And, to you, harryheart, and any closet readers out there, I must apologize for this extremely late chapter. While I have had plenty of time over my Christmas Break to write, I have also had plenty of time to do other things as well...things that have distracted me from my work.
Anyway, to make up for this delay, I have written a chapter that is twice as long than usual as kind of a Christmas and New Year's present as well as to celebrate this being the first chapter of 2012!
Fact of the Chapter: The Vice-Champion is chosen by each Champion to serve at the beginning of the ten-year term. Once those ten years are up, the Vice-Champion becomes the new Champion. The Vice-Champion oversees the minor Champions of each region as well as the minor Elite Four. Most importantly of all, the Vice-Champion is the commander-in-chief of Aquapolis’ military.
New characters: Note here, I've decided to also include pictures of characters from Angels and Demons as well for those of you who don't know what they look like. So, I'm going back to include some from previously. I've always figured Katharine as a live-action version of an anime character, so I don't have an actress assigned to her.
Eric Reed : From Angels and Demons (my fic)
Dawn Twinleaf
Patrick McKenna : You guys know who this is! He's our favorite Aquapolian priest!
Frank Hummel : I actually pulled this guy from one of my favorite movies of all time, The Rock. You should check it out!
Alexander Walker : Original character of mine.
5. Advisors and Appointments
The view from his office was just as spectacular as the view from their new apartment. The city of Ever Grande seemed even vaster up here, where the offices of the Elite Four were at a greater height than their home. Everything in his office was made of glass and a dark mahogany, complete with chairs, a desk, and wood bookshelves. They were completely empty, but Drake assured him that they would be full soon. Patrick didn’t know where he was going to get enough books to fill them.
While he enjoyed the feel of his new office, he was still in shock over Wallace’s revelation of his Vice-Champion. In fact, this had been another rude awakening to Patrick that he knew next to nothing about Katharine’s life here in Aquapolis. Her friends, her classmates, even her enemies and rivals were unknown to him. Out of the two friends he had met so far, both of them had proven to be nice and polite, but they were vastly different. A coordinator and the Champion of Aquapolis.
Katharine had returned home before him, anxious to change out of her military uniform, no doubt. He had wanted to stop her and speak with her before she left, but he was afraid that she felt he was extremely angry with her. He wasn’t angry…he was just shocked and sort of mad that he didn’t know beforehand. But, Wallace was right. Up until last summer, even Patrick had kept from Katharine the fact that she was his biological daughter, telling her for years that he had adopted her from an orphanage in Rome. He couldn’t blame the new Champion for trying to keep secrets in order to keep Katharine safe. Patrick had been doing that for years.
The only thing that unnerved him was the fact that Katharine would now be in charge of a full-fledged military. True, she had been the unofficial leader of the Legendary Team during the attack on the Vatican, but this was vastly different. The only thing that gave him solace was that Aquapolis was never at war. If it was, it meant that another nation would soon no longer exist on the planet.
After a few hours of staring out of his office windows at the setting sun, Patrick decided to call Katharine and make sure she had arrived home safely. The first few seconds after she picked up told him she was no longer at home. It seemed as if she were in the middle of a huge mob.
“Hello?!” Katharine shouted. Patrick winced and held the phone away from his ear for a second. “Hello?!” She shouted again. He cringed and held the phone back to his ear.
“Katharine?” Hearing no response, he tried again, louder this time. “Katharine?!”
“Oh! Father!” She held the phone away from her for a few minutes, and he could hear her speaking in rapid Japanese to someone beside her. He could hear her standing up and retreating to someplace quieter. He sighed with relief when she answered the phone in a softer voice. “Father? Are you still there?”
“Yes, Katharine, where are you?”
“I’m at a restaurant downtown with Dawn, Eric, and a few of my high school friends.” He could hear her shuffling her feet. “I’m sorry I stormed out earlier.”
“Please, Katharine…you don’t have to apologize. I understand why you had to keep it a secret.” He made a mental note to speak with her more thoroughly sometime in the next few days. He wanted to know more about her life here in Aquapolis than a few random and sparse facts. This was due mostly to his slight fear of discovering that she was a completely different person than he had known for the past fourteen years.
