to see her Duskull appear. She smiled and began to walk again. The tiny, hovering creature sensed her anger, and didn’t want to trigger an outburst. It knew better than that.

Duskull, for it’s part, fell into step behind her, and said nothing. It seemed to sense that she had a lot to think about, and didn’t want to bother her. For some reason, it always seemed to be able to detect her moods. Maybe she should have listened more carefully to Professor Silph when he had lectured her on the varying degrees of telepathic abilities. Maybe then she’d be able to put a name to what Duskull was.

She smiled slightly, remembering how she and Duskull had first met. She had just captured her first Pokémon, Sneasel, with one of Brandon’s “borrowed” Pokémon, and she had been eager for a fight. It had been nearly dark, and the first Pokémon she had spotted was Duskull. She kept trying to get it to fight her, but the Ghost-type had dodged every attack Sneasel had unleashed, and had refused to retaliate.

Then, after she’d given up trying to battle it, she returned home to scolding and a one-month grounding for catching a Pokémon before she was the right age, and borrowing one of Brandon’s Pokémon without his permission. His Gloom was fine, except for the fact that its petals stayed frozen for three entire days. That night, she had woken up, and Duskull was in her room. She had been angry, and somehow Duskull had made her feel less angry. Probably because of it’s talent, whatever it was called. Lorelei smiled and felt the ground beneath her feet growing soft. It was doing it again. It was calming her down.

She was nearly there. Haunter was probably there, as she rarely left the Special Place, and Graveller was probably looking after his little Geodudes in the rocky area of the Winters grounds, on the other side of the compound. That left Entrophen. Where was he?

He was probably wandering around the Winters Estate, and that meant that unless she had a Psychic, she’d never know unless she could see him. He’d gotten quieter than usual lately, and Lorelei attributed that to his relative old age. He was nearly four and a half years old. That meant that he only had about six months left to live. Her parents, she was sure, would allow her to take him to Kanto with her, but that was probably it, if the pay cut was so drastic.

Lorelei spotted the thick hedge that surrounded the Special Place up ahead, and smiled softly. How old had she been when she’d discovered this place? Five, six years old? This was where she had met Haunter. She had tried to attack him with Duskull, but the Haunter had merely fled, and returned a few minutes later. After several more attempts to attack and/or capture Haunter, she had let the Pokémon be.

Duskull had, over the course of several years, befriended Haunter, and had eventually convinced the other Ghost-type Pokemon to join her team. She hadn’t figured out why until she had seen the affectionate looks the two shared when they thought she wasn’t looking. She smiled. She was glad that they had managed to find happiness.

Even if she still didn’t know what was so special about this spot to Haunter, just that whenever they came home from a trip, and she released her Pokémon, Haunter would come to this place and never move, unless he had to go somewhere. That was the nice thing about being a ghost, Lorelei considered, you didn’t have to sleep, and you didn’t have to eat. Must be really nice.

She got down onto her stomach and began crawling under the thorns that surrounded her special place, and, after a few moments, passed through to the other side. She got to her feet, and looked around.

Most people had told her that the whole place was just a thick, solid growth of thorns, with nothing inside of it. For several years, she had believed them. Then, one day, when she was feeling more rebellious than normal, she had crawled under the thorns, and had come out to the other side. That had been, of course, the day that she’d first tried to capture Haunter.

She couldn’t have even considered crawling underneath the obstacle if she hadn’t broken down and decided that yes, she would let a Blissey heal her. She preferred to let her body do its own healing, but at times she recognized that it needed a little help. As it was, she was as good as new.

She slithered under the last of the thorns, feeling several catch several places in her clothing, and grimaced as she realized just how far she had come from that naïve little wannabe trainer four years before. She doubted that she would stop growing anytime soon, and that made her want to scream and demand that she be frozen in time for as long as she wanted to be.

She didn’t want anything to change. She didn’t want Entrophen to die in half a year. She didn’t want to move to Kanto. She didn’t want to leave her home here. She didn’t want to wake up one morning in a strange bed, and realize that she was hundreds of miles from where she was born.

Lorelei shook her head, closed her eyes, and mentally kicked herself. She’d come here to forget everything, not try to think about them. She sighed, and breathed in the air that always seemed to be fresh in here, and the smell of a babbling stream. It was odd, but somehow this spot always seemed to calm her down.

She opened her eyes and saw Haunter hovering in the exact center of the small hiding place (she’d actually brought a tape measure once, and it had confirmed that Haunter hovered over the exact center of Lorelei’s tiny niche), over the small river that flowed through the tiny hollow, dividing it into two flower-covered halves. On the side upon which Lorelei was lying, there was also a small rock, and it was there that she usually sat, and just thought, sometimes for hours. The roof, if you could call it that, was a wall of thorns that covered the top of the area, letting only small patches of sunlight through. This gave it a rather surreal quality.

She got up and walked over to the stone, and looked up to see Duskull coming down from over the hedge, as she always did. Because some parts of the Ghost-type were solid, Duskull was too big to go under the hedge, and instead always flew over and through one of the tiny holes when she was sure that no one was watching.

Lorelei bit her lip as she began thinking about her situation. How exactly could she get out of going to Kanto? She could pack her bags and run away, but that wouldn’t work, because as long as she stayed in Alto, the Psychic Array that the Global Police used would find her nearly instantaneously.

She could try to fly out of the country, but she was pretty sure that the only people that wouldn’t take her or turn her into the Global Police would be unsavory. And the same would also be true of trying to take a boat out of Alto. So there was no hope of trying to escape Alto before they moved. If she tried to feign serious illness, Antonio Silph or the Winters’ Nurse Joy would know almost immediately that she was faking it.

Slowly, it dawned upon Lorelei that despite any of her best efforts, there was no way that she could avoid moving to Kanto. There was no stopping it. Just like there was no stopping Grandpa Winters from eating all the lettuce and nothing else at salad bars. Or from stopping Grandma Winters marching up to the restaurant managers at the restaurant that had the salad bar was and demanding to know where the drinks were, because, even though it was a salad bar, it was strill a bar, wasn’t it?

Then an idea sparked into existence. The only way to convince her parents to move back to Kanto would be to be as nice as possible to them in the time she still had left in Alto, then making their lives miserable once they began their trip to Kanto. There was no way that they’d stay there very long once she started acting up really badly, was there?

She grinned. And if she made it to Kanto, she’d be eligible to get her Pokémon license, right? And once she got that, she could run off and never be seen again! It was the perfect plan.

+++++

Lorelei’s eyes glittered as the school bus pulled up in front of her house. She could have ridden in her family’s limousine to school, but she didn’t really like flaunting that her family was rich.

Besides, she got to spend more time with her friends this way. As she got on the bus, she ignored the spontaneous applause and cheering, and made her way to her friend Sabrina Williams, a foreign exchange student from Kanto. Sabrina had said that she was a Psychic, but Lorelei wasn’t sure if she believed the Kantan or not.

Still, sometimes the Kantan’s intuition was uncanny. She knew things that she normally shouldn’t have been able to, been able to reach things she shouldn’t have been able to, and convince a person to do something they normally wouldn’t have. Maybe it was just because Sabrina was more beautiful than her, according to her guy friends.

Maybe. But Lorelei didn’t really care. Well, if she was going to move to Kanto, she had better get all the information she could. Sabrina would probably have something that she could use to get out of Kanto as soon as she got Sneasel’s kid. Then she would leave Kanto, and never look back.

That poet—what was her name—had done it, so why shouldn’t she be able to? All she’d had when she left Alto the first time was an Entrophen, and she became one of Alto’s most famous heroes and poets. Devon Harding. That was it. She’d have to do research at school on Devon, and then from then on pattern herself after her.

“Lorelei?” a voice cut through her thoughts. Almost literally. “Lorelei!” she felt someone shaking her right arm, and she looked over to see Sabrina staring at her in concern. “Are you okay? I was asking you about the press conferences you’ve got today, but you were in a world all your own.”

Lorelei shook her head to focus herself, and replied, “Yeah, just a bit distracted. Sorry.” She looked past the Kantan to the window, and watched the countryside flying past. This was one of the last times she’d see it, she realized, “I’m-“ she paused, not quite sure what to say, “I guess I can’t wait until they’re over. Especially the one with the school.”

Sabrina smiled, and somehow something deep inside of Lorelei made her want to smile along with her, “Well,” she said, “Don’t worry about it too much. The more you worry, the greater the chance that subconsciously you’ll mess something up.”

