Character of the Chapter:
Riley Poole
Canon: National Treasure
Nationality: American-Aquapolian
Occupation: Researcher at Devon Corporation
Type: Electric
Short Bio: Riley helped Ben during many of his previously mentioned adventures. A tech genius, he and his cousin Max Petalburg have worked at several companies to create the PokeAll, a device for trainers and coordinators to use while on their journeys. During his time at the Vatican, he formed a communication and computer system to aid the Legendary Team in their fight against the Shadow Forces. After that summer, he took up a job at Devon Corporation in order to finish his device.
13: A Stranger and a Friend
Patrick leaned against the pillar, watching Katharine and Giratina dance, his mind lost in thought.
“Congratulations.”
He turned toward the voice that had snapped him out of his deep thought. A man with a military haircut and grey eyes stepped from the other side of the pillar. He wore no Aquapolian pendent and his accent was American.
“I’m sorry…” Patrick replied with a confused look on his face.
“On your inauguration as the new Aquapolian Cardinal,” the man explained. “Few people realize how important your job is in today’s world, especially after what happened last summer. We need the legendaries now more than ever with the Shadow Forces alive and well across the globe.”
Patrick nodded in agreement. “Hopefully we will be able to disband the rest of the forces now that their Shadow Commander is dead.”
“Well, their old Shadow Commander,” the man corrected. Patrick glanced over. “I’m sure they put a new commander in place of the old one.”
“Whoever it is, they will not be as deadly as the old one, I assure you.”
“I’m sure. You were acquainted with the old Shadow Commander, weren’t you?”
This caused Patrick to hesitate. “I…may I ask who you are, exactly?”
“My name is Frank Hummel. I’m a humble servant of the American government. We’re trying to dig ourselves out of the worst disaster in our nation’s history…but we can only get so far without knowing what exactly happened last summer.”
Patrick smiled. “I’m afraid that is a secret.”
“I make my career on secrets, Father. There is little in this world that happens outside of legendary affairs that I do not know.”
“The information you seek is inside legendary affairs.”
“Which means I’ll need an inside source.”
He smiled. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to find yourself a legendary for that.” With that, he gave Hummel a polite nod and walked away, unnerved by their conversation.
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“King Arthur?”
“Not that far back.”
She frowned. “Were you a member of royalty?” From the way he carried himself, he could have been royalty. Then again, when you were a legendary, you were above any king or queen in the world. Perhaps he gained that personality after he died.
Giratina shook his head.
“What was your profession?”
He smiled. “I was a doctor.”
“Did you make any significant contributions to your field?”
“Not to my field exactly.”
“Which field did you make a signigicant contribution in?”
“Literature.”
“So you wrote novels?”
“No. Memoirs.”
“Of your interesting life?”
“No,” he said mysteriously, his eyes following a sea of ruby as they skimmed across the marble of the dance floor. “Memoirs of a close friend.” The opal embedded in the floor seemed to react especially to him, lighting up whenever his feet skimmed its surface.
Katharine thought about her British literature for a few moments. True, she had never spent much time thinking about the subject past high school, but she was an avid reader of classics and contemporary pieces. Her curiosity was getting the best of her, as was her impatience. For a few moments, she wanted to wow the power of dimension with her intelligence, but she decided she had plenty of time to do that later. “Okay…” She sighed, as if guessing his identity was a great burden. “Who are you?”
He smiled, glancing around them as if it were a great secret. “You’re not going to believe me.” He muttered, making Katharine even more intrigued.
“After everything I’ve been through in the past year…I don’t think I can be surprised easily anymore,” she said. After all, they were legendaries. Add to that the demon army trying to take over the Vatican, the revelation that her adopted father was her real father, and the formation of the Legendary Team, she had had quite an…interesting year.
“Okay,” he said. “You know of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, yes?”
Of course she had. He had written her favorite pieces of British literature. Reading his famous detective’s adventures had been a favorite pastime as a child, and in Rowan and Cyrus she saw many of Holmes’ attributes reflected…though Cyrus got most of the British man’s social awkwardness. Giratina couldn’t have been Doyle, though. He looked nothing like the famous portraits of the author she had seen in books and on the Internet.
“Years ago, Sir Doyle wrote a series of what was supposed to be fictional memoirs…or so people think. In fact, he didn’t write them…and they weren’t fictional. I gave them to him to forever immortalize my friend’s work throughout history.”
It took a few moments for his words to sink in. Katharine missed a couple of steps and nearly ran into another Aquapolian couple. After they recovered, she laughed and shook her head as if she thought he was insane. “No…are you telling me Sherlock Holmes was a real person?”
“I am. I knew him quite well, in fact. It’s a shame that the general public will forever think of him as ficticious, but his powers of deduction were so great, Doyle thought that no one would believe that the memoirs were true.”
“So, if he was real…then that makes you Dr. John Watson,” Katharine finished, pleased with herself in deducing the answer to his identity. At the same time, she could hardly believe her ears. While she herself was a myth, it was still shocking to hear that a character you thought had been fictitious for years had actually lived and breathed.