Katharine’s life in Aquapolis wasn’t the only reason he was fearful. The previous summer, on a few separate occasions, in order to defeat the two demons who threatened to bring the Vatican to its knees, Katharine had undergone a powerful transformation into her true, angelic form. To anyone who had seen this, she had also undergone a personality change.
“Really?” Katharine murmured.
“Yes, Katharine…I’ll see you when you get home.”
He could almost see her smiling on the other end of the phone. “Okay. Bye, Father!”
“Bye, Katharine.” He hung up, swinging around to take another look across the skyline of Ever Grande and toward the Cave of Origin.
------------
“Who was that?” Eric asked when she returned to their table, scooting into her seat beside Dawn.
“That was Father, asking to know where I was and if I was okay.”
“How did he take the news?”
She shrugged. “He took it pretty badly at first, but he doesn’t stay angry for long.”
Eric shook his head. “Man, I only saw him angry one time, and, let me tell you, he was pretty scary.”
“When was that?”
“When Hastings interrupted the conclave…while they made their way into the basilica to fight, I caught a bit of their argument. I guess they really hated each other.”
“They represented darkness and light, Eric. What else did you expect?”
Dawn held up her hand for them to stop talking. After Eric and Katharine had filled her in on almost all of the details of the previous summer’s events, she had been asking question after question about every minute detail, wanting to know everything. Katharine didn’t blame her. To an outsider, it was a fantastical and exciting story, but to Katharine and Eric, whose lives were in peril many times over the course of the summer, the story was their own personal experiences and struggles with themselves.
“Okay…let met get this straight. So…this is what happened last summer, right?” She took a deep breath, and Katharine’s eyes widened. Was she really going to try to cram all of last summer’s events into one quick synopsis? The moment Dawn started to speak, both Eric and Katharine groaned. “The Aquapolian Cardinal was murdered the night before the conclave to elect the next pope. Then, the following day, six other cardinals go missing and clues are left that point to the six elements of Aquapolian science. Some symbologist guy gets called in from Harvard, and you help him track down a few of the cardinals before Rowan and Eric show up to help track down the last three. Then, after doing this, you discover that some antimatter bomb has been hidden in the Vatican. When you find it, your dad gets rid of it himself and then y’all discover some big bad demon is going to try and take down the Vatican himself. So, Katharine, you go Super Saiyan on his *** and destroy him. A few days later, your big bad uncle shows up and makes you burn a really creepy looking star into the basilica floor, and this Legendary Team gets called to investigate. Before we know it, there’s a plague killing all the humans across the globe, the Shadow Forces are attacking the Vatican with a new demon buddy, and your dad and uncle have to deal with some sibling rivalry issues that comes down to them being the legendaries Reshiram and Zekrom. Oh, not to mention, you kick another demon’s *** and six of the Legendary Team members get to use the six powers to kick Shadow Follower ***. Finally, a new Aquapolian pope is elected and your dad becomes Aquapolian Cardinal. The end, and everyone is happy, except your dad ends up killing your uncle.”
Eric and Katharine stared at Dawn as she tried to catch her breath, proud of herself for running through and remembering the whole story. Eric groaned as she put up her hand again. “And, let’s not forget the part where he tells you that he’s not, in fact, your adopted dad, but your real, biological dad and that your mother was a member of the Blackthorn clan, making you granddaughter of their leader and the current Elite Elder.” She smiled big, placing her hands in her lap. “Did I remember everything correctly?” She asked sweetly, taking a sip of her Coke, her eyes dashing from Katharine to Eric to gauge their responses.
When Katharine finally shook herself out of the sound shock of Dawn’s synopsis, she raised her glass, laughing. “Better than any author, Dawn. Really.” Dawn rolled her eyes and laughed. Katharine could feel the stress that had built up since the previous summer start to melt away. With no tournament to compete in and no demons to destroy, life had finally settled down. Now, her only challenge was to help run a country and an army. Well, that beat protecting the Vatican any day.