Lorelei sighed and leaned her head against the headrest, trying to ignore the drone of the rest of the bus, “Great,” she muttered, “Just great. You just had to tell me that. Now, I’ll mess up because my subconscious wants to agree with what you said my subconscious will do.” She glared at a smiling Sabrina. “You’re a lot of help, you know that?”

+++++

The rest of the day was a blur, full of teachers and students alike congratulating her. Lorelei wished that they would just stop. She’d won a National Tournament, so what? Any of them could have, if they had put their mind to it and trained as hard as they could. They hadn’t, but she had. It was that simple. Now, they were making a big deal about nothing.

She sighed and walked to the podium Vice-Principal Giovanni had set up in the main auditorium. The Vice-Principal had tried to be nice, but it was something Lorelei had dreaded since the moment she had won the tournament.

She swallowed hard and stepped to the podium. Immediately, three hundred of her schoolmates were on their feet, yelling questions at her at the top of their lungs. Among them, of course, was Ross Richter, that same grin he’d had the first year, getting ready to ask the same question he had asked that year and every year since.

She inwardly grimaced, and pointed at him, and spoke his name aloud. Might as well get this over with. “You know,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, “You’re going to have more boyfriends than the rest of us combined. Because, you know, that’s the best thing about being famous!”

Lorelei grinned back. She had finally thought of a witty remark to his comments. It had taken her four years, but it would be worth it to see the most popular kid in school being embarrassed like he would be. “You’re saying,” she replied loudly, “That all of you want boyfriends, even you?”

There was a moment of silence, then laughter, catcalls, and booing could be heard. Most of it directed at Richter, who sat down quickly, his cheeks burning. Now that that was out of the way, she could enjoy the rest of the press conference. She pointed at the head cheerleader, Elizabeth Tenloss, or Beth to her friends. Which, of course, her being a celebrity, she was. But why someone named after a gun could be popular was beyond Lorelei.

Beth stood up, and smiled, showing off twin rows of perfect white teeth, “When,” she asked, and Lorelei instantly knew what the question would entail, “Are you going to ask out Jeremiah Ortez?” she demanded, referring to a popular actor who starred in a series, funded by a small company known as Devon Corporation—Altan-based, named after the person Lorelei would try to emulate—portrayal of life on a Journey. Even though it was still in its first season, it had gathered a large fan base, and would probably rake in millions.

Lorelei sighed, and shook her head, “Look,” she said, “if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred and twenty-seven times!” actually, that was the number. She’d kept track, “I’m not going to ask Ortez out. Yes, I know you would if you were in my shoes, but I am happily single, and plan to remain that way!” unless, of course, Devon hadn’t been single. Then she’d have to find somebody to be her boyfriend. She’d have to check on that.

+++++

Lorelei sat in the library, biographies of Devon Harding surrounding her, interspersed with histories of Devon’s time period. Some of the histories she’d discarded, as they referred only to Hoenni, Nuschantian, Effeulan, Sintaurian, or other country’s history.

She had also discarded the dozen books of poetry that Harding had written, most of which were love poems, Lorelei had discovered, to her extreme distaste. Apparently, Devon had been hopelessly in love with the Tintian Gerahid for most of her life. The research she had done indicated that they had barely been together for, at most, a few months during their entire lifetime. But there was that time when both had been missing…

From what Lorelei had been able to gather, Devon had had purple hair, and she was tempted to dye her hair, except she knew that her mother would be horrified and make her chop everything off.

So that was a no-go. Apparently, Devon had also had an Entrophen, but Lorelei couldn’t find any mention of what age it was. She’d have to catch another one before she left, so her parents would have no excuse but to let her bring it. Apparently Devon had specialized in Poison types, as she had also had a Blounter, a Venasaur, a Gengar, a Menill, and several other Pokémon.

Lorelei raised her head, and frowned. She could certainly catch a Menill before she left Alto, and possibly a Blounter as well, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. Menill were part Psychic type, yes, but they were protectors of the Altan’s Shrine to Allnian, and she didn’t really feel like it was right to take one away from their duty.

Then there were Blounters. They were odd creatures. Apparently they were more common back in Devon’s day, but she was certain that she could find one. They were huge, after all, sluggish, and ate a lot. They were Grass types, though, and Grass types were just too common for them to merit a place on her team.

Lorelei sighed and rubbed her eyes. How long had she been at this? She glanced at her chronometer. Two hours? Had it really been that long? She shook her head, and lowered her eyes to the books again, then suddenly realized something. The OTHER Press Conference. The real one! It was about to start! And she wasn’t there yet. Lorelei groaned, leaped to her feet, grabbed her backpack, and ran.

+++++

Lorelei breathed hard, staring into the sea of reporters. There were definitely more than fifty here, and that would have made her nervous, if she hadn’t had had years of experience. She had ran as fast as she could, but she hadn’t been able to make it for the beginning of the press conference, but, fortunately, had made it just as they were announcing that she was late.

“Miss Winters!” the reporter she had indicated several seconds before asked as the other reporters sat down on the edge of their seats, ready to leap up again the second she finished her answer to this reporter’s question, “Roger Clydesdale, Johto News Network. Is there any truth to the rumors of you entering the Internationals?”

There was dead silence in the room, and everyone turned to Lorelei to wait and see what she would say. Lorelei paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. “Unfortunately, “ she said, “I won’t be able to participate this year.”

There was a slight pause as the reporters waited to be sure she was done, then they leaped to their feet. Lorelei squinted into the crowd, and spotted a familiar emblem. The top of a Pokéball—white, of course—with the control, on a red background. She frowned, and pointed at the man. “You,” she said, “With the Indigo Battle Network.”

The man grinned as the other reporters around him sat down slowly. “Eusine Fratine,” he said, “The Indigo Battle Network has recently heard rumors that your father, Archibald Winters, is stepping down as head of security for Silph Company in Alto, and that he is being transferred to Kanto. My question is twofold. One, do these rumors have any precedence in fact and, two, if you do move to Kanto, do you plan on becoming a Pokémon trainer?”

Once again, the silence was absolute. Lorelei stood, stunned, knowing that whatever she said next would be discussed on news networks all over the world. She was, after all, one of the most famous people on the planet at that moment. Her moving to Kanto and becoming a trainer after a short career as a fighter who fought with and without Pokémon, would be a phenomenal shift.

She paused, thinking for a moment. Should she really answer the question? After all, her personal life, as she’d told reporters multiple times, was none of their business. However, she had a sneaking suspicion that her parents wouldn’t want her to answer. That was what made her answer. Despite her being semi-congenial to her parents over the last ten hours, she was still mad at them, and would be for quite some time.

“Yes,” she said, grinning as she thought about how mad her parents would be when they found out that she had leaked news of their move. Well, good for them. Now they’d know how they made her feel. “We’re moving to Kanto. I think I heard my parents say Viridian City.”

She paused for effect, mentally laughing as she heard a river of murmurs abruptly running through the press seated in front of her, and some of the men and women in the back reaching for their cell phones and hurrying out the back doors, all wanting to be the first with the news that she, Lorelei Belle Winters, was moving to Kanto.

“I would like to participate in the Indigo League,” she said slowly, an idea forming in her mind even as she was speaking, “But I’m not sure that my parents will let me.” There. That ought to be enough to stir up a few of her most devoted fans into writing her mother and telling her to let Lorelei join the Indigo League. “Any more questions?” she asked.

+++++

“How could you?” Lorelei stared up at her mother, who had been trying her best to hold her temper while still lecturing Lorelei immediately upon her return from the press conference. “We had agreed, I thought, not to let anyone know about our move until your father announced it himself.” She conveniently ignored, Lorelei realized smugly, the part of the press conference where Lorelei had stated that her mother wouldn’t let her participate in the Indigo League. That meant that her assumption had been correct.

“They asked me a question,” Lorelei said, grinning, “I had to answer them. I had a press conference to run, after all!”

Her mother glared at her, “Just because they asked a question doesn’t mean that you have to answer it. You know that. You’ve known that since the first time you were in a press conference. Even before that. When you watched some of your father’s press conferences.”

Lorelei narrowed her eyes, “Will you let me have a Pokémon Journey in Kanto or not?” she asked, point blank, wanting an immediate answer, and conveniently side-stepping her mother.

Her mother shook her head and sighed, “You’ve shown that you obviously can’t handle responsibility, so no. As of this moment, you are forbidden from starting a Pokémon Journey of any kind until you begin to show some responsibility.”