“Yes, although I prefer my legendary name at the moment,” Giratina replied, his opal eyes following the line of faces that surrounded the dance floor.
“You’re the exact opposite of my father, then. He hates being called his legendary name to his face,” Katharine muttered. She could understand his discomfort. It was still weird when Colin tripped up and accidently called her Quamachi in everyday conversation. With no recollection of her legendary life and after going through twenty years of her mortal life, sometimes she thought he was addressing someone else. It was amusing, however, when Colin slipped and called her father Reshiram. The priest had taken to glaring at his advisor every time he did that.
“He’ll get used to it the more time he spends at the Cave of Origin.” The power of dimension paused. “We’ve been waiting for the two of you to visit us.”
“I apologize. Father’s job was too far away for him to make a trip there…and I never had the chance to when I was in school here…” In reality, Katharine had always been a bit nervous about visiting the legendary temple, as if it held secrets she did not wish to learn…
“Well, after the inauguration, we look forward to seeing you there…” Giratina trailed off and slowed to a stop, his eyes fixed on something behind her. He had a shocked look on his face which made her stomach twist with unease. If a legendary who had lived through thousands and thousands of years of history was shocked by something, you know that what he had seen was pretty amazing.
When she turned around, she was sure that no amount of legendary shock could stand up to the identity of the person who was standing at the edge of the dance floor. While she couldn’t figure out why he surprised Giratina, she was dead certain that she had seen a ghost.
Giratina recovered in a few moments and gave her a stiff bow. “I apologize, but I must talk to the Champion before the night is over. Good-bye, Katharine.” With that, he escaped from the dance floor, albeit more stiffly than he had entered onto it.
Katharine barely recognized his absence…barely heard the music and the chatter around her…and barely felt her feet touch the floor as she walked toward the figure that had so shocked the two legendaries.
Standing at nearly six feet, the young man almost towered over her. His dark brown hair and grey eyes sharply contrasted her golden blonde hair and Aquapolian crystal blue eyes. He gave her a sad smile. “Hi, Katharine,” He breathed, ducking his head.
It took her an entire minute before she could even form a credible word, and even then, all she could do was whisper, “Grayson…” The room around them grew deathly silent as both young adults struggled to find the right words.
Finally, Grayson cleared his throat and held his arm out for her to take. “Why don’t we dance?” He suggested as she threaded her arm through his, her touch barely feeling the fabric of his suit. As if in a dream, she let him lead her onto the dance floor, wrapping his arm around her waist and taking her hand. She delicately placed her own hand on his shoulder, as if one too-hard touch would cause him to disappear.
The first few spins around the dancefloor were magical. All she could see were Grayson’s soft grey eyes, the way he smiled at her as if they had met for the first time. Everything in the world disappeared, except for them and the jewled rivers that spread across the marble floors. It seemed as if they responded to every footstep of theirs, sending ripples through the marble.
The feeling of weightlessness was quickly replaced by anger. One moment, she was attracted to him, clung to him as if he were the last person on Earth. The next moment, she was so repulsed by him, she tried to pull away, stopped only by his firm hand on her waist.
“I thought you were dead…” She breathed.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry for everything, Katharine. I just…I just couldn’t tell you why…”
She glared at him. “Then tell me now.”
“It’s complicated.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, my life now defines complicated.”
He laughed, forcing a smile to cross her lips. “Can’t we just leave our past behind us?”
“Grayson…” She sighed. “You can’t just show back up after years of being gone and expect us to start right back where we left off.”
“Then we won’t.” She gave him a confused look. “We’ll start all over again. Getting to know each other in a new way. Please, Katharine…I’ve been looking forward to this for years.”
“Then tell me why you left.”
Grayson paused. “I can’t right now. In time, I’ll tell you.”
Katharine sighed, leaning closer to him until their foreheads touched. “Promise you will never leave me again.”
He smiled. “I promise.”
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“Well, that was a very successful inauguration ball, if I do say so myself,” Wallace said, leaning back in his chair.
“It was a tense one politically. All of the American representatives were on edge except for the president,” Drake commented.
“That’s because Roberts has always been very pro-Aquapolian.”
“Yes, but that does us no good if his entire cabinent and Congress are against us.” Drake turned to Patrick. “Where there any legendaries there tonight?”
“Just one that I know of. Giratina.”
Drake nodded. “He usually comes to the balls. Of course, he missed a few during his mortal life in the late nineteenth century…Sometimes, others show up, and, of course, the Aquapolian Cardinal’s advisor is always there.”
“Is it strange that there were not more…?”
“No. Usually there are…but these are dark times. The legendaries probably prefer to stay within the walls of the Cave of Origin these days.”
The door to Wallace’s office opened, and Katharine slipped in. “Ah, there’s my Vice-Champion,” Wallace said. “How was your night?” He asked with a mischievous grin.
She rolled her eyes. “It was good. I met some legendaries, talked to some ambassadors…the Legendary Team had a good time…”
“I heard Rowan and Walker got into quite a heated debate.”