------------
When Katharine arrived back at the apartment later that night, she was surprised to see that her father had literally passed out on the couch. She sighed. He was probably getting the best sleep he had gotten in twenty years after his first day as Aquapolian Cardinal and his first day in Aquapolis. For her entire life, her father had worried over and fought to make sure that she was safe. He had had to deal the previous summer with allowing her to fight on her own and protect herself.
Umbreon swept into the apartment at her heels, jumping onto the back of the couch and nearly flipping right over onto Patrick. The force of his hitting the furniture woke Patrick up with a start, and the dark-type stared down innocently at him with blood red eyes. “Umbreon!” Katharine scolded him, scooping him up just as Pika jumped to join him on the back of the sofa. “Sorry about that, Father…”
“No…No, it’s fine,” Patrick said, sitting up and turning toward her just as Umbreon leaped from her arms and onto the floor, sliding a bit on the wood before racing into Katharine’s room. Pika curled up in one of the chairs near the sliding balcony doors, trying not to make any noise. Katharine’s eyes went to the glass doors, and she suddenly remembered what had happened before she and Dawn had left the apartment earlier that evening. Worry must have flooded her eyes, because, after a few moments, her father asked her, “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, trying to make the image of the legendary of genetics leave her mind’s eye. “I thought I saw Mew outside my balcony today…” She muttered. “Maybe it was just a mirage.” She smiled at the thought, yawning. “I think I’m going to go to bed now. I have to go in to work tomorrow.”
“Good night,” he said as she stepped into her room. Umbreon jumped up onto a footstool beside him, staring at him with his red eyes. He sighed. “I have a lot of Pokemon to get used to being around, don’t I?” For a second, he thought that the dark-type had smiled, but only temporarily before the Pokemon curled up and went to sleep, snoring soundly.
------------
Commander Frank Hummel walked through life rarely scared by anything. Several tours in Vietnam had hardened his heart toward cold and bloody death in the heat of battle. He had overcome amazing circumstances, including one or two helicopter crashes over enemy lines and being taken as a POW for a short period of time. Yet, when the Summer Plague (as it was now being called by all human nations) swept through America, practically decimating forty percent of its population, Hummel had to sit back and be afraid of something for once in his life.
He could count himself as a lucky or unlucky survivor. True, he had never contracted the disease and had lived to tell the tale. But…the cost had been great. As he sat in his office, he mulled over the past few months’ events, trying to organize his thoughts and emotions. He had tried to rid emotion from his body during his work…but this…this was a cause close to heart.
“We only have two names, sir.” A man at least half his age stood near the window, looking over a small file held in a manila envelope. “But the real heart of the matter lies in the events of last summer. We’ve traced the epicenter of activity back to the night a bomb nearly blew up the Vatican on the very day of conclave…but that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”
“That’s all?” Hummel asked in disbelief. The CIA was expert at digging up far more information than that in any case. The fact that this particular incident’s details had become elusive to pretty much every intelligence agency on the planet had to have garnered some attention from other human states. He leaned back in his seat, thinking over the few details he had command of. “What did the eyewitness reports say about how the bomb was…thwarted?” The antimatter bomb that exploded over the sky of Rome had not been deactivated for some unknown reason. Of course, whoever had found it probably had run into trouble turning the thing off.
“Well, as stated on the news, they say one of the priests actually flew that helicopter himself…and then parachuted out of it.”
Hummel’s eyebrows shot up, and, for the first time in ages, he could feel a disbelieving smile stretching across his face. “Really? Well, why aren’t we enlisting these priests into our special forces?”
The man laughed slightly. “In fact, as released by the Vatican and by the Aquapolian news, the priest was the camerlengo and new Aquapolian Cardinal, Father Patrick McKenna.” He seemed to not catch Hummel’s slight reaction to the name as he pressed on. “If anyone would know what happened that day…”
“It would be him…” Hummel muttered to himself, his gaze setting off into space once again as he thought through all of his options. Approaching the Aquapolian Cardinal on this matter was dicey. He could let it slip to the Champion about the CIA’s poking around in what must now be called an Aquapolian state secret. No…What Hummel needed to do was to approach him in a laid-back setting… “The inauguration ball in a few weeks would prove a perfect opportunity for me to introduce myself, don’t you think?”