Lorelei’s eyes narrowed, and the two glared at each other. She had won the first battle, but her mother had responded quickly and won the second. Only time would tell who would win the war.

 

[Astinus]

I would have reviewed for the last chapter, but my internet connection had died. So, here I am now.

I always did like the part where the humans had to also fight to win the tournament. It was a great twist to the battles.

I also like Lorelei's attitude. She truly is an Ice Queen in the sense of the title, especially the way that you described her.

I really don't have much else to say. Except for the fact that I love this series that you have, and I hope that you go on further than the few chapters that you had of Operation: Celebi that I read.

Great luck to you! *salute* ;052;

 

[Ash_Junior]

thanks...

and actually, Operation: Celebi is finished.

The reason I'm going back and posting HHNF/O:C is so I can finish O:C's sequel, Retribution. or at least get pretty far with it.

 

[Hahahabvc87]

Darn that 1337 h4x0r! He has ruined Lorelei's life forever! How could he?

Well, it's kinda surprising as how Lorelei was already such an ice queen even before she moved to Kanto. She's just ten, and people are asking her about boyfriends? That would be a little too early, won't it? ~_~

I'm rather curious as to how Entrophen, Blounter and Menill look like. If you would kindly describe them in the following chapters, I would be very grateful.

Oh, BTW, does the fact that haunter always float around at the exact center of Lorelei's "hideout" have any significance? Maybe there's something right under that spot?

 

[Ash_Junior]

I'll try to describe them later....this is where I jump ahead to the timeline that'll be for the rest of the fic.



+++++

So, this was it. It had finally begun. She was never really convinced that it would come, but it had. Here she was, on the very outskirts of Viridian City. Behind her, the trees of Viridian Forest reached out as if to embrace her. She looked at the flora of her first obstacle, trying to imagine what the forest, like her future, held.

Sounds emanated from the forest, the cries of the hunters and the hunted. The cries of Pokémon battles. Somewhere, far away, she could hear the excited cries of a trainer’s first battle. How the battle would end up, she didn’t really care, but it was still a comforting reminder that she wasn’t the only one starting her journey on that day. Of course, she was probably among the oldest that would set forth that year, but that, of course, wasn’t the point.

What was the point, however, was that she would have a journey that no one would ever forget, she knew. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but somehow she had a feeling that her journey would be one for the history books, and wouldn’t be forgotten in quite some time. There was something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on about setting off.

She looked back at Viridian City, at its green buildings and large parks, and wondered if she was really doing the right thing. Would it have been better if she had stayed in Viridian, where she was at least safe? What would happen to her once she set out? She shook her head. There was no going back, she knew that. With a small smile, she remembered how she had gotten where she was in the first place.

+++++

The day had finally come. She’d been dreading it for days, and had been doing everything she could to hamper its arrival, and, failing that, prevent her family from finally shipping her off to Kanto. But now, it had come, and the last of the boxes were in the foyer, in front of the door, waiting for the last moving truck to come and take them away.

Lorelei sat, stunned, on a bench near the door, her loyal team of Pokémon sitting all around her. How could she depart from them, after giving them most of the last four years? She sighed, and slipped off of the bench, her team following solemnly behind her. She walked over to a mirror, and looked at herself. Her usually ornate jet-black hair was a mess, she observed with apathy, and her clothes were wrinkled from having been slept in. She sighed and decided to take one last walk around her house before she had to leave it forever.

Her cerulean eyes took in her surroundings with something that, if she had been a soldier, would have been something akin to shellshock. The paintings on the wall, the plush carpeting, the laboratories where she would sit and watch Professor Silph work for hours, the Pokémon Center where Nurse Joy used to teach her about Pokémon—ethics, general information, and battling strategies—for hours on end…she was going to leave it all behind.

It still hadn’t fully sunk in yet.

Lorelei made her way out to the garden, and sank down next to a patch of flowers, and stared at them, but didn’t really see them. She heard her team lying, sitting, and hovering around her, and something in her felt like punching something. They were so loyal, and here she might never see them again. It just didn’t seem right, having invested so much time into them, and not being able to take them with her. It almost felt like betrayal.

She felt something crawling into her lap and curling up, and she looked down to see Sneasel lying there in a ball, eyes wide open, staring up at her. It nearly broke her heart. Sneasel was about to be a father, in just another month, and she wouldn’t be around to see his newborns.

She still remembered the first time that she had seen him. He had been so cute, scratching at Berries on a bush. She had forgotten what kind of berries it had been, by now, but she still remembered how the Sneasel had spotted her, and spun around, executing a flip, and landing in a defense position. It had been then that she knew that she had to have him.

The battle that had ensued had been nothing short of frantic, due to the fact that Lorelei had “borrowed” a Gloom from her brother. She had made good use of the powders, however, and had managed to capture Sneasel. After, however, Brandon’s Gloom had fainted. When he had discovered what she had done with his Pokemon, he had been furious, and had threatened to release Sneasel back into the wild, but relented only after Lorelei promised him that she would never do anything like that again.

Of course, that promise only lasted thirty-six hours, when she first met Duskull, but that wasn’t the point.

She sensed, somehow, rather than heard or saw Duskull floating in behind her, as if summoned by her train of thought. When she had asked Professor Silph about the Ghost-type’s seemingly Psychic abilities, he had told her that Duskull were empathic, and that was how they caught their prey. When she had asked him what the word “empathic” meant, Silph had grinned and explained that empathy was a name for an ability to tell what others are thinking. He had further explained that while humans were empathic, it was because of reading body language or speech patterns, not any kind of Psychic ability. Psychic empathy, he had said, allowed a Pokémon who had the ability to know where exactly every living thing, except Dark types, were in the immediate vicinity. Also, he had informed her, his face split by an excited grin, it appeared that some empathic Pokémon could actually change the mood of another non-dark type Pokémon, without affecting any of the Pokémon’s other brainwave patterns.

Professor Silph’s explanation had made her look at her second Pokemon much differently after that, as well as her fourth, Haunter, when he had told her that most, if not all Ghost types were empathic, at least to some degree. It made sense that Duskull was empathic, too. She was always the mediator when any conflict among her team, or between Lorelei and one of her team arose, and, more often than not, the arguments were settled without a fight.

Lorelei sighed, and shifted slightly, freeing up her right leg, which had fallen asleep. The movement awakened Sneasel, who glared up at her for a second, before readjusting himself and drifting back off.

She glanced around, and spotted Graveller sunning himself on a rock ledge overlooking the garden. At first she thought he was asleep, but then she noticed that he was looking at her. That was typical for him. He constantly laid around, but he was always ready to come to her aid if she needed it. Right now, he stuck to the high ground because, if anyone he needed to attack came, he could use his Rock Throw or Rock Slide techniques to fend off her attackers, then leap down and impose himself between Lorelei and whoever was attacking her.

He was always thinking in terms of combat, and that was probably why he was her number one battling Pokémon, with Sneasel a close second. He had, from what Micheal Carentamous, Silph’s aide, had told her, vowed something of a life debt to her because she had rescued him from an incredibly fast incoming tide on Alto’s coast. This was, he had told probably the most committed to her of any of her team. Since Carentamous had studied Pokémon behavior for most of his thirty-five year life, she was pretty sure that he had it right.

Haunter wasn’t with her, of course. He was probably still in her special place, hovering in the exact place where he always was. If she went there, he’d try to comfort her, he was sure, but it wasn’t likely that he was going to move from his pseudo-assigned spot. He would probably resist trying to go to Kanto, even if she was able to bring him.

Lorelei stared at the plants in front of her. It was odd, seeing them there. They were called terrestrial anemone. It was a distant relative of the aquatic anemone, but had been specially bred and genetically altered to increase the strength of its cellulose, and allowed it to support its own weight outside of water. The entire process had taken several hundred years, and many millions of dollars, much of which came from Team Magma—their leaders had said that they wanted to take something from the oceans to spite Team Aqua—and Team Flora—who supported any research to plants, as long as they were not put to use as weapons—and had been performed by Silph Company. Lorelei had come to enjoy the plants, and had spent many a waking hour tending to them. And now she would leave them and her team here in Alto.