“It would have been more so if Cyrus hadn’t stopped them.”
“So, who was that guy you were dancing with at the end?”
She could feel herself blushing. “What guy?”
“Come on, Katharine, you know the guy I’m talking about,” Wallace said in a teasing voice as he leaned forward in his chair, all ears. Curious about what the young Champion was talking about, her grandfather and father turned around to hear more, their eyes trained on her. She could feel herself blushing even more ferociously. Grayson was not a subject to be brought up in front of them.
Thankfully, though, Wallace hadn’t seemed to recognize him. Grayson had been an old school friend of hers…and more. Their relationship had finally evolved to the point where they could have been called lovers when, one day, he suddenly failed to show up to school. She tried calling his cell phone…he had lived alone ever since his parents died when they were thirteen and he had no other family members. He had just disappeared without a trace. She had been grief-stricken. Inconsolable. The only other people on the planet who had realized how broken she had been at his disappearance were Dawn, Eric, and Rowan. She hadn’t even told her father about him…
…but since they were starting all over again, now would be a good time for her to tell Patrick exactly who he was. Nervously, she shuffled her feet, cursing the high heels that pinched her toes. “Oh, that was Grayson Strauss, and old…school friend of mine.” She said nonchalantly, as if he wasn’t a big deal to her.
She froze as a dark look passed over Wallace’s face. A few blinks more, however, and she started to wonder if she had imagined that. She had never told Wallace about Grayson…why in the world would he have been so angry? Suddenly, she felt extremely tired.
“I think I’m going to head back to the apartment. I’m tired and we have the inauguration tomorrow.”
“I’ll go with you,” Patrick said. They said good-bye to Wallace and Drake and headed for the elevator. They rode in silence for a few moments before he spoke. “Did Giratina speak to you about visiting the Cave of Origin?”
She nodded. “Do you want to go after the inauguration?”
There was silence for a few more moments as he thought that over. “Yes…”
“We should go with Colin.”
Another few moments of silence passed before he turned to her, a concerned look on his face. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“You seemed upset with Grayson Strauss.”
“I had the right to be,” Katharine muttered. “He left without warning years ago. Everyone thought he was dead or entered the Shadow Forces.”
“Why?” Patrick asked.
She sighed. “Because he belonged to a family of Shadow Followers, but he was known to be against the movement. Either his parents forced him into the army or he was made to…disappear because he refused to fight with them.”
“How are you so sure he hasn’t joined the Shadow Forces?”
“There’s no shadow energy around him. Growing up, he was so adamantly against the Forces, he would have to have been Shadowficated to join them.”
“Has he told you why he left?”
“No…” She sighed. “Not yet.”
The elevator slowed to a stop. She took a few steps out into the lobby before he spoke. “Were the two of you close?”
She froze, then turned back to him. “Yes…very.” With that, she left the lobby, leaving him to follow after her.
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Her phone rang a few hours after they returned home. She had fallen asleep in her bed, still in her ballgown. She groaned, reaching across to her nightstand to answer it. “Hello?” She asked groggily.
“Hi, Katharine. I’m sorry if I woke you up,” Grayson said.
She sprang into a sitting position, her eyes wide. “No, no, no, it’s totally fine. Did you get home okay?”
“Yes…” His voice was a bit confused. “I actually live pretty close to the Forest of Origin. It’s a pretty safe neighborhood.”
“Good, good…listen…I’m sorry about hounding you tonight…”
“I understand, Katharine. If I were in your position, I would want some answers as well.”
“You’re right…we should just…just start over.”
“We should.”
Katharine smiled. “We should meet in a few days. After everything is over.”
“That would be great.”
“Good night.”
“Good night, Katharine.”
She hung up, a huge smile plastered across her face.
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“No, no, no…stand up straighter,” Jessica snapped. Katharine tried to do so, but seemed to fail. Jessica rolled her eyes. “Well, at least you look good in the military uniform…though it’s a bit big on you.” She wrinkled her nose.
“I’m sure the Aquapolian Cardinal doesn’t have to go through all this…” She muttered.
“As the only woman on the Elite Four right now, you’re the only one.”
“Lucky me,” she sighed.
“Now, pay attention. Everyone’s going to be looking at you, especially since Champion Sootopolis kept his choice for Vice-Champion secret for so long.”
“Lovely.”
“Take advantage of it. Put your kill face on. Every military officer in the country is going to mutter about the little girl who had become their commander-in-chief. Show them you could rip anyone to shreds with just one look. Your eyes are fierce when you want them to be. Use that.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she said, truly grateful.
Jessica sent her off with a good luck. Katharine took a few nervous breaths as she stepped into the room where the other three Elite Four stood. Drake looked his usual intimidating self. Wallace looked every bit the Champion as his predecessor. Her father had shed his nervousness, it seemed. Standing before her was the priest who had taken charge of the battle at the Vatican, taken up arms against the Shadow Forces to protect the holy ground. She hoped that she looked just as powerful as they did.
“Okay…” Wallace said. “Let’s do this.”