The man winced. “I don’t know, sir. It seems a bit risky.”
“Nonsense. We’re the CIA. We do risky things all the time. Besides, once I buy myself an in with diplomacy, I can gauge whether or not I should approach him with our questions.” He leaned back in his chair, muttering, “Though the last thing I want to do is meet face-to-face with the Champion during this awkward year…”
------------
“Who do you think Wallace is going to set up as your advisor?” Dawn asked, keeping in stride with Katharine and Patrick as they made their way to work the following morning.
Katharine shrugged. “Knowing Wallace, it could be anyone in the Elite Four, maybe even one of the older gym leaders.”
“What about one of the former Champions? Like…Steven Stone? Didn’t you battle him once or twice over the years?”
“Yes, and I don’t think we’d be a good match. He’s probably content with staring at his rock collection now that he’s retired…”
Dawn slowed to a stop beside the contest hall. “I’ll be in training all day. Call me if you want to meet up later. Bye!” She rushed inside, her Leafeon on her heels.” Katharine and Patrick continued walking.
“With my luck, Wallace is probably going to assign me someone I can’t stand,” Katharine muttered.
“Why do you think that?”
“He doesn’t hate me or anything, but Wallace has always challenged me in everything. In my training, in my schoolwork…He’ll probably assign me an advisor I can’t get along with just to see how I overcome that obstacle during my term.”
They reached the Hall of Fame, stepping into the main floor where the Elite Four’s offices were held. Wallace was standing outside of his office, talking to his secretary and gesturing wildly. Drake entered the floor behind them, shooting Wallace an amused look. “He’s preparing for the inauguration ball. I’m afraid formal events are a bit out of his reach…”
Katharine laughed. “I’ll say…”
“I heard that!” Wallace called, not taking his eyes off of the sheet of paper in front of him. Katharine smirked and stepped into her office, running a hand over the glass desk.
Outside, Wallace finished speaking with his secretary and stepped forward to talk to Patrick. “Your advisor should be here within the next few hours. Hopefully, he won’t be any later than that.” He shot a look at Katharine’s office door. “And hers should be here in the next half hour if all goes according to plan.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Did she tell you that I was going to set her up with an advisor she didn’t like?”
“Yes…”
He smiled. “I think she’ll be surprised by my choice.” He paused. “I hope.”
------------
Katharine’s intercom rang, and she pressed the speaker button. “Yes?”
“Champion Fleetwood of Isshu is on the phone,” her secretary said.
“Already?” Katharine frowned.
“Yes, ma’am. Would you like me to out him on hold?”
“No…no, let me talk to him.” She picked up the phone and pressed a button, nervously saying, “Vice-champion McKenna speaking.”
“Congratulations, Miss Vice-champion!”
“How did you know the office was filled?”
“Why…all of the Champions have been informed…as have the Elite Four and Gym Leaders of each region. It’s the public that doesn’t know.”
“Okay.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you very much, Mr. Fleetwood…”
“Tell me, when are you going to get yourself out to the Black and White Conference in Isshu?”
She laughed. “I’m afraid I’ll only be a spectator if I do make it up there. I won’t be participating in tournaments for a while now, I’m afraid.”
“That’s too bad. I wish you the best of luck and hope to speak to you at the ball. I’m off to patrol Twist Mountain.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Fleetwood.” She hung up, feeling much more confidant. Her intercom sounded again.
“Your advisor has arrived, Miss McKenna. Would you like me to send him in?”
Katharine sat up straighter. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
A few moments later, a man with grey and white hair stepped into her office. He wore a suit and carried only a small ledger to write in. Katharine froze, gripping her desk so tightly, it almost shattered from the energy pulsing from her hands.
He smiled slightly and spoke in a British accent. “Why, hello Katharine. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
------------
Patrick and Drake both sat at the conference table in Wallace’s office, the dragon master going over some of the major points of Aquapolian government when Katharine burst in, her eyes sparking with anger and energy as she swept across the room to where Wallace was sitting at his desk, glaring down at him until he looked up.