At least her parents were allowing her to bring Entrophen to Kanto. True, Entrophen wouldn’t actually be hers anymore, he would belong to her parents, but at least he’d come with her. Of course, that was because he would die nearly five months after their arrival in Kanto of old age. Unless, of course, he evolved into an Attrophen, which happened very rarely, before he died.. In fact, it hadn’t been recorded in more than three hundred years, and no one really knew what they were like or looked like, and most Pokémon Professors thought that it was a genetic ability.

She’d gone to the Kantan embassy several times, begging them to let her bring her team to Kanto. He’d apologized to her, and told her that the Indigo League did not recognize Pokémon caught before the age of ten. That had made Lorelei storm out of the embassy, enraged at the fact that she would turn ten six months after moving to Kanto. Then she had come back, asking if she could bring her team to Kanto. The ambassador’s aide responded that bringing wild Pokémon into the country was not allowed, and, because her Pokémon were caught before the age of ten, they would be considered wild Pokémon.

From the house, she heard her mother calling her, saying that everything was loaded, and that it was time to get in the car. Lorelei thought one more time about trying to run away or try to escape somehow so she wouldn’t have to go to Kanto. She’d gone over a thousand escape plans, but each plan had some major flaw, that would void the entire thing. She’d tried running away from home a half dozen times, but each time the Alt-Sec, or Altan Security Forces, found her within two and a half hours. It seemed as if there was nothing she could do to escape.

Lorelei sighed. Who was she kidding? She was going to Kanto, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She got up slowly, bidding goodbye to her beloved Pokémon, and went into the house. There was no doubt about it.

It was time to face the future.

And then she’d beat the living daylights out of it for what it had done to her.

+++++

“Huh? What was that?” Lorelei asked, putting down her book, and looking up at the woman her family had hired to be a flight attendant on their way to Viridian City. She remembered her father saying something about the woman—her name was Delia, wasn’t it—going to Kanto to meet her husband, after studying at the Altan Botanical University.

“I asked,” the woman repeated, smiling gently, “Would you like any more pop or something to eat? There’s still a good hour left before we begin our descent.”

“Maybe a Grape Spritz?” Lorelei asked, “I don’t really want to stop reading this if I can help it,” she said, lifting up the Indigo League Rules and Regulations, Twelfth Edition to show Delia what she was reading, “I want to get started in the Indigo League as quickly as I can.”

Delia smiled, “Of course,” she said, and set a can of the beverage onto Lorelei’s tray table, and moved on.

Lorelei was barely aware of this, however, as she was once again firmly ensconced in the Indigo League regulations concerning the capture, release, and other ways of receiving or losing Pokémon.

+++++

Lorelei put her hands on her hips and surveyed Pallet Town. It wasn’t much of a town, really. The airstrip was only sufficient for small planes, one of which they had transferred to in Saffron City, because her father had wanted to meet Kanto’s main Pokemon Prof. There wasn’t much going for Pallet Town besides the Professor’s laboratory. If it weren’t there, the town’s population would probably dwindle to close to nothing within a year. Yes, it was the main jumping-off point for the Indigo League, but it also appeared to be one of the smallest towns in the entire country. It was quaint, with the buildings painted nearly every color of the rainbow, but Lorelei was sure that she wouldn’t come back to the town for a long time.

It was in sharp contrast to Saffron City, the capital of Kanto, and the home to two gyms. The Primary Gym, the Fighting Dojo, had been the gym for the last dozen or so years, Lorelei had learned from her readings about Kanto, and the second gym, led by a young woman named Agatha Fraley, was a relative newcomer, but was quickly gaining power. Most people projected that Agatha would defeat the gym trainers and leaders in the Fighting Dojo in short order, and would become the primary gym of Saffron City.

Lorelei brought herself back to the present, and hurried after her father, who was striding purposefully towards Professor Samuel B.F. Oak’s Pokémon Research Lab. She knew that much of the funding for his research came from Silph Company, and that her father would most likely have him over for dinner many times. It wouldn’t hurt to make a good first impression.

The scene that greeted her as she entered the laboratory surprised her. Where Silph’s laboratory had been a calm, serene place, Oak’s laboratory could best be described as barely organized chaos. Screaming, running around, and frantic scribbling were commonplace, and then there were the kids. Lorelei assumed that they were there to get a Pokémon from Professor Oak, as was his wont once a month. The realization that she had walked in on it cut her deeply, as she remembered her mother forbidding her to start a journey.

Her father was barely two steps of her, trying to squeeze forward through the knot of kids. It looked like he wasn’t making much progress. Lorelei shook her head and glanced down at Entrophen, who was looking up at her, a pleading expression on his face. IT was then that she remembered that Entrophen had hearing that was among the most acute of any Pokemon. This racket, while loud for her, must be torturous for him. She smiled sympathetically and nodded; the saber-toothed tiger immediately opened his maw and let loose a roar that cut sharply above, and then through all the noise in the laboratory.

Lorelei leaned against the doorjamb, studying the stunned expressions on the faces of the children mixed with those of awe, the terrified expressions on the few parents—besides her father, of course—in the room, and the unremitting interest from thescientists.

Professor Oak himself threaded his way through the crowd and came up to her and her father, and held out his hand, an animated expression splashed across his face. “Archibald!” he exclaimed, “It’s been a long time! When I heard that you were coming to Kanto, I never thought I’d meet you so soon!” he turned to the children, who were staring at him accusingly, and gestured towards one of his aides, “Jeffrey will give you your Pokemon, I need to speak with this man.” He said dismissively, and turned back to Lorelei’s father, but caught sight of Lorelei and her Pokemon behind him.

“Is that...” he asked incredulously, trailing off. “An Entrophen,” he said softly, his face one of excitement, like a schoolboy having just gotten a new infatuation, “My, I’ve never seen one before.” He raised his eyes to Lorelei, “Are you it’s trainer?” he asked.

Lorelei’s eyes darkened, and she twisted her lip. “I used to be,” she said, glancing at her father, “But then we moved here.”

Professor Oak’s eyes glittered. “I’ve never seen one before. You’d let me study him, won’t you?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the Altan Pokemon, and ignoring the pandemonium and the cries of the aide he had referred to as Jeffrey for help, “It’s a tremendous opportunity. How old is he?”

“Four and a half,” Lorelei replied, her eyes dropping to the ground.

Professor Oak grimaced, “Maybe,” he said, “I should just talk to your father, and we can discuss your Entrophen later.”

+++++

Lorelei stared at the orb that sat in front of her on her desk in her room. It was a Pokeball. Her parents didn’t know about it yet, and, with any luck, they wouldn’t find out about it. It had been seven years since she had moved to Kanto, and she’d missed three of Sneasel’s litters, two of Duskull and Haunter’s, and an additional four of Geodude’s litters.

Yes, Viridian City was all well and good, but it was just too confining. She was used to a big city. She’d lived in the capital of Alto until she was ten, after all! Now she’d been dropped into a town that was a paltry fraction of what Smogh had been, and she was expected to cope? Sure, she had done all right when she was younger, but as she had gotten older, the city had chafed more and more on her. It hadn’t helped that Entrophen had died relatively soon after she arrived in Viridian City, three months sooner than expected. After that, the city had become synonymous with her pain of losing the Pokémon, and she grew to hate it with every fiber of her being.

She knew that she’d gotten bitter, and she’d become obsessed with beating everyone and everything around her. She’d gotten into more than her share of fights and trouble, but she didn’t really care. Now she’d figured out how to bet her parents. She’d had her brother secretly send her a Sneasel from her first Pokemon’s latest litter, and he’d sent her a prototype Pokedex to test out as well Using it, she’d been able to hack into the Indigo League’s mainframe, and insert herself into the trainer list. She’d made sure, when she hacked into the Indigo Mainframe, to leave a trail that would stand close scrutiny that said that she had first registered in Johto, and hacked into the Johto League Mainframe to back it up. Because of that, once she was in Johto, she would be able to travel without worrying about being returned to Kanto. From the stash of money that she’d hidden away, she’d bought a travel backpack, several Pokeballs, and healing supplies from the local Pokémon Mart. She had put everything in a lockbox under her bed, and had waited for the right opening, so she could slip away, and have several day’s head start before her parents knew she was gone. At least in Kanto, there wasn’t a Psychic net, so running away from home was much, much easier.

After all, once she was reported missing, she’d be running from Indigo League authorities, and every Gym Leader in the country would be required to turn her in, or have their Pokemon Training licenses removed. That meant that if she wanted an Indigo League Badge, she’d have to move quickly.

By her estimation, it would take her nearly a day to get to Pewter City through Viridian Forest, and, once there, she’d have to make a run for the Johto Border to prevent being picked up and being returned to home, and have everything confiscated. She had everything planned, and the only Polleen in the ointment was if she ran across a Kanto trainer or Kantan Officer Jenny while she was making her break for the border. If all went well, she’d have made it to Blackthorne City before anyone knew that she had run away, and from there, it would be a quick run down to New Bark Town.

She’d gotten the Sneasel several weeks before, and had been training it in secret ever since, preparing it for Luther Slate, the Pewter City Gym Leader. She was confident that she would be able to beat him. She knew that she’d only have one shot at the Pewter City Gym Badge, or she wouldn’t be able to make it to the Johto Border in time.

She heard the door slam on the floor below, and quickly swept the Pokeball into the lockbox, shut the lid, and spun the combination opener to scramble the combination. She had barely managed to get it shoved under her bed and get on top of it, reading what she had been assigned to her in school before the door opened, and her mother poked her head in. “Any calls?” she asked, and Lorelei grunted and shook her head.

The door closed, and Lorelei sighed in relief as she lowered her schoolbook. That had been close. Just three more days, and she’d be able to get out of Viridian City. Her parents were leaving for Celadon City for a week-long conference on the pros and cons of genetic splicing on Pokémon. There were teams of scientists arguing both for and against it. Those that were in favor of the genetic splicing were from a company known as the Rocket Group, a subsidy of Specter Corporation, and those opposed were mainly from the newcomer company Devon Corporation. Her parents had been called in to moderate the debate.

She’d only have, however, a two-day window in which to go. Her next-door neighbor, Mr. Peterson, who was of the opinion that Clefairy and Clefable came down in space ships from the moon wanted to capture him and perform experiments on him, was going to be checking on her every day, but would be gone for the first two days of the conference. By her estimation, it would take a day to get to Pewter, she would rest up there, challenge the gym leader, and head for the Johto Border. It would take up the rest of that day to get there. It would be close. Very, very close.

Lorelei grinned, and glanced at the newspaper she had brought up to her room. On the front, it showed Professor Elm standing in front of his lab, a curious-looking creature standing by his feet. The headline proclaimed, “Johto Scientist genetically mixes Arcanine and Ninetails DNA.” What he had gotten, Lorelei had read in the article, was a litter of baby Pokemon that he had dubbed “Vulithe.” It had also said that in nine days, he would be giving six of them away to trainers for observation. The trainers would only have them for one week, but Elm wanted to know how the Vulithe acted outside of the laboratory.

Lorelei glanced at her watch, and rolled off her bed onto her feet, and walked down the stairs. If she was going to be going off on her own, she had better study as much as she could about Pokemon, so she would be as ready as possible. She grabbed her backpack from where she had lain it down by the door and said, “I’m going to the library. School report,” and walked out without waiting for her mother to reply. Only a few more days, and she wouldn’t have to stay in Viridian City anymore.

+++++

Less than twelve hours, now, and then she’d be able to go on a journey of a lifetime. Just a little longer. She had her supplies, she had her Pokemon, and now there was just one thing that she needed to get. New clothes.

Lorelei stared at herself in the mirror, and grinned. She’d cut her long hair, and now there was very little of it at all. She had cut her hair so that her black hair, of which there was the most, was short, and her short, blond streak was long, and draped forward over her shoulder. She had just finished picking out clothes for her journey, and was very satisfied. She had picked out a leather jacket, sunglasses, several pairs of jeans, and several T-shirts from Johto baseball teams. The Electabuzz, Jynx, Sneasels, and the Charizards were just a few of the shirts that she had gotten.

She grinned, and headed for the checkout counter. Her parents were gone, so now she didn’t have to sneak around. She only had one more stop after this. The Grocery Store. She’d need to buy enough food to last for at least a week, to make sure she’d have enough food to make it to Cherrygrove City. She grinned, and was almost trembling with excitement. She was almost on her way. She had only a few hours to wait, and then she’d be on the run.

True, she wouldn’t really be on the run for nearly a full day, but she’d have to make every second count.

+++++

Lorelei glanced at herself in her new clothes in the mirror and grinned. She looked back down at the lockbox in front of her, and opened it. Inside were all the supplies she had gathered, and enough money to last for at least a month. She grinned as she began stuffing the money, then the supplies into her backpack, and strapped on her customized Pokéball belt. In addition to the magnetic clamps that kept Pokéballs on the belt, she had had it outfitted with several more pouches that were just big enough to fit Potions, Antidotes, and other healing supplies into, as well as a special pouch for berries, and another for miscellaneous objects. That was where she put her empty Pokéballs now, as well as some extra spending money. Her eyes glittered as she picked up the Pokéball containing her first Indigo League-recognized Pokémon, and put the Pokéball onto her belt.

It occurred to her as she grabbed the backpack and heaved it up over her shoulders that she could just go to New Bark Town right away, and skip Pewter City altogether, but that would negate the thrill of being out on her own for the first time. And the thrill that came when she knew she was being chased.

She grinned, and hurried out the door. Under cover of darkness, she knew, there were few who could keep up with her. She had spent entire days exploring the area between Viridian City and Pewter City with a trainer that had wanted to train. So familiar had she become with the route, in fact, she’d become a guide, and had made a lot of money guiding trainers back and forth between the two towns, and guiding them to nests of rare Pokemon. She also had the added bonus of watching trainers battle, and she had learned much because of it.

She knew where to walk, where to go, and what to avoid. And that was if she didn’t have a Pokemon. With a Pokemon, she knew, there was nobody that could catch her. She would be, however, in unexplored territory once she traveled a mile west from Pewter.

For one short moment, she stopped to take in Viridian City, and then she turned, and dashed into the woods. She had a tight schedule, and she needed to get moving if she wanted to keep it.

+++++

Lorelei slowed to a stop at one of the creeks that she had designated as a rest area, and sat down on the ground to try to catch her breath. She had made good time, but it would count for nothing if she didn’t keep up the pace.

Suddenly, she heard a twig snap behind her. She leaped to her feet and whirled around, her hand snapping out and releasing Sneasel before she dropped down into a defensive position.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, taking a cautious step forward.

A figure formed out of the bushes and came towards her, grinning. Lorelei felt her eyes narrow. It was a human, not a Pokemon. Nobody else knew about places like this. Or, if they did, they didn’t know how to get here. They were too heavily guarded by Pokemon. That meant only one thing. She’d been discovered earlier than she had thought, and they were here to take her back. Well, they wouldn’t get her without a fight, that was for certain. With a yell, she charged forward, felt something cold go up her arm, and somehow found herself on her back, staring up at that grinning face.

Lorelei felt true terror as she realized that she couldn’t move. Not a muscle would work. She opened her mouth to scream, but no words came out. Then the human dissolved into the grinning face of a Gastly. Lorelei felt herself grow colder and colder as the Ghost descended towards her. This was it. She was dead.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

 

[Hahahabvc87]

Now I'm sad from reading about Lorelei's parting with her previous life. Entrophen died and she missed seeing the birth of all her pokemon's kids. That was cruel...

Small mistake spotted:

Lorelei leaned against the doorjamb, studying the stunned expressions on the faces of the children mixed with those of awe, the terrified expressions on the few parents—besides her father, of course—in the room, and the unremitting interest from thescientists.

Simple enough

So she's planning to be a fugitive from the law,eh? Wonder why she's heading to Johto since she'll probably be hunted down there as well...

Her next-door neighbor, Mr. Peterson, who was of the opinion that Clefairy and Clefable came down in space ships from the moon wanted to capture him and perform experiments on him, was going to be checking on her every day, but would be gone for the first two days of the conference.

Lol at Mr.Peterson's paranoia

How is she going to get to Blackthorne City from Pewter city? The only direct route is through Mt. Silver and Victory road, and the pokemon there are horribly strong!

Lorelei stared at herself in the mirror, and grinned. She’d cut her long hair, and now there was very little of it at all. She had cut her hair so that her black hair, of which there was the most, was short, and her short, blond streak was long, and draped forward over her shoulder. She had just finished picking out clothes for her journey, and was very satisfied. She had picked out a leather jacket, sunglasses, several pairs of jeans, and several T-shirts from Johto baseball teams. The Electabuzz, Jynx, Sneasels, and the Charizards were just a few of the shirts that she had gotten.

Ooh, stylish aren't we?