“Is there a problem, Katharine?” He asked, trying to contain a smile.
“Yes.” She said shortly, crossing her arms. “There is a huge problem.” She leaned in closer, placing her hands on Wallace’s desk. Her voice lowered, but it was still loud enough for Drake and Patrick to hear where they sat. “I don’t know if this is some kind of joke, Wallace, but it’s not funny.”
“No, of course it’s not…” Wallace said, still smirking to keep back the laughter.
She reared back. “I’m NOT working with him,” she said firmly, swinging around and marching toward the door. Patrick was surprised at Katharine’s tantrum. She had never acted like this before.
“Actually, you WILL be working with him,” Wallace replied, the smile disappearing off his face. Katharine turned back to him as he continued. “You need someone to challenge you. He’s the one who can make that happen. You have the leadership skills, but you’re not running a tiny militia force here, Katharine. You’re running a full military and co-running a country. This is probably the second most important job for you in your life…I’ve known you long enough that you’ll treat it as you have your position as the Chosen One. All I’m asking is that you take as much help as you can get…just as you did last summer.”
With his speech over with, he returned his focus back to the documents spread across his desk, completely ignoring his Vice-champion for the time being. Katharine took a deep breath, partly encouraged and partly embarrassed by Wallace’s words. She was encouraged and strengthened by the fact that he had so much confidence in her, but embarrassed that she had thrown a fit in front of her grandfather, and, worst of all, her father. She nodded, leaving the room in silence and calmly walking back to her office, head held high in order to tackle whatever ordeal her new advisor sent her way.
Back in Wallace’s office, both Drake and Patrick turned toward Wallace, a thousand questions buzzing through their mind. The Champion tried to focus on his papers for a few moments before he broke down and looked up in mock confusion. “What? What did I do?”
“Who is this new advisor you set up for Katharine?” Drake asked, beating Patrick to his first question. The priest had never seen his daughter throw a fit before and was still in shock. She had always been above acting in such a manner. Whoever this advisor was, his appointment must have had a drastic influence on her reaction.
Wallace leaned back in his seat. “His name is Dr. Alexander Walker. He taught physics at our high school for years before retiring last year. Katharine was in the last class that he taught. Before you say anything, he worked here in the Hall of Fame for years before getting his doctorate and going into the world of academia, so he knows his stuff about Aquapolian government…”
“Wallace,” Drake cut him off, an exasperated look on his face. “We really just want to know why Katharine had such a negative reaction to him.”
“Well, that’s simple.” Wallace leaned forward, placing both of his arms on his desk. “Excuse my language here, Patrick, but Walker literally gave Katharine hell throughout the entire class. You know how intelligent she is. She sailed through pretty much every class at our school…But Walker wanted to challenge her. He thought she had more potential than what he saw in the classroom. So, he gave her extra assignments, extra class hours, and pretty much bullied her in class every day to prove the point that she still hadn’t reached that threshold yet.” He smiled, obviously proud of himself. “Now, you see…this appointment was perfect for her…”
“You’re a genius, Wallace,” Drake said sarcastically. “He’s a good appointment, but this isn’t a classroom where the worst consequence is merely failing a course. This is the Vice-championship, where the running of a military and country are at center stage.”
“I know that, Drake. I’m confident Katharine will pull through with this. Plus…” He paused, trying to put into words his scrambled thoughts. “She’ll eventually be Champion. Just think…the Chosen One leading our country.”
“Let’s hope that isn’t an omen for what’s to come,” Patrick said, rising from his seat. “I believe my advisor is due any moment now, so I should return to my office.”
------------
When Katharine stepped back into her office, embarrassment flared inside her again. Without one word to Walker, she had stormed out on her former teacher and immediately ran to Wallace like some sort of spoiled child. True to fashion, the former physics professor had remained in her office, simply taking in the view of the Ever Grande skyline. She cleared her throat, struggling to find words to put her thoughts in order. Walker, as always, beat her to it.