Okay, from what I gathered, Lorelei has bought enough food to last a week, a backpack, pokeballs, potions and antidotes (and also hopefully a sleeping bag to sleep in). She must be really buff to be able to carry all that as a 17-year old girl! Or, is there shrinking technology at work here that I don't know about?

 

[Ash_Junior]

two words: Item Balls.

We see them in the games, not sure if they're used much in the anime. basiclly Pokeballs for items.

and yes, the only direct route to Blackthorne in the games is Victory Road, but you forget that it's all basically forest.

Using it [the Pokedex], she’d been able to hack into the Indigo League’s mainframe, and insert herself into the trainer list. She’d made sure, when she hacked into the Indigo Mainframe, to leave a trail that would stand close scrutiny that said that she had first registered in Johto, and hacked into the Johto League Mainframe to back it up. Because of that, once she was in Johto, she would be able to travel without worrying about being returned to Kanto.

so basically, since she's registered as having started her journey in Johto, she's emancipated and can't be returned home.

 

[Ash_Junior]

Previously on Hell Hath no Fury: an Ice Queen's Saga:

The door closed, and Lorelei sighed in relief as she lowered her schoolbook. That had been close. Just three more days, and she’d be able to get out of Viridian City.

She’d only have, however, a two-day window in which to go. Her next-door neighbor, was going to be checking on her every day, but would be gone for the first two days of the conference. By her estimation, it would take a day to get to Pewter, she would rest up there, challenge the gym leader, and head for the Johto Border. It would take up the rest of that day to get there



+++


Lorelei heard a twig snap behind her. She leaped to her feet and whirled around, her hand snapping out and releasing Sneasel before she dropped down into a defensive position.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, taking a cautious step forward.

A figure formed out of the bushes and came towards her, grinning. Lorelei felt her eyes narrow. It was a human, not a Pokemon. Nobody else knew about places like this. Or, if they did, they didn’t know how to get here. They were too heavily guarded by Pokemon. That meant only one thing. She’d been discovered earlier than she had thought, and they were here to take her back. Well, they wouldn’t get her without a fight, that was for certain. With a yell, she charged forward, felt something cold go up her arm, and somehow found herself on her back, staring up at that grinning face.

Lorelei felt true terror as she realized that she couldn’t move. Not a muscle would work. She opened her mouth to scream, but no words came out. Then the human dissolved into the grinning face of a Gastly. Lorelei felt herself grow colder and colder as the Ghost descended towards her. This was it. She was dead. And there was nothing she could do about it.

+++++

Lorelei stared up at the Gastly that slowly descended upon her. It was little more than a large, spectral blob with a face on it. A large, spectral blob with a face on it that was going to kill her.

Lorelei grimaced. This was just great. Nobody knew where she was, so no help would be forthcoming. Plus, even if she did get out of this, she’d be hours behind schedule. It occurred to her that she could give up now, and forget all about going to Johto. Or about living, for that matter, or she could fight the Gastly with every fiber in her being.

A quick check of her senses revealed that she couldn’t move anything. Then, with sheer force of will, she slowly lifted an arm, and pushed herself to her right. The Gastly seemed to frown, then darted down and, with its long tongue, licked her arm. Instantly, Lorelei could feel numbness lancing out from the location of the lick, and remembered that she had learned from Professor Oak that Pokemon that used the Lick technique actually utilized a variant of several kinds of poison that was absorbed through the skin, and passed through the bloodstream. Some moved through the bloodstream faster than others.

This was, of course, different than the various powder-based poisons, paralyzing agents, and sleeping agents. Those, if she recalled correctly, were inhaled through the respiratory tract, and then absorbed into the bloodstream.

She groaned. Sometimes, ignorance was better than knowing exactly how things happened in battles. Because if you were ignorant of how things worked, you wouldn’t be able to imagine it happening. Slowly. Painfully. Cell by agonizing cell.

The Gastly hovered several feet away, watching her amusedly. It stared at her, licking whatever it had for lips, and then moved forward in short, agonizingly taunting jaunts. Then, it rose up, moved back slightly, then came about smartly. It hovered in the air, grinning at her wickedly, and then came in, slowly, for the kill.

Then, out of nowhere, an Ice Beam stabbed through its innards, and passed through the other side, freezing a good deal of whatever kind of gases made up the Gastly, but not enough to freeze it completely.

Growling softly, the Gastly stopped its forward motion, pivoted along its horizontal axis, and, through its spectral innards, Lorelei could see the tell-tale glow of the Gastly’s eyes as it used its Hypnosis Technique.

Lorelei felt her brain begin to shut down from the Paralyzing Poison, and black began creeping in at the edge of her vision. She wasn’t sure if it was supposed to have this kind of effect, but then, it was usually used on Pokemon, not humans, wasn’t it.

She could hear the sounds of a Pokemon battle off to one side, and watched as the Gastly disappeared out of her vision. Whatever Pokemon her savior was, she kenw that it couldn’t possibly hold out for long. That gastly was nearly ready for evoltion into a Haunter, if her time with the Pokemon Professors Antonio Silph and Oak had taught her anything at all about such things. She couldn’t hear a trainer barking out orders, so Gastly’s opponent had to be either wild, or…or the Sneasel she had brought with her to start her on her journey. Her eyes narrowed. If it really was herSneasel, there was no way that she would let anything happen to it.

Her eyes narrowed. How could she get rid of this paralysis? It was far more potent for a human than it was for a Pokemon. She didn’t have anything to counter the paralysis poison….or did she? Suddenly, her muddled mind remembered she had PRZ Heals in her backpack. They hadn’t been approved for humans, though. On the other hand, however, the paralyzation poison generally wasn’t used on humans, either. And the PRZ Heal HAD been specially formulated to counter this and other strains of paralyzation poisons as well.

Lorelei’s eyes widened as she realized what she needed to do. She needed to get one of her PRZ Heals, and inject it into her bloodstream. She nearly panicked when she thought of this, but then remembered the healing supplies in her Pokeball Belt.

From what she could hear of the Pokemon Battle, the Pokemon attacking the Gastly was losing. She tried to remember if she had put any PRZ Heals into the leather pouches on the Pokeball Belt that she had modified. With horror, she realized that she couldn’t remember anymore if she had put any in there. She narrowed her eyes and realized that she’d need to pump them into herself at random.

That meant taking the risk of them being Potions, SLP Heals, BRN Heals, or FRZ Heals. She took a deep breath, and struggled to open the first leather pouch, and jabbed it against her skin. There was a quick hiss as the liquid inside metabolized itself into her bloodstream. She felt extremely warm in the leg that she had jabbed whatever it was into her system, then it spread throughout her entire body.

Lorelei grimaced as she became warmer and warmer, andshe realized that it must have been a FRZ Heal. Sweating profusely despite the relatively cool temperature, she flipped open the next pouch, and jabbed the container into her thigh. A thin, rushing sensation of coolness pervaded her body, and Lorelei realized, to her abject relief, that she had just given herself a BRN Heal.

Lorelei fumbled with the third pouch, and somehow managed to get whatever it was out and pressed against her leg. Lorelei could feel her control slipping quickly. The blackness that had been pressing against the edges of her vision had now consumed almost all of it. The muzziness that had enveloped her thoughts was now almost overwhelming. With the last vestiges of willpower, she pressed the button that would send whatever it was roaring through her veins.

And then, moments later, she lost consciousness.

+++++

When she awoke again, her first thoughts were that she was dead, and the figure leaning over her was saying that she’d flunked a test, and she wouldn’t be passing through the pearly gates anytime soon.

But then, slowly, her vision began to focus. Very slowly. Lorelei groaned and lifted a hand to her forehead. It felt like it weighed thirty tons, but she couldn’t care less about it. She had a headache that felt like a Snorlax had sat on her head, every inch of her body ached, and someone had to have a tape recorder and playing feedback. Constantly. Unceasingly. Without end. About how often “The bells” was repeated in the poem “The Bells”

Then she remembered seeing somebody above her. She groaned, and forced her eyes to focus. “Easy,” the voice said, “Easy. You’re in pretty bad shape, if what I’ve been able to tell has been right. Did you take all three of those?” the boy asked, pointing at three discarded containers that held the Silph company logo on them.

Lorelei felt herself losing her center of gravity, and reached an arm out to steady herself, but she learned that she still wasn’t strong enough to support her own weight, and that the ground wasn’t as soft as some people would make it out to be.