“I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to speak to you on the last day of my class,” he said, his eyes not leaving the scenery in front of him. A Taillow swept by, making its way further south towards the Orange Archipelago, as its species usually did that time of year. Katharine busied herself walking back to her desk and shuffling papers around before she answered.
“I…I had to leave for a conference that day, and…since you let me take my final early…” She stammered, trying to form a coherent sentence. She wanted to apologize, even through all of the anger she had felt at him over the past few years. “I’m sorry.”
“Please.” He held up a hand to wave away her apology. “Tournaments were your passion and always were. Tell me.” He fixed his steel grey gaze on her, and memories of sitting in his classroom, enduring daily sneering questions flooded back into her mind. “How did you figure out that your opponent’s Psyshock was going to backfire in the final round?”
Katharine stared at him, hardly believing her ears. Walker had watched her last battle in the SoulSilver conference? Then again, she always remembered him keeping up with her tournament wins back when she was in school, so it wasn’t that odd…but, still…Then, she realized what his question really was getting at. Stumbling through the many points of knowledge she still held from his class, she blurted out, “I paid attention to which direction the air waves around his Reuniclus were moving. The trainer had been sloppy and had taught this move to his Pokemon right before the battle, so it still didn’t know how to expel the psychic energy from its body in the right direction…”
“Just your luck that you were battle on a grass field on which it was easy to pick up shifts in the air on, wasn’t it?” Walker interrupted. “Well, at least I see that my class helped you to better your training career, though it didn’t last too long past graduation…” He frowned. “Everyone was hoping that you would stay on the tournament circuit as a permanent career, of course.”
Katharine couldn’t believe her ears. This was a different Walker than she had known a few years previously. When she was a student, he was a downright jerk to her, but now…he seemed rather nice and pleasant, a side of the professor that she had never seen before. She looked down at her hands clinched into fists in her lap. She was reacting off of memories, not out of the present. Walker had changed so much…or was it because he was no longer a teacher pushing Katharine to the edge?
She mentally shook her head to clear her mind of all of these doubts flying around. If Walker had decided to put the past in the past…well, she was going to do so as well…for the sake of Aquapolis. She straightened up in her chair again, more confident than ever that things would work out. They simply HAD to, and she would make them if she must. “There were a few…” She squirmed in her seat. “…happenings that also slowed down my career beyond this appointment, I guess.” She fiddled with a piece of paper. Wallace and Drake had been filled in with what had happened the previous summer, and Dawn had been confided to because she was a trusted friend. But…was Walker supposed to be let in on this information? Again, what he said next surprised her.
“To embark on a journey around Jhoto…or any region, for that matter…after experiencing what you did last summer was extraordinary,” he muttered, turning back to the window. Katharine gripped her desk again. Not only did he know about the battle at the Vatican, but…he was flat out telling her that he admired her ability to pick herself back up and continue life after what had happened. What he didn’t know was the intense struggle…Her father hadn’t wanted her to leave for Jhoto at first, then realized that it was the best therapy out there for her after facing down two demons and dealing with everything else that came with that war.
Katharine cleared her throat, embarrassed by this small gesture of kindness from her former teacher. She hoped that they would embark on another subject altogether, like surveying the damage done by the last Vice-Champion and remedying any problems that lay at the regional levels first. This would involve calling in the Champion from each region and discussing current issues first before gathering the six together to form a master plan of attack.
“This isn’t going to be an easy task, even for you,” Walker said simply, turning away from the window and opening his ledger. “Might I suggest we run over the shortfalls of the last Champion and Vice-Champion’s term? They…are plentiful,” he said, running his gaze down what had to be an extremely long list contained on one sheet of paper. Katharine grimaced. Talking about Lance Blackthorn, her cousin on her mother’s side of the family, was going to be quite a treat, especially now that he was a newfound relative of hers.
“Well, we might as well get the worst of it out of the way first,” she muttered, leaning back in her chair. “Do tell me, Professor…how in the world did Lance manage not to completely bring our country to its knees during his short and fiery term as Champion?”