“Whoa,” the boy said, “Take it easy. You’ve been through quite the ordeal, what with all the Dream Eaters that Haunter used.” Lorelei thought dimly somewhere in the back of her mind that if she were one hundred percent, she’d be excited about a guy being this concerned about her, “And all those Confuse Rays? No wonder you’re like this.”

Lorelei felt anger slush through her, like it knew where it was going, but somehow couldn’t make it. “Where is it?” she demanded weakly, spread-eagled on her back in the middle of Viridian Forest, “I’ll kill it.”

The boy chuckled. “That’d be pretty hard to do, since it’s already a ghost.”

Lorelei frowned, and felt herself slipping away from consciousness once more, “That’s never stopped me before,” she muttered, and fell, into a deep and dreamless sleep.

+++++

Lorelei groaned, and put a hand to her head. For a moment, she wondered if she had loaned her head to some sports team to use at a charity event, and had just now gotten back to her, but then she remembered what had happened Then she remembered. She had to get to Johto!

She sat up quickly, and her head pounded even more—if that were possible. She glanced around, and saw that she was in a plain room. There wasn’t much in it, except for the bed. But there was one smell that could never quite be gotten rid of. The tell-tale chemicals of a Pokemon Prof’s lab. Lorelei groaned, lifted the covers to make sure she was still dressed, got out of bed, and staggered to the door. Somebody had probably taken her to Pallet Town. It as probably that stupid boy. If she ever got ahold of him—

She opened the door, and gawked openly. On the other side were the usual trappings, machinations, and devices that were frequent to a Pokemon Professor’s laboratory, but the thing that set it apart from every other one was the fact that none other than Professor Martin J. Elm was working diligently with his aides. On what, Lorelei didn’t know and, frankly, she didn’t care that much.

All she wanted to know was how she had gotten from midway between Viridian City and Pewter city in Kanto, across the most dangerous parts of the Viridian Forest, into Johto, and into New Bark Town. Unless Elm was in Pallet Town.

“She’s awake!” a familiar voice exclaimed from behind her. She whirled around, though she had to reach out a hand to grab at a nearby table to steady herself, and saw the boy that had been in the forest with her. “Finally. Took you long enough.” Lorelei looked at him, a puzzled expression on her face. He grinned, “You were out for a while.”

Lorelei felt her heart sink. A while? This would seriously put a damper on her plans. All because of one stupid Gastly. “How—“ she began, and stopped when pain seared through her brain, “How long was I out?” she asked weakly.

“Just over a week,” the boy said, “I talked to your parents. They said that they didn’t give you permission to start your journey, but you were signed up with the Johto League with their signatures. And, since you were technically in Johto by then, they had no legal jurisdiction over you.”

Lorelei grimaced, putting the hand not supporting herself up to her forehead. She briefly remembered forging her parents’ signature on the registration forms, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “Huh,” she replied. “So I’m, where New Bark Town?” she asked.

The boy grinned, “Nope, Blackthorne. Elm’s got a secondary laboratory here, and he’s checking up on some of his protégés.” The dark-skinned boy glanced past her into the room, “I was on my way here, and I brought you with me. Not as if I could really turn back if I wanted to keep my appointment.”

Lorelei frowned, and shook her head to clear a slight buzzing, “Appointment?” she asked, “For what?”

“Ah!” a cheerful voice exclaimed from behind her, “Mr. Slate. How good of you to come. With your input, I’ve managed to stabilize the DNA.” Lorelei turned around to see Professor Elm, his normally immaculate black hair a Rattata’s nest. His juvenile-like bright eyes shining with excitement. “We’ve found a way to stabilize the DNA enough that we think that the next litter of Vulithe will be able to evolve. We’ve even been able to build a computer simulation of the evolution. We’re dubbing it the Artail!”

The dark-skinned boy grinned, although his eyes still remained shut. Did they ever open? “That’s great, Professor! I have a feeling that Pyro has been wanting to evolve for a while. I’ve tried to tell her that it’s not possible, but she doesn’t seem to listen.” Brock grinned, “She’s a spunky little thing.”

Lorelei, who had been leaning against the wall beside the door, out of Elm’s direct eyesight coughed. “Am I invisible?” she demanded, “Or am I just alone, here?”

Elm jumped a good three inches into the air, and spun around, his glasses falling off of his nose, and his eyes darted about wildly, then he spotted her. “Ah,” he said, “The mystery girl. Lorelei Belle Winters, four-time champion of the Allnian National Tournament; one of the heirs to the Winters fortune; and the terror of Viridian City, I presume?”

The boy’s eyes widened, and for a second Lorelei thought they’d pop right out of his head. Lorelei sighed, “Look, all I did was beat up five kids for picking on me, and they gave me that nickname.”

Elm raised an eyebrow. “Yes, except they were all members of Team Rocket, and they all had at least one Pokemon.” Lorelei’s eyes narrowed at him, but he continued, “And then there were that pair that they sent after you. Butch and Cassidy, wasn’t it?” he grinned, “Last I heard, they were going to be getting out of the hospital in a week.” He grinned, “I’m sure even Brock here’s heard of you.”

Lorelei pursed her lips, “Are you done, yet?” she asked, ignoring the open-mouthed kid he’d called Brock, “Because if you are, I’ll just take my Sneasel and get out of here.”

Elm’s eyes lit up, “Ah, yes. Your Sneasel. It’s from the Gerantal bloodline, isn’t it?” Lorelei raised an eyebrow, “The entire line has a fascinating genomic pattern. Their ice-type moves are unusually strong, even for an Ice type.”

Lorelei stared at him, dead-panned, “Are you done?” she asked blankly. “I’d kind of like to get out of here.”

Elm nodded, “Why, yes, I think I am. Unless you would like to be one of the next stewards of one of the Vulithes that I’ve bred. Have you heard of them?”

Lorelei nodded slowly, “It was on the front page of the Viridian City Paper yester-“ she caught herself, “about a week ago.” She finished.

Elm nodded, “Then you must know that I’ve been giving them out to trainers for a week at a time. Brock, here, just returned his Vulithe, so we’ll have to keep it under observation for at least three days. However, I have a Vulithe down in Pallet Town that I could let you have. For the standard week, of course.”

Lorelei raised an eyebrow, “It doesn’t bother you that I nearly got killed by a Gastly?” she asked cautiously, knowing that this was a chance of a lifetime, “doesn’t it bother you that I might get killed, and it might die with me?”

Johto’s Pokemon Professor frowned. “Gastly?” he asked, “Brock told me that it was a Haunter. I wouldn’t expect your Sneasel to be able to do anything against something like that. That was probably why it was fainted when he found the two of you.”

“Myabe it evolved after it fainted your Sneasel,” Brock offered, and the two turned to look at him. “It’s just a possibility.”

Elm nodded, “that is indeed what appears to have happened..” He turned back to Lorelei, “And no, it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, with your infamy, I’d be honored to have you safeguard one of my special Pokemon. It might just give me a little extra publicity. Brock, you had better run if you want to catch that Breeder’s Conference in Azalea Town.”

Brock nodded, “Right,” he said, “You two will be able to get to New Bark Town without me. I’ve got to grab a few things in Goldenrod, anyway. I better run.” He grinned again, nodded, and darted out the door.

Elm turned to Lorelei, “So,” he inquired eagerly, “what do you say, will you take the Vulithe?”

Lorelei shrugged, “Yeah,” she said, a faint smile on her face, “Why not? It’ll give me something to do.”

Elm rubbed his hands together, “Excellent!” he exclaimed, “Then onwards to New Bark Town!”

+++++

Lorelei groaned, “Are we there yet?” she demanded, hurrying to catch up with the surprisingly spry Professor Elm, “I don’t see why we had to go out into the woods so you could check on that Sandshrew nest. I’m tired, I’m sore. I’m thirsty. I got scratched up back there when I tried to capture one of them. How much longer?” she demanded.

“It will seem longer,” Elm admonished in a frustrated tone, “The more times that you ask how much longer it will be! And I told you not to try to capture them. It’s your fault you became injured.”

“’It’s your fault you became injured,’” Lorelei parroted back, “What does that mean? You should have told me that the Sandslash nest was right next to the Sandshrew nest!”

Elm sighed, “I ASSUMED that you knew that Sandslash was the evolution of Sandshrew, and because Sandshrew are the offspring of Sandslash, you would know that the Sandslash nest would be near the Sandshrew nest!”

Lorelei glared at him, “Yeah,” she muttered, “Whatever.” She glared at him, and was about to quip another cutting remark when the woods suddenly parted, and they stepped from Route 29 and into New Bark Town.

The view took her breath away. While she was used to big cities, and had become accustomed to small cities, she still wasn’t prepared for what she saw.

New Bark Town was little more than a hamlet, with four rows of houses, a small airstrip at the opposite end of town, and several essential buildings such as a Pokemon Center, Fire Department, and Global Police Station formed the perimeter of the small town. The entire town was filled with trees, both young and old, of many different kinds. “it’s beautiful,” Lorelei breathed.

Elm chuckled, “Yeah, I guess it is. I’m kind of used to it, though, so it doesn’t affect me like most people did. It’s a better place to live than Goldenrod, though,” he remarked, grinning, “Too many people there. Can’t get a lot of breathing room. People around here are good, neighborly, and accept you no matter what.” He looked at Lorelei slyly, and added. "Well, at least me." Elm smiled contentedly. “Well, come on, now. You said that you wanted a Vulithe, so let’s get to the lab and get you set up.”

+++++

Lorelei looked around the lab as she entered. It was big. Much larger than the one that Professor Silph had had when she had been living in Alto, yet not quite as big as Oak’s had been when they had gone there for his annual Christmas Parties. Still, it was quite spacious. And, if this was as big as it looked from outside, this part was just the public laboratory, and Elm’s private lab was in the back. If this was anything like Oak’s lab, he probably lived here, too.

Professor Elm deftly made his way through the crush of adults who were all screaming and waving papers at him by smiling and saying something that was drowned out by the screaming to them. Lorelei shook her head. If this was anything like what happened at Oak’s place, this was the day before Elm gave out Pokemon.

A sudden chill swept through her as she realized that unless she wanted all the good Pokémon to be scared away by little kids, she would have to get moving as fast as she could. Some of those kids could really move. And they made a lot of noise. In fact, Pokémon from all over the area were probably running away as quickly as they could.

Lorelei tried to look over the crowd, but wasn’t quite able to. She’d lost Professor Elm, and with this many people crammed into his lab, all shouting at once, it would be nearly impossible to find him.

Suddenly, Lorelei felt a tap on her shoulder, and saw a parent standing there. “Hi!” she shouted, “Sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing, but my daughter, Maya recognized you from the old Alnnian Tournaments, and wants to have your autograph!”

Lorelei stood there in shock for a moment, not quite believing that anyone would remember her, then smiled, “Sure!” she shouted, “What do you want me to sign?”

The mother smiled and pushed forward a ten-year old girl. Lorelei forced herself not to grimace. While she probably didn’t have sticky fingers anymore, she still didn’t like little kids. “Here!” the kid said, thrusting a Pokeball in her face, “This is going to be my starter as soon as Mom finishes registering me!”

Lorelei smiled weakly and took the Pokeball from the kid, as well as a proffered permanent marker, and quickly wrote her name around the white section of the Pokeball. Lorelei handed the Pokeball back to the girl, and smiled quickly before turning back to look for Professor Elm.

Just at that moment, Elm appeared, smiling apologetically, “I’m sorry!” he shouted, “But one of my aides gave the Vulithe to a Hoenner that was passing through. I’ll give you Brock’s Vulithe. It’ll take a few days to get everything in order, though!”

Lorelei smiled, and quickly turned to get away from the lab. As the doors closed behind her, she took a deep breath. Finally, some peace and quiet. Now she’d be able to get started on her journey. With a bounce in her step, she walked towards the Pokemon Center.

+++++

Lorelei smiled and thanked one of the the eternally too-jubilant Nurse Joy sisters, and turned for the door, to be greeted by a sight that would haunt her for four days.

“There she is!” exclaimed the kid whose Pokeball she had signed. Behind her were four kids, young kids, that all looked at her eagerly, wearing what appeared to be those Official Lorelei Fan Club T-shirts she’d managed to get recalled, although not before several hundred of them had been sold in Kanto and, she realized with a sinking stomach, Johto.

Then the moment was over, and the five kids rushed towards her. With a nimble turn and a swift leap, she was over the counter and running through the back door before the Nurse Joy could stop her. She was in a hallway, and there were three doors. One, an exit, was too far away for her to make. The other two were partway down the corridor. One was open, one was closed.

Lorelei ran down the hallway, turned the doorknob on the closed door, booted it open, and darted through the previously open door. The kids, seeing the newly opened door moving, ran through the door, screaming, and as soon as the last one of them was in, Lorelei darted back out into the hallway, slammed the door closed, and ran through the exit.

THAT had been a close one.

+++++

Lorelei found herself jogging down the path, glancing back over her shoulder at New Bark Town, now several miles distant, and almost convinced herself that she saw little children darting through the shadows.

She shook her head. That was insane. That kid wouldn’t be able to officially start until the next day, and by that time, Lorelei would be in Violet City. Lorelei smiled uneasily to herself and turned her attention forwards. Catching the slight movement just in time, she stopped herself abruptly, and a white web shot past by where her head would have been if she hadn’t stopped just then.

Lorelei snapped the Pokeball out of its holder, and flicked it into the air. Her Sneasel appeared, and landed in a fighting pose, mirroring the one that its trainer had just dropped into.

From all around her, Lorelei could hear chittering, like some kind of insect. Some kind of big insect. From the woods in front of her, Lorelei saw an Ariados step into the path, and take a challenging step forward. From all sides, Lorelei saw and heard Spinarak climbing onto the path, staring at her with their unblinking eyes.

She growled for a moment. Why couldn’t she have a normal journey, where Pokemon were rare, and didn’t want you for their next meal every single battle? She took a deep breath, and realized that she herself would have to fight if she wanted to get out of this one. A quick glance around her revealed that there were no fewer than fifteen bugs waiting for her to make the first move, not including the Ariados.

“I’m screwed,” she muttered, and smiled tightly as she remembered that her hero, Devon Harding, had died in battle as well. “’course,” she chuckled to herself, “That battle wasn’t because she was running away from a bunch of kids with a rookie Sneasel.” Her Sneasel whipped its head around and bared its tiny teeth at her. “No offense,” she said, grinning. “This is going to be fun. If they don’t kill us, first.”

 

[Hahahabvc87]

Lick + hypnosis + confuse ray + dream eaters... Ouch. Amazing that she survived!

O_O Sneasel lost to a gastly! For a pokemon that's dark, ice, and owned by the winner of the pokemon competitons in Alto, that sure is shameful... >_<

Gah, Brock rescued her and brought her to Blackthorne! I would have loved to see the description of the dangerous trek through the forest, but that's just some wishful thinking. XD

Lorelei ran down the hallway, turned the doorknob on the closed door, booted it open, and darted through the previously open door. The kids, seeing the newly opened door moving, ran through the door, screaming, and as soon as the last one of them was in, Lorelei darted back out into the hallway, slammed the door closed, and ran through the exit.

THAT had been a close one.

Lol, her quick thinking has saved her skin again! I can sorta understand the terror of the insane fans. All too often people wish that they were popular, then when they are wished they never were... After all, Princess Diana did die in a car crash that resulted from being chased by paparazzi!

Random mistake:

She wasn’t sure if it was supposed to have thiskind of effect, but then, it was usually used on Pokemon, not humans, wasn’t it.

I thought that would be picked up in the spellchecker?

 

[Ash_Junior]

sorry, I'm copy/pasting...

and as for the Gastly, I DO have an explanation....it was almost a Haunter, lol...and the Sneasel is still pretty young, lol....it's not mature yet.

and I had a LOT of fun with the insane fans as you put it. That was a REALLY fun part to write, I remember.

and I'll fix the spelling thing right away.

 

[Astinus]

Lorelei has insane little fans that she's frightfully afraid of...because they might have sticky fingers. ^^

Just a slight mistake, and I might be wrong, but I thought that it was a Scyther that Lorelei used to capture her first Sneasel, but in a later part you said that it was a Gloom. Hm... <<

A lot of your words, from your copy/pasting are mushed together.

Alas though, I will be sitting here, waiting for HHNF and O:C. ;052;

 

[Ash_Junior]

thanks for catching the Scyther/Gloom thing. I changed it to Gloom to be a bit more believable (Sleep/Paralyze/whatever powders) since they're both weak to Ice types....

glad to see that I have two fans.

I'll post Chapter 4 when I get home from work tomorrow (Part-time at Walmart....YAY!!!!! )